The "Donation of Pepin" in 756 provided a legal basis for the erection of the Papal States, which extended papal temporal rule beyond the traditional diocese and duchy of Rome. The Papal States (Gli Stati della Chiesa or Stati Pontificii, States of the Church) was one of the historical states of Italy before the peninsula was unified under the crown of Savoy. ... By the expression temporal power is commonly indicated the political and governmental activity of the Popes of the Roman Catholic Church, as distinguished from their spiritual and pastoral activity (also called eternal power). ...

In 728, Liutprand, king of the Lombards, reached an agreement at Sutri with Pope Gregory II giving to the Papacy the fortified hilltown of Sutri on the Via Cassia and some other fortified sites in Latium. This "Donation of Sutri" marked the historic foundation of the Papal States. Liutprand, king of the Lombards (reigned (712 – 744) is remembered for his Donation of Sutri, in 728, the historic foundation of the Papal States. ... Sutri (ancient Sutrium), a town and episcopal see of Italy, in the province of Rome, is picturesquely situated on a narrow hill, surrounded by ravines, a narrow neck on the west alone connecting it with the surrounding country. ... Saint Gregory II, pope from 715 or 716 to February 11, 731, succeeded Pope Constantine, his election being variously dated May 19, 715, and March 21, 716. ... The Via Cassia was an important Roman road striking out of the Via Flaminia near the Mulvian Bridge in the immediate vicinity of Rome and, passing not far from Veii traversed Etruria. ... Latium (Lazio in Italian) is a region of central Italy, bordered by Tuscany, Umbria, Abruzzo, Molise, Campania and the Tyrrhenian Sea. ...

In 751 the Lombards under their king Aistulf had conquered the Exarchate of Ravenna, the main seat of Byzantine government in Italy, whose Patriarch held territorial power as the representative of the Eastern Roman emperor, independent of the Pope. The Lombard Duke of Spoleto and the Lombard kings posed a threat to Roman territory, and Aistulf demanded tribute from the able diplomat, Pope Zacharias, who had successfully temporized with his predecessors. Zacharius died in March 752, and after the brief pontificate of Stephen II (a matter of three days in March 752), the eventual successor, Pope Stephen III, went to meet Pepin at Quiercy-sur-Loire in 753, the first time a pope had crossed into Gaul, taking with him the recent forgery, the "Donation of Constantine," which purported to justify the bishop of Rome's territorial powers. There he presented a copy to the new king of the Franks, Pepin the Short, who had been crowned at Soissons with Zacharias' blessing. At Quiercy the Frankish nobles finally gave their consent to a campaign in Lombardy. Roman Catholic tradition asserts that then and there Pepin executed in writing a promise to give to the Church certain territories that were not yet in fact in Pepin's control to give. No actual document has been preserved, but later 8th century sources quote from it. The Lombards (Latin Langobardi, from which the alternative name Longobards found in older English texts), were a Germanic people originally from Scandinavia that entered the late Roman Empire. ... Aistulf, also called Aistulf of Friuli, (d. ... The Exarchate of Ravenna was a center of Byzantine power in Italy, from the end of the 6th century to 751 A.D., when the last Exarch was put to death by the Emperors enemies in Italy, the Lombards. ... The Byzantine Empire is the term conventionally used to describe the Greek-speaking Roman Empire during the Middle Ages, centred at its capital in Constantinople. ... The independent Duchy of Spoleto in southern Italy was a Lombard territory founded about 570 by a Lombard dux Faroald. ... Saint Zacharias (or Zachary), pope (741-752), from a Greek family of Calabria, appears to have been on intimate terms with Gregory III, whom he succeeded (November 741). ... Stephen III (d. ... The Donation of Constantine (Latin, Constitutum Donatio Constantini or Constitutum domini Constantini imperatoris) is an 8th century forged Roman imperial edict devised to protect papal interests from the Byzantines; purportedly issued by the Roman Emperor Constantine I in AD 324 it granted Pope Sylvester I and his successors sovereignty over... The Franks or the Frankish people were one of several west Germanic tribes who entered the late Roman Empire from Frisia as foederati and established a lasting realm (sometimes referred to as Francia) in an area that covers most of modern-day France and the region of Franconia in Germany... Pepin III (714 - September 24, 768) more often known as Pepin the Short (French, Pépin le Bref; German, Pippin der Kleine), was a King of the Franks (751 - 768). ...

Stephen now anointed Pepin at Saint-Denis in a memorable ceremony that was recalled in coronation rites of French kings to the end of the ancien regime. The Basilica of Saint Denis (French: Basilique de Saint-Denis, or simply Basilique Saint-Denis) is the famous burial site of the French monarchs, comparable to Westminster Abbey in England. ... A coronation is a ceremony in which a monarch is adorned with a coronation crown as a symbol of monarchy. ... Ancien R gime means Old Regime or Old Order in French; in English, the term refers primarily to the social and political system established in France under the Valois and Bourbon dynasties, and secondarily to any regime which shares the formers defining features: a feudal system under the control...

In return, in 756, Pepin and his Frankish army forced the last Lombard king to surrender his conquests, and Pepin officially conferred the territories belonging to Ravenna (not only country, but even cities as Forlì) upon the pope, laying the Donation of Pepin upon the tomb of Saint Peter, according to traditional later accounts. The gift included Lombard conquests in the Romagna and in the duchies of Spoleto and Benevento, and the Pentapolis in the Marche (the "five cities" of Rimini, Ancona, Fano, Pesaro, and Senigallia). For the first time ever, the Donation made the pope a temporal ruler over a strip of territory that extended diagonally across Italy from the Tyrrhenian to the Adriatic. Over these extensive and mountainous territories the medieval popes were unable to exercise effective sovereignty, under the pressures of the times, and the new Papal States preserved their old Lombard heritage of many small counties and marquisates, each centered upon a fortified rocca. Forlì, 44°13′ N 12°02′ E, is a comune and city in Emilia-Romagna, Italy, the seat of the province of Forlì. Its 110,209 inhabitants are Forlivesi, because in Antiquity it was called Forum Livii. ... Emilia-Romagna is an administrative region of Northern Italy comprising the two historic regions of Emilia and Romagna. ... Spoleto (Latin: Spoletium), 42°44′ N 12°44′ E, an ancient town in the Italian province of Perugia in east central Umbria, at 385 meters (1391 ft) above sea-level on a foothill of the Apennines. ... Benevento is a town and archiepiscopal see of Campania, Italy, capital of the province of Benevento, 32 miles northeast of Naples. ... This article refers to the Italian region. ... Riminis skyline. ... Ancona is a city and a seaport in the Marche, a region of northeastern Italy, population 100,507 (2001). ... This article is about the Italian town. ... Pesaro (in Antiquity, Pisaurum) is a town and comune in the Italian region of the Marche, capital of the Pesaro e Urbino province, 43°55N 12°55E; on the Adriatic, at sea-level. ... Senigallia is a village in Ancona Province, Italy. ... Tyrrhenian Sea. ... The Adriatic Sea Source: NASA The Adriatic Sea is an arm of the Mediterranean Sea separating the Apennine peninsula (Italy) from the Balkan peninsula, and the system of the Apennine Mountains from that of the Dinaric Alps and adjacent ranges. ...

Pepin confirmed his Donation in Rome in 756, and in 774 Charlemagne confirmed the donation of his father.

External links

• Catholic Encyclopedia: Papal States, section 3: Collapse of the Byzantine Power in Central Italy
• Medieval Sourcebook: Annals of Lorsch