A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years

by Diarmaid MacCulloch

In this spirit, there emerged one of the most significant forgeries in history: the so-called Donation of Constantine. The document claims to be the work of Constantine I; after reciting a story of his healing, conversion to Christianity and baptism at the hands of Pope Sylvester, it grants the Pope and all his successors not merely the honour of primacy over the universal Church but temporal power in the territories of the Western Empire, reserving to himself the empire ruled from Byzantium (see Plate 26). Its real date is problematic, but it is generally thought to predate the coronation of Charlemagne, which would have rendered the second part of the gift embarrassing, and to have been written in the late eighth century, in the atmosphere of papal tensions with the Byzantine Empire and of energetic Frankish Church reform.66 The forged Donation much fired the imagination of later popes and clerical supporters of their power, who saw it as a manifesto for a world in which Christ’s Church would be able to rule all society. It is possible to see that as a noble vision.