There is no suggestion that popes, with the possible exception of Stephen II, actually knew the document known as the Donation of Constantine to be a forgery until this was demonstrated to be the case in the fifteenth century.
A:Lorenzo Valla proved the Donation of Constantine, by which Emperor Constantine supposedly granted great wealth and power to Pope Sylvester and his successors, to be a forgery in the fifteenth century.
It was forged to establish the pope's power over the western roman empire
Discourse on the Forgery of the Alleged Donation of Constantine
A:The Donation of Constantine was a forgery written, possibly with the knowledge of Pope Stephen II, just prior to 754 CE or perhaps a few years later, in either case to establish grounds for papal assumption of sovereignty over territories in Italy. .It was supposedly written by Emperor Constantine at the time he adopted Christianity early in the fourth century, granting great wealth and power to Pope Sylvester and his successors. It was proven to be a forgery in the fifteenth century, but there is no suggestion that popes other than Stephen II actually knew the document to be a forgery until this was demonstrated to be the case.
No, there were no popes at the time of Constantine. Constantine moved the capital because of economic and logistical reasons. The eighth-century forgery now known as the Donation of Constantine claimed that Constantine moved his imperial capital to the east, in order to grant the pope temporal power in the west. However, nothing in this document was true.
A:The Donation of Constantine was a forgery that was supposedly written by Emperor Constantine at the time he adopted Christianity early in the fourth century, granting great wealth and power to Pope Sylvester and his successors. It was proven to be a forgery written perhaps with the knowledge of Pope Stephen II just prior to 754 CE, or perhaps a few years later, in either case to establish grounds for papal assumption of sovereignty over territories in Italy. There is no suggestion that popes, with the possible exception of Stephen II, actually knew the document to be a forgery until this was demonstrated to be the case in the fifteenth century.
A:The Donation of Constantine was a document forged, possibly with the knowledge of Pope Stephen II, just prior to 754 CE or perhaps a few years later, in either case to establish grounds for papal assumption of sovereignty over territories in Italy. Lorenzo Valla proved it to be a forgery in the fifteenth century.Christophorous, a papal official and the presumed forger, made some blunders that aroused the suspicion of scholars centuries afterwards, including that Constantine was made to refer to himself as conqueror of the Huns fifty years before they appeared in Europe.
A:Eary Christianity did not affect the kingdoms of Europe, since Christian Europe formed part of the Roman Empire and the Emperor Constantine and his successors considered themselves the supreme pontiff of Christianity.In the eighth century, after the end of the western empire, a papal official called Christophorous completed a task of forgery which neatly transferred the temporal crown from the emperor to the pope. Now known as the 'Donation of Constantine', the document implied that the first Christian emperor, Constantine, had given the pope great powers throughout the western empire, then retired to Constantinople to rule the eastern empire. In this forgery, all judges as well as bishops were subject to the bishop of Rome.Successive popes used the 'Donation' to justify acquisition of the papal states, temporal power and the right to impose their wills on kings throughout Europe.
marco
Constantine I also know as Constantine the Great had six children.ConstantinaHelenaFlavius Julius CrispusFlavius Claudius Constantinus (Constantine II)Flavius Iulius Constantius (Constantius II)Flavius Julius Constans
A bunch of heartache and trouble:The "Donation of Pepin" which was a grant of territory in Italy made by Pepin III the Short, to Pope Stephen II. Pepin's donation had its origins in the promise first made in 754 that he would donate territory in Italy to the pontiff in return for papal approval of the deposition of the last Merovingian king of the Franks and recognition of the Carolingian Dynasty. The actual grant itself was comprised of Rome and the surrounding territories that had been former holdings of the Byzantines in Italy. They lay the foundation for the Papal States. (Extracted from OSV's Encyclopedia of Catholic History - Revised, by Matthew Bunson, D.Min, c 1995, 2004 by Our Sunday Visitor Publishing Division, Our Sunday Visitor, Inc., Huntington, Indiana)The actual land included in that donation was based on the "Donation of Constantine," a forgery written in the fifth century.from History of the Catholic Church from the Apostolic Age to the Third Millennium, by James Hitchcock, Imprimatur: The Most Reverend Edward Rice, © 2012 by Ignatius Press, San FranciscoThe Donation of Constantine: Pepin also confirmed the pope's claim to certain Italian territories, based on a document from the papal archives called the Donation of Constantine, which purportedly showed that, when the first Christian emperor moved to the East, he ceded all political authority in the West to the pope. The papacy also relied on a collection of documents later called the False Decretals-purportedly compiled by St. Isidore, the scholarly bishop of Seville (d. 636) but actually compiled 250 years later-containing alleged papal decrees from the fourth century that also showed that the popes possessed temporal power. (In premodern times, forgery was not considered as serious an offense as it later became. It was employed by people who thought that the forged document expressed a truth, even if it was not literal historical truth.)Ironically, the "donation of Pepin" had a negative effect on the Church, in that the pope's position as a secular lord plunged the papacy even more deeply into the morass of Italian politics and made the office extremely attractive in worldly terms, helping to corrupt papal politics for the next three centuries.
falsification