Читать книгу Crises in the History of the Papacy. Lives and Legacy of the Most Influential Popes Who Shaped the Development & History of Church онлайн

101 страница из 107

There seems then to have been a long period without correspondence between the two courts, or else it has not been thought judicious to preserve the letters. In 781, however, Charlemagne came to Rome. Tassilo was disarmed, and, as Charlemagne's daughter was betrothed to the son of the Eastern Empress Irene, the Greeks must have been pacified. The six years of peace which followed were, no doubt, used by Hadrian in that princely decoration of the Roman churches of which I will speak later and in some attention to ecclesiastical affairs. We find him writing, in 785, to the bishops of Spain; though he seems to have had little influence on the Spanish heresy which he denounced, and it was left to the more vigorous attacks of Charlemagne.130 In 786 he extended his pastoral care to England, which had not seen a Roman envoy since the days of Gregory. His Legates were received with honour, but they reported that the English Church was in a deplorable condition.131 King Offa made a princely gift for the maintenance of lamps in St. Peter's (a euphemism of the Roman court) and for the poor, and it is curious to read that Hadrian consented, at the King's request, to make Lichfield a metropolitan see.