CONSTANTINE, DONATION OF

Latin Donatio Constantini, a document that discusses the supposed grant by the emperor Constantine the Great to Pope Sylvester I (314335) and his successors of spiritual supremacy over the other great patriarchates and over all matters of faith and worship, as well as of temporal dominion over Rome and the entire Western Empire. It was claimed that the gift was motivated by Constantine's supposed gratitude to Sylvester for miraculously healing his leprosy and converting him to Christianity. Now universally admitted to be a forgery, it was regarded as genuine by both friends and enemies of the papal claims to power throughout the European Middle Ages. It was composed from various sources, especially the apocryphal Vita S. Silvestri (Life of Saint Sylvester). In the 9th century it was included in the collection known as the False Decretals, and two centuries later it was incorporated in Gratian's Decretum by one of his pupils. The earliest certain appeal to it by a pope was made in 1054 by Leo IX in a letter to Michael Cerularius, the patriarch of Constantinople. From that time forward it was increasingly employed by popes and canonists in support of the papal claims, and from the 12th century onward it became a weapon of the spiritual powers against the temporal. Although the validity of the document was sometimes questioned, its genuineness was first critically assailed during the Renaissance. In 1440 Lorenzo Valla proved that it was false and began a controversy that lasted until the end of the 18th century. Various interpretations of this forgery have been developed by scholars. It is generally agreed that it was written between 750 and 800. Some believe that it was written in Rome, but others believe it was composed in the Frankish empire. The evidence of its Roman origin is mainly internal. Evidence for a Frankish origin is based on the facts that the earliest manuscript (in the Bibliothque Nationale, Paris) containing it appears to have been written there and that the earliest quotations from it are by Ado of Vienne, Hincmar of Reims, and Aeneas of Paris, all Frankish authors.