Patrimonium Sancti Petri - Patrimonial Possessions of The Church of Rome

Patrimonial Possessions of The Church of Rome

The Roman Emperor Constantine the Great in AD 321 declared the Christian Church qualified to hold and transmit property. This was the first legal basis for the possessions of the Church of Rome. Subsequently they were augmented by donations. Constantine himself probably gave the Church the Lateran Palace in Rome. Constantine's gifts formed the historical nucleus for the network of myth that gave rise to the forged document known as the "Donation of Constantine".

Wealthy families of the Roman nobility followed Constantine's example. Their memory frequently survived, after the families themselves became extinct, in the names of the properties they once presented to the Roman See. The donation of large estates ceased about 600 AD. The Byzantine emperors preferred the patriarchate of Constantinople, and were less liberal in their gifts. The wars with the Lombards likewise had an unfavourable effect, and few families were still in a position to bequeath large estates.

Apart from a number of scattered possessions in the Orient, Dalmatia, Gaul and Africa, the patrimonies were naturally for the most part situated in Italy and on the adjacent islands. The most valuable and extensive possessions were those in Sicily, about Syracuse and Palermo. The revenues from these properties in Sicily and Lower Italy were estimated at three and one-half talents of gold in the eighth century, when Byzantine Emperor Leo the Isaurian confiscated them.

But the patrimonies in the vicinity of Rome (the successors to the classical latifundia in the Ager Romanus), which had begun to form in the 7th century, were the most numerous. Most of the remote patrimonies were lost in the eighth century, so the patrimonia around Rome began to be managed with especial care, headed up by deacons directly subordinate to the pope himself. Other Italian patrimonies included the Neapolitan with the Island of Capri, that of Gaeta, the Tuscan, the Patrimonium Tiburtinum in the vicinity of Tivoli, estates about Otranto, Osimo, Ancona, Umana, estates near Ravenna and Genoa and lastly properties in Istria, Sardinia and Corsica.

With these landed possessions, scattered and varied as they were, the pope was the largest landowner in Italy. For this reason every ruler of Italy was compelled of necessity to reckon with him first of all; on the other hand he was also the first to feel the political and economical disturbances that distressed the country. A good insight into the problems that required the attention of the pope in the administration of his patrimonies can be obtained from the letters of Pope Gregory the Great (Monum. German. Epist., I). The revenues from the patrimonies were used for administration, to maintain and build churches, equip of convents, run the papal household and support the clergy, but also to a great extent to relieve public and private want. Numerous poorhouses, hospitals, orphanages and hospices for pilgrims were maintained out of the revenues of the patrimonies, many individuals were supported directly or indirectly, and slaves were ransomed from the possession of Jews and heathens.

Above all, the popes relieved the emperors of the responsibility of providing Rome with food, and later also assumed the task of warding off the Lombards, a generally expensive undertaking.