Medieval Use and Reception
What may perhaps be the earliest known allusion to the Donation is in a letter of 778, in which Pope Hadrian I exhorts Charlemagne, whose father, Pepin the Short, had initiated the sovereignty of the Popes over the Papal States, to follow Constantine's example and endow the Roman church.
The first pope to directly invoke the decree was Pope Leo IX, in a letter sent in 1054 to Michael I Cerularius, Patriarch of Constantinople. He cited a large portion of the document, believing it genuine, furthering the debate that would ultimately lead to the East–West Schism. In the 11th and 12th centuries, the Donation was often cited in the investiture conflicts between the papacy and the secular powers in the West.
In his Divine Comedy, the poet Dante Alighieri wrote: "Ahi, Costantin, di quanto mal fu matre, / non la tua conversion, ma quella dote / che da te prese il primo ricco patre!" ("Ah, Constantine, how much evil was born, / not from your conversion, but from that donation / that the first wealthy Pope received from you!").
Read more about this topic: Donation Of Constantine
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