Baring-Gould’s sources: Roman Martyrology. Authorities: — His life by Anastasius the Librarian, almost ca. contemporary, and mention in Eginhard's Annals, Thegan’s life of Louis the Pious, and the anonymous author, commonly called the Astronomer, in his life of the Emperor Louis the Pious, all contemporary writers.] Pope Leo IIL and the Romans had been in constant feud; and he was obliged to appeal to Charlemagne to support him against his rebellious vassals. A conspiracy was formed in 815 to depose Pope Leo and to put him to death. Leo attempted to suppress the tumult with unwonted vigour; he seized, and publicly executed the conspirators. The city burst into rebellion. Rome became a scene of plunder, carnage and conflagration. Intelligence was rapidly conveyed to the court of Louis the Pious, who had succeeded Charlemagne. He sent his kinsman Bernard to interpose, and whilst he was in Rome ah was quiet. But no sooner had he withdrawn than, on the illness of Leo, a new insurrection broke out. The Romans sallied forth, plundered and burned the farms on the pope's estates in the neighbourhood. They were only compelled to peace by the armed interference of the Duke of Spoleto.
The death of Leo, and the unpopular election of his successor, Stephen IV., exasperated rather than allayed the tumult; and in the third month of his pontificate, Stephen was compelled to take refuge, or seek protection, at the feet of the emperor, against his intractable subjects. In Rome the awe of Louis commanded at least some temporary cessation of the conflict, and a general amnesty. Stephen returned to Rome, and died almostly immediately after, in 817.
On his death, Paschal I. was chosen by the impatient clergy and people, and compelled to assume the pontificate without the Imperial sanction. But Paschal was too prudent to defy the emperor and entail thereby on his people a sharp castigation, he therefore sent a deprecatory embassy across the Alps, throwing the blame of his elevation on the disloyal precipitancy of the people. Louis sent his son Lothair to be king of Italy and the Rhine country, invested with imperial dignity. Lothair visited Rome to be crowned by Pope Paschal, and to reduce the turbulent Romans to obedience. Hardly, however, had he recrossed the Alps when he was overtaken with intelligence of new tumults.
Two men of the highest rank, Theoderic, Primicerius of the church, and Leo the Nomenclator, had been seized, dragged to the Lateran [St. John Lateran, the pope’s cathedral in Rome] palace, blinded, and afterwards beheaded. The faction opposed to the pope accused him of being privy to, if not the instigator of this inhuman act.1 Two imperial commissioners, Adelung, abbot of S. Yedast, and Hnnffed, count of Coire, were despatched with full power from the emperor to investigate the affair. The imperial commissioners were baffled in their inquiry. Paschal refused to produce the murderers; he asserted that they were guilty of no crime in putting to death men themselves guilty of treason; he secured them by throwing around them a half-sacred character as servants of the church of S. Peter.3 Himself he exculpated by a solemn expurgatorial oath, before thirty bishops, from all participation in the deed. The emperor received with respect the exculpation of the pope, sent him by legates, John, bishop of Silva Candida, the librarian Sergius, and two others. On 1*,Erant et qui dixerunt, veljussu vel consilio Paschalis Pontificis rem fuisse perpetratam.” — Eginhard, Annal. sub ann. 823. <l Qua in re fauna Pontificis quoque ludebatur, dum ejus consensui totum ascriberetur.” — Vita S- Hludovici imp. auct. anonym.
8 Thegan., Vit. Hlndovic. apud Pertz, c. 30. Eginhard sub ann. S. Paschal /. their return to Rome they found the pope dying, and he expired on May the nth, 824, after having occupied the see seven years, three months, and seventeen days. Paschal has made himself to be remembered by his care for the churches in Rome, many of which he restored or rebuilt with great splendour. He discovered the body of S. Cecilia. From the year 500 there had been a church in Rome dedicated to the Virgin Martyr, but it had fallen into decay. Pope Paschal began to rebuild it, but he hardly hoped to find the body of the saint, thinking it might have been lost or carried away by the Lombards [a Germanic people who ruled much of Italy from 568 to 774] when they besieged Rome, under their King Astolf, in 755. But one morning, as the pope was assisting at matins, he fell asleep, and saw S. Cecilia in a dream, who told him where her body lay, in the catacomb of Prsetextatus on the Appian way.
In the persecution of the Iconoclasts at Constantinople, the patriarch [the title of the bishops of the great ancient sees: Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem] Theodotus, who had been intruded into the see, wrote to him, but the pope refused to receive his letters. He received letters from the great champion of the images, S. Theodore of the Studium, and wrote to Constantinople in hopes of allaying the violence of the persecutors, but in vain.
It is not very clear what claims S. Paschal has to his place among the Saints, as little is known of him that gives token of his having been at all eminent in sanctity, and in the case of the murder of the two men in his palace, he acted with unquestionable indiscretion, to use the mildest term by which his conduct can be designated. Though he may not have been in any way guilty of the crime that was committed, he was certainly wrong in screening the murderers from justice.
