Editing Papal States (section)

===Origins===
{{main|Duchy of Rome|Patrimonium Sancti Petri}}

For its first 300 years, within the [[Roman Empire]], the [[Proto-orthodox Christianity|Church]] was persecuted and unable to hold or transfer property.<ref name=schnurer>[http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14257a.htm Schnürer, Gustav. "States of the Church."] {{Webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071030093447/http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14257a.htm |date=2007-10-30 }} ''Catholic Encyclopedia''. Vol. 14. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1912. 16 July 2014</ref> Early congregations met in rooms set aside for the purpose in the homes of wealthy adherents, and a number of [[titular church]]es located on the outskirts of Rome were held as property by individuals, rather than by any corporate body. Nonetheless, the property held nominally or actually by individual members of the Roman churches would usually be treated as a common patrimony handed over successively to the legitimate "heir" of that property, often its senior [[deacon]]s, who were, in turn, assistants to the local bishop. This common patrimony became quite considerable, including as it did not only houses etc. in Rome or nearby but also landed estates, such as [[latifundia]], whole or in part, across Italy and beyond.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tmavAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA243 |title=A Political History of Early Christianity |last=Brent |first=Allen |year=2009 |publisher=A&C Black |isbn=9780567606051 |page=243 |language=en |access-date=2020-09-26 |archive-date=2021-09-10 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210910072606/https://books.google.com/books?id=tmavAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA243 |url-status=live}}</ref>

A law of [[Constantine the Great]], promulgated in 321, allowed the Christian Church to possess property and restored to it any property formerly confiscated; in the larger cities of this empire the property restored would have been quite considerable, the Roman patrimony not least among them.<ref name=schnurer/> The [[Lateran Palace]] was gifted to the patrimony, most probably from Constantine himself.<ref name=schnurer/>

Other donations followed, primarily in mainland Italy but also in the provinces of the Roman Empire. However, the Roman Church held all of these lands as a private landowner, not as a sovereign entity. Following the [[fall of the Western Roman Empire]], the papacy found itself increasingly placed in a precarious and vulnerable position. As central Roman authority disintegrated throughout the late 5th century, control over the Italian peninsula repeatedly changed hands, falling under the [[Arian]] suzerainty of [[Odoacer]] in 473, and in 493, [[Theodoric]], king of the [[Ostrogoths]]. The Ostrogothic kings would continue to rule much of Italy until 554. The Roman Church submitted of necessity to their sovereign authority, while asserting its spiritual primacy over the whole of Christendom.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.catholic.org/encyclopedia/view.php?id=8827 |title=Ostrogoths |publisher=Catholic Online |access-date=December 9, 2020 |archive-date=September 18, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200918234756/https://www.catholic.org/encyclopedia/view.php?id=8827 |url-status=live}}</ref>

Beginning in 535, the [[Byzantine]] Emperor [[Justinian I]] launched a series of [[Gothic War (535–554)|campaigns]] to wrest Italy from the Ostrogoths which continued until 554 and devastated Italy's political and economic structures. The Byzantines established the [[Exarchate of Ravenna]] of which the [[Duchy of Rome]], an area roughly coterminous with modern day [[Lazio]], was an administrative division. In 568 the [[Lombards]] entered the peninsula from the north, establishing their own [[Kingdom of the Lombards|Italian kingdom]], and over the next two centuries would [[Byzantine-Lombard Wars|conquer most of the Italian territory]] recently regained by Byzantium. By the 7th century, Byzantine authority was largely limited to a diagonal band running roughly from [[Ravenna]], where the emperor's governor, or ''exarch'', was located, to Rome and south to [[Naples]], plus coastal exclaves.{{sfn|Treadgold|1997|page=378}} North of Naples, the band of Byzantine control contracted, and the borders of the "Rome-Ravenna corridor" became extremely narrow.<ref>{{cite book |last1=McEvedy |first1=Colin |title=The Penguin Atlas of Medieval History |date=1961 |publisher=Penguin Books |page=32 |isbn=9780140708226 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rjHVAAAAMAAJ&q=Rome-Ravenna+corridor |quote=... separated from their theoretical overlord in Pavia by the continuing Imperial control of the Rome-Ravenna corridor. |access-date=2020-09-26 |archive-date=2021-09-13 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210913092921/https://books.google.com/books?id=rjHVAAAAMAAJ&q=Rome-Ravenna+corridor |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Freeman |first1=Charles |title=Egypt, Greece, and Rome: Civilizations of the Ancient Mediterranean |date=2014 |publisher=OUP Oxford |isbn=978-0199651924 |page=661 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UtMVAwAAQBAJ&q=Rome-Ravenna+corridor |quote=The empire retained control only of Rome, Ravenna, a fragile corridor between them, ... |access-date=2020-11-18 |archive-date=2021-09-13 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210913092925/https://books.google.com/books?id=UtMVAwAAQBAJ&q=Rome-Ravenna+corridor |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Richards |first1=Jeffrey |title=The Popes and the Papacy in the Early Middle Ages: 476–752 |date=2014 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1317678175 |page=230 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Zod9AwAAQBAJ&q=Rome-Ravenna+corridor |quote=In 749 Ratchis embarked on a bid to capture Perusia, the key to the Rome-Ravenna land corridor |access-date=2020-11-18 |archive-date=2021-09-13 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210913092926/https://books.google.com/books?id=Zod9AwAAQBAJ&q=Rome-Ravenna+corridor |url-status=live}}</ref>

With effective Byzantine power weighted at the northeast end of this territory, the pope, as the largest landowner and most prestigious figure in Italy, began by default to take on much of the ruling authority that the Byzantines were unable to exercise in the areas surrounding the city of Rome.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/62243072 |title=Medieval Italy : an encyclopedia. Volume 1, A to K |date=2004 |publisher=Routledge |others=Christopher Kleinhenz |isbn=0-203-50275-2 |location=New York |pages=1024 |oclc=62243072}}</ref> While the popes legally remained "Roman subjects" under Byzantine authority, in practice the Duchy of Rome became an independent state.{{sfn|Kleinhenz|2004|page=1060}}

Popular support for the popes in Italy enabled several to defy the will of the Byzantine emperor: [[Pope Gregory II]] [[excommunicated]] Emperor [[Leo III the Isaurian|Leo III]] during the [[Iconoclastic Controversy]].<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=982 |title=St. Gregory II – Saints & Angels |publisher=Catholic Online |access-date=December 9, 2020 |archive-date=January 24, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210124095625/https://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=982 |url-status=live}}</ref> Nevertheless, the Pope and the exarch still worked together to limit the rising power of the Lombards in Italy. As Byzantine power weakened, though, the papacy assumed an ever-larger role in protecting Rome from the Lombards, but lacking direct control over sizable military assets, the pope relied mainly on [[diplomacy]] to achieve as much.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.catholic.org/encyclopedia/view.php?id=5358 |title=Pope St. Gregory II |publisher=Catholic Online |access-date=December 9, 2020 |archive-date=August 12, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200812183946/https://www.catholic.org/encyclopedia/view.php?id=5358 |url-status=live}}</ref> In practice, these papal efforts served to focus Lombard [[wiktionary:aggrandizement|aggrandizement]] on the exarch and Ravenna. A climactic moment in the founding of the Papal States was the agreement over boundaries contained in the Lombardic King [[Liutprand the Lombard|Liutprand]]'s ''[[Donation of Sutri]]'' (728) to [[Pope Gregory II]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.romeartlover.it/Civita3.html |title=Sutri |work=From Civitavecchia to Civita Castellana |access-date=27 August 2012 |archive-date=9 June 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170609155123/http://www.romeartlover.it/Civita3.html |url-status=live}}</ref>