Pope Stephen IV († 817)

A short pontificate that fixes a lasting image

Stephen IV left no great doctrinal treatise, no major Roman council and no long correspondence. If one looks only at length, he seems almost to disappear between Leo III and Paschal I. But his gesture at Reims fixes a decisive image: an emperor already crowned at Aachen in 813 — where he had taken the crown himself from the altar, on Charlemagne's orders — receives anew the anointing and the crown from the hands of the pope.^[9][10]

This image will weigh throughout medieval history. It does not mean that the emperor is a mere pontifical functionary. Louis has reigned since 814, governs the Frankish Empire, holds Aachen and convokes his assemblies. But it recalls that the Christian imperial title, in the West, cannot be understood merely as a dynastic succession: it requires a sacred, Roman and ecclesial recognition.^[11]

"Rome, O Caesar, sends you the gifts of Peter." — Ermold the Black, In honorem Hludowici, Book II: verses which the poet places in Stephen's mouth at the moment of the coronation^[12]

The first imperial coronation outside Rome

The coronation of Charlemagne in 800 had taken place at Saint Peter's in Rome. That of Louis in 816 takes place at Reims, in Frankish territory, far from the tomb of Peter. The event does have precedents: Stephen II had already come to Francia in 753-754, and Charlemagne had received Leo III at Reims — in the old basilica of Saint-Remi according to Mann (vol. II, p. 59) — before celebrating Christmas 804 with him at Quierzy.^{[13][14][15][16][17]} The novelty of 816 lies elsewhere: it is the first time a pope anoints and crowns an emperor outside Rome — at Aachen in 813, Louis had taken the crown himself, without pope or anointing, and at Saint-Denis in 754, Stephen II had anointed Pepin as king, not as emperor.^{[18][19][20][21]}

The regular coronation of the kings of France at Reims will stabilize only much later: 816 is an imperial precedent, not the birth act of that royal ritual. But the precedent is real. The church of Reims becomes, from 816 onward, a place where Frankish royalty, the memory of Saint Remi and the liturgy of imperial anointing meet.^[22]

A papacy still protected, yet already active

Leo III had needed Charlemagne against his Roman enemies. Stephen IV, immediately after his election, makes the Romans swear fidelity to Louis. This gesture clearly recognizes the emperor as temporal protector and political suzerain of Rome.^[23][24]

But Stephen does not merely receive protection. He acts: he sends legates, chooses to travel, meets Louis, crowns him, obtains confirmation of the pact with the Franks, secures requests and brings back exiles. His institutional weakness is therefore not passivity. It is a Roman diplomacy in a world where the papacy must survive between urban aristocracy, Frankish Empire and the memory of ancient Rome.^{[25][26][27][28]}

Table of witnesses

Why the numbering is ambiguous

The title "Stephen IV" requires clarification. Several older sources speak of Stephen V, because they count the elect of 752 — who died before his consecration — as a pope in the full sense. The current pontifical list of the Holy See gives here Stephanus IV. (V.): the number IV corresponds to current usage, the V preserves the trace of the old numbering.^[29][30]

The mention "(V.)" remains useful to the reader for finding this pope in older and foreign sources, which often follow the old numbering.

The Frankish Annals: the chronological thread

The Annales regni Francorum give the most sober account. They say that Leo III dies around May 25, 816, in the twenty-first year of his pontificate; Stephen, then deacon, is elected and ordained in his place; before even two months have elapsed since his consecration, he hastens toward the emperor and sends two legates ahead of him.^[31]

"Stephen, deacon, was elected and ordained in his place; before two months had elapsed since his consecration, he hastened to come to the emperor by the most rapid stages he could." — Annales regni Francorum, year 816^[32]

What follows is equally concise: Louis decides to meet him at Reims, receives him with great honor, then Stephen, after having set forth the reason for his coming, celebrates the solemnities of the Mass and crowns him by imposing the diadem.^[33] The annals add that gifts are given and received, that friendship is firmly renewed, and that the pope returns toward Rome while Louis proceeds to the palace of Compiègne.^[34]

Thegan: the liturgical scene

Thegan of Trier gives the most visual scene. He first reports the oath imposed on the Romans: immediately after receiving the pontificate, Stephen orders the whole Roman people to promise fidelity to Louis by oath.^[35] He then recounts the meeting in the field of Reims: pope and emperor dismount; Louis prostrates himself three times; he greets Stephen with the words of the psalm: "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord."^[36]

The following Sunday, according to Thegan, Stephen consecrates Louis, anoints him as emperor, places on his head a gold crown adorned with precious stones, then also crowns Queen Ermengarde and calls her Augusta.^[37][38]

"He consecrated him, anointed him as emperor, and placed upon his head a gold crown of admirable beauty, adorned with very precious stones, which he had brought with him." — Thegan of Trier, Gesta Hludowici imperatoris, ch. 17^[39]

Roman, son of Marinus

Medieval notices present Stephen as Roman and son of Marinus.^[40][41] Mann specifies that he belongs to a noble family that will give three popes to the Church in the 9th century: Stephen himself, Sergius II and Hadrian II.^[42] This datum does not make him a worldly aristocrat; it indicates above all that the papacy of the 9th century remains deeply inscribed in Roman family networks.

The context is important. Papal elections of this period do not take place in an abstract space. Rome is a city of clerics, families, militias, titular churches, imperial memories and tensions between pontifical party, local aristocracy and Frankish power. The fact that Stephen is a man of the Lateran and not an outsider explains the speed of his election after the death of Leo III.^[43]

Raised under Hadrian I, ordained by Leo III

The Liber Pontificalis (life 99), summarized by Mann (p. 112), states that Stephen was raised from his youth at the Lateran palace under Hadrian I, then ordained subdeacon and finally deacon by Leo III.^[44][45] He thus belongs to the generation formed by the two great popes of the Carolingian alliance: Hadrian I, the pope of Charlemagne against the Lombards, and Leo III, the pope of the imperial coronation of 800.

This formation explains his political reflex. Stephen does not have to invent a new doctrine of the Franco-Roman alliance; he inherits an already constituted grammar. But he applies it to a new situation: Charlemagne is dead, Louis reigns without his father, and Rome must confirm that the pact did not depend solely on the person of Charles.

The death of Leo III, in the twenty-first year of his pontificate

The current pontifical list has Leo III die on June 12, 816, after about twenty and a half years of pontificate (December 26/27, 795 – June 12, 816); the Annales regni Francorum give for their part "anno pontificatus sui vicesimo primo circiter VIII. Kal. Iun." — in his twenty-first year, around May 25 ("VIII. Kal. Iun." is the Roman notation for May 25). The two datings genuinely diverge.^[46][47] The official Vatican entry fixes the beginning of Stephen's pontificate on June 22, 816.^[48]

The transition is swift. The sources describe no long vacancy nor double election. Stephen, deacon of the Roman Church, is chosen and ordained. Mann stresses that this haste may have served to prevent an imperial intervention; yet he adds that no evidence allows this to be asserted with certainty.^[49]

A free Roman election, but immediately notified to the emperor

Stephen acts in two stages. First he makes the Romans swear fidelity to Louis. Then he sends legates to inform the emperor of his ordination and to propose a meeting.^[50][51] The logic is subtle: the election remains Roman and canonical; but the emperor, as temporal protector, is recognized as an indispensable interlocutor.

This nuance avoids two misunderstandings. Stephen does not present himself as a functionary who would await imperial authorization to be pope. But neither does he claim that Rome can ignore the power that protects it. His first month as pontiff is entirely within this balance.

Crossing the Alps with Bernard of Italy

Stephen leaves Rome around August 816. Mann, following Frankish sources, has him travel with Bernard, king of Italy and nephew of Louis, acting under imperial orders.^[52] This detail is political: the pope does not cross an uncertain space alone. He is escorted by a major representative of the Italian Carolingian world.

The exact route is not fully documented. Mann supposes, by analogy with earlier pontifical journeys, a passage via the Great St Bernard and Saint-Maurice d'Agaune.^[53] Mann himself presents this route only as a supposition: it remains a probable reconstruction, not an established fact.

Louis comes to meet him

The Annales regni Francorum say that Louis, learning of the pope's coming, decides to meet him at Reims, sends men to conduct him there, goes ahead of his arrival and receives him with great honor.^[54] Thegan gives the ceremonial version: dismounted, Louis prostrates himself three times before the pope, greets him with the words of the psalm, then the two men embrace and proceed to the church. The anonymous Life of Louis (the so-called Astronomer's), cited by Mann (p. 114), specifies that it was "in honor of God and of Saint Peter" that the emperor bowed thus.^[55][56]

The scene is revealing of the Christian political language of the 9th century. Louis does not prostrate himself before Stephen as before a superior earthly sovereign in every respect; he honors, in the pope, the vicar of Peter and the visible representative of the apostolic order. Thegan says it with the psalm: "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord."^[57]

Reims, Saint-Remi and the baptismal memory of the Franks

Mann (p. 115) specifies that Louis then conducts the pope to the church of Saint-Remi, outside the city, where the Te Deum is sung.^[58] The choice of Reims is therefore not mere geographical convenience. The city bears the memory of Saint Remi and the baptism of Clovis, that is, the entry of the Franks into the Catholic faith.

The anointing of 816 alone does not explain the whole Capetian tradition of the Reims coronation. But it gives the city a very strong imperial precedent. Reims becomes the place where a pope come from Rome liturgically confirms the mission of a Frankish sovereign already heir to Charlemagne.

An emperor already crowned by Charlemagne

Louis does not wait for Stephen to be emperor. In September 813, Charlemagne had associated him to power at Aachen and had him take the crown from the altar.^[59] At Charlemagne's death in January 814, Louis governs the Empire. Charters and administration do not begin in 816.

Stephen's gesture therefore does not replace that of Charlemagne. It liturgically romanizes it. The father had transmitted the Empire to his son; the pope gives this transmission an anointing and a crown coming from the Apostolic See.^[60]

The anointing and the crown

Thegan's account is precise: before Mass, before clergy and people, Stephen consecrates Louis, anoints him as emperor and imposes on him a very beautiful gold crown, adorned with precious stones, which he has brought with him.^[61] Ermold the Black adds, poetically, that this crown would have belonged to Constantine the Great; Mann reports this tradition without treating it as certain material proof.^[62]

The crown of Constantine is more a language than an inventory. In 816, to say that the crown comes from Constantine means: the Christian Empire in the West wants to understand itself as Roman continuity, not as mere Germanic kingship. Rome transmits an imperial memory; Reims receives it within a Frankish framework.

Ermengarde called Augusta

Stephen also crowns Ermengarde, wife of Louis, and calls her Augusta.^[63][64] This detail is often forgotten. It shows that the coronation concerns not only a male person, but a public representation of imperial dignity.

The act, without prejudging later ceremonials, is clear: the papacy recognizes and blesses the imperial couple. In a society where dynastic succession, peace among sons and stability of lineages are vital questions, Ermengarde's place in the rite has political meaning.

A significance to hold together

Both aspects must be held together: Louis truly governs before Reims — he had taken the crown himself at Aachen in 813, on his father's orders^[65] — and, after Reims, he can present himself as an emperor anointed and crowned by Peter.^[66][67]

The papacy does not create his military, administrative or dynastic power; it consecrates his imperial dignity in the symbolic and religious order that structures medieval Christendom.^[68]

Gifts, privileges and renewed friendship

The annals say that after the coronation many gifts are given and received, banquets are celebrated, friendship is firmly confirmed and several matters useful to the holy Church of God are settled as opportunity allows.^[69]

Mann specifies that Louis confirmed the privileges of the Roman Church and had documents drawn up by his chancellor Helisachar so that the goods of Saint Peter might remain intact.^[70] He also reports the gift of a property, probably Vandeuvre, between Troyes and Bar-sur-Aube, which tradition then attaches to the patrimony of Saint Peter.^[71]

The pallium of Theodulf of Orléans

During his stay in Gaul, Stephen probably grants the pallium to Theodulf of Orléans, one of Louis's great counselors.^[72][73] Theodulf is an important figure of the Carolingian renaissance: bishop, man of letters, poet, actor in iconographic controversies and counselor to power.

The gesture shows that the journey is not only imperial. Stephen also deals with concrete ecclesiastical affairs. He honors a bishop of the first rank and inscribes the Frankish hierarchies in a direct relationship with Rome.

The exiles of the crisis of Leo III

Another result of the journey is the return of exiles linked to the troubles of the pontificate of Leo III. Mann (p. 119), citing the notice of the Liber Pontificalis ("pro pietate Ecclesiae"), states that Stephen brings back with him the exiles detained for their crimes against the Roman Church and Leo III.^[74][75]

These are probably actors or relatives of the Roman factions opposed to Leo. Stephen's gesture is pastoral and political: pacifying Rome, healing wounds, and showing that the new alliance with Louis can produce clemency as much as constraint.

Ravenna, former imperial capital and staging city

On the return, Stephen passes through Ravenna. The city retains immense symbolic importance: former imperial capital of the West, seat of the Byzantine exarchate, pivotal place between northern Italy, the Adriatic, Rome and imperial memory.^[76][77]

Passage through Ravenna is not a tourist detail. It inscribes the pontifical return within political Italy. The pope come from Reims passes again through one of the great cities that recall that Italy is reducible neither to Rome nor to Aachen.

The sandals of Christ

Mann (p. 119), following Agnellus of Ravenna, reports that Stephen celebrates in the Ursiana basilica and exhibits there for veneration a relic held to be the sandals of Christ.^[78]

Medieval accounts attest this veneration, not the material authenticity of the relic: Agnellus recounts it, it is mentioned later in the life of Nicholas I, and the Chronicle of Saint-Hubert places it in the chapel of Saint Lawrence at the Lateran — Mann, for his part, admits he can add nothing on this "curious relic."^[79]

A very swift end

Stephen returns to Rome before the end of November 816, holds the usual ordinations of December, confirms the goods of the monastery of Farfa, then dies on January 24, 817.^[80] The Annales regni Francorum note that he dies in the third month after his return to Rome, before that month is completed, around January 25 according to their reckoning.^[81]

His pontificate is therefore almost entirely absorbed by the Reims journey. He spent a considerable part of his seven months outside Rome, in the footsteps of Stephen II, who came to Francia in 753-754.^[82]

Burial at Saint Peter's

Notices indicate that Stephen is buried at Saint Peter's.^[83][84] This burial in the Vatican basilica places him again in the continuity of the Roman popes. He had left Rome to confirm the imperial alliance; he returns to die near the tomb of the Apostle.

The succession of Paschal I

After Stephen, Paschal I is elected. The Annales regni Francorum relate that he sends Louis gifts and a letter of excuse, asserting that the pontifical honor was imposed on him despite himself, then asks that the pact concluded with his predecessors be renewed with him.^[85]

This sequence retrospectively illuminates Stephen. The relationship between pontifical election and empire is not yet fixed as a stable legal mechanism. Rome wants to elect; the emperor wants to be recognized; each seeks a language that avoids both hostile independence and humiliating subjection.

The link between 800 and future conflicts

Stephen IV belongs to the small number of popes who, by a single gesture, shift a tradition. Leo III crowned Charlemagne at Rome. Stephen IV crowns Louis at Reims. Paschal I and Eugene II will then have to negotiate more concretely imperial rights in Rome. On this ground there will even circulate an apocryphal decree, attributed to Stephen, which would have required the presence of imperial legates at the pontifical consecration: Mann (p. 120-121) shows that it is in reality the work of John IX and the council of Rome of 898.^[86]

One already sees the germ of future tensions: who confirms whom? Does the emperor protect the pontifical election or control it? Does the pope bless a power received dynastically or confer a superior dignity? Stephen does not answer with a theory. He answers with a rite.

A minor pope for deeds, major for symbols

In just measure: he is neither Leo the Great, nor Gregory the Great, nor Nicholas I. Sources show him as a brief, pious pope, from the Lateran, engaged in the Frankish alliance, but little documented.

His greatness lies in his position. In seven months, he embodies the transition between the creation of the Carolingian Empire in 800 and the long medieval history where the emperor of the West, however powerful, will seek to be recognized within a Christian order whose symbolic key Rome keeps. The coronation of Reims thus fixes the precedent: in the West, Christian imperial dignity henceforth passes also through anointing and crown received from the hands of the pope.^[87][88]

• Pope Saint Leo III — predecessor of Stephen IV, pope of the coronation of Charlemagne in 800.
• Charlemagne — emperor crowned by Leo III, father of Louis the Pious.
• Louis the Pious — emperor anointed by Stephen IV at Reims in 816.
• Pope Saint Paschal I — immediate successor of Stephen IV.
• The Papal States — political framework in which the alliance between papacy and Franks takes shape.
• The coronation of the kings of France — later tradition to be distinguished from the imperial precedent of Reims in 816.