The Papal States

When Odoacer deposed Romulus Augustulus in 476AD, the Western Roman Empire came to an end. But two institutions endured; the Eastern Roman Empire in the East, and the Catholic Church in the West. The first of these has soldiered on throughout the centuries as the Byzantine Empire, centred on Constantinople, its rulers proudly styling themselves as the Emperors of Rome. But in the West, the Church has enjoyed no less remarkable a rise to prominence.

The Byzantine hold on Italy was always tenuous at best, and as the grip of the Byzantine Exarchs crumbled something had to fill the power vacuum that ensued, and it was perhaps inevitable that that something would be the Papacy. The Popes already held the eternal city of Rome, and they claimed a degree of spiritual authority that few other Bishops in Christendom could hope to match. Over the centuries the Bishops of Rome - the good and the saintly, the mediocre, the mad and the bad - have steered through the complex and ever-shifting political landscape of the Italian peninsula - sometimes successfully, sometimes less so - but always enduring in the face of Goths, Byzantines, Lombards, Franks, Germans, Saracens and Normans.

Now Catholicism underpins the very foundations of Western European society, and once more the city of Rome might justifiably claim to be at the centre of the world. But with newfound importance come new challenges, and now the Papacy may face its sternest challenge yet. To the north, in Germany, Frederick "Barbarossa" has recently ascended to the throne as Holy Roman Emperor, and seeks to imbue that title with all the significance it has lost since the golden days of Charlemagne. It is a goal which the Papacy actively supports... the problem lies in their radically different interpretations.

For Barbarossa, this requires Imperial dominance over Italy. To the Papacy, however, the Emperor is a vassal of the Pope, the Empire a fiefdom of the Pope. To each party the other's ambition is an insult - an anathema. Sooner or later the unstoppable force of the Holy Roman Empire will collide with the immovable object that is the Holy See, and when they do Christendom shall tremble.