In 476 the Western Empire fell: Augustulus was dethroned; the Heruli, the Ostrogoths, and other barbarians, invaded and laid waste Italy. Rome was governed by Odoacre down to 493, by Theodoric to 526, and, during the twenty-seven succeeding years, by Theodat, Vitiges, Totila, or the generals of the Eastern Emperors.
¹⁴ Or puzza forte: Questo era il dono, se pero dir lece, Che Costantino al buon Silvestro fece. Or I. Fur. 14th chap. 8th stanza: This was the gift, with reverence be it said, Which Constantine to good Sylvester made.
It is necessary to observe here, that the sovereignty of these emperors over Italy, and especially over the city of Rome, had been acknowledged by Odoacre and by Theodoric, and sometimes even by their successors¹⁵ But in 553, the victory of Narses over Theia restored to the Greek emperors an immediate sovereignty over the Roman territory and the neighbouring countries. Thus terminated seventy-seven years of wars and revolutions, during which the popes neither obtained nor aspired to the exercise of any temporal authority. Theodoric, in 498, confirmed the election of Pope Symmachus;¹⁶ and when, in the year 500, this pope was accused by his enemies, the decision of the matter was referred to Theodoric.¹⁷
From 553 to 567, Narses governed Italy in the name of the emperors of Constantinople. Shortly after his death, the Lombards, led by Alboin, made themselves masters of the northern parts of Italy, and there founded a kingdom, which lasted about two hundred years. The other regions of Italy remained more or less under the authority of the emperors of the East, which was administered by the Exarchs of Ravenna.
¹⁵ St Marc. Abridged History of Italy, vol. 1. p, 1 to 129.
¹⁶ Anastas. Bibliotb. of the Lives of the Roman Pontiffs, p. 84.
The exarch was a governor general, to whom the dukes, prefects or patricians, and also the governors of particular territories or cities, were subordinate. From the exarch or the emperor they sought the ratification of the election of each bishop of Rome: this is a fact of which the proof exists in an ancient collection of the formulas of the Romish Church¹⁸ Once only, at the election of Pelagius II. in 577, they dispensed with the consent of the emperor, because the Lombards besieged Rome, and cut off the communication with Constantinople. Paul Diacre, in speaking of Gregory the Great, who in 590 succeeded Pelagius II. says expressly, that it was not permitted to instal a pope without the order of the Greek emperor.¹⁹