Pope Stephen IV
770 CE–817 CE · Rome
A Roman nobleman of the Orsini-connected aristocracy raised in the Lateran, Stephen IV held the papacy barely a year but used it to cement relations with the Carolingian dynasty. Shortly after his election he had the Romans swear loyalty to Emperor Louis the Pious, then traveled north to crown and anoint Louis at Reims in 816—reinforcing the precedent that the pope conferred imperial legitimacy. His brief reign, ending with his death in early 817, is thinly documented but significant for sustaining the close, mutually legitimizing bond between papacy and Frankish empire established under his predecessors.
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RomeרומאItaly
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Rome in this era
Between the 8th and 15th centuries Rome was the seat of the popes and capital of the Papal States, which grew from the Frankish king Pepin's grant of 756; Charlemagne was crowned emperor in St Peter's in 800. The city shrank far below its ancient size, and from 1309 to 1377 the popes resided at Avignon before returning to Rome.
About Rome
Rome, on the Tiber in central Italy, grew from an Iron Age settlement into the capital of the Roman Republic and then of an empire that by the 1st century CE ruled the whole Mediterranean. Its Jewish community, attested from the 2nd century BCE, is among the oldest in Europe. Christian tradition holds that the apostles Peter and Paul died there, and the city became the seat of the popes. After the Western Empire ended in 476 it passed to Gothic kings, to Byzantium and then to papal rule as capital of the Papal States, until it became the capital of unified Italy in 1871. Vatican City, independent since 1929, lies within it.
In Rome at the same time
Pope Adrian I, Pope Stephen III, Alcuin of York, Pope St. Leo III, Pope St. Leo IV, Pope Adrian II
In the same place & time
Sages whose lives overlapped with Pope Stephen IV’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.
In the same tradition
Pope Adrian I, Pope Stephen III, Alcuin of York, Pope St. Leo III, Pope St. Leo IV, Pope Adrian II, Pope Formosus, Pope St. Paschal I
The world in their lifetime
Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Pope Stephen IV’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.
Works
No works attributed in the corpus yet.