Nicholas I

the great) (d.867. Pope from 858. He owed his election to Louis II. The Roman clergy wanted Anastasius, son of the bishop of Orte, whom Nicholas named as his secretary of state-an important choice in the subsequent schism with Photius* and the struggle with Hincmar of Reims.* During his pontificate the question of universal primacy of jurisdiction over the church was reopened. The diocese of LeMans about 850 forged a whole body of law by assigning to each decree a papal or conciliar decision as far back as the second century. These False Decretals* brought new detail to the defense of papal primacy as LeMans invoked the historical prestige of Rome. In two synods at Aix (860) and Aachen (860-62), Lothair II had his wife Theutberga repudiated. A synod at Metz (863) authorized his marriage to Waldrada. Hincmar supported Theutberga. Nicholas convened a synod at the Lateran which quashed the Metz decree and Aachen divorce. When in 862 Hincmar deposed Rothad II, bishop of Soissons, the pope ordered an examination which restored Rothad in 865. Nicholas now used the False Decretals. Together with his deposition of John, bishop of Ravenna, these events explain the papal claims to authority over Western sees.

Nicholas invited the Moravian Byzantine missionaries Cyril and Methodius* to come to Rome after 863. In March 862 Nicholas had ordered a trial of Photius, patriarch of Constantinople. This so infuriated the latter that he deposed the pope in 867. Nicholas died before learning of this action or the subsequent Photian schism which his own actions had precipitated. Rome's authority over the West increased, and so did its imperious attitude toward the brilliant Christian civilization at Constantinople.