The all-important visit to Rome came at the end of the year 800. Pope Leo III, elected in 795, had been seized in the spring of 799 by his opponents, among whom two nephews of the late Pope, Adrian, played a leading part, and an attempt had been made to put out his eyes and cut out his tongue. He recovered[172] and escaped, and was called—or fled—to Karl at Paderborn. Leo had on his consecration sent to Karl, as the Patrician, the standard of Rome, the keys of Rome, and even the keys of the tomb of St. Peter, in recognition of his supremacy, the Eastern Emperor Constantine VI being disregarded. Karl was therefore doubly bound to take cognisance of the Pope’s case. There were very grave charges against Leo. Alcuin names[173] adultery and perjury; but he writes very strongly against subjecting Leo to trial on these charges. He has read, he says, that by a canon of the blessed Silvester there must be not less than seventy-two adverse witnesses of blameless life if a pontiff was to be brought to trial. He has read in other canons that the Apostolic See judges, is not judged. What pastor, he asks, in the Church of Christ can be immune, if he who is the head of all the churches is overthrown by malefactors? We may compare with this the reasons which another member of the trilogy of Anglo-Saxon ecclesiastics and scholars, St. Aldhelm, gave at Rome against condemning the Pope of his time, Sergius, for alleged immoral practices. The reasons were three. First, it was a wretchedly base thing to suspect their own pontiff of crimes. Next, what influence could the Roman pontiff have with the Britons and other nations across the seas, if he was attacked by his own citizens? Lastly, it did not seem likely, it could not be true, that one who remembered that he was set over the whole world would entangle himself in such a sin as this. Unhappily, for long periods in the history of the Papacy, it not only was likely, it was undoubtedly and overtly true.