When the ill-treated Vigilius died at Syracuse, returning from his unhappy sojourn of eight years at Constantinople, Justinian caused the archdeacon Pelagius, who had been nuncio at Constantinople, to be elected his successor. In like manner John III. in 560, and Benedict I. in 574 were elected under pressure from the emperor. But in 568 the Lombards came into Italy, and at the death of Benedict I. in 578 they were pressing Rome so severely that no one could undertake the journey to Constantinople to ask for imperial confirmation. So the Book of the Popes says, “Pelagius,(203) a Roman, was consecrated without the command of the emperor, because the Lombards were besieging the City of Rome, and Italy was greatly laid waste by them. There was such calamity as had not occurred in memory of man.” In 590 St. Gregory the Great waited six months for his election to be approved at Constantinople. What use was made by the eastern emperor of the right to confirm the Papal election from the time of St. Gregory to the breaking out of the Iconoclast persecution has already been recounted. The last instance of this degrading mark of servitude was the confirmation of Pope Gregory III.’s election in 731 by the exarch of Ravenna. From that time forth the Popes elect were no longer confirmed by the emperor or his delegate; and in 756 the hand of a western ruler made them sovereign princes, and the much injured Italy was relieved from eastern oppression so far at least as regarded Rome and the central and northern provinces.