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. ¹⁷ Fleury. Eccles. Hist b. xxx. n. 1. 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 ¹⁸ Liber decimus Romanorum Pontificum. Pere Gamier, & Jesuit, published an edition of it at Paris, in 1680. This collection had been published before by Holstenius, and was suppressed by the Court of Rome.—Sec. on the Dependence of tho Popes, 3d and 4th heads. ¹⁹ Non enim licebat tunc temporis quemlibet in Romanâ civitate ad pontificatum promovere absque jussWeimperatoris. —Paul Diac. b. 3, c. 4. A letter of Martin I. to Gregory I. called ‘the Great’ has rendered frequent homage to the civil authority; but letters have been fabricated, under his name, in which he declares, that every king, every prelate, every judge, who shall neglect to ascertain the privileges of the three monasteries of Autun, and those of the Abbey of St. Medard de Soissons, shall be deprived of his dignity, and condemned, like Judas, to the pit of hell, unless he do penance, and become reconciled with the monks.—See Maimbourg. Historical Treatise on the Church of Rome, chap. 99, the emperor thus commences: “Martin, bishop, to “the emperor our most serene lord,” and ends with these words: “May the grace from above preserve “the very pious empire of our lord, and bow the “neck of all nations unto him.”²⁰ Thus a pope expresses himself who, imprisoned, exiled, and deposed by Constantius, never disputed the rights of the sovereign who treated him with so much rigour and even injustice. When this emperor, Constantius, came to Rome in 662, the pope, Vitalien, paid him the homage of a faithful subject.²¹