Description of the Arts

...because of the sins of the nations, which cause kingdoms to be transferred from one people to another, and through which worldly majesties greatly overreach themselves.

For when Desiderius, the King of the Lombards original: Longobarder; the last ruler of the Lombard Kingdom in Italy, defeated by Charlemagne in 774, undertook to seize all power and authority in Italy for himself—thereby inciting various riots and all manner of wartime rebellions—Pope Leo (the third of that name), despairing in all his affairs, fled from Rome to Germany to seek Emperor Charlemagne original: Carolo Magno. He sought protection and help from him, the most powerful potentate in all of Christendom.

Now, if this is truly the case, how can this highly distressed and respectable Pope—who was himself deposed from his seat and high office—give away that which he himself never possessed, nor could possess, to such a much more powerful King? For this King made use of the rational Rights of War The legal and moral framework (jus ad bellum) used historically to justify conquest and the transfer of sovereignty—through which all disputes and doubts are decided reasonably, as if coming down from heaven itself, and by which the kingdoms of the world are exchanged and replanted. Thus, he took the aforementioned Roman Empire for himself and maintained it, both with the consent of his supporters and against the will of his enemies.

And indeed, no one can transfer anything greater or higher to another than he himself rightfully possesses Maier is citing the legal principle Nemo dat quod non habet—no one gives what they do not have. He argues the Pope could not "give" the Empire because the Pope did not "own" it..