The Papal States the State of the Church were a series of territories in the Italian Peninsula under the direct sovereign rule of the Pope, from the 8th century until 1870. They were among the major states of Italy from the 8th century until the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia unified the Italian Peninsula by conquest in a campaign concluded in 1861 and definitively in 1870. At their zenith, the Papal States covered most of the modern Italian regions of Lazio, Marche and Romagna, portions of Emilia; these holdings were considered to be a manifestation of the temporal power of the pope, as opposed to his ecclesiastical primacy. By 1861, much of the Papal States' territory had been conquered by the Kingdom of Italy. Only Lazio, including Rome, remained under the Pope's temporal control. In 1870, the Pope lost Lazio and Rome and had no physical territory at all, except the Basilica of St Peter and the papal residence and related buildings around the Vatican quarter of Rome, which the new Italian state did not occupy militarily.

In 1929 the head of the Italian government, at the time the Italian Fascist leader Benito Mussolini, ended the crisis between unified Italy and the Holy See by negotiating the Lateran Treaty, signed by the two parties. This recognized the sovereignty of the Holy See over a newly created international territorial entity, the Vatican City State, limited to a token territory; the Papal States were known as the Papal State. The territories were referred to variously as the State of the Church, the Pontifical States, the Ecclesiastical States, or the Roman States. To some extent the name used varied with the preferences and habits of the European languages in which it was expressed. For its first 300 years the Catholic Church was persecuted and unrecognized, unable to hold or transfer property. Early congregations met in rooms set aside for that purpose in the homes of well-to-do individuals, a number of early churches, known as titular churches and located on the outskirts of Ancient Rome, were held as property by individuals, rather than by the Church itself.

Nonetheless, the properties held nominally or by individual members of the Roman churches would be considered as a common patrimony handed over successively to the legitimate "heir" of that property its senior deacons, who were, in turn, assistants to the local bishop. This common patrimony attached to the churches at Rome, thus under its ruling bishop, became quite considerable, including as it did not only houses etc. in Rome or nearby but landed estates, such as latifundias, whole or in part, across Italy and beyond. This system began to change during the reign of the emperor Constantine I, who made Christianity legal within the Roman Empire, restored to it any properties, confiscated; the Lateran Palace was the first significant new donation to the Church, most a gift from Constantine himself. Other donations followed in mainland Italy but in the provinces of the Roman Empire, but the Church held all of these lands as a private landowner, not as a sovereign entity. When in the 5th century the Italian peninsula passed under the control of Odoacer and the Ostrogoths, the Church organization in Italy, with the pope at its head, submitted of necessity to their sovereign authority while asserting its spiritual primacy over the whole Church.

The seeds of the Papal States as a sovereign political entity were planted in the 6th century. Beginning in 535, the Byzantine Empire, under emperor Justinian I, launched a reconquest of Italy that took decades and devastated Italy's political and economic structures. Just as these wars wound down, the Lombards entered the peninsula from the north and conquered much of the countryside. By the 7th century, Byzantine authority was limited to a diagonal band running from Ravenna, where the Emperor's representative, or Exarch, was located, to Rome and south to Naples, plus coastal exclaves. With effective Byzantine power weighted at the northeast end of this territory, the pope, as the largest landowner and most prestigious figure in Italy, began by default to take on much of the ruling authority that Byzantines were unable to project to the area around the city of Rome. While the popes remained Byzantine subjects, in practice the Duchy of Rome, an area equivalent to modern-day Latium, became an independent state ruled by the pope.

The Church's independence, combined with popular support for the papacy in Italy, enabled various popes to defy the will of the Byzantine emperor. The pope and the exarch still worked together to control the rising power of the Lombards in Italy; as Byzantine power weakened, the papacy took an ever-larger role in defending Rome from the Lombards through diplomacy. In practice, the papal efforts served to focus Lombard aggrandizement on Ravenna. A climactic moment in the founding of the Papal States was the agreement over boundaries embodied in the Lombard king Liutprand's Donation of Sutri to Pope Gregory II; when the

Neil Law is an English former rugby union, professional rugby league footballer who played in the 1990s and 2000s. He played club level rugby union for Northampton Saints and Otley R. U. F. C. and club level rugby league for the Sheffield Eagles, the Wakefield Trinity Wildcats, the York City Knights, as a fullback, wing or centre. Law was born in West Yorkshire, England. Law played in the Super League for Sheffield Eagles in 1998, the Wakefield Trinity Wildcats from 1999 until 2002, when he left the club by mutual consent. Law joined the York City Knights in 2003, scored 11 tries in 12 games before switching to rugby union, he returned to the York City Knights in 2005, scoring a further 25 tries in 44 appearances during the next two seasons. He returned to the Sheffield Eagles for one season in 2007. Neil Law is the brother of the rugby league footballer. Statistics at rugbyleagueproject.org Cas in control as Wakefield wilt Wakefield win to stay up Wildcats are Giants' first victims Wakefield hit by injuries Villeneuve march on

General Pao Pienlert Boripanyutakit was a Thai political figure who served as a Minister of Finance and Minister of Commerce. Pao was the second oldest of 12 children, he lived and studied in military school in Thailand until the age of 16 at which time he went abroad to continue military study on full scholarship. He first studied in Germany until World War I broke out, after which he was transferred to Switzerland and to Paris, France when Thailand participated in World War I at École spéciale militaire de Saint-Cyr to complete his education. In Paris, he served at the Thai Embassy in Paris as assistance of Defence Attaché during his study time and after graduation, he returned to Thailand at the age of 28 and served as an army official until he was given the official Title by the King as Phra Boripanyutakit at the age of 36. He was named one of the 19 highest-ranking officials in his nation's army, serving as a liaison between the Thai Army and the Allies force during World War I, he spoke fluent French and Thai, English.

He was the Minister of Finance of Thailand, serving two different terms, from December 17, 1941 – August 1, 1944 and December 8, 1951 – March 30, 1953. He was the 7th Minister of Commerce of Thailand for 8 terms, his most notable contribution to finance was that he helped established the foreign currency exchange of Thailand in 1955. In commerce, he helped industrialize the enamelling process for porcelain and metals commercially, started the Export program for the rice industry in Thailand, helped to create the first seaport in Thailand. Kasetsart University Archives. พลเอก เภาเพียรเลิศ บริภัณฑ์ยุทธกิจ. ฐานข้อมูลบูรพาจารย์มหาวิทยาลัยเกษตรศาสตร์. Kasetsart University Archives. Retrieved 15 February 2018