PEPUZIANS
663
PEPUZIANS
reign jointly but not without strong opposition, for
Griffon, the son of Charles Martel and the Bavarian
Sonnichilde, demanded a share in the government.
Moreover, the Duke of the Aquitanians and the Duke
of the Alamannians thought this a favourable oppor-
tunity to throw off the Frankish supremacy. The
young kings were repeatedly involved in war, but all
their opponents, including the Bavarians and Saxons,
were defeated and the unity of the kingdom re-estab-
lished. As early as 741 Carloman had entered upon
his epoch-making relations with St. Boniface, to whom
was now opened a new field of labour, the reformation
of the Frankish Church. On 21 April, 742, Boniface
was present at a Frankish synod presided over by
Carloman at which important reforms were decreed.
As in the Frankish realm the unity of the kingdom was
essentially connected with the person of the king,
Carloman to secure this unity raised the Merovingian
Childeric to the throne (743). In 747 he resolved to
enter a monastery. The danger, which up to this
time had threatened the unity of the kingdom from
the division of power between the two brothers, was
removed, and at the same time the way was prepared
for deposing the last Merovingian and for the crowning
of Pepin. The latter put down the renewed revolt led
by his step-brother Griffon and succeeded in com-
pletely restoring the boundaries of the kingdom.
Pepin now addressed to the pope the suggestive ques-
tion: In regard to the kings of the Franks who no
longer possess the royal power, is this state of things
proper? Hard pressed by the Lombards, Pope Zacha-
rias welcomed this advance of the Franks which aimed
at ending an intolerable condition of things, and at
laying the constitutional foundations for the exercise
of the royal power. The pope replied that such a state
of things was not proper. After this decision the place
Pepin desired to occupy was declared vacant. The
crown was given him not by the pope but by the
Franks. According to ancient custom Pepin was then
elected king by the nation at Soissons in 751, and soon
after this was anointed by Boniface. This consecra-
tion of the new kingdom by the head of the Church
was intended to remove any doubt as to its legitimacy.
On the contrary, the consciousness of having saved the
Christian world from the Saracens produced, among
the Franks, the feeling that their kingdom owed its
authority directly to God. Still this external co-
operation of the pope in the transfer of the kingdom
to the Carolingians would necessarily enhance the
importance of the Church. The relations between the
two controlling powers of Christendom now rapidly
developed. It was soon evident to what extent the
alliance between Church and State was to check the
decline of ecclesiastical and civil life; it made possible
the conversion of the still heathen German tribes, and
when that was accomplished provided an opportunity
for both Church and State to recruit strength and to
grow.
Ecclesiastical, political, and economic developments had made the popes lords of the ducnluf: Rnmanua. They laid before Pepin their claims to the central provinces of Italy, which had belonged to them before Liutprand's conquest. When Stephen II had a con- ference with King Pepin at Ponthion in January, 754, the pope implored his assistance against his oppressor the Lombard King Aistulf, and begged for the same protection for the prerogatives of St. Peter which the Byzantine exarchs had extended to them, to which the king agreed, and in the charter establishing the States of the Church, soon after given at Quiercy, he prom- ised to restore these prerogatives. The Frankish king received the title of the former representative of the Byzantine Empire in Italy, i. e. "Patricius", and was also assigned the duty of protecting the privileges of the Holy See.
When Stephen II performed the ceremony of an- ointing Pepin and his son at St. Denis, it was St.
Peter who was regardetl as the mystical giver of the
secular power, but the emphasis thus laid upon the
religious character of political law left vague the legal
relations between pope and king. After the acknowl-
edgement of his territorial claims the pope was in
reality a ruling sovereign, but he had placed himself
under the protection of the Frankish ruler and had
sworn that he and his people would be true to the king.
Thus his sovereignty was limited from the very start
as regards what was external to his domain. The con-
nexion between Rome and the Frankish kingdom in-
volved Pepin during the years 754-56 in war with the
Lombard King Aistulf, who was forced to return to
the Church the territory he had illegally held. Pepin's
commanding position in the world of his time was
permanently secured when he took Septimania from
the Arabs. Another particularly important act was
his renewed overthrow of the rebellion in Aqui-
taine which was once more made a part of the king-
dom. He was not so fortunate in his campaigns
against the Saxons and Bavarians. He could do no
more than repeatedly attempt to protect the boun-
daries of the kingdom against the incessantly restless
Saxons. Bavaria remained an entirely independent
State and advanced in civilization under Duke Tas-
silo. Pepin's activity in war was accompanied by a
widely extended activity in the internal affairs of the
Frankish kingdom, his main object being the reform
of legislation and internal affairs, especially of eccle-
siastical conditions. He continued the ecclesiastical
reforms commenced by St. Boniface. In doing this
Pepin demanded an unlimited authority over the
Church. He himself wished to be the leader of the
reforms. However, although St. Boniface changed
nothing by his reformatory labours in the ecclesiastico-
political relations that had developed in the Frankish
kingdom upon the basis of the Germanic conception of
the State, nevertheless he had placed the purified and
unified Frankish Church more definitely under the
control of the papal see than had hitherto been the
case. From the time of St. Boniface the Church was
more generally acknowledged by the Franks to be the
mystical power appointed by God. When he deposed
the last of the Merovingians Pepin was also obliged to
acknowledge the increased authority of the Church by
calling upon it for moral support. Consequently the
ecclesiastical supremacy of the Frankish king over the
Church of his country remained externally imdimin-
ished. Nevertheless by his life-work Pepin had power-
fully aided the authority of the Church and with it the
conception of ecclesiastical unity. He was buried at
St. Denis where he died. He preserved the empire
created by Clovis from the destruction that menaced
it; he was able to overcome the great danger arising
from social conditions that threatened the Frankish
kingdom, by opposing to the unruly lay nobility the
ecclesiastical aristocracy that had been strengthened by
the general reform. When he died the means had been
created by which his greater son could solve the prob-
lems of the empire. Pepin's policy marked out the
tasks to which Charlemagne devoted himself: quiet-
ing the Saxons, the subjection of the duchies, and
lastly the regulation of the ecclesiastical question and
with'it that of Italy.
Hahn-. Jahrhdcher des frUnkUchen Reiches 741-762 (Berlin, 1S63) ; Oelsner, Jahrbiicher des frankischen Reiches unter Konig Pippin (Leipzig, 1871); Muhlbacher, Deutsche Oeschichte unter der KaTolingern (Stuttgart, 1896) ; Paris, La legende de PSpin le Bre/inMelariges (Havre, 1895): Hampers, Kar! der Gmise (Mainz, 1910). — Of the large bibliography concerning the question of the Donation of Pepin ma.v be mentioned: Scheffer-Boichorst, Pepins und Karls d. Gr. Schenkungsversprechen in Milteilungen des Osterr. Instituts fiir Geschichts/orschung, V; Martens, Die drei undchten Kapilel der Vita Hadrians 1 in Theolog. Quartalschrift, LXVIII: ScHNTJRER, Die Entstehung des Kirchenstaats (Cologne, 1894): Martens, Beleuchtung der neuerten Kontroversen iiber die rdmische Frage unter Pippin und Karl d, Gr. (Miinster, 1898); Crivellucci, Delle Origim'dello Stato Ponteficio in Studi storici,
X, XI, XII. Franz Kampers.
Pepuziaxis. See Montanists.
