were safer, the population greater, the wealth largely increased, the armies more efficient than at the commencement of the century. Even the Iconoclastic persecutions, though they had failed to crush superstition, had done some good in rooting out the grosser vagaries of image-worship. The Iconoclastic party still subsisted, and was strong in the army and civil service; we shall see it once more in power during the ninth century.

PERIOD I.

X

CHAPTER XIX

PIPPIN THE SHORT-WARS OF THE FRANKS

AND LOMBARDS

741-768

Mayoralty of Pippin and Carloman-Their successful wars-Boniface reforms the Frankish church-Abdication of Carloman-Pippin dethrones Childebert III. and assumes the royal title-Quarrel of Aistulf and Pope Stephen-The Pope calls the Franks into Italy-Pippin twice subdues Aistulf-The Exarchate given to the Papacy-Martyrdom of St. Boniface-Conquest of Narbonne-Long struggle with the dukes of Aquitaine-Death of Pippin.

THE events which immediately followed the death of Charles Martel showed clearly enough that the house of St. Arnulf must still depend on the power of the sword to guard its ascendency, and that it could only continue to rule by continuing to produce a series of able chiefs. It was fortunate for the Frankish realm that Pippin and Carloman were both men of sense and vigour, though perhaps they did not attain to the full stature of their father's greatness. Not less fortunate was it that, unlike the kings of the Merovingian house, they dwelt together in amity and brotherly love, and undertook every scheme in common.

The moment that Charles was dead troubles broke out on every hand. Grifo, the younger brother of the two mayors, declared himself wronged in the partition of the kingdoms, seized Laon, and began to gather an army of Neustrian malcontents. Theudebald, the brother of the duke of Suabia,

who had been overthrown in 730, raised the Alamanni in revolt in Elsass and the Black Forest. Hunold, duke of Aquitaine, disclaimed the suzerainty of the Frankish crown, while the Saxons refused the tribute which had been laid upon them, and invaded Hesse.

The whole of 742 was spent by Pippin and Carloman in dealing with the storm which had burst upon them. They began with crushing their unruly brother, captured him, and sent him captive to a fortress in the Ardennes. Next they marched against Hunold of Aquitaine, and harried the southern bank of the Loire, but the duke retreated southward without fighting, and other duties called away the two mayors before he was subdued. It was now the dangerous rising in Suabia, in the very midst of their realm, which Early camdemanded their attention. They descended paigns of upon the Alamanni with irresistible force, and soon subdued the whole land as far as the Bavarian frontier. But there was yet more fighting to be done, and, ere they finished their task, the two mayors had determined to legalise their somewhat anomalous position as regents for a non-existent sovereign. They sought out and crowned Childerich III, the last of the Merovingians, as feeble a shadow as his long-deceased kinsman, Theuderich Iv. So, after an interregnum of six years, the Franks had once more a king.

Pippin.

It was three years before the authority of Carloman and Pippin had been vindicated in every corner of the realm, but at last Aquitaine had acknowledged once more its vassal obligations, the Saxons had been chastised, and an attempt of Bavaria to make itself independent had been crushed. The struggle had not been without its difficulties, and the two mayors had been so hard pressed for resources, that they had followed in their father's steps by laying hands on Church property, compelling bishops and abbeys to devote a certain portion of their landed estates to the support of the warexpenses of the crown. Other dealings with the Church had

St. Boniface reforms the Church.

been as unpopular though less unorthodox; the Frankish clergy were often irregular in their lives, lax in their spiritual duties, and given over to all manner of secular pursuits. The mayors set the stern missionary enthusiast Boniface to reform these evils. At the great synod of 745, to which all the prelates of both Frankish realms were bidden, the great archbishop entered into a campaign against clerical abuses of all sorts. At his behest canons were passed against immoral life, pluralities, the granting of benefices to unordained persons, the disobedience of bishops to their metropolitans, the light assumption and rejection of the monastic habit and vow, and the favouring of heresy. Boniface had also much trouble with those who, headed by the Irish missionary bishop Clement, refused obedience to the Roman See, a fault which the great archbishop regarded as no less heinous than the open profession of unorthodoxy. In all his doings he received the zealous support of Carloman and Pippin. Ecclesiastical reform within was not unaccompanied by ecclesiastical extension without. In these troubled years of the two mayors, Boniface portioned out the newly-converted lands of central Germany into the three bishoprics of Würzburg, Erfurt, and Buraburg, to serve respectively as sees for Franconia, Thuringia, and Hesse. At the same time was founded his great abbey of Fulda, the centre of piety and learning in Transrhenane Germany during the succeeding age.

To the great surprise of all his contemporaries, the mayor Carloman, on the completion of his task of re-establishing Carloman order in Austrasia, laid down his sword, and asabdicates, 747. sumed the monk's gown, in the year 747. 'The causes no man knew, but it would seem that he was truly moved by a desire for the contemplative life and for the love of God.' It was certainly no weakness or desire for inglorious ease that led him to follow the example of his ancestor St. Arnulf, and seek out a hermitage. He passed into Italy, obtained the blessing of Pope Zacharias, and built himself a

-cell on Mount Soracte, in the Sabine hills. We shall hear of his name but once again, seven years after his abdication.

By his brother's retirement Pippin became mayor of Austrasia as well as of Neustria. He had one more struggle to wage ere all things were fully beneath his hand. In 747 his brother Grifo escaped from prison, and fled to Saxony, from whence he tried to stir up trouble. When Odilo duke of Bavaria died, he seized that duchy, claiming it in right of his mother, Swanhildis, who was of the ducal stock. Pippin soon drove him out, and he was constrained to flee to Aquitaine. Bavaria fell to Tassilo, the son of the late duke.

After the rebellion of Grifo we read in the Frankish annals the unusual entry, that 'the whole land had peace for two years' (749-50). Being now in complete possession of the Frankish realm, and fearing no foe from within or from without, Pippin took the step which must always have been present in the brains of his ancestors, since the day when the over-hasty Grimoald had endeavoured to seize the royal power in 656. Warned by Grimoald's fate, Pippin the Younger and Charles Martel had scrupulously refrained from claiming the title of king, and had religiously kept up the series of puppetprinces of the old Merovingian stock. Their descendant was now determined to bring the farce to its end, and would not even wait for the death of the imbecile Childerich III., whose vain name had for the last ten years served to head Frankish charters and rescripts. Early in 751 the national council of the whole realm was summoned, and eagerly approved of the removal of Childerich and the election of Pippin as king. To bestow a still greater show of legal authority on the change, Pippin then sent an embassy to Rome to obtain the approval of the Pope. Its leader, Burkhard, bishop of Würzburg, demanded of pope Zacharias 'Whether it was well or not to keep to kings who had no royal power?' Pippin deThe pontiff, whose chief desire was to win aid thrones Childe against the Lombards by flattering the ambition rich III.

of Pippin, made the answer that was expected of him. 'It