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such resistance by battering their ramparts to the CHAP. ground, from whence he gained his epithet of Martel, or the Hammer. Amongst the civic strongholds which defied him, was the famous Arena or Circus of Nismes, which still bears the proofs of his devastating hand. But Charles did not proscribe or destroy local dukes. He left Eudes at first, and after him his son Hunald, with that dignity in Aquitaine, on the condition of paying homage. Charles Martel was indeed the friend and founder of a princely aristocracy. Although several of his successors laboured to undermine and destroy these great provincial chiefs, which had sprung up beneath his reign, they survived all the imperial efforts to level and subdue them, and became the elements of future feudalism.

With equal alacrity and success did Charles turn his arms against the nations beyond the Rhine, and extend his conquests over Frison and Slavon. Nor did he disdain to consolidate his empire in these regions by the aid of religion, whilst diminishing the influence and weeding the growth of sacerdotalism in the south. In previous times, it was the Celtic Church of Ireland that despatched its holy men to astound the Gallo-Franks and Germans by their asceticism and privations. St. Columban and St. Gall were the monastic heroes of the Merovingian period. But these Celtic missionaries were ill fitted to the task of converting the Germans, from not understanding their tongue. Anglo-Saxon missionaries therefore took their place, and penetrated boldly into the countries beyond the Saale and Elbe, their efforts being too often crowned with martyrdom. St. Willebrod had well nigh succeeded in converting Radbod, until the Frison chief bethought him of asking, where were the souls of his ancestors? "In hell," replied the uncompromising Willebrod. "In that case," rejoined the Frison chief, turning from the baptismal rite, "I have no wish to go where they are not."

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CHAP. The saint had more success afterwards, and installed. himself Bishop of Utrecht. He was succeeded by a missionary of more eminence and of more political ideas. This was Winfred or Boniface, an Anglo-Saxon monk, who was not satisfied with episcopal succession under the mere patronage of the mayor of Austrasia. He went to Rome to seek higher sanction. This Pope Gregory gave him, consecrating him to be bishop, and under a new form. The prelates of Italy, when consecrated by the metropolitan of Rome, took an oath of allegiance to the Eastern emperor. Pope Gregory now suppressed that oath, replacing it by one of allegiance to himself. Boniface, thus armed, returned to found the German church, directly connected like the AngloSaxon with Rome, and to establish himself as metropolitan of Mayntz. Beyond the Rhine, Paganism was the bond and the symbol of those who rejected Frank supremacy, the cross, that of the Germans who admitted it. Charles Martel therefore lent Boniface every assistance for forming a forming a territorial church in Central Germany, little as he patronised, in other regions, the prevalence of the priesthood. A little before Charles's death, which took place in 741, ambassadors from Pope Gregory arrived, formally offering to transfer to Charles Martel the imperial supremacy, which the Eastern Emperor still enjoyed in Italy. Charles sent ambassadors to Rome to inquire into the nature of an offer, which probably he did not fully understand.

It is impossible to mistake the tendency of people and provinces at this time to separate and to settle into distinct states under local princes. This it was after which Neustria, Austrasia, Gascony, and Bavaria struggled. Obstacles started up to prevent, or at least adjourn, the fulfilment of these desires. The principal obstacle was the menacing power of the barbarous and anti-christian tribes, who had acquired the faculty of associating their strength, and of pouring vast hordes into civilised and Christian countries. Such superiority of numbers was

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shown by the Arabs, the Saxons, the Avars. There was CHAP. an absolute necessity of uniting the Christian world of Europe against them. And this the Carlovingians did.

The other obstacle to the separation of Western Europe into smaller and feudal states, was the rising pretensions and resuscitated imperialism of the popes, to whom the Emperor of the East had become a burden and a spoiler, as well as an unwelcome reformer, bent on the destruction of images, and the simplifying of worship. The pontiffs therefore sought for a more congenial Emperor in the West; and they looked farther than Italy to find him, a feudal and local aristocracy, like that of the Lombards, being odious to the Holy See, as rivals of a local and enemies of an imperial church. The victor of Poictiers seemed in every respect to answer pontifical desires.

Charles Martel, however, showed no alacrity to listen to papal suggestions. Archbishop Boniface was anxious to organise German ecclesiasticity so as to replace warlike dukes by prelate lords, and to have yearly synods and gatherings of churchmen, as well as a Champ de Mai of warriors. Boniface was not able to carry these plans into execution till Charles Martel's death. Carloman, the eldest son of that prince, having retired to a cloister, Pepin the Bref, his second son, succeeded to the Frank monarchy, and he made the church his counsellor. He crushed the local dukes, reduced Hunald of Aquitaine, and Tassilo of Bavaria, and at last besought Pope Zachary, no doubt on Boniface's suggestion, to sanction the deposition of the do-nothing Merovingians, and ordain his own coronation as king. Pope Zachary was ready with the reply, that the major domus, who had so long wielded the sovereign power, should also have the title. Hilderic was therefore formally deposed, and about mid-century, 752, Pepin was crowned King of France at Soissons, by the hand of Archbishop Boniface. The new monarch soon enhanced the royal dignity

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CHAP. by many victories. A south German league of Suabia and Bavaria defied him first, and was overcome by him in a sanguinary battle on the Leck. Similar frowardness of the Saxon brought the arms of Pepin to the Weser. The west and south of France, perceiving that Pepin was not, like Charles Martel, content with nominal submission, but bent on imposing a kind of imperial supremacy, made resistance. He was thus compelled to march into remote Brittany and reduce that hitherto independent region. The Aquitans endeavoured to hold their ground under Duke Waifer, and had recourse to their old mode of defence, their castles, afterwards adopted by the feudal chiefs of central France against Normans and Hungarians. The means of attack were, however, as yet more powerful, at least in Pepin's hands, than those of defence; and he levelled their castles, reserving that of Fronsac on the Dordogne, which he fortified and garrisoned himself.

The extension of the military ascendancy of the Frank monarch across the Alps and over Italy, was a more important achievement. About two years after Pepin's coronation Pope Zachary expired, and was succeeded by Stephen the Second. On this occasion Aistulph, the Lombard king, claimed from the Romans a tribute of a golden solidus, or sou a head. The Frank had, no doubt, oftentimes claimed similar tribute from the churches of Aquitaine. But the Pope had need of his every resource, being menaced by the Saracens in the south, whilst mulcted by the Lombard in the north. Pope Stephen applied at first, and probably for form's sake, to Constantinople. Receiving no satisfactory reply, he had recourse to Pepin, who despatched a duke and a bishop to Rome. These envoys found the Lombards in possession of many towns approaching the great city. Stephen, having welcomed the ambassadors, thought best to return with them to France; but first repaired to Aistulph's court at Pavia to entreat his

forbearance and the restoration of the towns he had taken. The Lombard evaded the demand and the Pope crossed the Alps. He was met, as he descended from them, by Charles, the son of Pepin, the future Charlemagne, who conducted him by slow journeys to St. Denis. Pepin was reluctant to engage in so remote a war. He offered to pay the Lombard many thousand solidi, if he would desist from claiming tribute of the Pope: Aistulph declined, and Pepin marched against him. The Lombard adopted the Aquitanic mode of warfare, and tried to fortify the cluses, or passes, of the Alps. Foiled in this, he shut himself up in Pavia. Finding he could not defend it, he made terms, offering full restitution to the Pope, and pecuniary indemnity to Pepin. No sooner, however, had the latter returned to France, than he learned not only the refusal of the Lombard to execute the treaty, but that he had even marched to lay siege to Rome. The spring of 754 accordingly brought Pepin once more over the Alps, and before Pavia, with the same result. Aistulph submitted, and upon still harder conditions. Two legates from Constantinople made their appearance at this juncture to claim Ravenna and the Exarchate. But Pepin replied that he had crossed the Alps not in the interest of the Eastern emperor, but in that of St. Peter. Singular to say, Stephen had written a letter to Pepin in the name of the Apostle, who was thus made to come forward as a personal suppliant. The device answered its purpose, for the pious Pepin presented St. Peter or his representative with the Exarchate and all the imperial possessions in Italy. The gift was indeed more embarrassing than profitable at first; for the pontiff had no troops to garrison or force to defend them, which Ravenna, exposed to the attack of the Greeks from sea, stood especially in need of. And as the Franks withdrew their army, the Pope could do no better than entrust Ravenna to the Lombards.

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