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News of the accession of Gregory III brought from Boniface in 732 a report of progress. The response was an archbishop's pallium and permission to select as well as consecrate bishops. This right, however, he did not find expedient to exercise for seven years. Karl was otherwise occupied and it would have been indiscreet to consecrate any bishop for a part of his jurisdiction in his absence or behind his back, the more as just now the relations of the curia with Constantinople and with the Lombards were growing worse and the friendship of the Frankish majordomos was becoming a vital matter at Rome. Boniface, writing confidentially of his troubles to Bishop Daniel of Winchester, says: "Without the help of the prince of the Franks I can neither govern the people of the Church, nor defend priests or clerks, monks or nuns." So, his work held at a standstill in Thuringia, Boniface turned in 734 to Bavaria. Here, however, the situation proved unfavorable for anyone who was thought to represent Frankish interests. There followed a period of " marking time," months of study and writing, closing with a third visit to Rome in 737.

Boniface remained a year in Italy seeking his soul's health at various pilgrim shrines. It was at Gregory's desire rather than his own that he returned to take up once more his work in Thuringia. Gregory also suggested that he should call a synod of Alamanian and Bavarian bishops, and in a general letter summoned them to lay aside heathen practices and to hold annual councils "where Boniface might bid and under his presidency." This showed, as soon appeared, a radical misconception of the attitude of those countries toward one another and toward anybody from Frankish Thuringia. Gregory seems to have hoped for reorganization here without cooperation of civil authorities. Boniface was too prudent to make any such attempt. What the heads of such ancient Church centres as Augsburg, Spires, Constance, Passau and Strassburg thought of the rather peremptory tone of the papal letter does not appear. It remained in the record, however, for future reference.

In Bavaria Odilo, the new and energetic duke, uncle of

Karl's favorite Sunachild, who was herself friendy to Boniface, was well disposed to take up the proposals of 716 and try ecclestiastical reorganization on Roman lines while safe-guarding such state rights as had been successfully asserted by the Frankish princes. Odilo had invited the cooperation of Boniface even before he recrossed the Alps. Vivilo of Passau was then the only bishop in Bavaria who had Roman consecration. The management of ecclesiastical affairs was mainly in the hands of the great abbots who either acted as bishops or had chorepiscopi under them, as had been the custom in Scotic monasteries. The records are obscure but it is clear that the conditions were not making for orderly progress or even safeguarding the Church from corruption of dogma and of discipline. Boniface, with the active aid of the duke and the assent of the nobles, consecrated Bishops for Salzburg, Freising and Regensburg, which were, beside Passau, the chief cities of the region and already centres of civil administration. No provision seems to have been made for an archbishop and Boniface seems never to have acted in such a capacity. He gave his counsel, consecrated the necessary bishops, set reformatory visitations at work and passed on. In Bavaria the change was attended, as cause or as effect, by a general religious revival manifesting itself especially in monastic foundations. There was a strong opposition party however. Wigo, the abbot-bishop of St. Emmeran, claimed and seems to have exercised episcopal functions till his death in 756. Sidonius in Passau and Virgilius in Strassburg also maintained a measure of independence.

Content with Boniface's action in Bavaria Gregory recurred to his project of a joint Bavarian and Alamanian synod, exhorting the archbishop, who would have fain accorded his threescore years some repose, to renewed effort. Boniface did not see the way clear, however, and soon his thoughts were altogether engaged in another quarter. Karlman, elder son of Karl, had been charged by the aging and war-worn majordomo with the administration of the part of the Frankish realm including Thuringia. Karlman was devoted to the Church. He had been educated in a cloister, as was his brother Pipin, and ended his

life in one. With his support Boniface could at last carry out the long deferred hierachical organization of Thuringia, with bishops at Würzburg, Buraburg (in Hesse, near Fritzlar, then Boniface's chief monastery) and possibly also Erfurt. The appointments were formally recognized by Karlman who also gave Würzburg the bulk of its endowment. None of the sees could have been established without the approval of Karl, who through all his administration had been wont to set up and put down bishops at will. Evidently then, Karl, never opposed to Boniface, was now ready to cooperate actively with him. Possibly with the years each had learned that he needed what the other alone could give to the realization of their several designs. Then, too, Karl had in 739 declined to assist the pope against the Lombards and may have wished to make a concession in this neutral field.

These things occupied Boniface till 742. Meantime Karl had died and Gregory had given place to the shrewd but rather narrow Italo-Greek Zacharias. The new bishops did not wait to seek a papal confirmation before sharing in the consecration in 741 of Willibald to be bishop at Eichstadt in the Nordgau, which war had just cut off from Bavaria, and they took part in a synod before the confirmation was received. For the Bavarian bishops and for Willibald papal confirmation seems never to have been asked, but in view of the ambitions of some Frankish bishops Boniface no doubt felt it a wise precaution for Thuringia. In fact, however, of the three Thuringian sees Würzburg alone survived him.

In 742 Boniface was certainly sixty-five, probably sixty-seven. He had more than fulfilled the expectation with which he had been sent to Germany. He seems once more to have aspired to repose. But the hardest of all his tasks and perhaps the most fruitful of all his labors yet awaited him, the regeneration of the Church of the Gauls, the central district of the Frank kingdom. It came about in this way. Boniface had selected a successor, as Gregory III had authorized him to do. But the brother of this unnamed ecclesiastic had killed a relative of Karlman and was persona non grata at court. While Boniface

was considering what course he should take Zacharias cut the knot by cancelling in effect the liberty accorded by Gregory. He may have felt that it would be a troublesome precedent, the more as it seems reasonable to suppose that the Karlings were already cultivating the closer relations with the papacy that were to be so fateful for both. The letters of Boniface suggest a rather bitter disappointment, but it was for good.

Early in 742 Karlman, gratified with the results in Thuringia, summoned Boniface to his court and asked him to hold a synod for Austrasia, the part of the realm that he was administering, saying that he wished" somewhat to correct and amend " ecclesiastical conditions which had suffered much (calcata et dissipata are his words) during the last sixty or seventy years. The initiative, then, came from Karlman. A door was opened to Boniface revealing a prospect that might well make him young again.

What was the state of the Church in Austrasia in 742? If we take literally the words of the Letters and the Lives, the Frankish clergy must have been as a rule licentious brawlers and the better among them carousers, hunters, soldiers. Some, in fact, had all these traits. For two centuries conditions in Austrasia had favored neither learning nor cloistered piety. These were times in which national self-preservation had demanded constant wars and repeated conquests calling for the mobilization of all the forces of the state. A quarter, some say a third, of the arable land was Church domain. Karl had not scrupled to buy and to reward military service with the revenues of bishoprics and abbacies. Marriage of the clergy was almost the rule and sees had sometimes passed from father to son,- where both were good soldiers. Of course the dioceses suffered and the parishes no less. In the monasteries and nunneries discipline, never of Benedictine strictness, survived with difficulty or not at all. The common people, neglected by their appointed ministers, lent ready ear to irresponsible preachers, often Scotic monks or their pupils, some honest enthusiasts, some apparently charlatans. Of course there were survivals and revivals of heathen practices. What we have to keep in mind is that most

of these abuses were the inevitable result of political conditions and that, as these grew stable, the civil administration, claiming authority, recognized a corresponding responsibility. It took the initiative in remedying evils, so far as it thought this prudent in the national interest. The measure of success that these efforts met, in spite of the desperate and concerted resistance of those whose license was restrained and still more of those whose financial interests were affected, is evidence that the Karlings had the situation well in hand. The policy of Martel, of Karlman and of Pipin was essentially that of Charlemagne.

Boniface knew what forces he was facing and what were behind him. He sent an earnest, even anxious, appeal to Zacharias for unswerving support. Possibly he had doubts of the steadfastness of Karlman. Then, too, some Frankish clerics were meeting him with alleged dispensations from Rome. Zacharias delayed his reply and left the responsibility with the legate. There was the potentiality of a rebellion of Karlman's half-brother Grifo, aided by his great-uncle Odilo of Bavaria, to be reckoned with, and there are, besides, signs that the curia was disposed to see no more than it must where the support of influential Franks was at stake, a position that finds explanation and excuse in the increasing pressure of Lombard aggression. Primarily the task of Boniface and the aim of Karlman was not to change the relation of the Frankish Church to Rome but to reform it according to catholic canons and give it an efficient organization on Roman lines. The change in organization did indeed result in a change of status but that it necessarily implied this could not yet be clear. Every step that was taken, every decree that was issued was by the will and expressly in the name of the majordomo. In this field it was only in co-operation with the civil power that Boniface had succeeded, or, as he himself had said, could succeed.

Karlman convoked a synod, "to counsel me" he says, in April, 742. It was the first in 80 years in Austrasia. Laymen took part and apparently it was held, as were those that followed, in connection with the annual council of the realm. So far as appears it was Karlman's idea to have a reformed and

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