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well organized Church in Austrasia of which he, rather than the legate, should be head. It was to re-establish old rules and institutions that had fallen into abeyance that the synod was called. Bavarian and Alamanian bishops (except possibly Pirmin's pupil Heddo of Strassburg) and some of the grosser offenders such as Milo of Treves and Gewilib of Mayence were conspicuous by absence. So there was little opposition to radical action. This Karlman embodied in a series of edicts on parochial subordination, heathen practices, celibacy, the Benedictine Rule and other matters. He also constituted Boniface (missus S. Petri) as metropolitan, though of the relation of the Austrasian Church to the curia there is not a word. Boniface presided at the synod by Karlman's appointment, not as legate, and it is to be noted that Karlman never recognized Boniface as archbishop by any other appointment than his own. He claimed the Thuringian appointments as his also. The decrees authorize the bishops to call on civil officers to enforce discipline. They forbid foreign bishops or priests to act without examination and approval by the synod. A declaration is made that alienated (fraudatas) church estates have been restored. Just what this means has been matter of much controversy, for elsewhere provision is made for the retention of Church property by those to whom it has been granted “in time of war and persecution " on payment of a fair annual rent. The subject often recurred but full restitution was impracticable. It was undesirable even from an enlightened ecclesiastical point of view and was in fact never made. There is no record that the pope was informed of the synod officially. It had not been called according to his instructions. Its immediate effect was to strengthen the Frankish Church, not the Roman. Five vacant sees were filled, yet the decrees met with great resistance, ecclesiastical and popular, as Boniface sadly notes in letters to English friends, and Karlman's half-brother Grifo sought to make them an occasion of civil war. Karlman knew what measure of reform the country would support and kept the movement within narrower bounds than Boniface hoped, yet much scope was left him, and, though Karlman was preoccupied with war, the legate, backed by the

civil arm, accomplished much good, though not without great vexation from "false priests and hypocrites," as appears from the letters.

In 743 a second synod, also with laymen, emphasized and extended the disciplinary provisions of 742 and prudently relaxed those about restoring Church property. Here the State shows great regard for the Church but guards jealously its overlordship and asserts the right to resume what it grants in case of need at its discretion. Again there is no mention of the curia, which had chosen this time to enter into the plans of Odilo of Bavaria against the Karlings. The pope, acquiescing in Odilo's plan for an independent Bavarian Church, had, it was claimed, ordained a Bavarian bishop and had sent a certain Sergius as legate there. This legate presently commanded Karlman, in the name of the pope, to keep the peace, but without effect on the campaign which ended in Odilo's complete subjugation. The affair might well have led to a break between Pipin, then sole majordomo, and the curia, but each still needed the other and the pope disavowed Sergius as he did also the Bavarian bishop. It is certain, however, that these synods changed nothing in the relation, whatever it had been, between Rome and the Frankish Church. Boniface was not altogether satisfied, but, two years later, the pope writes to him that he should rejoice to have recovered so much Church revenue as he had done. From a letter of 751, however, it appears that it had been easier to get the tax voted than it was to collect it.

In discipline the struggle now came to a head around a Scot, Clemens, whom Boniface thought a heretic and who proved so rebellious to discipline that he was presently deposed and imprisoned. A vast deal has been conjectured of him, but hardly anything is known, except ex parte through his very zealous and embittered opponent.

Pipin, Karlman's far-sighted brother, administrator of the Neustrian part of the kingdom, now saw in the effect of the Austrasian synods much promise of direct good and also of service to his still concealed designs on the Merwing throne. He invited Boniface to consecrate in the summer of 743 three arch

bishops for Neustria. The pope was asked by the Karlings and Boniface for three pallia, yet not, it would seem, for a confirmation of the synod's choice, as Zacharias in his answer assumes. Then came an unexplained change of plan. Only one pallium was wanted and that not eagerly. It was for Grimo of Rouen who did not feel he needed it. Abel of Rheims and Hartbert of Sens demurred, it would seem, at the cost or had, perhaps, in some way forfeited the support of Pipin. Neither Rouen nor Rheims remained metropolitan. We find the pope indignantly deprecating charges of simony that Boniface had communicated to him. No pallia were received and the archbishops acted without them. This disturbed Zacharias on account of the precedent. He repeatedly recurs to the matter in letters urging Boniface to persuade the archbishops to take them, but up to 751 they had not done so. That the pope was vexed with the legate and he with the curia is plain. It is also plain that Pipin was not eager for the metropolitan system. He regarded himself as administrative head of the Church in his realm, even to the extent of imposing on bishops and abbots civic duties and functions.

Pipin also invited Boniface to aid with his counsel at a synod, summoned in connection with the annual council at Soissons, March, 744. It is doubtful if Boniface was present or that he ever acted officially in Neustria. Twenty-three bishops joined in the synod's acts which extended beyond the distinctively religious sphere to such matters as fixing standard weights and measures for the markets. The decrees were similar to the Austrasian except that much more attention was given to the reform of social conditions. In regard to military service it was provided that holders of benefices, though themselves exempt, should furnish soldiers from their vassals.

The synod apparently affected much good, but, as in Austrasia, there was strong popular resistance to change, centering around a certain Adalbert, a Frank, who takes here much the same place that Clemens had in Karlman's region. A vast deal has been written of him, now as a holy prophet, now as a deliberate charlatan. He was, probably, a self-deceiver, a neurotic enthusiast.

The synod condemned him and he was for a time imprisoned, but the populace, abetted no doubt by those whose private interests had been affected by the synodal decrees, showed such a threatening front that he was freed, possibly by force, and Boniface in 745 appealed for support and counsel to Rome. The pope welcomed the occasion to act as judge of final appeal and, to emphasize the significance of his action, called a synod which with much ceremonial deposed, unheard and undefended, both Adalbert and Clemens from their ministry, excommunicated Clemens and threatened Adalbert with excommunication. The pope thought this would be welcome news to Boniface, but we are expressly told that it was a surprise, perhaps no pleasant one. Certainly it did not make his position easier with Pipin, who preferred to conduct his own negotiations, especially those with the curia. Echoes of the papal condemnation were too faint to be heard in Neustria, where we find both Adalbert and Clemens so far active in 746 that Zacharias advises Boniface to bring the matter once more before a local council. He added that if the disturbers proved recalcitrant they might be sent to Rome for judgment, but that would hardly have met the views of Pipin. Nothing came of it. Of Clemens we lose sight; Adalbert, his enemies said, was some time later killed, as a fugitive, by swineherds, but for centuries he was held among the people in wondering memory. The records in this case are of peculiar interest. They afford an unusually clear example of how in curial diplomacy persistent assumption of initiative and command, in quarters where these would not have been formally admitted, prepared the way in the fulness of time for actual recognition. In Hildebrand's day these records were read in a light quite different from that in which they appeared to contemporaries. The immediate effect of the synods was to strengthen the national Church and the social order. Ultimately they became a very important factor in strengthening papal authority, but that belongs to the story of quite other rulers and churchmen than Boniface, Zacharias or Pipin.

After the Neustrian synod Boniface went to Fulda to lay the foundations of a cloister that he designed for his old age and

final resting place. Much of this year was spent in a general visitation of churches in Thuringia and in Bavaria where he was not altogether welcome. His jurisdiction was called in question, and sustained by the pope on his appeal. The next year saw the summoning of the first general Frankish synod jointly by Pipin and Karlman. Boniface presided and was warmly congratulated by the pope on the results, which tended to unify and strengthen discipline and to facilitate its enforcement even in the case of so energetic and powerful a man as Bishop Gewilib of Mayence, whose warlike deeds were later to find epic commemoration. For a moment Gewielib contemplated an appeal to Rome but was, it would seem, persuaded to resign his see and lived for fourteen years in honorable retirement. But opposition was by no means dead or disorganized. It was even able to make head against the plan to give Boniface Cologne as his archiepiscopal see. The pope, at the majordomo's request, had given formal assent, but, possibly after Karlman's retirement, Pipin changed his mind. Cologne was given to one Agilolf. The name is that of the Bavarian ducal family and the appointment may well have had a political motive. Boniface, under what conditions is not clear, took in 748, evidently at Pipin's behest, the distinctively Frankish Mayence as his archiepiscopal, though not metropolitan see. This is the climax of Boniface's career. A septuagenarian he takes his place in the hierarchical order he had himself brought into being, an archbishop among archbishops, an aging man, looking steadfastly but not without longing for the end. Each year he now spent much time at Fulda for which he got a special papal charter of exemption from all but papal control, if, indeed, the document, purporting to be of 751, is unaltered and genuine. Such grants were not uncommon in Italy and England but there had been none such till then in the Frank kingdom. Pipin did not approve the grant till 753, when the concession was a makeweight in his larger statecraft.

As he had strength Boniface continued to travel in the interest of reform and so fell into an unfortunate controversy with Sidonius of Passau and a Scot, Virgilius of Salzburg, who seems to have been Pipin's unofficial representative in Bavaria since

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