| Notes |
- The Mayor of the Merovingian Palace.
King of France 751 - 768
The beginning of the Carolingians. House of Charlemagne, 8th - 10th
Century.
He had much to do; the Saxons, Bavarians, and Arabs were all menacing
or revolting, and he had to rush from one part of the kingdom to the
other, defending its frontiers, and getting no help from the "stupid
sluggard king," at Paris. At last, impatient of the farce, he sent
this question to the Pope: "Who is king, he who governs or he who
wears the crown?" "He who governs, of course," answered the Pope.
"That is myself," said the little man with a great will; "so the
sluggards shall go to sleep forever," and he sent the last of them,
Childeric III., the last of the Merovingians, into a monastery. Then
the nobles put their shields together, and the little man was seated
on a chair, on their shields, and with him thus, "shouting and raising
their shields as high as they could, they marched three times, round
the parliament, and then, by St. Boniface, he was anointed Archbishop
of Metz, A.D. 752. Pepin did not forget that he owed a debt of
gratitude to the Pope for the answer he had given to his question, and
when, shortly after, the Pope sent to complain of the trouble
occasioned by the Lombards, Pepin crossed the Alps, punished the
Lombards, took from them all the territory about Rome and gave it to
the Pope "to belong to him and to the bishops of Rome forever. That
was the beginning of the Papal sovereignty. The States of the Church,
as they were called, remained under the sovereignty of the Popes until
1871." Pepin le Bref, King of France, died in 768. He married Bertha
(Bertrada) of Laon. She died in 783. They had two sons.
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715 - 768 (53 years)