Pepin the Short, the son of the famous Charles Martel,
who succeeded his father as Master of the Palace, hardly
knew how to handle the situation. His royal master was a
devout theologian, without any interest in politics. Pepin
asked the Pope for advice. The Pope who was a practical
person answered that the ``power in the state belonged to him
who was actually possessed of it.'' Pepin took the hint. He
persuaded Childeric, the last of the Merovingians to become
a monk and then made himself king with the approval of the
other Germanic chieftains. But this did not satisfy the shrewd
Pepin. He wanted to be something more than a barbarian
chieftain. He staged an elaborate ceremony at which Boniface,
the great missionary of the European northwest, anointed
him and made him a ``King by the grace of God.'' It was
easy to slip those words, ``Del gratia,'' into the coronation
service. It took almost fifteen hundred years to get them out
again.
Pepin was sincerely grateful for this kindness on the part
of the church. He made two expeditions to Italy to defend
the Pope against his enemies. He took Ravenna and several
other cities away from the Longobards and presented them
to His Holiness, who incorporated these new domains into
the so-called Papal State, which remained an independent
country until half a century ago.
After Pepin's death, the relations between Rome and Aix-
la-Chapelle or Nymwegen or Ingelheim, (the Frankish Kings
did not have one official residence, but travelled from place to
place with all their ministers and court officers,) became more
and more cordial.
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