led the _major domus_ of
the Franks, that they did?" Zacharias answered as a wise man would,
that he who had the power should bear the name. And so, blessed by the
great missionary S. Boniface, Pippin was "heaved" on the shield, and
became king of the Franks, and Childerich, the last of the Merwings,
went to a distant monastery to end his days.

[Sidenote: The end of the Imperial power in Italy.]

But this was only a beginning. The pope was threatened by the
barbarians, neglected by the emperors who reigned at Constantinople,
and at last was in actual conflict with those who tried to impose
Iconoclasm upon the Church. In 751 the exarchate, the representation
of the Imperial power in Italy, with its seat at Ravenna, was
overwhelmed by the {148} arms of Aistulf, the Lombard king. The time
had come, thought Pope Stephen II. (752-7), when the distant
barbarians, now orthodox, should be called to save the patrimony of S.
Peter from the barbarians near at hand. In S. Peter's name letters
summoned Pippin to the rescue of the church especially dear to the
Franks.[1] But before this Stephen had made Pippin his friend. In 753
he left Rome and failing to win from Aistulf any concession to the
Imperial power made his way across the Alps, and on the Feast of the
Epiphany, 754, met in their own land Pippin and his son who was to be
Charles the Great. The pope fell at the king's feet and besought him
by the mercies of God to save the Romans from the hands of the
Lombards. Then Pippin and all his lords held up their hands in sign of
welcome and support. Then Stephen on July 28, 754, in the great
monastery which was to become the crowning-place of Frankish kings,
anointed Pippin and his sons Charles and Carloman as king of the Franks
and kings in succession.

[Sidenote: The crowning of Pippin.]

A point of special interest in this event is the title given to Pippin
at his crowning at Saint Denis. The title of Patrician of the Romans
was given by the pope, as commissioned by the emperor, "to act against
the king of the Lombards for the recovery of the lost lands of the
Empire." Pippin was made the officer of the distant emperor, and the
pope would say as little as possible about the rights of him who ruled
in Constantinople, and as much as he could about the Church which ruled
in Rome. It was a step in the assertion of {149} political rights for
the Roman Church. A new order of things was springing up in Italy.
The po