dren,
pronouncing an anathema upon all or any who should ever attempt to
elect a king not of their house. Upon Pepin too he conferred the title
of patrician. Can it be that by this he intended the king of the
Franks to be his executor in the exarchate as the exarch had been the
executor of the emperor?[1] We do not know; but a little later a
document was drawn up in which Pepin declared and enumerated the
territories he was ready to secure for the pope. This document, the
Donation of Pepin, would seem to have confirmed in detail and in
writing the oath he had sworn to the pope at Ponthion. Unhappily the
document has disappeared, and we can only judge of its contents by
what actually happened.

[Footnote 1: The title patrician was not exclusively borne by the
exarch, the Dux Romae, for instance, bore that title in 743.]

The adventure into Italy to which the pope had persuaded Pepin was not
universally popular with the Frankish nobles. We find Pepin attempting
to gain his end by negotiation with Aistulf, but all to no purpose,
and probably in March 755 the Franks set out with the pope at their
head to march into Italy to curb and chastise the Lombard.

The great army of Pepin crossed the Alps by the Mont Cenis, and in
what was little more than a skirmish upon the northern side of the
pass defeated the Lombard army and proceeded to invest Pavia and
ravish the country round about. Aistulf, who was rather an impetuous
than a great soldier, had soon had enough and was ready to entertain
proposals for peace. A treaty was made in which he agreed "to restore"
Ravenna and divers other cities, and to attempt nothing in the future
against Rome and the Holy See. This having been decided, the pope took
leave of Pepin, who returned to France, and went on his way to Rome.

The pope had won and had really established the Holy See as the heir
of the empire; but Aistulf was by no means done with. He forgot alike
his treaty and his promises. "Ever since the day when we parted," the
pope writes to Pepin and the young kings, his sons Charles and
Carloman, "he has striven to put upon us such afflictions and on the
Holy Church of God such insults as the tongue of man cannot
declare.... You have made peace too easily, you have taken no
sufficient security for the fulfilment of the promises you have made
to S. Peter, which you yourselves guaranteed by writing under your
hand and seal...."

But the Franks were deaf. An expedition to crush