Studies in Church History - 1869 Author:Henry Charles Lea Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: enemy, the Saracens, too active and dangerous, to permit the wary Frank to dazzle himself with visions of transalpine conquests, and in return for the keys of St... more ». Peter laid at his feet he returned only flattering words and rich presents.1 Of old the weighty javelin of the Franks had earned for itself the respect of Northern Italy, when the Merovingian chiefs found leisure amid family dissensions for a wild foray across the Alps. The empire of Clovis, so long rendered powerless for foreign aggression by ceaseless civil wars, was now consolidating its forces under the stern and able hands of its Austrasian dukes, and the time soon came when common interests and reciprocal services elevated the aspiring leaders of church and state to the summit of their respective ambitions. When Pepin le Bref, disdaining at length the farce of delegated power under which for two generations his family had ruled the state, sought to unite the dignity with the reality of royalty, he seems to have felt that some unusual solemnity was requisite to consecrate to himself and his children the election which placed a usurper on the Merovingian throne. The facility with which the allegiance sworn to Childeric was transferred to a new suzerain was not reassuring to the founder of an upstart dynasty, and some new sanction was felt to be necessary to guarantee the perpetuation of a new race. Every consideration conspired to lead the pope to gratify the wishes of Pepin. The Lombards were a perpetual menace, and the persuasiveness which had converted King Rachis from a conqueror to a monk could hardly be relied upon as a safe precedent for the future. To bind a new and powerful ally with the strongest ties of gratitude, and to secure for the successor of St. Peter the disposal of thrones and the judgment of t...« less