A History of France - 1867 Author:Markham 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: CHAPTER III. THE CARLOVINGIAN RACE. Years After Chbist, 741—814. tFrom A muuir, now lestroyed, nude by Uo order of Pope Iu 11 j The division of the ki... more »ngdom which Charles had mado between his two sons did not last long. Carloman, iu 747, entered a cloister, and Pepin thus became sole monarch. Pepin, being fearful lest the people should be averse to the total exclusion of the Merovingian family from the throne, gave the title of king to a prince of that race, who is known by the name of Childeric III. But the nominal sovereignty of Childeric was of short duration, for Pepin, finding his own power sufficiently established, obliged him to retire into a monastery, and caused himself to be proclaimed king before an assembly of the nation, held at Soissons. In order to render his person sacred and inviolable, ho first introduced at his coronation tho ceremony of anointing, and this was done with oil from a phial which it was pretended had been sent from heaven for Clevis's baptism. This phial was ever afterwards preserved at Rhcims as a sacred relic, and was always used at tho coronation of the French kings. Pepin was a man of great activity of mind and body, and was much respected by his people, although, from tho smaUncss of his stature, they gave him the surname of Pepin le Bref. About this time there was a religious war in Italy on the subjectof introducing images into churches. The early Christians had permitted them as a means to conciliate their pagan proselytes. At first they were regarded as a help to devotion, but at length they became themselves objects of adoration. A part, however, of the Christian world held this worship of images in abhorrence: they refused to suffer them in their churches; and from their zeal in destroying them, they acquired the name ...« less