THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CAROLINGIAN DYNASTY OF FRANKISH KINGS
14. Pepin the Short Takes the Title of King (751)
During the seventh and eighth centuries the Merovingian line of
Frankish kings degenerated to a condition of weakness both pitiable
and ridiculous. As the royal family became less worthy, the powers of
government gradually slipped from its hands into those of a series of
ministers commonly known by the title of Mayor of the Palace (_Maior
Domus_). The most illustrious of these uncrowned sovereigns was
Charles Martel, the victor over the Saracens near Poitiers, in whose
time the Frankish throne for four years had no occupant at all. Martel
contrived to make his peculiar office hereditary, and at his death in
741 left it to be filled jointly by his two elder sons, Karlmann and
Pepin the Short. They decided that it would be to their interest to
keep up the show of Merovingian royalty a little longer and in 743
allowed Childeric III. to mount the throne--a weakling destined to be
the last of his family to wear the Frankish crown. Four years later
Karlmann renounced his office and withdrew to the monastery of Monte
Cassino, southeast of Rome, leaving Pepin sole "mayor" and the only
real ruler of the Franks. Before many more years had passed, the utter
uselessness of keeping up a royal line whose members were notoriously
unfit to govern had impressed itself upon the nation to such an extent
that when Pepin proceeded to put young Childeric in a monastery and
take the title of king for himself, nobody offered the slightest
objection. The sanction of the Pope was obtained for the act because
Pepin thought that his course would thus be made to appear less like
an outright usurpation. The Pope's reward came four years later when
Pepin bestowed upon him the lands in northern and central Italy which
eventually constituted, in the main, the so-called States of the
Church. In later times, after the reign of Pepin's famous son
Charlemagne, the new dynasty established by Pepin's elevation to the
throne came to be known as the Carolingian (from _Karolus_, or
Charles).
The following account of the change from the Merovingian to the
Carolingian line is taken from the so-called _Lesser Annals of
Lorsch_. At the monastery of Lorsch, as at nearly every other such
place in the Middle Ages, records or "annals" of one sort or another
were pretty regularly kept. They were often very inaccurate and their
writers had a curious way of filling up space with matters of little
importance, but sometimes, as in the present instance, we can get from
them some very interesting information. The monastery of Lorsch was
about twelve miles distant from Heidelberg, in southern Germany.
Source--_Annales Laurissenses Minores_ ["Lesser Annals of
Lorsch"]. Text in _Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores_
(Pertz ed.), Vol. I., p. 116.
In the year 750[115] of the Lord's incarnation Pepin sent
ambassadors to Rome to Pope Zacharias,[116] to inquire concerning
the kings of the Franks who, though they were of the royal line and
were called kings, had no power in the kingdom, except that
charters and privileges were drawn up in their names. They had
absolutely no kingly authority, but did whatever the Major Domus of
the Franks desired.[117] But on the first day of March in the
Campus Martius,[118] according to ancient custom, gifts were
offered to these kings by the people, and the king himself sat in
the royal seat with the army standing round him and the Major Domus
in his presence, and he commanded on that day whatever was decreed
by the Franks; but on all other days thenceforward he remained
quietly at home. Pope Zacharias, therefore, in the exercise of his
apostolic authority, replied to their inquiry that it seemed to him
better and more expedient that the man who held power in the
kingdom should be called king and be king, rather than he who
falsely bore that name. Therefore the aforesaid pope commanded the
king and people of the Franks that Pepin, who was exercising royal
power, should be called king, and should be established on the
throne. This was therefore done by the anointing of the holy
archbishop Boniface in the city of Soissons. Pepin was proclaimed
king, and Childeric, who was falsely called king, was shaved and
sent into a monastery.
FOOTNOTES:
[115] The date is almost certainly wrong. Pepin was first acknowledged
king by the Frankish nobles assembled at Soissons in November, 751. It
was probably in 751 (possibly 752) that Pope Zacharias was consulted.
In 754 Pepin was crowned king by Pope Stephen III., successor of
Zacharias, who journeyed to France especially for the purpose.
[116] Zacharias was pope from 741 to 752.
[117] Einhard, the secretary of Charlemagne [see p. 108], in writing a
biography of his master, described the condition of Merovingian
kingship as follows: "All the resources and power of the kingdom had
passed into the control of the prefects of the palace, who were called
the 'mayors of the palace,' and who exercised the supreme authority.
Nothing was left to the king. He had to content himself with his royal
title, his flowing locks, and long beard. Seated in a chair of state,
he was wont to display an appearance of power by receiving foreign
ambassadors on their arrival, and, on their departure, giving them, as
if on his own authority, those answers which he had been taught or
commanded to give. Thus, except for his empty title, and an uncertain
allowance for his sustenance, which the prefect of the palace used to
furnish at his pleasure, there was nothing that the king could call
his own, unless it were the income from a single farm, and that a very
small one, where he made his home, and where such servants as were
needful to wait on him constituted his scanty household. When he went
anywhere he traveled in a wagon drawn by a yoke of oxen, with a rustic
oxherd for charioteer. In this manner he proceeded to the palace, and
to the public assemblies of the people held every year for the
dispatch of the business of the kingdom, and he returned home again in
the same sort of state. The administration of the kingdom, and every
matter which had to be undertaken and carried through, both at home
and abroad, was managed by the mayor of the palace."--Einhard, _Vita
Caroli Magni_, Chap. 1.
[118] See p. 52, note 1.