CHAPTER V.

DEATH OF CHARLES MARTEL. CONDITION OF THE FRENCH MONARCHY. SYNODS UNDER CARLOMANN: HIS ABDICATION. POPE STEPHEN AT THE COURT OF PEPIN.

A.D. 741-A.D. 752.

"Sapientiam ejus narrabunt gentes, et laudem ejus annuntiabit Ecclesia."

AFTER a pontificate of ten years, S. Gregory III. departed to his rest, and was succeeded by Zacharias. The same year also closed the earthly life of the great hero of the battle of Tours. Charles Martel died on the 22nd of October, 741, leaving behind him a name memorable even amongst those of the few whose actions have been turning points in the world's history. Ten years before, and all Europe trembled at the dark cloud which, at first rising gloomily above the horizon, spread darkness and desolation in every quarter. The sword of the Saracen swept down with merciless fury every living thing that crossed its path; great part of Southern Europe had bowed down beneath the yoke of the infidel; and the resistless host of Abderahman rolled on like a whirlwind over the plain of France, vowed to carry the empire of the Moslem to the barren shores of the Baltic Sea. We can scarcely realise to our own minds that the plains of Tours and Poictiers, memorable again in later

English history, had witnessed the encampment of the unbelievers, that the white tents of the followers of Mohammed gleamed, like portents telling of woe and death, in the midst of that land which in but a little while was to be the realm of Charlemagne. On swept that terrible scourge, while slowly in the north the host was gathering together which, though but as one to a thousand, should crush the pride that had hitherto known neither check nor hindrance. For six days the two armies, on which rested, as men might think, the destinies of Christendom, prepared themselves in sight of each other for the dreaded yet inevitable conflict; and when at length the din of war broke upon that awful pause, it seemed as though the Christian armies must yield before the myriads of the Saracen. But never battle-field more witnessed to the truth that the victory is not always for the strong; and when the clouds of conflict rolled away, the Moslem hordes cumbered the ground whereon they thought to blast the final hopes of the Nazarene. Great indeed, beyond words to tell of, was the work accomplished, and in it the finger of GOD was manifested. It was a day of thanksgiving and joyfulness, with sorrow and mourning mingled, for thousands were weeping for the dead who had fallen in that fearful fight, which delivered Europe for ever from the dread of Mohammedan conquest. But the sorrow was swallowed up in joy, as prince and peasant, rich and poor, old and young, joined in the exulting Te Deum that echoed through every Church because now the enemies of GOD were smitten, and the Churches of CHRIST delivered from the fear of them. But not only is the name of Charles

Martel known as the leader of the Franks on that memorable day, but by him also was raised up in France a real and a powerful empire on the crumbling ruins of an effete and expiring dynasty. The Merovingian family had long since lost the power, and by the son of the victor of Tours they were to be deprived of the empty name of kings. It was now nearly three centuries since the great body of the Franks, led by Meroveus (or Merewig) into Belgic Gaul, had been consolidated into one kingdom by the victory of his grandson Clovis over Syagrius, count or chief of the Soissonois, A.D. 485. But the empire founded by that successful warrior (great as it was in extent of territory, spreading from the Rhine to the Pyrenees, and from the Alps to the ocean) was not of a nature likely to be very lasting. His own vast dominion was subdivided among his four sons; and the remaining reigns of that dynasty were little more than a struggle between the two divisions of the empire, Neustria and Austrasia, which had its origin in the lifetime of the sons of Clovis, and ended only when the Austrasians under Charlemagne poured in a fresh stream of life and vigour among the already degenerate Franks of Neustria. But apart from these factions, the Merovingian race contained within itself the elements of its destruction. Treachery and murder seem to have found in it a kindred soil to flourish in. The accession of each successive monarch involved the slaughter of all the nearest of kin; so that the ties of consanguinity, instead of being bonds of affection, became the cause of constant peril and terror; and the inevitable consequence of these fearful tragedies was the

frequent reign of monarchs who were mere children, while the real power was exercised by regents, who found it not very difficult, by pampering the appetites and passions of these miserable princes, to produce in them an imbecility and incapacity for government which should secure to themselves a continuance of their authority. This deputed power fell into the hands of the only magistrate existing in that rude age, the major domus, or Morddom, who combined the office of judge with the stewardship of the palace; nor was it long before this office, which was hereditary, grew to be more formidable than the sovereignty itself. Thus the office of major domus, and with it the real power of the empire, descended at the death of Pepin d'Heristal, in 714, to his grandson, Theodobald, then a child only eight years old; but this strange condition of things was summarily set aside by his natural son Charles Martel, so called as being the hammer which smote the power of the Caliphs in northern Europe. Having exercised the supreme power for a period of nearly thirty years, he left his authority to his sons Carlomann and Pepin conjointly, and for six years they continued to govern the kingdom together.

To S. Boniface these princes accorded even more than the friendship and protection which he had experienced from their father; and under their rule he presided over five synodical councils, the decrees of which,

1 The decrees of neither the fourth nor fifth council appear to be extant three only are recorded as having been held amongst the new councils under Carlomann.-Acta Sanctorum (Bolland.): Junii 1, 470.

aimed chiefly at reforming the condition of both clergy and laity. The latter had become much given to concubinage; many of the former too had contracted marriages, which he at once dissolved; while the laity were compelled either to break off their unlawful connexions, or to enter into the married state.

As regards the former question, it would be out of place here to enter into any lengthened disquisition. In this case, as in another which we shall presently have to notice, it must be remembered that the members of any given body, voluntarily entering it, must be subject to the discipline which it enjoins; and we may not therefore speak of men, in whose option it was to refrain from entering holy orders, as harshly or oppressively dealt with because prohibited from contracting marriage. The restriction has never stood on any other grounds than those of discipline and expediency ;2 for it would be impossible to prove that the married state was essentially incompatible with the priesthood. But it would seem almost as difficult to maintain that it is not in the power of a Church to debar her clergy, who only voluntarily become so, from entering a condition of life which, although lawful, she holds to be not expedient for them. And such was no doubt the mind of the Church from very early ages, although her general and final decision was reserved for the pontificate of Hildebrand. There can be little question that in countries circumstanced as then were Frisia, Thuringia, and Bavaria, it would be next to hopeless to carry on the work of evange1 Life by Willibald, III. 43.

2 See Alban Bulter in S. Paphnutius. September 11.