urchard, bishop of
Wurtzhurg, and Fulrad, abbot of St. Denis, "to consult the Pontiff," says
Eginhard, "on the subject of the kings then existing amongst the Franks,
and who bore only the name of king without enjoying a tittle of royal
authority." The Pope, whom St. Boniface, the great missionary of
Germany, had prepared for the question, answered that "it was better to
give the title of king to him who exercised the sovereign power;" and
next year, in March, 752, in the presence and with the assent of the
general assembly of "leudes" and bishops gathered together at Soissons,
Pepin was proclaimed king of the Franks, and received from the hand of
St. Boniface the sacred anointment. They cut off the hair of the last
Merovingian phantom, Childeric III., and put him away in the monastery of
St. Sithiu, at St. Omer. Two years later, July 28, 754, Pope Stephen
II., having come to France to claim Pepin's support against the Lombards,
after receiving from him assurance of it, "anointed him afresh with the
holy oil in the church of St. Denis to do honor in his person to the
dignity of royalty," and conferred the same honor on the king's two sons,
Charles and Carloman. The new Gallo-Frankish kingship and the Papacy, in
the name of their common faith and common interests, thus contracted an
intimate alliance. The young Charles was hereafter to become
Charlemagne.

The same year, Boniface, whom, six years before, Pope Zachary had made
Archbishop of Mayence, gave up one day the episcopal dignity to his
disciple Lullus, charging him to carry on the different works himself had
commenced amongst the churches of Germany, and to uphold the faith of the
people. "As for me," he added, "I will put myself on my road, for the
time of my passing away approacheth. I have longed for this departure,
and none can turn me from it; wherefore, my son, get all things ready,
and place in the chest with my books the winding-sheet to wrap up my old
body." And so he departed with some of his priests and servants to go
and evangelize the Frisons, the majority of whom were still pagans and
barbarians. He pitched his tent on their territory and was arranging to
celebrate there the Lord's Supper, when a band of natives came down and
rushed upon the archbishop's retinue. The servitors surrounded him, to
defend him and themselves; and a battle began. "Hold, hold, my
children," cried the arch-bishop; "Scripture biddeth us return good for
evil. This