St. Boniface did not confine himself to the evangelization of the
pagans; he labored ardently in the Christian Gallo-Frankish Church to
reform the manners and ecclesiastical discipline, and to assure, while
justifying, the moral influence of the clergy by example as well as
precept. The councils, which had almost fallen into desuetude in Gaul,
became once more frequent and active there: from 742 to 753 there may be
counted seven, presided over by St. Boniface, which exercised within the
Church a salutary action. King Pepin, recognizing the services which the
archbishop of Mayence had rendered him, seconded his reformatory efforts
at one time by giving the support of his royal authority to the canons
of the councils, held often simultaneously with and almost confounded
with the laic assemblies of the Franks; at another by doing justice to
the protests of the churches against the violence and spoliation to
which they were subjected.

"There was an important point," says M. Fauriel, "in respect of which
the position of Charles Martel's sons turned out to be pretty nearly the
same as that of their father: it was touching the necessity of assigning
warriors a portion of the ecclesiastical revenues. But they, being more
religious, perhaps, than Charles Martel, or more impressed with the
importance of humoring the priestly power, were more vexed and more
anxious about the necessity under which they found themselves of
continuing to despoil the churches and of persisting in a system which
was putting the finishing stroke to the ruin of all ecclesiastical
discipline. They were more eager to mitigate the evil and to offer the
Church compensation for their share in this evil to which it was not in
their power to put a stop. Accordingly, at the March parade, held at
Leptines in 743, it was decided, in reference to ecclesiastical lands
applied to the military service: 1st, that the churches having the
ownership of those lands should share the revenue with the lay holder;
2d, that on the death of a warrior in enjoyment of an ecclesiastical
benefice, the benefice should revert to the Church; 3d, that every
benefice, by deprivation whereof any church would be reduced to poverty,
should be at once restored to her.

"That this capitular was carried out, or even capable of being carried
out, is very doubtful; but the less Carloman and Pepin succeeded in
repairing the material losses incurred by the Church since the accession
of the C