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By Root 3287 0

both emperor and pope; their mutual dependence was galling to both, but for centuries inescapable. There was constant friction, with advantage now to one side, now to the other. At last, in the thirteenth century, the conflict became irreconcilable. The Pope was victorious, but lost moral authority shortly afterwards. The Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor both survived, the Pope to the present day, the Emperor to the time of Napoleon. But the elaborate medieval theory that had been built up concerning their respective powers ceased to be effective during the fifteenth century. The unity of Christendom, which it maintained, was destroyed by the power of the French, Spanish, and English monarchies in the secular sphere, and by the Reformation in the sphere of religion.

The character of Charles the Great and his entourage is thus summed up by Dr Gerhard Seeliger:2

Vigorous life was developed at Charles's court. We see there magnificence and genius, but immorality also. For Charles was not particular about the people he drew round him. He himself was no model, and he suffered the greatest licence in those whom he liked and found useful. As 'Holy Emperor' he was addressed, though his life exhibited little holiness. He is so addressed by Alcuin, who also praises the Emperor's beautiful daughter Rotrud as distinguished for her virtues in spite of her having borne a son to Count Roderic of Maine, though not his wife. Charles would not be separated from his daughters, he would not allow their marriage, and he was therefore obliged to accept the consequences. The other daughter, Bertha, also had two sons by the pious Abbot Angilbert of St Riquier. In fact the court of Charles was a centre of very loose life.

Charlemagne was a vigorous barbarian, politically in alliance with the Church, but not unduly burdened with personal piety. He could not read or write, but he inaugurated a literary renaissance. He was dissolute in his life, and unduly fond of his daughters, but he did all in his power to promote holy living among his subjects. He, like his father Pepin, made skilful use of the

zeal of missionaries to promote his influence in Germany, but he saw to it that Popes obeyed his orders. They did this the more willingly, because Rome had become a barbarous city, in which the person of the Pope was not safe without external protection, and papal elections had degenerated into disorderly faction fights. In 799, local enemies seized the Pope, imprisoned him, and threatened to blind him. During Charles's lifetime, it seemed as if a new order would be inaugurated; but after his death little survived except a theory.

The gains of the Church, and more particularly of the papacy, were more solid than those of the Western Empire. England had been converted by a monastic mission under the orders of Gregory the Great, and remained much more subject to Rome than were the countries with bishops accustomed to local autonomy. The conversion of Germany was largely the work of St Boniface (680–754), an English missionary, who was a friend of Charles Martel and Pepin, and completely faithful to the Pope. Boniface founded many monasteries in Germany; his friend St Gall founded the Swiss monastery which bears his name. According to some authorities, Boniface appointed Pepin as king with a ritual taken from the First Book of Kings.

St Boniface was a native of Devonshire, educated at Exeter and Winchester. He went to Frisia in 716, but soon had to return. In 717 he went to Rome, and in 719 Pope Gregory II sent him to Germany to convert the Germans and to combat the influence of the Irish missionaries (who, it will be remembered, erred as to the date of Easter and the shape of the tonsure). After considerable successes, he returned to Rome in 722, where he was made bishop by Gregory II, to whom he took an oath of obedience. The Pope gave him a letter to Charles Martel, and charged him to suppress heresy in addition to converting the heathen. In 732 he became archbishop; in 738 he visited Rome a third time. In 741 Pope Zacharias made him legate, and charged