THE FRANKISH EMPIRE AND THE PAPACY. The great German-Gallic kingdom which the Franks had built up in the fifth and sixth centuries was threatened, in the seventh century, with dissolu tion. The royal power was hereditaiy, but all the sons of the King had equal rights of inheri tance. The resulting partitions were indeed temporary; by wars and by murders the realm was repeatedly reunited; but in these struggles the territorial magnates gained increasing in dependence, while the degeneracy of the reigning house diminished its authority. (See MEROVIN GIANS.) The power that was slipping from the 'ands of the Me•ovingians was, however, grasped by new rulers, ArmiIfings or Carolingians (q.v.), who, first as mayors of the palace. later as kings, the royal power, and in the eighth century widened the Frankish kingdom into a European empire. As in the earlier stages of Frankish expansion, the aequisition of new Ro manic territory (Italy and northeastern Spain) was balanced by conquests of other German tribes (Frisians and Saxons). Even more than the Merovingians, the Carolingians identified their dynastic interests with those of the orthodox Christian Church. They carried the Gospel among the heathen Germans with the sword. converting as they conquered. They drove the Arabs back across the Pyrenees (see CHARLES MARTEL and PEPIN THE SHORT under PEPIN), and extended the boundary of Christendom to the river Ebro. Throughout their realms, they sup ready assistance the supreme author ity of the popes in ecclesiastical discipline: and when they interfered to protect him against the Lombards they reeognized him as ruler over a strip of central Italy, reaching from Ravenna to Bone'. and thus laid the basis of the temporal power which the popes held until 1870. (See DoNATtoN OF PEPIN ; PAPAL STATES.)
The sovereignty of the Emperor at nople, which the Roman Pontiffs had theretofore recognized, was from this time denied. (See l'ArAcv.) In return for their services to the Church, the Carolingians received aid from the polies in political DR itters. The l'apacy helped to transform Pepin from mayor of the palace into king (Al).. 75%2), and Charles the Great from King of the Franks and the Lombards into Emperor of the Romans (A.D. SOO ) . The tradi tion of the Roman Empire, the idea that all Christians should be subject to one secular lord, the Emperor, was still a force; and when Charle magne had made himself supreme in the Western Christian world, and the Imperial dignity bad passed at Constantinople to a woman (Irene), it seemed to Western Christendom a natural thing that its ruler should he recognized as the successor of the Roman Caesars. Through the ha rin0Diolls eoiiperation of Church and State, in the empire of Charlemagne, the political, reli gious, and literary influences that had come down from the ancient world were for the last time fo cused; and from the Frankish Empire these in fluences were transmitted, with certain per manent modifications, to the new and separate nations which took its place. Of the new institu tions that took shape in the Frankish Empire the most important was feudalism. Feudalism had many roots, some of them Roman ; but the feudal system obtained its definite legal basis when Charles Martel, in order to meet the Arab horse with Christian cavalry, began to give bene fices on the tenure of knight-service. The knight fees which he created were, to a large extent, carved out of Church lands; and Urns the Church was drawn into the feudal system. See Cl I ARLES