ZAClIxVRIAS —PorE

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coe^ed at first by his nephew Hildebrand, whomho had previously associated with himself in thekingdom; but this prince being unacceptable tothe Lombards, they conspired against him, andelected Kachis, duke of Forum Julii (Friuli) astheir king. To him Zachnrias immediately sentan embassy, and obtained from him a confirma-tion of the treaty of peace for twenty years thathad been concluded with Luitprand. Rachis,however, after observing it for four or five years,at length broke it by laying siege to Perusia(Perujui). Zacharias, trusting once more to hispersonal powers of persuasion, at once soughthim there, with a company of clergy and not-ables, and induced him to raise the siege and giveup the city into his hands. He effected stillmore: Rachis proved so amenable to his reli-gious influence that he repaired to Rome, abdi-cated, and became a Benedictine monk in themonastery on Mount Cnssino. His wife and(laughters also accompanied him to Rome, andadopted the monastic life in a convent for nuns,which they themselves founded and endowed inthe neighbourhood of Mount Cassino. Rachiswas succeeded by his brother Aistulph, A.D. 749,to whom Zachnrias immediately sent a legation,and obtained from him a confirmation of thetreaty of peace for twenty years. How littleAistulph afterwards regarded this treaty will beseen under Stephen III. The recorded actionand success of Zacharias in the transactionsabove described show his character as well ashis capabilities in a very favourable light. Hetook prompt and effective measures to meet exi-gencies as they arose, and was ever ready to actpersonally, regardless of trouble or danger.Peculiarly striking was the power of his per-sonal influence over the Lombard kings. It istrue that Luitprand appears to have been a manneither headstrong nor violent, and open to reli-gious influences; he had yielded previously tothe personal remonstrances of Gregory 11. whenoil the point of besieging Rome, and had treatedthat pope also with honour and deference. Butneither the action nor the success of Gregory II.were on a par with those of Zacharias. Theformer had gone in person to the besieger’scamp, when Rome was in immediate danger, andhad succeeded so far as to save the holy city, butno more: — the latter, when not himself inimmediate danger, and in one case when it wasnot the Roman duchy but the emperor’s ex-archate at Ravenna that was threatened, under-took long journeys to the Lombard kings where-ever they might be, and induced them to relin-quish their entire schemes of conquest. Zachariasmust have been a man of great courage, faith,and self-reliance, to make such bold attempts;and there must also have been somethingpeculiarly winning and persuasive in his charac-ter and bearing, over and above the authorityand sacredness of his office, to produce suchresults as these. We may well believe thatAnastasius is not merely indulging his habit oflaudation of popes, when he describes him asnr mitissimus, atque suavis, omnique boni-tate ornatus, tardus ad irascendum, et velox admiserandum, nulli malum pio malo reddens,neque vindictam secundum meritum tribuens,sed pius et misericors a tempore ordiuationissuae omnibus fnctus.” The mention made aboveof sonic of the‘warlike Lombards having been

ZACHARIAS— Pote

moved to tears by the very manner of his say-j ing prayers in church may suggest one elementof his personal influence over them ; and it isfurther significant that Luitprand is said to havebeen not only deeply moved by his pious exhorta-tions in private interviews, but also charmedwith him as a pleasant host, when, gravity laidin due season aside, he was entertained by himat dinner.

The action of Zacharias, so far described, wasof great historical importance. He was themeans of saving the exarchate of Ravenna frombecoming part of the Lombard kingdom ; for itis evident that, but for him, the eastern emperorwould have been powerless to retain it. Notless important, as the sequel shewed, were therelations he maintained with the kingdom of theFranks, his most memorable action in this re-gard being the sanction he gave to the deposi-tion of Childeric, and to Pippin’s consecrationas king. The kings of the Merovingian dvuasty,descended from Clovis, of whom Childeric wasthe last, had become effete puppets in the handsof the mayors of the palace, who were alreadykings de facto , though not dc jure. Such hadbeen notably the great Charles Martel: andsuch was his son Pippin, who, after the retire-ment of his brother Carloman to monastic life(of which hereafter), had become the sole rulerWith the concurrence of the magnates of thekingdom, he conceived the idea of deposing theuseless puppet, and himself assuming the titleand prerogatives of royalty, of which he alreadyexercised the power. But it was considerednecessary, or at any rate desirable, to get fullecclesiastical sanction for the change proposed.Accordingly, an embassy (consisting of Bur-chard, bishop of Wiirzburg, and Fulrad, abbatof St. Denys) was sent to pope Zacharias,to ask him whether it were lawful froma religious point of view. The questionhas been raised among controversialists as towhether this application implied an acknow-ledgment at that period of history of the pope’spower to dispose of earthly kingdoms at hiswill, or whether he was only consulted, as thehighest ecclesiastical authority, on a point ofcasuistry. There is nothing in the recordedterms of the application to support the first ofthese contentions; and possibly, even if Zacha-rias had refused his sanction, the thing wouldhave been done. Still, ihere can be no reason-able doubt that Pippin and his Franks regardedthe pope’s sanction as carrying with it that ofheaven, which they were sincerely anxious toobtain. The Franks, since the conversion ofClovis, had been Catholics in faith, and wereaccustomed to look up to the pope with peculiarreverence, as St. Peter’s representative and thechurch’s head. The recent work of St. Bonifacein the kingdom, bearing as he did the pope’scommission, himself dev.oted in his allegiance tohim, and inculcating everywhere his supremeauthority, would tend to strengthen the hold ofthe Roman see on the consciences of the Franks;and hence it was natural that Pippin, a devoutbeliever in the religion he had been taught,should shrink from his contemplated stej) tillhe had been assured from Rome itself that hemight take it without danger to his soul. Suchappears to have been the meaning and purposeof the transaction. Eginhard, indeed (I7f. Card*