General Notes

Pepin (Pippin) II., the Short, King of France from 752 to 768, born in 714, died in 768. He had much to do; the
          Saxons, Bavarians, and Arabs were all menacing or revolting, and he had to rush from one part of the kingdom to the
          other, defending its frontiers, and getting no help from the "stupid sluggard king," at Paris. At last, impatient of the
          farce, he sent this question to the Pope: "Who is king, he who governs or he who wears the crown?" "He who governs, of
          course," answered the Pope. "That is myself," said the little man with a great will; "so the sluggards shall go to sleep
          forever," and he sent the last of them, Childeric III., the last of the Merovingians, into a monastery. Then the nobles put
          their shields together, and the little man was seated on a chair, on their shields, and with him thus, "shouting and
          raising their shields as high as they could, they marched three times, round the parliament, and then, by St. Boniface,
          he was anointed Archbishop of Metz, A.D. 752. Pepin did not forget that he owed a debt of gratitude to the Pope for
          the answer he had given to his question, and when, shortly after, the Pope sent to complain of the trouble occasioned
          by the Lombards, Pepin crossed the Alps, punished the Lombards, took from them all the territory about Rome and
          gave it to the Pope "to belong to him and to the bishops of Rome forever. That was the beginning of the Papal
          sovereignty. The States of the Church, as they were called, remained under the sovereignty of the Popes until 1871."
          Pepin le Bref, King of France, died in 768. He married Bertha (Bertrada) of Laon. She died in 783.