General Notes

Name Prefix:<NPFX> Duke
(her´Istel pep´In) (Pepin II) , d. 714, mayor of the palac
e (680-714) of the Frankish territory of Austrasia ; grands
on of Pepin of Landen and father of Charles Martel . Afte
r defeating the nobles of Neustria at the battle of Tertr
y (687), Pepin made himself mayor, or ruler, of all the Fra
nkish kingdoms except Aquitaine, with the Merovingian dynas
ty retaining the nominal kingship. He defeated the Frisians
, the Alemanni, and the Bavarians and established a stron
g government, thus laying the foundation for the empire o
f his descendants, the Carolingian mayors and kings. 
Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition, Copyright (c) 2004.
(Research):He is regarded as the the Founder of the Carolin
gian Line. He was the Duke of Austrasia ,
Pepin (Pippin) II., the Short, King of France from 752 to 7
68, 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 th
e "stupid sluggard king," at Paris. At last, impatient of t
he
farce, he sent this question to the Pope: "Who is king, h
e who governs or he who wears the crown?" "He who governs
, of
course," answered the Pope. "That is myself," said the litt
le man with a great will; "so the sluggards shall go to sle
ep
forever," and he sent the last of them, Childeric III., th
e last of the Merovingians, into a monastery. Then the nobl
es put
their shields together, and the little man was seated o
n a chair, on their shields, and with him thus, "shouting a
nd
raising their shields as high as they could, they marched t
hree times, round the parliament, and then, by St. Boniface,
he was anointed Archbishop of Metz, A.D. 752. Pepin did no
t forget that he owed a debt of gratitude to the Pope for
the answer he had given to his question, and when, shortl
y after, the Pope sent to complain of the trouble occasioned
by the Lombards, Pepin crossed the Alps, punished the Lomba
rds, took from them all the territory about Rome and
gave it to the Pope "to belong to him and to the bishops o
f 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 Bert
ha (Bertrada) of Laon. She died in 783.