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146 effective power over this Church, except perhaps in the province of Arles. Reading the work of Gregory of Tours, which is so full of life and reflects so exactly the passions and ideas of the time, we do not find that the Pope plays any part in the narrative. The bishops are appointed without his intervention and they govern their churches without entering into relations with him. At the end of the sixth century, as we saw earlier, Gregory the Great maintained an active correspondence with Brunhild. He gives her advice, and his advice was, without doubt, listened to with respect. The pope takes no direct action, but he urges the queen to act. It is not difficult to see however that he was quite ready to supersede Brunhild in the task of directing the Frankish Church; he would like to make Candidus, who was the administrator of the papal patrimony in Provence, a kind of legate beyond the Alps. There can be no doubt that Gregory I, had he lived, would have succeeded by his able policy in re-establishing in Gaul the papal authority as it had been exercised by Leo I before the fall of the Empire. But after the death of Gregory in 604 relations between Rome and the Franks became very rare for more than a century. There are only one or two instances of such relations to which we can point. Pope Martin I (649-655), for example, requested the sons of Dagobert to assemble councils in order to combat the Monothelete heresy, which was supported by the Byzantine Emperors. Relations were not effectively resumed until the eighth century, but they were then to have an immense influence upon general history.

We have already seen how, in their opposition to the Emperors of Constantinople, the popes sought the aid of the Mayors of the Palace, and how this alliance was concluded. We have also noticed, in passing, how Boniface brought under the authority of the Holy See the Germanic races whom he converted to the Christian faith. But, besides this, with the aid of Carloman and Pepin (after 739), Boniface accomplished another task. After the death of Dagobert the Frankish Church had fallen into profound decadence, and Charles Martel had sunk it still lower by conferring bishoprics and abbeys on rude and ignorant laymen. These bishops and abbots never wore clerical vestments, but always sword and baldric. They dissipated the property of the Church and sought to bequeath their offices to their bastards. For eighty years no council was called. Every vestige of education and civilisation was in danger of being swamped. A complete reform of the Church was necessary in the interests of society itself. To Carloman and Pepin belongs the merit of having perceived this, and they entrusted this great work to Boniface. Once more a series of councils was held, in the dominions of Carloman as well as in those of Pepin; there was even a general council of the whole kingdom in March 745 at Estinnes in Hainault. The ecclesiastical hierarchy was restored, measures were taken against priests of scandalous life; the clergy were encouraged to