Page:The history of medieval Europe.djvu/235

 THE FRANKISH STATE AND CHARLEMAGNE 195 disturb the hereditary succession in Pepin's family. But Pepin's resort to the Papacy to sanction his taking the crown, and his coronation by a clergyman, furnished a idangerous precedent. Later popes might claim the right to . The pope had reason to cultivate Pepin's friendship, since he found himself in an embarrassing position both as regards the Byzantine emperor and the King of the iconoclasm Lombards. Leo III, emperor from 717 to 740, Byzantine proved a very efficient ruler in the East and re- Empire formed almost every department of the government. But in Italy he caused a revolt and the expulsion of his exarch by new taxes and by his iconoclasm, or prohibition of the use of images and pictures in churches. The former were to be removed or destroyed, the latter to be whitewashed over. A first step in this direction had been taken when the Trullan or Quinisext Council of 688-694 forbade the pic- torial representation of Christ by a lamb. The emperor held that the veneration of images and pictures bordered upon idolatry, and that by abolishing such superstitious reverence he would avoid the sneers and reproaches of Jews and Moslems, and would conciliate the Nestorians, whose churches had little ornamentation, and the Monophy sites, who objected to human likenesses of Christ. The icono- clastic party also felt strongly against the worship of the relics of the saints, and was hostile to the monks. Pope Gregory II had headed the Italian opposition to the increased taxation, and when the decrees against images were published in 726, he called a council which Papal replied by anathematizing all iconoclasts. The opposition to r» • 11 1 1 1 iconoclasm Byzantine emperors seldom showed much pa- tience with prelates who tried to thwart their will. A little later in this same century the Patriarch of Constantinople was deposed and exiled for a year; then brought back and beaten until he could not walk ; then carried into the church of St. Sophia, where a list of the charges made against him was read and he was struck in the face at the conclusion of
 * depose as well as to appoint secular monarchs, and might
 * pose as supreme international arbiters.