Adrian made a long but feeble reply to the Caroline Books. The great Frankish Council of Frankfort, in 794, which had the double character of an imperial diet and an ecclesiastical synod, and was presided over by Karl in person, held in strong terms the views of the Caroline Books; indeed, it appears to be far from certain that they were published before the Council was held. Alcuin, though he had not proceeded beyond deacons’ orders, was admitted to the Council on account of his learning. The Council spoke with contempt of the Greek synod; showed no regard to the Roman view; refused both adoration and service of all kinds to images. It was a tremendously independent blow to the Pope as an arbiter of faith and morals. But Karl was much too important a person in the eyes of the Pope to be quarrelled with, and Adrian remained on excellent terms with him. Adrian died in 796, when his successor Leo sent the keys of the Confessio of St. Peter and the standard of the City of Rome to Karl, and begged him to send some of his chief men to Rome, to bind the people of Rome by oath to subjection and fidelity to the Pope. These Caroline Books are so important in their unexpected bearing on the current belief on the nature of the real Presence in the Holy Eucharist, that we must look into their phrases with some little care. In the second book of the four _Libri Carolini_ Karl deals with the question of the adoration of images. In the twenty-seventh chapter he argues against the temerity and absurdity of those who presumed to compare, as of equal importance, images and the Body and Blood of the Lord. He quotes these absurd persons as saying that “as the Body and Blood of the Lord passes across from the fruits of the earth to a remarkable mystery, so images pass across to the veneration of the persons whom they represent”. No one of Karl’s arguments against this parallel or equivalence gives the slightest indication of a belief or idea on his part that in consecration there is a change of substance. He says, “The sacrament of the Body and Blood of the Lord is effected by the hand of the priest and the invocation of the divine name to the commemoration of His passion and to the grant to us of our salvation by the same mediator between God and men”; whereas images are completely made by skilled workmen, &c. For the consecration, the vested priest, mingling the prayers of the people standing round with his own prayers, with groaning of spirit makes memorial of the Lord’s Passion, of His resurrection from the dead, and of His most glorious ascension into Heaven, and entreats that these may be borne to the sublime altar of God by the hands of an angel and into the sight of His Majesty; the painter of images merely looks out a suitable place to execute his works, and paints them that they may look beautiful. Thus any one who attempts to compare on equal terms images and the Body and Blood of the Lord strays