In the time of Charles Martel, several kings became monks. An English monk named Winfrid had been sent by the Pope and Charles Martel to preach to the Saxons. After persuading thousands of the people to be baptized, this monk was made bishop and then archbishop. But he thought more of converting the heathen than of wearing honors, and leaving his bishopric to another, he went forth into a wild part of the country to preach Christianity. When a large number of people had assembled to be baptized, an armed force of the heathen attacked them, killing Winfrid and all the Christian people. This good monk is called also St. Boniface. After the death of Charles Martel his two sons ruled for six years together, and then one of them went into a monastery, leaving the younger, Pepin, who now became the only duke of the Franks. The people began to think it absurd to have a useless set of lazy, do-nothing, Merovingian, or long-haired kings, who were only puppets in the hands of the reigning duke. So Pepin, also called Le Bref, or the Short, asked the Pope to make him king, instead of the figure-head who sat upon the throne, who at that time bore the name of Hilperik. The answer of the Pope was, “He who has the power ought also to have the name of king.” [Illustration: CHARLEMAGNE.] As the Pope had thus consented to the change, all the Franks were delighted, and they took the useless king from his throne, cut off his long yellow hair, which was his sign of royalty, and shut him up in a monastery. He died two years afterwards, and was the last of the Merovingian kings. Pepin was now crowned by St. Boniface, as this event preceded the death of that king, and thus he became the first of the Carlovingian kings, so called from Carolus, the Latin for Charles, which was the name of Pepin’s father, and his still greater son. Pepin now aided the Pope by marching into Italy and fighting the Lombards; and having conquered them, he took their lands and gave them to the Pope, which property afterwards descended from one pope to another, so that the popes at last became masters of quite a kingdom in Italy. Pepin also besieged a town in Southern Gaul, belonging to the Arabs, and after seven years captured it, and drove the Arabs over the Pyrenees, into Spain. He reigned for sixteen years, and dying left his kingdom to his two sons Karl and Karloman, who divided it between them; but Karloman lived but three years, when Karl became the king of France. While his Austrasian subjects, who spoke German, called him Karl, the Neustrians, whose language was a mingling of the Latin and the German, which has since become the French language, called him Charles; and after he became so famous, the Latin word _magnus_, meaning great, was added, and Charles-Magnus thus became the Charlemagne of history.