[Sidenote: Importance of Pippin in Europe.] In the last years of his reign Pippin occupied a central place in the affairs of Europe such as no prince had held since the days of Theodoric the Great. Even the Abbaside Caliph of Bagdad sent to solicit his alliance: troubled by the revolt of Spain under the Ommeyad prince Abderahman, he endeavoured to enlist the aid of Pippin for the driving out of the rebel. The Frank wisely allowed the infidels to tear each other to pieces without helping either party. The Eastern emperor Constantine Copronymus sent frequent embassies to Gaul. One was designed to cajole Pippin into restoring the Exarchate to the Byzantine realm. Another brought a proposal for wedding Constantine’s eldest son to Gisela, Pippin’s only daughter. On a third occasion the communication was on religious subjects, the East-Roman envoys being clerics who were to endeavour to interest the Franks in the Iconoclastic controversy, and induce them to join in the destruction of images. The Byzantines held a discussion with some legates of the Pope in Pippin’s presence, but got no assistance from the great king of the West, in whose eyes the dispute was far from having the same importance that it possessed in those of Constantine. [Sidenote: Death of Pippin, 768.] In the fulness of years and honours Pippin passed away on September 24th, 768, at St. Denis near Paris, after a long illness which gave him time to divide the kingdom between his two sons before he died. His character is somewhat difficult to fathom: he possessed all the distinguishing traits of the great men of the house of St. Arnulf, courage, ambition, energy, administrative skill, but showed few special characteristics of his own. It is not easy to detect any ruling passion or foible in his character, but his interference in Italy and his assumption of the royal title show that he lacked the extreme caution of his father. On the other hand his piety is praised by contemporaries not in the half-hearted way in which that of Charles was described, but in the most unqualified terms of laudation. There are indications that he possessed somewhat of that taste for literature which we find so well marked in his son Charles the Great. But it is impossible to draw any complete picture of his personality: even his nickname ‘the Short’ was given him not by his own contemporaries but by the chroniclers of the eleventh century, who speak from tradition and not from knowledge. Our idea of him must be constructed solely from what we know of his life and actions. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER XX CHARLES THE GREAT—EARLY YEARS 768-785—CONQUEST OF LOMBARDY AND SAXONY.