The distractions and the struggles between the lesser kingdoms in Gaul, and also between the nobles and the king, went on for another century. The contest which really settled the matter, for a while, was a battle at Tertry in 687, in which Pepin, Pepin II., as he was called, defeated the king's forces, and took the king prisoner. It was not, however, till the middle of the next century that the line of the Merovingian kings died out. All that while, however, they were practically dominated by Pepin, the victor at Tertry, {87} and when their dynasty came to an end he became king of the Franks, and therewith founded a new dynasty, the Carolingian. [Sidenote: Charles Martel] Pepin came to the throne with powers derived from two sources. His family had held the great office of Mayor of the Palace in one of the subordinate kingdoms for nearly half a century, and he was also descended from a great bishop, Arnulf. Thus he had all the power of the Church on his side. Charles Martel, who succeeded him, gained an important victory over the Saracens at Tours in 732. That is a very notable event in our story, for it pushed back the Moors south of the Pyrenees again, and freed Christian Gaul from their danger. Further, this same Charles (Martel, or the Hammer, as he was called) served the Church of Rome faithfully in Germany, supporting a mission which Bishop Boniface was carrying on for the conversion of some of the still pagan German tribes to Christianity. The Pope, Gregory III., on his accession to the Papal throne, was menaced by the Lombards in the North of Italy and by independent Dukes in the south. He appealed to Charles Martel for assistance. The Lombards, however, had fought with Charles at Tours, to save Christendom from the Saracens, and Charles did not care to take arms against them. But the son of Charles, who succeeded him as Pepin III., seems to have understood how greatly his power would be strengthened if he could claim to be supported by the Church. The authority of the Pope at Rome was becoming every year more powerful; Boniface had now the title of Papal Legate, the Pope's representative, and as such he anointed Pepin III. king of the Franks, in the presence of the great nobles, at the capital city of Soissons. Within two years Pepin had defeated the Lombards and rid the Pope of their menace. He did not take their kingdom, {88} but the territory that he conquered from them he gave to the Papal See. Thus he made the Papacy--that is to say, the successive Popes of Rome--a territorial sovereignty, owning extensive land and much wealth. At the same time he accepted a title, that of "patrician," from the Pope. It was a title which had meant much in the days of ancient Rome. It meant nothing now, except that it was a sign of the close links that bound together the Frankish kingdom and the Papacy. But that in itself meant much, for these were the two most powerful