[36] Sir F. Palgrave (_English Commonwealth_) considers this grant as equivalent to a formal ratification of Clovis' rule in Gaul. Hallam rates its importance lower (_Middle Ages_, note iii. to chap. i.). Taken in connection with the grant of south-eastern Gaul to Theodebert by Justinian, it may fairly be held to shew that the influence of the Empire was still felt in these distant provinces. [37] Even so early as the middle of the fifth century, S. Leo the Great could say to the Roman people, 'Isti (sc. Petrus et Paulus) sunt qui te ad hanc gloriam provexerunt ut gens sancta, populus electus, civitas sacerdotalis et regia, per sacram B. Petri sedem caput orbis effecta latius præsideres religione divina quam dominatione terrena.'--_Sermon on the feast of SS. Peter and Paul._ (Opp. _ap._ Migne tom. i. p. 336.) [38] 'Ius Romanum est adhuc in viridi observantia et eo iure præsumitur quilibet vivere nisi adversum probetur.'--Maranta, quoted by Marquard Freher. CHAPTER IV. RESTORATION OF THE WESTERN EMPIRE. It was towards Rome as their ecclesiastical capital that the thoughts and hopes of the men of the sixth and seventh centuries were constantly directed. Yet not from Rome, feeble and corrupt, nor on the exhausted soil of Italy, was the deliverer to arise. Just when, as we may suppose, the vision of a renewal of imperial authority in the Western provinces was beginning to vanish away, there appeared in the furthest corner of Europe, sprung of a race but lately brought within the pale of civilization, a line of chieftains devoted to the service of the Holy See, and among them one whose power, good fortune, and heroic character pointed him out as worthy of a dignity to which doctrine and tradition had attached a sanctity almost divine. [Sidenote: The Franks.] [Sidenote: A.D. 486.]