Their dread was, evidently, lest the Lombards should become masters of the whole of Italy. A united Italy suited their views then, no more than it does now. Not only did they conceive of Rome as still the centre of the western world, but more, their stock in trade was at Rome. The chains of St. Peter, the sepulchres of St. Peter and St. Paul, the catacombs filled with the bones of innumerable martyrs;--these were their stock in trade. By giving these, selling these, working miracles with these, calling pilgrims from all parts of Christendom to visit these in situ, they kept up their power and their wealth. I do not accuse them of misusing that power and that wealth in those days. They used them, on the contrary, better than power and wealth had been ever used in the world before. But they were dependent on the sanctity attached to a particular spot; and any power, which, like the Lombard, tended to give Italy another centre than Rome, they dreaded and disliked. That Lombard basilica, near Milan, with all its treasures, must have been in their eyes, a formidable rival. Still more frightful must it have been to them to see Astulf, when he encamped before the walls of Rome, searching for martyrs' relics, and carrying them off to Milan. That, as a fact, seems to have been the exciting cause of Stephen's journey to Pepin. This Astulf was a good Catholic. He founded a nunnery, and put his own daughters in it. What could a man do more meritorious in the eyes of the Pope? But he took away the lands of the Church, and worse, the relics, the reserved capital by which the Church purchased lands. This was indeed a crime only to be expiated by the horrors of a Frank invasion.