Chlodvig, the founder of the Merovingian line of kings, was not a ruler of the type of Theodoric the Ostrogoth. In contrast with the Teutonic kingdoms of Italy and Spain, the Merovingian showed a stubborn conservatism. After Chlodvig’s death there was no man of first-rate ability during the period of Merovingian rule with the dubious exception of Dagobert. These were long years of division, lawlessness, and bloodshed. The Franks kept possession of their conquests, but the royal line produced a succession of weak and helpless rulers who showed themselves incapable of casting aside the traditions of tribal rule. The demand for centralization was recognized and met by the representatives of the noble family of Heristal who, because they were landlords over wide estates, became, as mayors of the palace, _de facto_ possessors of sovereign authority. To them the Frankish chieftains throughout the land looked for leadership, and did not look in vain, for their efficient statesmanship soon arrested the disintegrating tendencies of Merovingian rule, and gave their people such an amount of cohesive strength that they became the foremost representatives of Teutonic power in Western Europe. It was the House of Heristal which saved the Franks from the fate of the Visigoths, for it was Charles the Hammer who met the Moslem host on the field of Poictiers and swept them back across the Pyrenees. Charles’ son, Pippin, carried on the work of his father; he was strong, courageous, and cautious, a thorough type of the opportunist statesman, willing so far as he was concerned to control his people under the title of Mayor of the Palace, while the titular dignity of king was kept intact in the Merovingian family. The bloodless revolution which made Pippin a monarch _de jure_ from a ruler _de facto_, was due to outside pressure, and this pressure came from the See of Rome, which appealed to him for help as the representative and most powerful Catholic leader in Western Europe after the Emperors at Constantinople had alienated the population in Italy by the part they played in the Iconoclastic controversy. The Popes of the eighth century, seeing the inability of the Eastern Empire to protect its Italian possessions, and unwilling to give them support against the aggressions of the Lombards, were face to face with a difficult problem. They did not wish to be absorbed in the Lombard kingdom, and were just as much afraid of seeing any restoration of power to the hands of the Emperor’s representative, the Exarch of Ravenna.