The first period of Leoine literature arose in the scholastico-romantic epoch, which extended down to the renaissance, or epoch of enthusiasm for pagan antiquity. The temporal supremacy of this was prepared when Pepin the Younger undertook to defend "the Holy Church of the Republic of God" against the Lombards, and compelled them to evacuate the territory held by the Exarchate. He placed the keys of the conquered towns on the altar of St. Peter, and in this act he laid the foundation of the whole temporal power of the popes. Thenceforward the Gallic archbishops and monarchs received both pallium and crown from Rome, and all great powers were exercised in the West. The Merovingian race of kings had perished, and the Carlovingian house ruled with imperial splendor. While all the East was sinking into one common ruin, and the whole world appeared about to become the prey of the Moslem, the founder of this famous family, Pepin of Heristral caused the civil power to coalesce with ecclesiastical dominion under Gregory the Second, and presented the first effectual resistance to the Mahometan conquerors. The alliance between the pope and the emperor which was thus begun, Charlemagne perfected, and received his reward when, on Christmas-eve, A.D. 800, the diadem of the western empire was laid upon his head by the supreme pontiff in the ancient metropolis. Says Guizot, in his History of Representative Government, "Charlemagne desired conquests, in order to extend his renown and dominion; the Franks were unwilling to be without a share in their own government; Charlemagne held frequent national assemblies, and employed the principal members of the territorial aristocracy as dukes, counts, _missi-dominici_, and in other offices. The clergy were anxious to possess consideration, authority, and wealth. Charlemagne held them in great respect, employed many bishops in the public service, bestowed on them rich endowments, and attached them firmly to him, by proving himself a munificent friend and patron of those studies of which they were almost the only cultivators. In every direction toward which the active and energetic minds of the time turned their attention, Charlemagne was always the first to look; and he proved himself more warlike than the warriors, more careful of the interests of the church than her most devout adherents, a greater friend of literature than the most learned men, always foremost in every career, and thus bringing every thing to a kind of unity, by the single fact that his genius was every where in harmony with his age, because he was its most perfect representative, and that he was capable of ruling it because he was superior to it. But the men who are thus before their age, in every respect, are the only men who can gain followers; Charlemagne's personal superiority was the indispensable condition of the transitory order which he established." This new and wonderful stage of progress in the social relations of