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His descendants, the Merovingians, had continued to take little bits of imperial territory until the year 486 when king Clovis (the old French word for"Louis") felt himself strong enough to beat the Romans in the open. But his descendants were weak men who left the affairs of state to their Prime minister, the "Major Domus" or Master of the Palace.
他的子孫建立起墨羅溫王朝，并一點一滴地蠶食羅馬帝國的領土。到公元486年，國王克洛維斯（古法語中的"路易"）自覺已經積累了足夠的實力，可以公開向羅馬人叫陣了。不過他的子孫都是些懦弱無能之輩，把國事全部委托給首相，即所謂的"宮廷管家"。
Pepin the Short, the son of the famous Charles Martel, who succeeded his father as Master of the Palace, hardly knew how to handle the situation. His royal master was a devout theologian, without any interest in politics. Pepin asked the Pope for advice. The Pope who was a practical person answered that the "power in the state belonged to him who was actually possessed of it." Pepin took the hint. He persuaded Childeric, the last of the Merovingians to become a monk and then made himself king with the approval of the other Germanic chieftains. But this did not satisfy the shrewd Pepin. He wanted to be something more than a barbarian chieftain. He staged an elaborate ceremony at which Boniface, the great missionary of the European northwest, anointed him and made him a "King by the grace of God." It was easy to slip those words, "Del gratia," into the coronation service. It took almost fifteen hundred years to get them out again.
矮子丕平是著名的查理·馬泰爾之子，他繼任父親作宮相后，對面臨的情勢覺得一籌莫展。他的國王是位全心全意侍奉上帝的神學家，對政治漠不關心。丕平于是向教皇大人征求建議，非常務實的教皇回答說，"國家的權力應該歸于實際控制它的人。"丕平馬上領會了教皇的言下之意，于是勸說墨羅溫王朝的最后一位國君蔡爾特里克出家去當僧侶。在征得其他日爾曼部落酋長的同意之后，丕平自立為法蘭克國王。不過，僅僅當國王還不能使精明的丕平覺得滿意，他還夢想著得到比日爾曼部落酋長更高的榮耀。他精心策劃了一個加冕儀式，邀請西北歐的最偉大的傳教士博尼費斯為他涂抹膏油，封他為"上帝恩許的國王"。于是，"上帝恩許"這個字眼輕易地溜進了加冕儀式之中，過了幾乎1500年才把它清除出去。
