PIPINO III, il BREVE. — Born in 714, son of Carlo Martello and regarded as the adoptive son of Liutprando as a sign of friendship between Lombards and Franks, with the title of maior domus dux et princeps Francorum he divided, together with his brothers Carlomanno and Grifo, the kingdoms over which their grandfather Pipino di Heristal had already ruled. P. received Burgundy, Neustria, and Provence, until in 747, after Grifo and then Carlomanno had withdrawn, he reunited all power, although the royal dignity was still held by the legitimate king Childerico III.
Elected king by the Frankish Assembly at Soissons in Nov. 751, with the approval of Pope Zaccaria, P. found himself compelled to take a position in the struggle between Astolfo and the Papacy. Stefano II (v.), after having unsuccessfully sought an agreement with the Lombard King, compelled by the latter’s aggressive policy, called for Frankish assistance; and, faced with P.’s hesitations, he went to France for the first time in the history of the Church, in the winter of 753–54. At the assembly of Pontbion, the destiny of the Church and of the temporal state was taking shape, while the supremacy of the Empire in Italy and the fortunes of the Lombard Kingdom were declining. The assertion of the «rights» of St Peter, the defence of the Church, and the restoration of the Exarchate and of the other territories occupied by Astolfo constituted the promises of the Frankish King, while the coronation and the title of patricius Romanorum conferred upon him (St-Denis, 28 July 754) were the concluding expression of the alliance. The transfer of the royal dignity to the maior domus had been a revolutionary act (Cagese); a new political direction (Bertolini) was represented by the papal claim over the lands of Byzantine Italy occupied by the Lombards and by the replacement of the Exarch by the Pope; only higher motives, such as the salvation of Rome and of the Roman people, to which the universal mission of the Church was linked, in the face of the heresy undermining the legitimacy of imperial power, could justify both one and the other. Thus, from the moment when it was attributed to the Frankish King, the title of patricius was no longer linked to the Sancta Respublica, that is, to the Empire: specified as patricius Romanorum, it came to indicate precisely the defender of the new Respublica Romanorum, that is, of the Papal State. Its effectiveness soon became apparent: after defeating Astolfo, P. refused to restore to the Empire the lands demanded of him at Pavia by a Byzantine ambassador in the name of the Emperor and had the keys of the conquered cities given to the Pope: despite the exclusion of Bologna, Ferrara, Ancona, and other lesser cities, the Papal State may from that moment be considered established in its principal nucleus.
After the deaths of Stefano II and Astolfo, the cities of the Exarchate and the Pentapolis still in Lombard hands were promised, but not restored, by the new king Desiderio to Pope Paolo I: an intervention by the Frankish King prevented more serious complications, enabling an agreement that eliminated the cession of the cities and settled the minor questions. P. once again divided the kingdom between his sons Carlo and Carlomanno; only in 771, with the death of the latter, could it briefly be reconstituted in its territorial unity under the aegis of Carlomagno. He died at St-Denis on 24 Sept. 768, leaving his fame above all associated with the alliance with the Roman Church and its consequences: State (v.) Holy Roman Empire (v.).
1914, pp. 159–79; L. Lévillain, L'avènement de la dynastie carolingienne et les origines de l'Etat pontifical (749-57), in Bild. École des Chartes, 94 (1933), pp. 225–95; R. Cagese, L'otto medioevo, Turin 1937, pp. 189–250; M. Lintzel, Der Codex Carolinus und die Motive von Pippins Italienpolitik, in Histor. Zeitschr., 1940, p. 33 ff.; O. Bertolini, Il problema delle origini del potere temporale dei Papi, ecc., in Misc. Pio Paschini, I, Rome 1948, pp. 103–71; F. Cognasso, Avviamento agli studi di storia medievale, Turin 1931, pp. 280–84, 288–91; Fliche-Martin-Fruta, VI, p. 18 ff. Fulvio Crosara