The Fall of Fruela I of Asturias…

Pagan, after ascending the Bulgarian throne following the murder of his predecessor Toktu, sets out together with his court to attend negotiations with Emperor Constantine V somewhere in Thrace.

In the heated talks, the emperor represents himself as intent on keeping the peace in Bulgaria and upbraids the Bulgarians for their anarchy, and for deposing their former ruler Sabin, who lives as a refugee at the imperial court.

The emperor nevertheless agrees to make peace, and Pagan returns home.

At this point, Constantine V suddenly invades Bulgaria and manages to penetrate across the mountains into the core area of the Bulgarian state, setting afire some settlements around the Bulgarian capital Pliska.

Although Constantine does not follow up his relatively successful invasion and returns home, Pagan faces the wrath of his subjects, who accuse him of credulity and inability to oppose the enemy.

The monarch flees in the direction of Varna, but is murdered by his servants.

Although Telerig is first mentioned in the Byzantine sources in 774, he is considered the immediate successor of Pagan.

The Berber tribal chieftain Saqiya ibn Abd al Wahid al-Miknasi leads a rebellion against the Emirate of Córdoba in the present-day Spanish province of Extremadura.

Christophorus and Sergius had meanwhile hatched a plot with key supporters in the city in order to get them to leave Rome.

Expressing a great desire to enter a monastery, Christophorus and Sergius had begged Constantine to allow them to leave the city and become monks in the Monastery of Our Savior, near Rieti, in the Duchy of Spoleto.

Giving Constantine an oath to that effect, the antipope had allowed them to leave Rome, around April 10, 768.

Instead of going to the monastery as they had vowed, father and son head straight for Theodicius of Spoleto, who takes them to an interview with Desiderius, the King of the Lombards.

Appealing for him to intervene, Desiderius agrees to provide Christophorus and Sergius with troops from Spoleto, and that he will support their march on Rome to overthrow Constantine.

Sergius, together with a Lombard priest named Waldipert, marches on Rome.

They are let into the city via the Gate of St. Pancratius on July 30, 768 by supporters within the city.

Sergius and his force take the walls, but are afraid to descend the Janiculum Hill into the city.

As soon as word comes through that the Lombards had entered the city, Toto comes out to confront them with his own forces.

During a battle in the streets of Rome, Toto is killed, and his brother Passivus rushes to warn Constantine to get out of the city before it is too late.

The two brothers rush about within the Lateran Palace, before finally shutting themselves within the oratory of St. Cesarius.

They manage to hide for a few hours before they are discovered, after which they are thrown into prison by some officers of the Roman army.

When Constantine has been taken captive, Waldipert, without alerting Sergius, and most likely following instructions from Desiderius, collects a number of Romans and enters the Monastery of St. Vitus on the Esquiline on Sunday, July 31.

Here they approach Philip, a priest, declare that Saint Peter had chosen him as pope, and escorted him to the Lateran Basilica.

Here, after having the customary prayers read over him by a bishop found for the occasion, Philip holds the traditional feast in the Lateran palace, attended by a number of dignitaries from both Church and State.

Christophorus has by now returned to Rome and is approaching the city gates.

Learning of Philip’s uncanonical election, he states to the Romans who had gone out to greet him, that he will not enter Rome until Philip is removed.

Philip’s election is declared invalid, he is declared guilty of simony, the pontifical garments are removed from him, and he is forced to return to his monastery.

Christophorus entersRome and oversees the election of Stephen III.

After his election, followers of the new pope begin attacking key members of Constantine’s regime, including Bishop Theodore, the Vice-dominus and Constantine’s brother, Passivus, both of whom are blinded.

Constantine is taken from prison and put on a horse, on top of a woman’s saddle, with heavy weights attached to his feet; they drive him through the city, with the people mocking him as he passes.

He is then placed within the monastery of San Saba.

On August 6, Constantine is taken to the Lateran Basilica, and canonically degraded.

His pallium is thrown at his feet by a subdeacon, and his papal shoes are cut off his feet.

There is still support for Constantine, however.

The town of Alatri, under the leadership of its governor, Gracilis, who holds the title of a Tribune,comes out in support of the antipope.

He pillages the region around Campania, but the town is stormed by a force of Romans, Tuscans and armed troops from various parts of Campania, and Gracilis is captured.

The key members of the revolt are blinded and have their tongues ripped out.

Concerned that Constantine is still a focus of dissent, the papal Chartularius, Gratiosus, and two other official give permission for Constantine to be taken from the monastic prison early in the morning, blinded him, and left him lying in the street.

hey prohibit anyone from giving him aid; after 24 hours however, complaints from the people force the monks to take Constantine into the monastery in which he is kept imprisoned.

Finally, on a charge of conspiring to kill Christophorus and many other nobles, with the intent of handing over the city to the Lombards, the priest Waldipert, is arrested, blinded, and soon dies of his wounds.

The role of Stephen III in these events is obscure.

What is clear however, is that the recent creation of the Papal States has seen the traditional rivalries of the ruling families of Rome transformed into a murderous desire to control this new temporal power in Italy, dragging the papacy with it.

The Legacy of Pepin the Short (r. 751–768): A Pivotal Ruler in Frankish History

Though often overshadowed by his father, Charles Martel, and his son, Charlemagne, Pepin the Short was nonetheless a great ruler in his own right, laying the essential groundwork for the Carolingian Empire.

Military Achievements and Strategic Expansion

• Pepin continued to develop the heavy cavalry corps initiated by his father, solidifying what would become the military backbone of medieval Frankish and later European warfare.
• He maintained a standing army, ensuring the kingdom's defense and stability. This force formed the core of the Frankish military machine, which would later allow Charlemagne to expand into Italy, Saxony, and Iberia.
• He not only contained the Iberian Muslims, as his father had, but expelled them entirely from Narbonne in 759, ensuring that Muslim expansion in Gaul was permanently halted.
• His final victory over the Aquitanians and Basques in 767 ended three generations of intermittent warfare, securing Frankish dominance over all of Gaul and opening the gates to further expansion into Iberia.

Religious and Institutional Foundations

• He continued his father’s policy of expanding the Frankish Church, supporting missionary efforts in Germany and Scandinavia.
• His alliance with the papacy ensured the independence of Rome from Byzantine influence, leading to the creation of the Papal States through the Donation of Pepin (754).
• His reign saw the continued development of feudal institutions, strengthening the landed nobility and military vassalage system, which would shape medieval European governance for centuries.

The Architect of Carolingian Legitimacy

• Pepin’s assumption of the Frankish crown (751), with papal approval, marked the formal end of Merovingian rule, making the Carolingians de jure rulers of the Franks, as his father had made them de facto.
• His title of Patrician of the Romans foreshadowed his son’s imperial coronation in 800, a moment that is often seen as the founding of the Holy Roman Empire.

Final Years and Succession

• Despite not being remembered as a great general, Pepin was undefeated in battle, securing a realm that was larger, stronger, and more unified than at any point in Frankish history.
• He died in 768, at the age of 54, during a military campaign, a testament to his active rule and expansionist policies.
• He was buried at the Basilica of Saint Denis, the traditional resting place of Frankish kings.
• His realm was divided, per Salic law, between his two sons: Charlemagne and Carloman I, setting the stage for the next chapter in Frankish and European history.

While not as celebrated as Charles Martel or Charlemagne, Pepin’s reign was crucial. He cemented the Carolingians as the dominant power in Western Europe, ensured papal independence, and secured Gaul’s borders, laying the foundations for the empire his son would later expand.

Irene was born to the noble Greek Sarantapechos family of Athens.

Although she was an orphan, her uncle Constantine Sarantapechos is a patrician and possibly strategos of the theme of Hellas.

She is brought to Constantinople by Emperor Constantine V on November 1, 769 and is married to his son Leo IV (crowned co-emperor by his father in 751), on December 17.

Although she appears to have come from a noble family, there is no clear reason why she would have been chosen as Leo's bride, leading some scholars to speculate that she was selected in a bride-show, in which eligible women were paraded before the bridegroom until one was finally selected.

Pope Stephen III, having largely dealt with Constantine’s supporters, had written to the Frankish king, Pepin the Short, notifying him of his election, and asking for a number of bishops to participate in a council he was seeking to hold to discuss the recent confusion.

As Pepin has died, it is Charlemagne and Carloman I who agree to send twelve bishops to participate in the Lateran Council, opened by Stephen in April 769, of which a major topic for discussion is the elevation of Constantine.

The blind Constantine is brought before the council, where they question his elevation to the Apostolic See when he was still a layman.

Constantine responds that he had been forced to take on the role, as the Roman people had been looking for someone to fix the problems left behind by Pope Paul.

He then confesses to the charges, and throws himself on the mercy of the synod.

On the following day however, he retracts his confession, arguing that his actions had not been any different to other papal elections in the past.

He states: ”I have done nothing, my brethren, which cannot be excused by recent examples.

Sergius, a layman like myself, has been consecrated metropolitan of Ravenna; the layman Stephen has even been ordained Bishop of Naples...” Infuriated by his arguments, the synod orders Constantine to be beaten and his tongue torn out, before he is excommunicated from the Church.

Constantine’s acts and rulings are then publicly burnt before the entire synod.

He is returned to his monastery, after which nothing further is heard of him.

The council also sets about establishing strict rules for papal elections, thereby restricting the involvement of the nobility in subsequent elections.

Finally, the rulings of the Council of Hieria are rejected, and the practice of devotion to icons is confirmed.

Yaxun B'alam, in order to legitimize his claim to the throne, has had a series of steles created that picture him with his father (including Stele 11).

Several buildings have been constructed during his reign, including Temple 33 and Temple 21.

During his life, he has captured at least twenty-one people, as evidenced by the statement on Yaxchilan Stela 11.

His seventeen-year reign is much shorter than that of his father’s, and he dies in 768.

Within a generation of his death, the building projects at Yaxchilan will cease.

He is succeeded by his son Itzamnaaj B'alam III in 769.

Empress Shotoku dies in 770, and Dokyo, whose claimed oracular prediction that he should be emperor meets strong opposition from government officials, many of whom are Fujiwaras, is banished from the capital.

The Japanese, who in the seventh century had finally acquired the art of making paper (kept secret by the Chinese for five hundred years) produce the first mass publication, a block-printed Buddhist prayer paper, of which a million copies are printed in 770.

The Jewish sect known as the Karaites, biblical literalists who reject the Talmud, appears in Babylonia around 770.

The movement began in eighth-century Persia.

In dismissing the Talmud as manmade law substituted for the God-given Torah, Karaism sets itself in direct opposition to rabbinic Judaism.

The Karaites consider themselves mourners of Zion, abstaining from wine and meat, spending much of their time in fasting and prayer, and signing all letters “mourner” (avilai tzion).

Asceticism becomes so severe that adherents are not only forbidden to kindle a fire on the sabbath but even to warm themselves or use the light from a fire lit on Friday.

The festival of Hanukkah is suppressed, and great rigor is applied to dietary laws, ritual purity, fasting, clothing and marriage (adherents are forbidden to marry outside the sect).

An uncompromising monotheism leads to the exclusion of traditional Jewish ritual objects such as phylacteries and mezuzahs.

Initially, supporters of the movement are called Ananites, after Anan ben David, the first literary figure of the group, who works out a code of life independent of the Talmud.

The sect will spread to Egypt and Syria and later into Europe by way of Spain and Constantinople, though its members will never be numerous.