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Childeric III

Childeric III: Encyclopedia - Childeric III

Childeric III "the Idiot" amd also called the Phantom King (died about 752), king of the Franks, was the fourteenth and last king of the Merovingian dynasty. He is the son of Chilperic II. The throne had been vacant for seven years when the mayors of the palace, Carloman and Pepin the Short, decided in 743 to recognize Childeric as king. We cannot say whose son he was, or how he was related to the Merovingian family. He took no part in public business, which was directed, as previously, by the mayors of the ...

Childeric III, Franks (main history of Frankish kingdoms), List of Frankish Kings, Merovingians, History of France

Childeric III: Encyclopedia - Childeric III

Childeric III

Childeric III "the Idiot" amd also called the Phantom King (died about 752), king of the Franks, was the fourteenth and last king of the Merovingian dynasty.

He is the son of Chilperic II.

The throne had been vacant for seven years when the mayors of the palace, Carloman and Pepin the Short, decided in 743 to recognize Childeric as king. We cannot say whose son he was, or how he was related to the Merovingian family.

He took no part in public business, which was directed, as previously, by the mayors of the palace. When in 747 Carloman retired into a monastery, Pippin resolved to take the royal crown for himself. Pope Zacharias had in the mean time produced the forged Donation of Constantine, a paper stating that the Pope was God's word on earth; the document was supposedly signed by Constantine, 400 years previously.

So in 751, with the help of Pope Zacharias, Pippin the Short, dethroned Childeric and placed him in the monastery of St Omer in 752; his son, Theuderich, was imprisoned at Saint-Wandrifie.