In the Italian peninsula there were three churches--Ravenna, Milan,
Aquileia--which obstinately refused to consider themselves mere
offshoots from the See of Peter. But the legend struck root and throve,
as successive Popes associated themselves with missions to the
unconverted tribes and with reforms in the barbarian churches.

Among the earlier events which contributed to make the Roman belief the
standard for all Western Christendom we need only mention the conquests
of the orthodox Frankish monarchy; the official conversions from
Arianism of the Burgundians (516) and the Visigoths in Spain (586); the
extirpation of the Vandals and Ostrogoths by Justinian's generals; the
missions of Augustine to England, of Wilfrid, Willibrord, and Boniface
to the Germans; the submission of the Frankish Church under the
influence of Boniface and Pepin the Short (748). Naturally the moral
influence of Rome in the northern lands was augmented by the revival of
the Western Empire, which meant the co-operation of Pope and Emperor in
the extension of the Christian Republic. Cyril and Methodius, the
Apostles of the Slavs, found it necessary to renounce the allegiance of
the Greek Church, and to place their converts under the protection of
Rome (866). It was from Rome that St. Adalbert went forth on his
ill-starred but glorious mission to the Prussians (997); and it was a
Pope, Sylvester II, who earned the glory of uniting the Hungarian people
to Western Christendom (1000). Finally, Canute the Great, of Denmark and
of England, came in the manner of a pilgrim (1027) to lay the homage of
his Scandinavian subjects on the altar of St. Peter. The Popes reaped
where they had not sown; but the harvest was rich and splendid.

No less important was the political character which the papal office
assumed with the revival of the Empire. Already under Gregory the Great
we can trace the beginnings of a temporal power. Naturally and