Editing Papal States (section)

===Donation of Pepin===
{{main|Donation of Pepin}}
When the [[Exarchate of Ravenna]] finally fell to the Lombards in 751,{{sfn|Kleinhenz|2004|page=324}} the [[Duchy of Rome]] was completely cut off from the Byzantine Empire, of which it was theoretically still a part. The popes renewed earlier attempts to secure the support of the [[Frankish Empire|Franks]]. In 751, [[Pope Zachary]] had [[Pepin the Short]] crowned king in place of the powerless [[Merovingian]] figurehead King [[Childeric III]]. Zachary's successor, [[Pope Stephen II]], later granted Pepin the title ''[[Patrician (post-Roman Europe)|Patrician]] of the Romans''. Pepin led a Frankish army into Italy in 754 and 756, defeated the Lombards, thus taking control of northern Italy, and made a gift of the lands formerly constituting the Exarchate of Ravenna to the pope.

In 781, [[Charlemagne]] codified the regions over which the pope would be temporal sovereign: the Duchy of Rome, Ravenna, the [[Duchy of the Pentapolis]], parts of the [[Duchy of Benevento]], [[Tuscany]], [[Corsica]], [[Lombardy]], and a number of Italian cities. The cooperation between the papacy and the [[Carolingian dynasty]] climaxed in 800 when [[Pope Leo III]] crowned Charlemagne '[[Holy Roman Emperor|Emperor of the Romans]]'.