Pepin of Herstal
In 687 he was defeated by Pepin of Herstal, the Arnulfing mayor of Austrasia and the real power in that kingdom, at the Battle of Tertry and was forced to accept Pepin as sole mayor and "dux et princeps Francorum": "Duke and Prince of the Franks", a title which signifies, to the author of the "Liber Historiae Francorum", the beginning of Pepin's "reign". Thereafter the Merovingian monarchs showed only sporadically, in our surviving records, any activities of a non-symbolic and self-willed nature.