both from the moral and the legal standpoints, the condemnation pronounced against the queen by the Synod of Aix-la-Chapelle (February 860). Hincmar energetically supported the policy of Charles the Bald in Lorraine, less perhaps from devotion to the king's interests than from a desire to see the whole of the ecclesiastical province of Reims united under the authority of a single, sympathetic sovereign, and in 869 it was he who consecrated Charles at Metz as king of Lorraine. Episcopal conflicts In the middle of the ninth century there appeared in Gaul the collection of 'false decretals' commonly known as the Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals. The exact date and the circumstances of the composition of the collection are still an open question, but it is certain that Hincmar was one of the first to know of their existence, and apparently he was not aware that the documents were forged. The importance assigned by these decretals to the bishops and the provincial councils, as well as to the direct intervention of the Holy See, tended to curtail the rights of the metropolitans. Rothad, bishop of Soissons, one of the most active members of the party in favour of the pseudo-Isidorian theories, immediately came into collision with his archbishop. Deposed in 863 at the council of Soissons that was presided over by Hincmar, Rothad appealed to Rome. Pope Nicholas I, supported him zealously, and in 865, in spite of the protests of the archbishop of Reims, Arsenius, bishop of Orte and legate of the Holy See, was instructed to restore Rothad to his episcopal see. Hincmar experienced another check when he endeavoured to prevent Wulfad, one of the deposed clerics ordained by Ebbo, from obtaining the archbishopric of Bourges with the support of Charles the Bald. After a synod held at Soissons, Pope Nicholas I pronounced himself in favour of the deposed clerics, and Hincmar was constrained to submit (866). He was more successful in his contest with his nephew Hincmar, bishop of Laon, who was at first supported both by the king and by his uncle, the archbishop of Reims, but soon quarrelled with both. Hincmar of Laon refused to recognize the authority of his metropolitan, and entered into an open struggle with his uncle, who exposed his errors in a treatise called Opusculum LV capitulorum, and procured his condemnation and deposition at the Synod of Douzy (871). The bishop of Laon was sent