 Such reformers would have rejected the morality of "friedelehe" outright, even if Himiltrude was technically Charlemagne's legal wife under old Germanic law.Some historians have argued that this morality shift—a move to more orthodox Catholic definitions of marriage—helped push Pepin into the background.If Charles wanted to impose Catholic notions of orthodoxy on his domains, then he needed to abandon Pepin—the incarnate symbol of what was at best a pre-Christian variety of marriage and at worst, an un-Christian concubinage.