 The rite epitomized the Catholic Church's sanctioning the monarch's rule; it was notably employed by usurpers such as Pepin, whose dynasty replaced the Merovingians in France in 751.While it might be argued that the practice subordinated the king to the church, in practice the sacral anointing of kings was seen as elevating the king to priestly or even saintly status.It provided a directly religious aspect to Europe's regimes apart from the church hierarchy and, for political and practical reasons, was seldom performed by the popes.