One of Pope Leo III's first acts were to send the King Charlemagne (not yet Emperor) the keys of St. Peter and the Standard of Rome. This conveyed the message that Charlie was the official defender of the City, which was a pretty big honor for any European king at the time. Charlemagne was grateful enough to send some boxes of money to Leo so he could build some more churches and hospitals and schools and stuff.
Some partisans of a different papal faction hired some tough guys to rough up the Pope a bit. Their aim was to maim him so badly that he couldn't continue as pope. Killing him, you see, would be a cardinal sin, but maiming him would only be a venal sin, one which could be absolved by his successor.
Leo toughed it out, scars and all. They had attempted to blind him and rip out his tongue, but his eyes and tongue recovered so he simply fled to Charlemagne's court for protection. Charlemagne held a trial at which each party could level its grievances against the other; not surprisingly, the maimers were imprisoned and Leo got plunked back on St. Peter's Chair.
Later that year, Leo crowned Charlie as Emperor of the Romans, creating the Holy Roman Empire and inadvertently insulting the Byzantine Emperor. The picture above shows that coronation. Not long after, Christendom would split between the Orthodox and the Roman churches, a schism that has yet to fully heal. Oops.
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