Charlemagne (English: Charles the Great, German: Karl der Grosse, French: Charles le Grand, Latin: Carolus Magnus, Dutch: Karel de Grote), King of Neustria (768-771), King of the Franks (771-814), King of the Lombards (774-814), and Emperor of the Romans (800-814). He was born on April 2, 742 at Ingelheim (or Héristal or Aix-la-Chapelle), and died January 28, 814 at Aix-la-Chapelle. Charles was the eldest son of Pippin III and Bertrada of Laon.

Join the Discussion for Charlemagne's descendants in many languages.

“By the sword and the cross”, Charlemagne became master of western Europe.

• Old Low Franconian: Karl thie Mikili, Frankana Kunink
• Latin: Carolus Magnus, Rex Francorum
• Old Gallo-Romance: Karlus li Magnus, Regis de les Frankes
• Old French: Charles li Magne, Rei des Francs
• Middle French: Charlemagne, Roi des Francs

Charlemagne titled himself: 'Carolus serenissimus augustus a Deo coranatos magnus pacificus imperator, Romanum gubernans imperium, qui et per misericordiam Dei rex Francorum atque Langobardorum' Davis, RHC: A History of Medieval Europe, Longman 1977 p155

Google translate: Charles August, the most serene – crowned by God of Peace, is a great commander, who governs the Roman empire, & who also, by the mercy of God, is the king of the Franks and the Lombards

Description of Charlemagne’s crowning by the Pope on 23 December 800, in the Frankish Royal Annals (the earliest description we have, probably written c 801 by Angilbert the chaplain). Note: this is subtly different from the papal description given in Liber Pontificalis, which is written to suggest a far greater authority vested in the Pope than the Frankish point of view, here:

'On that very and most holy day of Christmas, when the king at Mass before the confession of the blessed Peter the apostle, was rising from prayer, Leo the pope put [a/the] crown on his head, and acclamation was made by all the people of the Romans: ‘To Charles Augustus, crowned by God, great and pacific emperor of the Romans, Life and Victory!’ And after the ‘praises’ (laudes), he was ‘adored’ by the apostolic [bishop] in the manner of ancient princes, and discarding the name of patrician, he was called Emperor and Augustus.' Davis, RHC: A History of Medieval Europe, Longman 1977 p149-50

Wives and Children

Charlemagne had twenty children over the course of his life with eight of his ten known wives and concubines. Nonetheless, he only had four legitimate grandsons, the four sons of his third son Louis, plus a grandson who was born illegitimate, but included in the line of inheritance.

Himiltrude, first wife (about 768). This relationship is variously described as concubinage, a legal marriage or as a Friedelehe. Charlemagne put her aside when he married Desiderata.

1. Amaudru
2. Pepin "le Bossu / the Hunchback" (770 – 811), rebelled, imprisoned at the Abbey of St-Gallen and Prum.

Desiderata, second wife (770, annulled 771):

• (no issue)

Hildegard van Vintzgau, third wife (about 771):

1. Charles the Younger (772/773 - 811), crowned King of the Franks in 800
2. Adelais (Adelaid/Adeleidis) (773/774 - 774)
3. Hrotrudis (Rotrud/Hruodrud, Erythro in Greek) (775 - 810), betrothed to Emperor Konstantinos VI, later mistress to Rorico, Comte de Rennes et du Maine.
4. Carloman, renamed Pepin (773 - 810), King of the Lombards (Italy)
5. Louis (778 – 840, perhaps twin of Hlothar), Holy Roman Emperor
6. Hlothar (Lothar) (778 – 779/780. perhaps twin of Louis)
7. Bertrada (Berta) (779/780 - 823/4), mistress to Angilbert "the Saint"
8. Gisela (Gisle) (781 - 800/814)
9. Hildegard (783) lived only 40 days.

Fastrada, fourth wife (October 783):

1. Theodrada (785-844/853), Abbess of Notre-Dame d'Argenteuil near Paris, Abbess of (some convent in) Zurich
2. Hiltrud (787 - 800/814), mistress of Richwin, Count of Padua, mother of Richbod (800/805 – 844)

Luitgard, fifth wife (794):

• (no issue)

Unknown - second mistress:

1. Chrothrais (Rotaide) (784 - 800/814)

Madelgard - third mistress:

1. Rothildis (Rouhout) (784 - 852) Abbess of Faremoutiers

Gerswinda - fourth mistress:

1. Adaltrud (about 790)

Regina - fifth mistress:

1. Drogo (Dreux) (801 - 855), Abbot of Luxeuil, Bishop of Metz, Vicar to Pope Sergius II, Leo IV, and Benedict III in France
2. Hugo (Hugues) "l'Abbé/the Abbot" (802/806 - 844), Abbot at St-Quentin, Lobbes, St-Bertin, and Noaille, Arch-Chancellor, first for Louis, then for Charles II "le Chauve"

Adelindis / Ethelind - sixth mistress:

1. Richbod (800-844) abbott of St-Riquier.
2. Theoderic (Thierry) (807 - after 818), a cleric

-----------

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlemagne

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ref: http://www.geni.com/people/60-from-Abraham-26-from-Prautagus/6000000003099216913

Date and place of birth

Charlemagne is believed to have been born in 742; however, several factors have led to a reconsideration of this date. First, the year 742 was calculated from his age given at death, rather than from attestation in primary sources. Another date is given in the Annales Petaviani, that of 2 April 747.[3] In that year, 2 April was at Easter. The birth of an emperor at Eastertime is a coincidence likely to provoke comment, but there was no such comment documented in 747, leading some to suspect that the Easter birthday was a pious fiction concocted as a way of honoring the Emperor. Other commentators weighing the primary records have suggested that his birth was one year later, in 748. At present, it is impossible to be certain of the date of the birth of Charlemagne. The best guesses include 1 April 747, after 15 April 747, or 1 April 748, in Héristal (where his father was born, a town close to Liège in modern day Belgium), the region from where both the Merovingian and Carolingian families originated.

Biography

In 768, when Charlemagne was 26, he and his younger brother Carloman inherited the kingdom of the Franks. In 771 Carloman died, and Charlemagne became sole ruler of the kingdom. At that time the Franks were falling back into barbarian ways, neglecting their education and religion. The Saxons of northern Europe were still pagans. In the south, the Roman Catholic church was asserting its power to recover land confiscated by the Lombard kingdom of Italy. Europe was in turmoil.

Charlemagne was determined to strengthen his realm and to bring order to Europe. In 772 he launched a 30-year military campaign to accomplish this objective. By 800 Charlemagne was the undisputed ruler of Western Europe. His vast realm encompassed what are now France, Switzerland, Belgium, and The Netherlands. It included half of present-day Italy and Germany, and parts of Austria and Spain. By establishing a central government over Western Europe, Charlemagne restored much of the unity of the old Roman Empire and paved the way for the development of modern Europe.

On Christmas Day in 800, while Charlemagne knelt in prayer in Saint Peter’s in Rome, Pope Leo III placed a golden crown on the bowed head of the king. Charlemagne is said to have been surprised by the coronation, declaring that he would not have come into the church had he known the pope’s plan. However, some historians say the pope would not have dared to act without Charlemagne's knowledge.

Charlemagne learned to read Latin and some Greek but apparently did not master writing. At meals, instead of having jesters perform, he listened to visiting scholars read from learned works. Charlemagne believed that government should be for the benefit of the governed. He was a reformer who tried to improve his subject’s lives. He set up money standards to encourage commerce and urged better farming methods.

As is often the case, people considered great by historians are great killers as well. Throughout his conquests, Charlemagne was responsible for the death of masses of people who refused to accept Christianity, or their new king. Choosing to keep faith with their old gods and leaders, many thousands were slaughtered.

source:http://www.lucidcafe.com/library/96apr/charlemagne.html

--------------------

Charlemagne (pronounced /ˈʃɑrlɨmeɪn/; Latin: Carolus Magnus or Karolus Magnus, meaning Charles the Great) (2 April 742 – 28 January 814) was King of the Franks from 768 to his death. He expanded the Frankish kingdoms into a Frankish Empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. During his reign, he conquered Italy and was crowned Imperator Augustus by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800 as a rival of the Byzantine Emperor in Constantinople. His rule is also associated with the Carolingian Renaissance, a revival of art, religion, and culture through the medium of the Catholic Church. Through his foreign conquests and internal reforms, Charlemagne helped define both Western Europe and the Middle Ages. He is numbered as Charles I in the regnal lists of France, Germany, and the Holy Roman Empire.

The son of King Pippin the Short and Bertrada of Laon, he succeeded his father and co-ruled with his brother Carloman I. The latter got on badly with Charlemagne, but war was prevented by the sudden death of Carloman in 771. Charlemagne continued the policy of his father towards the papacy and became its protector, removing the Lombards from power in Italy, and waging war on the Saracens, who menaced his realm from Spain. It was during one of these campaigns that Charlemagne experienced the worst defeat of his life, at the Battle of Roncesvalles (778) memorialised in the Song of Roland. He also campaigned against the peoples to his east, especially the Saxons, and after a protracted war subjected them to his rule. By forcibly converting them to Christianity, he integrated them into his realm and thus paved the way for the later Ottonian dynasty.

Today he is regarded not only as the founding father of both French and German monarchies, but also as the father of Europe: his empire united most of Western Europe for the first time since the Romans, and the Carolingian renaissance encouraged the formation of a common European identity.

--------------------

From Darryl Lundy's Peerage page on Charlemagne (Forrás / Source):

http://www.thepeerage.com/p10107.htm#i101064

Charlemagne, crowned Emperor of the Romans in 800 and then the forerunner of the Holy Roman Empire, largely because he had inaugurated the tradition of imperial coronation by the Pope of the Catholic Church, which continued as a significant institution in the Holy Roman Empire until the 16th century.

Charlemagne's policy of "renovatio Romanorum imperii" (reviving the Roman Empire) remained at least in theory as the official position of the Empire until its end in 1806.

Formation

The Carolingian imperial crown was initially disputed among the Carolingian rulers of Western Francia (France) and Eastern Francia (Germany), with first the western king (Charles the Bald) and then the eastern (Charles the Fat) attaining the prize. However, after the death of Charles the Fat in 888 the Carolingian Empire broke asunder, never to be restored.

According to Regino of Prüm, each part of the realm elected a "kinglet" from its own "bowels". After the death of Charles the Fat those who were crowned Emperors by the Pope controlled only territories in Italy. The last of such Emperors was Berengar I of Italy who died in 924.

The dukes of Alemannia, Bavaria, Franconia and Saxony elected Conrad I of the Franks, not a Carolingian, as their leader in 911. His successor, Henry (Heinrich) I the Fowler (r. 919–936), a Saxon elected at the Reichstag of Fritzlar in 919, achieved the acceptance of a separate Eastern Empire by the West Frankish (still ruled by the Carolingians) in 921, calling himself Rex Francorum Orientalum (King of the East Franks). He founded the Ottonian dynasty.

Henry designated his son Otto, who was elected King in Aachen in 936, to be his successor. A marriage alliance with the widowed queen of Italy gave Otto control over that nation as well. His later crowning as Emperor Otto I (later called "the Great") in 962 would mark an important step, since from then on the Eastern-Frankish realm – and not the West-Frankish kingdom that was the other remainder of the Frankish kingdoms–would have the blessing of the Pope.

Otto had gained much of his power earlier, when, in 955, the Magyars were defeated in the Battle of Lechfeld.

The Empire in 1000

In contemporary and later writings, this crowning would also be referred to as translatio imperii, the transfer of the Empire from the Romans to a new Empire. The German Emperors thus thought of themselves as being in direct succession of those of the Roman Empire; this is why they initially called themselves Augustus. Still, they did not call themselves "Roman" Emperors at first, probably in order not to provoke conflict with the Roman Emperor in Constantinople.

The term imperator Romanorum only became common under Conrad II (later than his crowning in 1027, thus in the early-middle 11th century) after the Great Schism.

References

2.^ Martin Arbage, "Otto I," in Medieval Italy: An Encyclopedia (Routledge, 2004), p. 810 online: "Otto can be considered the first ruler of the Holy Roman empire, though that term was not used until the twelfth century."

3.^ Peter Hamish Wilson, The Holy Roman Empire, 1495-1806, MacMillan Press 1999, London, page 2; The Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation at the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany in London website

4.^ http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?historyid=aa35

5.^ http://history-world.org/charlemagne.htm

6.^ Pagden, percy (2008). World's at War: The 2,500-Year Struggle Between East and West (First ed.). Random House. p. 147.

7.^ Bryce, James (1968). The Holy Roman Empire. Macmilan.

--------------------

Karl den store (tysk Karl der Große, latin Carolus Magnus, fransk Charlemagne (brukes på mange andre språk, bl.a. engelsk, av og til på norsk), italiensk Carlomagno) (født 2. april 742, død 28. januar 814) var konge av frankerne fra år 771, konge av Lombardia fra 774, og tysk-romersk keiser fra 800. Han var eldste sønn av kong Pippin den yngre av frankerne. Han var stamfar for karolingerne. Karl ble kronet til keiser av Paven i Roma, 1. juledag år 800 e. Kr. Han bodde i Aachen og er begravet i katedralen her. Karlsprisen er oppkalt etter ham.

Fødselsdato og sted

Karl den stores fødselsdag er antatt å være 1. april 742. Men flere faktorer har ført til revurdering av denne tradisjonelle datoen. For det første ble 742 utregnet av hans alder da han døde, mer enn attestert med primærkilder. For det andre dateres hans fødsel i 742 før foreldrenes ekteskap i 749, men der er ingen indikasjoner på at Karl den store ble født utenfor ekteskapet og han arvet sine foreldre. En annen dato er gitt i Annales Petariensis, 1. april 747. Det året var 1. april i påsken. Fødselen av en keiser i påsken er et sammenfall som burde føre til kommentarer, men der er ingen slike kommentarer dokumentert i 747, som har fått noen til å mistenke at påskefødselen var en from fiksjon som skulle ære keiseren. For tiden er det umulig å være sikker på datoen da Karl den store ble født. Den neste gjetningen inkluderer 1. april 747, etter 15. april 747 eller 1. april 748, antagelig i Herstal eller Jupille, hvor hans far ble født, begge nær Liége hvor en viktig del av det karolingske og merovingiske dynastiet bodde. Men andre byer er også nevnt: Prüm, Düren eller Aachen.

Liv

Karl var den eldste sønnen til Pippin den yngre og hans kone Bertrada av Laon, han var bror til Bertha, mor til Roland.

Da Pippin døde ble kongedømmet delt mellom Karl og hans bror Karloman. Karl tok de ytre delene av kongedømmet som grenset til sjøen, hovedsakelig Neustria, Aquitania og de nordlige delene av Austrasia, mens Karloman fikk de indre delene som grenset til Italia.

Karloman døde 5. desember 771 og etterlot Karl som leder av et forent frankisk kongedømme. Kort tid etterpå marsjerte han mot lombardene og la kongedømmet Italia permanent under den frankiske tronen.

Karl var engasjert i nesten konstant krigføring gjennom hele sitt styre med sitt legendariske sverd Joyeuse i hånden. Etter tretti år med krig og atten slag, sachserkrigene, erobret han Sachsen, et mål som hadde vært den uoppnåelige drømmen til Augustus, og fortsatte med å konvertere de erobrede til katolsk kristendom, med makt hvor det var nødvendig. I 782, ved Verden i nedre Sachsen, skal han ha beordret halshoggingen av 4500 sachsere på en dag (den blodige rettssaken i Verden). Sachserne hadde gjort feilen med å gjøre opprør mot det frankiske styret og ble tatt i å praktisere hedenskap etter at de hadde gått med på å bli kristne. Moderne forskere har dratt disse beskyldningene i tvil, ettersom det ikke er funnet noen arkeologiske bevis for en slik massakre og at de opprinnelige kildene kan ha skrevet «halshogging» ved en feil istedet for «sendt i eksil». Karl forsøkte også å gjenerobre Spania, men klarte aldri helt dette målet. Det var under en av hans forgjeves invasjoner i det nordlige Spania at lederen for hans baktropp, grev Roland, ble drept, noe som inspirerte til skapelsen av Rolandskvadet.

Den frankiske kong Karl var en trofast kristen som fastholdt et nært forhold med paven i hele sitt liv. I 772, da Adrian I ble truet av invasjon, skyndte kongen seg til Roma for å gi assistanse. Her ber paven om hjelp i et møte nær Roma.I 797 (eller 801?) gav kalifen av Bagdad, Harun al-Rashid, Karl en asiatisk elefant kalt Abul-Abbas og en mekanisk klokke.

På en messe 1. juledag i Roma i 800 kronet Leo III Karl Imperator Romanorum (romernes keiser). Selv om dette, ifølge kildene, skjedde mot hans intensjoner, ble Karl fornyeren av det vestlige riket som forsvant i det 5. århundre. For å unngå friksjoner med den østlige keiseren, kalte Karl seg senere Imperator Romanum gubernans Imperium (keiser som styrer Romerriket) istedet for Imperator Romanum, som ble forbeholdt de østlige keiserne.

Karl fulgte opp sin fars reformer og fjernet pengesystemet basert på gull sou. Både han og kong Offa av Mercia tok opp systemet innført av Pippin. Han satte opp en ny standard, livre (pund), både som mynt og vektenhet, som var verdt 20 sous (som solidus og senere skilling) eller 240 denierer (som denarius og til slutt penny). I denne perioden var livre og sou tellende enheter, bare denier var rikets mynt.

Karl innførte systemet i store deler av det europeiske kontinentet, og Offas standard ble frivillig adoptert av store deler av England.

Autografen til Karl den storeKarl organiserte imperiet sitt i 350 grevskap, hvert ledet av en oppnevnt greve. Grevene tjente som dommere, administratorer og de opprettholdt capitularier. For å opprettholde lojalitet, satte han opp et system av missi dominici, som betyr «Herrens utsendinger». I dette systemet ville en representant i kirken og en representant av keiseren lede de forskjellige grevskapene og hvert år rapportere tilbake til Karl om deres status.

Europa ved Karl den stores død.Da Karl døde i 814 ble han gravlagt i sin egen katedral i Aachen. Han ble etterfulgt av sin eneste overlevende sønn, Ludvig den fromme. Etter ham ble styret av imperiet delt mellom hans tre overlevende sønner ifølge frankisk tradisjon. Disse tre kongedømmene ble grunnlaget for det senere Frankrike og Det hellige romerske rike av den tyske nasjon.

Etter Karls død ble de kontinentale myntene degradert og mesteparten av Europa gikk over til å bruke engelsk mynt til rundt 1100.

Det er vanskelig å forstå Karls holdning mot sine døtre. Ingen av dem fikk et sakramentalt ekteskap. Dette kan ha vært et forsøk på å kontrollere antallet potensielle allianser. Etter hans død gikk, eller ble tvunget til å gå, de overlevende døtrene i kloster. Minst en av dem, Bertha, hadde et anerkjent forhold, om ikke ekteskap, med Angilbert, et medlem av Karls hoffsirkel.

Karls morsmål var gammelhøytysk-dialekten kalt frankisk. Han snakket også latin og forstod noe gresk.

Kulturell betydning

Statue av Karl den store i Frankfurt, mens han holder Joyeuse og globus cruciger. En romantisk tolkning av hans utseende fra det 18. århundre

Foto: Florian BaumannKarls styre blir ofte referert til som den karolingiske renessanse på grunn av blomstringen til utdannelse, litteratur, kunst og arkitektur. Mesteparten av de overlevende arbeidene av klassisk latin ble kopiert og preservert tubord. Karls innflytelse på tvers av Europa indikeres av opprinnelsen til mange av mennene som arbeidet for ham: Alcuin, en anglosakser, Theodulf, visigoter, Paulus Diaconus, lombard og Angilbert og Einhard, frankere.

Karl den store nøt et viktig etterliv i europeisk kultur. En av de store middelalderiske litteraturkretsene, Karl den store-kretsen eller Frankrikes saker, sentreres rundt dådene til Karl den stores kommandant av Breton-grensen, Roland, og paladinene som tjente som motpartene til ridderne av det runde bord. Deres eventyr ble først fortalt i chansons de geste. Karl selv ble gitt helgen-status innenfor det hellige romerske riket etter det 12. århundre. Hans kanonisering av Paschal III ble aldri anerkjent av den hellige stol. Han var modellridder som en av de ni verdige.

Det er ofte hevdet av slektsforskere at alle mennesker med europeiske forfedre i dag er antagelig etterkommere fra Karl. Men bare en liten prosentdel kan faktisk bevise avstamning fra ham. Karl ekteskaps- og forholds-politikk og etikk førte riktignok til et nokså stort antall etterkommere, og av disse hadde alle bedre muligheter for å vokse opp enn tilfellet for barn generelt på den tiden. De ble giftet inn i adelshus og som et resultat av interne ekteskap kan mange av adelsopphav virkelig spore sitt opphav tilbake til Karl. Karls slektstre var ganske omfattende, og kan spores nesten helt opp til moderne tider. Blant de mest kjente direkte etterkommerne av Karl er William Howard Taft, den 27. president i USA, den amerikanske skuespilleren Tyrone Power, den britiske skuespilleren Christopher Lee og Elisabeth II, dronning av Storbritannia og Nord-Irland. Han er uten tvil forfar til alle kongefamilier i Europa og dermed også det norske kongehuset.

En annen interessant ting med Karl var at han gjorde et alvorlig forsøk på å utdanne seg selv og andre lærde og hadde lært å lese i voksen alder, men han lærte aldri helt å skrive. Hans håndskrift var dårlig, derfra vokste legenden om at han ikke kunne skrive. Dette var en betydelig bragd for kongene på den tiden, de fleste var analfabeter.

-------------------

Charles has become known as Charles The Great or Charlemagne for very good reasons. His long reign changed the face of Europe politically and culturally, and he himself would remain fixed in the minds of people in the Middle Ages as the ideal king. In more recent times, many historians have taken his reign to be the beginning of the Middle Ages 'proper'. Yet in terms of territorial expansion and consolidation, of church reform and entanglement with Rome, Charlemagne's reign was merely bringing the policies of his father Pippin to their logical conclusions.

Charlemagne became the subject of the first medieval biography of a layman, written by Einhard, one of his learned courtiers. Following his literary model, Suetonius's word portrait of the Emperor Augustus, Einhard described Charlemagne's appearance, his dress, his eating and drinking habits, his religious practices and intellectual interests, giving us a vivid if not perhaps entirely reliable picture of the Frankish monarch. He was strong, tall, and healthy, and ate moderately. He loved excercise: riding and hunting, and perhaps more surprising, swimming. Einhard tells us that he chose Aachen as the site for his palace because of its hot springs, and that he used to bathe there with his family, friends, and courtiers. He spoke and read Latin as well as his native Frankish, and could understand Greek, and even speak it a little. He learned grammar, rhetoric, amd mathematics from the learned clerics he gathered around him, but although he kept writing-tablets under his pillow for practice (he used to wake up several times in the night) he never mastered the art of writing. It was because he was a tireless and remarkably successful general that he was able to make such a mark upon European history. He concluded Pippin's wars with Aquitaine, and proclaimed his son Louis as king in 781; the one serious defeat he suffered was in these wars, at Roncevaux in the Pyrenees, a defeat one day immortalized in "The Song of Roland" and later 'chansons de geste'.

He added Saxony to his realm after years of vicious campaigning; and, towards the end of his reign, moving against the Danes; he destroyed the kingdom of the Avars in Hungary; he subdued the Bretons, the Bavarians, and various Slav people. In the south he began the reconquest of Spain from the Arabs and established the Spanish March in the north-east of the peninsula.But perhaps his most significant campaigns were south of the Alps, in Italy. Pope Hadrian appealed to Charlemagne for help against Desiderius of the Lombards. The campaign in the winter of 773-4 was short and decisive. Desiderius was exiled, and Charlemagne, "king of the Franks", added "and the Lombards" to his title; later he appointed his son Pepin as King of Italy.

But popes were still not free of all their enemies. In 799 Leo III was ambushed by a rival party of Roman aristocrats, who tried to gouge out his eyes and cut off his tongue. Leo fled to Charlemage, who was at Paderborn preparing for another war against the Saxons. Charlemagne ordered Leo III to be restored and, later in the year 800, came to Rome himself. On Christmas Day, in St. Peter's, Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne Emperor of the Romans.

Now he was also going to be plagued by dynastic problems. His second wife, Judith, wanting the largest part of the empire for her son, joined forces with Louis's sons, Ludwig the German and Pippin, against Lothar, the eldest son. The results were that two factions developed in the Empire, one wanting to keep the Empire united and the other to continue the Frankish custom of dividing lands between all sons.

In 829 Judith pursuaded Louis the Pious to set aside his settlement of 817 and include Judith's son, Charles, in the partition of the Empire. However, Ludwig the German and Pippin, jealous of Charles's portion, joined forces with Lothar, their eldest brother and, in 830, rebelled against their father.

The eldest three sons, supported by Pope Gregory IV, defeated their father in 833. Lothar was restored as Emperor designate and Louis the Pious was forced to perform a humiliating penance. However, Ludwig the German and Pippin were still dissatisfied and again took up arms. In 838 Pippin died followed, in 840, by Louis the Pious; but it took until 843 when, at Verdun, the Frankish tradition triumphed and the Empire was divided between the three surviving sons.

More about Charlemagne;

When Pepin III died in 768, his sons Carloman and Charles I (called Charlemagne towards the end of his reign) succeeded as Kings of the Franks. Carloman received the strong interior - Paris and Orleans, and Charlemagne received the rebellious states and border lands in a NW crescent around Carloman's kingdom. Either Pepin did this because he favored Carloman, or because he knew that Charlemagne was a better general and needed to be the one to face the rebellions.

In 769, Aquitaine rebelled and both brothers went to face the problem. Carloman marched back home without striking a blow, leaving Charlemagne to subdue Aquitaine on his own, which he did. The hatred between the brothers was temporarily settled by their mother, Bertrada. The Lombards were making many threats to Pope Hadrian, and so he called for the Frankish kings for protection. Carloman was pro-Lombard, so Charlemagne was again on his own. In 771, the Lombard king Desiderius invaded Rome and took much Papal land. At the end of that year, Carloman died, leaving Charlemagne the entire Frankish kingdom.

In 772, Charlemagne executed his first Saxon campaign, and while it was small it was a success. He planned for one the next year, but in January Hadrian sent envoys to Charlemagne formally asking for help. In May he gathered all his forces at Geneva and launched an Italian attack. He personally led the main force, and a smaller force was led by his uncle Bernard to attack the flank of the Lombard army. In June of 774, Pavia fell and Lombardy was completely conquered by Charlemagne. He sent Desiderius and his family to monasteries and took the crown for himself. Hadrian then crowned Pepin king of Lombardy with his father.

In 778, Charlemagne invaded Muslim Spain, taking Barcelona, Pampelona, and Saragossa. However, Charlemagne's army was ambushed and many generals were killed. In 781, after his defeat in Spain, Aquitaine was on the border of rebellion once again, so he put his son Louis as king there. In 793, the Saracens invaded Aquitaine under their Caliph Hisham. Two years later the Spanish March was created, with William as its Count. The next year King Louis and Count William secured the Spanish territories, and William conquered Barcelona, the Balearics, and all of Navarre.

Since 772, Charlemagned campaigned in Saxony almost every year. After much fighting he finally converted their king Widukind and incorperated Saxony into the Frankish empire, with Widukind as its first Duke. By gaining Saxony, Charlemagne received many attacks from the Slavs, but was able to not only defeat them but take much of their land in modern Germany, Austria, and as far east as Hungary.

On Christmas Day, 800, Charlemagne was in Rome for the crowning of his son Charles (designated to be his successor). The Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne before mass, saying "Carolo augusto, a Deo coronato, magne et pacifico imperatore romanorum, vita et victoria!" (To Charles, Augustus, crowned by God, great and peaceful Emperor, life and victory!) He then "adored" Charlemagne in the Byzantine manner by prostrating himself and touching the ground with his forehead three times. This Carolingian Empire did not last long, but it did lead to the Holy Roman Empire of the Middle Ages.

In 806, Charlemagne set up a will in which Charles, Pepin, and Louis would receive equal shares of the Empire on his death. In July of 810, Pepin died, and he was followed by Charles in December of 811. In 813 Byzantine nobles came to greet Charlemagne as Emperor. Louis was called from Aquitaine and crowned co-Emperor and designated successor to the imperial crown, then sent back to Aquitaine. That year, Charlemagne spent the entire month of October hunting, and in January of the next year, at the age of 70, died.

--------------------

Charlemagne, Emperor Of The Holy Roman Empire, King of the Franks was king of the Franks from AD 768 to 814 and 'Emperor of the Romans' from 800 to 814. He became a key figure in the development of western Europe's medieval civilization. By his almost constant military campaigns, Charlemagne created a vast empire in the West which included much of the western part of the old Roman Empire as well as some new territory. He was the first Germanic ruler to assume the title of emperor, and the 'empire' he revived lasted in one form or another for a thousand years. Culturally and politically, he left his mark on the newly rising civilization of the West. Probably no ruler of the early Middle Ages better deserved the title of 'The Great.'

Charlemagne was the son of Pepin the Short, and the grandson of Charles Martel. From 768 to 771, Charlemagne shared Pepin's kingdom with his brother, Carloman. When Carloman died, Charlemagne became sole ruler. He took up with energy the work begun by his father and grandfather. His first step was to repress his hostile neighbors. Charlemagne gained wide acclaim for his outstanding military ability, persistence, and success. He waged more than 50 campaigns against neighboring Germanic peoples on all sides, and against the Avars, Slavs, Byzantines, and Moors.

Charlemagne's first great war was against the Lombards, a Germanic people who had invaded Italy in the late 500's. They had been a source of trouble to the popes ever since. In conquering them, Charlemagne followed Pepin's policy of friendship and cooperation with the Roman Catholic Church. This also served Charlemagne's own interests, because he became ruler of the Lombard kingdom in Italy.

The long Saxon war was the most important of Charlemagne's military ventures. The Saxons, who held the whole northwestern part of Germany, were pagans. Their defeat after 30 years of war prepared the way for the religious conversion and civilization of Germany.

By means of other wars, Charlemagne put down a rebellion in Aquitaine, added Bavaria to his kingdom, and established several border states to protect his outlying conquests. In eastern Europe, he defeated the Slavs and Avars and made possible eastward migration by the Germans.

Charlemagne had built a vast and sprawling state that shared borders with such different peoples as the Slavs, Byzantines, and Moslems. He defended the Roman Catholic Church and constantly extended its power. He was far more powerful than the imperial successors of Constantine, the first Christian emperor in the West, and he ruled a much more extensive area. Because of his great holdings, he decided to revive the Roman Empire, but as a new empire that was European and Christian in Character. The relations of the popes with the Byzantine, or Eastern Roman, emperors in Canstantinople had been breaking down since the middle 700's. An alliance between the Roman Catholic Church and the Franks, accomplished by proclaiming Charlemagne emperor, made good sense. Pope Leo III placed the imperial crown on Charlemagne's head on Christmas Day, 800. The most important effect of this act was that it revived the idea of empire in the West, an idea which caused both harm and good in succeeding centuries.

Einhard, Charlemagne's secretary and friend, described the emperor as large and strong of body, fond of active exercise, genial but dignified, and sensible and moderate in his way of life. Charlemagne clearly recognized his duties and responsibilities, and was a tireless worker. He could not reverse the long trend toward decentralized government. But he could and did control the power of the nobles and maintain a considerable degree of law and order in a troubled age. His administrative methods helped raise the standard of living.

Charlemagne's greatest contribution was his work as a patron of culture and extender of civilization. The Palace School, set up at his capital in Aachen under the leadership of the English scholar Alcuin (735-804), stimulated interest in education, philosophy, and literature. Most of the leading scholars were churchman, so this vast cultural activity greatly strengthened the church and had far-reaching and lasting results. In this way, Charlemagne, by means of his power and eminence, gave western Europe a unified culture so strong that it survived the terrible invasions and disorders of the next 200 years.

Source: 'The World Book Encyclopedia', 1968, C291-292. 'Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists ...', Frederick Lewis Weis, 1993, p cvi.

--------------------

Charlemagne (pronounced /ˈʃɑrlɨmeɪn/; Latin: Carolus Magnus or Karolus Magnus, meaning Charles the Great) (2 April 742 – 28 January 814) was King of the Franks from 768 to his death. He expanded the Frankish kingdoms into a Frankish Empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. During his reign, he conquered Italy and was crowned Imperator Augustus by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800 as a rival of the Byzantine Emperor in Constantinople. His rule is also associated with the Carolingian Renaissance, a revival of art, religion, and culture through the medium of the Catholic Church. Through his foreign conquests and internal reforms, Charlemagne helped define both Western Europe and the Middle Ages. He is numbered as Charles I in the regnal lists of France, Germany, and the Holy Roman Empire.

The son of King Pippin the Short and Bertrada of Laon, he succeeded his father and co-ruled with his brother Carloman I. The latter got on badly with Charlemagne, but war was prevented by the sudden death of Carloman in 771. Charlemagne continued the policy of his father towards the papacy and became its protector, removing the Lombards from power in Italy, and waging war on the Saracens, who menaced his realm from Spain. It was during one of these campaigns that Charlemagne experienced the worst defeat of his life, at the Battle of Roncesvalles (778) memorialised in the Song of Roland. He also campaigned against the peoples to his east, especially the Saxons, and after a protracted war subjected them to his rule. By forcibly converting them to Christianity, he integrated them into his realm and thus paved the way for the later Ottonian dynasty.

Today he is regarded not only as the founding father of both French and German monarchies, but also as the father of Europe: his empire united most of Western Europe for the first time since the Romans, and the Carolingian renaissance encouraged the formation of a common European identity.[1]

By the 6th century, the Franks were Christianised, and Francia ruled by the Merovingians had become the most powerful of the kingdoms which succeeded the Western Roman Empire. But following the Battle of Tertry, the Merovingians declined into a state of powerlessness, for which they have been dubbed do-nothing kings (rois fainéants). Almost all government powers of any consequence were exercised by their chief officer, the mayor of the palace or major domus.

In 687, Pippin of Herstal, mayor of the palace of Austrasia, ended the strife between various kings and their mayors with his victory at Tertry and became the sole governor of the entire Frankish kingdom. Pippin himself was the grandson of two most important figures of the Austrasian Kingdom, Saint Arnulf of Metz and Pippin of Landen. Pippin the Middle was eventually succeeded by his illegitimate son Charles, later known as Charles Martel (the Hammer). After 737, Charles governed the Franks without a king on the throne but desisted from calling himself "king." Charles was succeeded by his sons Carloman and Pippin the Short, the father of Charlemagne. To curb separatism in the periphery of the realm, the brothers placed on the throne Childeric III, who was to be the last Merovingian king.

After Carloman resigned his office, Pippin had Childeric III deposed with Pope Zachary's approval. In 751, Pippin was elected and anointed King of the Franks and in 754, Pope Stephen II again anointed him and his young sons, now heirs to the great realm which already covered most of western and central Europe. Thus was the Merovingian dynasty replaced by the Carolingian dynasty, named after Pippin's father Charles Martel.

Under the new dynasty, the Frankish kingdom spread to encompass an area including most of Western Europe. The division of that kingdom formed France and Germany;[2] and the religious, political, and artistic evolutions originating from a centrally-positioned Francia made a defining imprint on the whole of Western Europe.

Charlemagne is believed to have been born in 742; however, several factors have led to a reconsideration of this date. First, the year 742 was calculated from his age given at death, rather than from attestation in primary sources. Another date is given in the Annales Petaviani, that of 2 April 747.[3]. In that year, April 2 was at Easter. The birth of an emperor at eastertime is a coincidence likely to provoke comment, but there was no such comment documented in 747, leading some to suspect that the Easter birthday was a pious fiction concocted as a way of honoring the Emperor. Other commentators weighing the primary records have suggested that his birth was one year later, in 748. At present, it is impossible to be certain of the date of the birth of Charlemagne. The best guesses include April 1, 747, after April 15, 747, or April 1, 748, in Herstal (where his father was born, a town close to Liège in modern day Belgium), the region from where both the Merovingian and Carolingian families originate. He went to live in his father's villa in Jupille when he was around seven, which caused Jupille to be listed as a possible place of birth in almost every history book. Other cities have been suggested, including, Prüm, Düren, Gauting and Aachen.

Charlemagne (left) and Pippin the Hunchback. Tenth-century copy of a lost original from about 830.Dubbed Charles le Magne "Charles the Great", he was named after his grandfather, Charles Martel. The name derives from Germanic *karlaz "free man, commoner",[4] which gave German Kerl "man, guy" and English churl. His name, however, is first attested in its Latin form, "Carolus" or "Karolus."

In many eastern European languages, the very word for "king" derives from Charles' name. (e.g., Polish: król, Lithuanian: karalius, Hungarian: király, Serbian: kralj, Russian: король)

Charlemagne's native language is a matter of controversy. It was probably a Germanic dialect of the Ripuarian Franks, but linguists differ on its identity and chronology. Some linguists go so far as to say that he did not speak Old Frankish as he was born in 742 or 747, by which time Old Frankish had become extinct. Old Frankish is reconstructed from its descendant, Old Low Franconian, and from loanwords in Old French. Linguists know very little about Old Frankish, as it is attested mainly as phrases and words in the law codes of the main Frankish tribes (especially those of the Salian and Ripuarian Franks), which are written in Latin interspersed with Germanic elements.[5]

The area of Charlemagne's birth does not make determination of his native language easier. Most historians agree he was born around Liège, like his father, but some say he was born in or around Aachen, some 50 km away. At that time, this was an area of great linguistic diversity. If we take Liège (around 750) as the centre, we find:

Old East Low Franconian (the forerunner of Limburgish) in the city, north and northwest;

the closely related Old Ripuarian Franconian (a central Old High German dialect) to the east and in Aachen; and

Gallo-Romance (the ancestor of the Walloon dialect of Old French) in the south and southwest.

The names he gave his children are also good indicators of the language he spoke, as all of his daughters received Old High German names.

Apart from his native language he also spoke Latin "as fluently as his own tongue" and understood a bit of Greek: Grecam vero melius intellegere quam pronuntiare poterat, "He understood Greek better than he could pronounce it."[6]

Though no description from Charlemagne's lifetime exists, his personal appearance is known from a good description by Einhard, author of the biographical Vita Karoli Magni. Einhard tells in his twenty-second chapter:[7]

He was heavily built, sturdy, and of considerable stature, although not exceptionally so, given that he stood seven feet tall. He had a round head, large and lively eyes, a slightly larger nose than usual, white but still attractive hair, a bright and cheerful expression, a short and fat neck, and a slightly protruding stomach. His voice was clear, but a little higher than one would have expected for a man of his build. He enjoyed good health, except for the fevers that affected him in the last few years of his life. Toward the end he dragged one leg. Even then, he stubbornly did what he wanted and refused to listen to doctors, indeed he detested them, because they wanted to persuade him to stop eating roast meat, as was his wont, and to be content with boiled meat.

The physical portrait provided by Einhard is confirmed by contemporary depictions of the emperor, such as coins and his 8-inch bronze statue kept in the Louvre. Charles description of Charlemagne's height at 7 feet (6 feet 3 inches, or 190.50 centimeters) was not far off. Though it was Herculean stature, particularly in a period in which people were a little shorter than we are today, archaeology has confirmed his tallness: in 1861, Charlemagne's tomb was opened by scientists who reconstructed his skeleton and found that it indeed measured 74.9 inches (192 centimeters). [8]

Charles is well known to have been fair-haired, tall, and stately, with a disproportionately thick neck. The Roman tradition of realistic personal portraiture was in complete eclipse in his time, where individual traits were submerged in iconic typecastings. Charlemagne, as an ideal ruler, ought to be portrayed in the corresponding fashion, any contemporary would have assumed. The images of enthroned Charlemagne, God's representative on Earth, bear more connections to the icons of Christ in majesty than to modern (or antique) conceptions of portraiture. Charlemagne in later imagery (as in the Dürer portrait) is often portrayed with flowing blond hair, due to a misunderstanding of Einhard, who describes Charlemagne as having canitie pulchra, or "beautiful white hair", which has been rendered as blonde or fair in many translations.

Charlemagne wore the traditional, inconspicuous and distinctly non-aristocratic costume of the Frankish people, described by Einhard thus:

He used to wear the national, that is to say, the Frank dress: next to his skin a linen shirt and linen breeches, and above these a tunic fringed with silk; while hose fastened by bands covered his lower limbs, and shoes his feet, and he protected his shoulders and chest in winter by a close-fitting coat of otter or marten skins.

He wore a blue cloak and always carried a sword with him. The typical sword was of a golden or silver hilt. He wore fancy jewelled swords to banquets or ambassadorial receptions. Nevertheless:

He despised foreign costumes, however handsome, and never allowed himself to be robed in them, except twice in Rome, when he donned the Roman tunic, chlamys, and shoes; the first time at the request of Pope Hadrian, the second to gratify Leo, Hadrian's successor.

He could rise to the occasion when necessary. On great feast days, he wore embroidery and jewels on his clothing and shoes. He had a golden buckle for his cloak on such occasions and would appear with his great diadem, but he despised such apparel, according to Einhard, and usually dressed like the common people.

Charlemagne was the eldest child of Pippin the Short (714 – 24 September 768, reigned from 751) and his wife Bertrada of Laon (720 – 12 July 783), daughter of Caribert of Laon and Bertrada of Cologne. Records name only Carloman, Gisela, and a short-lived child named Pippin as his younger siblings. The semi-mythical Redburga, wife of King Egbert of Wessex, is sometimes claimed to be his sister (or sister-in-law or niece), and the legendary material makes him Roland's maternal uncle through a lady Bertha.

Much of what is known of Charlemagne's life comes from his biographer, Einhard, who wrote a Vita Caroli Magni (or Vita Karoli Magni), the Life of Charlemagne. Einhard says of the early life of Charles:

It would be folly, I think, to write a word concerning Charles' birth and infancy, or even his boyhood, for nothing has ever been written on the subject, and there is no one alive now who can give information on it. Accordingly, I determined to pass that by as unknown, and to proceed at once to treat of his character, his deed, and such other facts of his life as are worth telling and setting forth, and shall first give an account of his deed at home and abroad, then of his character and pursuits, and lastly of his administration and death, omitting nothing worth knowing or necessary to know.

On the death of Pippin, the kingdom of the Franks was divided—following tradition—between Charlemagne and Carloman. Charles took the outer parts of the kingdom, bordering on the sea, namely Neustria, western Aquitaine, and the northern parts of Austrasia, while Carloman retained the inner parts: southern Austrasia, Septimania, eastern Aquitaine, Burgundy, Provence, and Swabia, lands bordering on Italy.

On 9 October, immediately after the funeral of their father, both the kings withdrew from Saint Denis to be proclaimed by their nobles and consecrated by the bishops, Charlemagne in Noyon and Carloman in Soissons.

The first event of the brothers' reign was the rising of the Aquitainians and Gascons, in 769, in that territory split between the two kings. Years before Pippin had suppressed the revolt of Waifer, Duke of Aquitaine. Now, one Hunald (seemingly other than Hunald the duke) led the Aquitainians as far north as Angoulême. Charlemagne met Carloman, but Carloman refused to participate and returned to Burgundy. Charlemagne went to war, leading an army to Bordeaux, where he set up a camp at Fronsac. Hunold was forced to flee to the court of Duke Lupus II of Gascony. Lupus, fearing Charlemagne, turned Hunold over in exchange for peace. He was put in a monastery. Aquitaine was finally fully subdued by the Franks.

The brothers maintained lukewarm relations with the assistance of their mother Bertrada, but in 770 Charlemagne signed a treaty with Duke Tassilo III of Bavaria and married a Lombard Princess (commonly known today as Desiderata), the daughter of King Desiderius, in order to surround Carloman with his own allies. Though Pope Stephen III first opposed the marriage with the Lombard princess, he would soon have little to fear from a Frankish-Lombard alliance.

Less than a year after his marriage, Charlemagne repudiated Desiderata, and quickly remarried to a 13-year-old Swabian named Hildegard. The repudiated Desiderata returned to her father's court at Pavia. The Lombard's wrath was now aroused and he would gladly have allied with Carloman to defeat Charles. But before war could break out, Carloman died on 5 December 771. Carloman's wife Gerberga fled to Desiderius' court with her sons for protection.

At the succession of Pope Hadrian I in 772, he demanded the return of certain cities in the former exarchate of Ravenna as in accordance with a promise of Desiderius' succession. Desiderius instead took over certain papal cities and invaded the Pentapolis, heading for Rome. Hadrian sent embassies to Charlemagne in autumn requesting he enforce the policies of his father, Pippin. Desiderius sent his own embassies denying the pope's charges. The embassies both met at Thionville and Charlemagne upheld the pope's side. Charlemagne promptly demanded what the pope had demanded and Desiderius promptly swore never to comply. Charlemagne and his uncle Bernard crossed the Alps in 773 and chased the Lombards back to Pavia, which they then besieged. Charlemagne temporarily left the siege to deal with Adelchis, son of Desiderius, who was raising an army at Verona. The young prince was chased to the Adriatic littoral and he fled to Constantinople to plead for assistance from Constantine V, who was waging war with Bulgaria.

The siege lasted until the spring of 774, when Charlemagne visited the pope in Rome. There he confirmed his father's grants of land, with some later chronicles claiming—falsely—that he also expanded them, granting Tuscany, Emilia, Venice, and Corsica. The pope granted him the title patrician. He then returned to Pavia, where the Lombards were on the verge of surrendering.

In return for their lives, the Lombards surrendered and opened the gates in early summer. Desiderius was sent to the abbey of Corbie and his son Adelchis died in Constantinople a patrician. Charles, unusually, had himself crowned with the Iron Crown and made the magnates of Lombardy do homage to him at Pavia. Only Duke Arechis II of Benevento refused to submit and proclaimed independence. Charlemagne was now master of Italy as king of the Lombards. He left Italy with a garrison in Pavia and few Frankish counts in place that very year.

There was still instability, however, in Italy. In 776, Dukes Hrodgaud of Friuli and Hildeprand of Spoleto rebelled. Charlemagne rushed back from Saxony and defeated the duke of Friuli in battle. The duke was slain. The duke of Spoleto signed a treaty. Their co-conspirator, Arechis, was not subdued and Adelchis, their candidate in Byzantium, never left that city. Northern Italy was now faithfully his.

In 787 Charlemagne directed his attention towards Benevento, where Arechis was reigning independently. He besieged Salerno and Arechis submitted to vassalage. However, with his death in 792, Benevento again proclaimed independence under his son Grimoald III. Grimoald was attacked by armies of Charles' or his sons' many times, but Charlemagne himself never returned to the Mezzogiorno and Grimoald never was forced to surrender to Frankish suzerainty.

During the first peace of any substantial length (780–782), Charles began to appoint his sons to positions of authority within the realm, in the tradition of the kings and mayors of the past. In 781 he made his two younger sons kings, having them crowned by the Pope. The elder of these two, Carloman, was made king of Italy, taking the Iron Crown which his father had first worn in 774, and in the same ceremony was renamed "Pippin." The younger of the two, Louis, became king of Aquitaine. Charlemagne ordered Pippin and Louis to be raised in the customs of their kingdoms, and he gave their regents some control of their subkingdoms, but real power was always in his hands, though he intended each to inherit their realm some day. Nor did he tolerate insubordination in his sons: in 792, he banished his eldest, though illegitimate, son, Pippin the Hunchback, to the monastery of Prüm, because the young man had joined a rebellion against him.

The sons fought many wars on behalf of their father when they came of age. Charles was mostly preoccupied with the Bretons, whose border he shared and who insurrected on at least two occasions and were easily put down, but he was also sent against the Saxons on multiple occasions. In 805 and 806, he was sent into the Böhmerwald (modern Bohemia) to deal with the Slavs living there (Czechs). He subjected them to Frankish authority and devastated the valley of the Elbe, forcing a tribute on them. Pippin had to hold the Avar and Beneventan borders, but also fought the Slavs to his north. He was uniquely poised to fight the Byzantine Empire when finally that conflict arose after Charlemagne's imperial coronation and a Venetian rebellion. Finally, Louis was in charge of the Spanish March and also went to southern Italy to fight the duke of Benevento on at least one occasion. He took Barcelona in a great siege in the year 797 (see below).

Charlemagne's attitude toward his daughters has been the subject of much discussion. He kept them at home with him, and refused to allow them to contract sacramental marriages – possibly to prevent the creation of cadet branches of the family to challenge the main line, as had been the case with Tassilo of Bavaria – yet he tolerated their extramarital relationships, even rewarding their common-law husbands, and treasured the bastard grandchildren they produced for him. He also, apparently, refused to believe stories of their wild behaviour. After his death the surviving daughters were banished from the court by their brother, the pious Louis, to take up residence in the convents they had been bequeathed by their father. At least one of them, Bertha, had a recognised relationship, if not a marriage, with Angilbert, a member of Charlemagne's court circle.

According to the Muslim historian Ibn al-Athir, the Diet of Paderborn had received the representatives of the Muslim rulers of Zaragoza, Gerona, Barcelona, and Huesca. Their masters had been cornered in the Iberian peninsula by Abd ar-Rahman I, the Umayyad emir of Córdoba. These Moorish or "Saracen" rulers offered their homage to the great king of the Franks in return for military support. Seeing an opportunity to extend Christendom and his own power and believing the Saxons to be a fully conquered nation, he agreed to go to Spain.

In 778, he led the Neustrian army across the Western Pyrenees, while the Austrasians, Lombards, and Burgundians passed over the Eastern Pyrenees. The armies met at Zaragoza and Charlemagne received the homage of the Muslim rulers, Sulayman al-Arabi and Kasmin ibn Yusuf, but the city did not fall for him. Indeed, Charlemagne was facing the toughest battle of his career where the Muslims had the upper hand and forced him to retreat. He decided to go home, since he could not trust the Basques, whom he had subdued by conquering Pamplona. He turned to leave Iberia, but as he was passing through the Pass of Roncesvalles one of the most famous events of his long reign occurred. The Basques fell on his rearguard and baggage train, utterly destroying it. The Battle of Roncevaux Pass, less a battle than a mere skirmish, left many famous dead: among which were the seneschal Eggihard, the count of the palace Anselm, and the warden of the Breton March, Roland, inspiring the subsequent creation of the Song of Roland (Chanson de Roland).

The conquest of Italy brought Charlemagne in contact with the Saracens who, at the time, controlled the Mediterranean. Pippin, his son, was much occupied with Saracens in Italy. Charlemagne conquered Corsica and Sardinia at an unknown date and in 799 the Balearic Islands. The islands were often attacked by Saracen pirates, but the counts of Genoa and Tuscany (Boniface) kept them at bay with large fleets until the end of Charlemagne's reign. Charlemagne even had contact with the caliphal court in Baghdad. In 797 (or possibly 801), the caliph of Baghdad, Harun al-Rashid, presented Charlemagne with an Asian elephant named Abul-Abbas and a mechanical clock, out of which came a mechanical bird to announce the hours.[citation needed]

In Hispania the struggle against the Moors continued unabated throughout the latter half of his reign. His son Louis was in charge of the Spanish border. In 785, his men captured Gerona permanently and extended Frankish control into the Catalan littoral for the duration of Charlemagne's reign (and much longer, it remained nominally Frankish until the Treaty of Corbeil in 1258). The Muslim chiefs in the northeast of Islamic Spain were constantly revolting against Córdoban authority and they often turned to the Franks for help. The Frankish border was slowly extended until 795, when Gerona, Cardona, Ausona, and Urgel were united into the new Spanish March, within the old duchy of Septimania.

In 797 Barcelona, the greatest city of the region, fell to the Franks when Zeid, its governor, rebelled against Córdoba and, failing, handed it to them. The Umayyad authority recaptured it in 799. However, Louis of Aquitaine marched the entire army of his kingdom over the Pyrenees and besieged it for two years, wintering there from 800 to 801, when it capitulated. The Franks continued to press forwards against the emir. They took Tarragona in 809 and Tortosa in 811. The last conquest brought them to the mouth of the Ebro and gave them raiding access to Valencia, prompting the Emir al-Hakam I to recognise their conquests in 812.

Charlemagne was engaged in almost constant battle throughout his reign, often at the head of his elite scara bodyguard squadrons, with his legendary sword Joyeuse in hand. After thirty years of war and eighteen battles—the Saxon Wars—he conquered Saxonia and proceeded to convert the conquered to Roman Catholicism, using force where necessary.

The Saxons were divided into four subgroups in four regions. Nearest to Austrasia was Westphalia and furthest away was Eastphalia. In between these two kingdoms was that of Engria and north of these three, at the base of the Jutland peninsula, was Nordalbingia.

In his first campaign, Charlemagne forced the Engrians in 773 to submit and cut down an Irminsul pillar near Paderborn. The campaign was cut short by his first expedition to Italy. He returned in the year 775, marching through Westphalia and conquering the Saxon fort of Sigiburg. He then crossed Engria, where he defeated the Saxons again. Finally, in Eastphalia, he defeated a Saxon force, and its leader Hessi converted to Christianity. He returned through Westphalia, leaving encampments at Sigiburg and Eresburg, which had, up until then, been important Saxon bastions. All Saxony but Nordalbingia was under his control, but Saxon resistance had not ended.

Following his campaign in Italy subjugating the dukes of Friuli and Spoleto, Charlemagne returned very rapidly to Saxony in 776, where a rebellion had destroyed his fortress at Eresburg. The Saxons were once again brought to heel, but their main leader, duke Widukind, managed to escape to Denmark, home of his wife. Charlemagne built a new camp at Karlstadt. In 777, he called a national diet at Paderborn to integrate Saxony fully into the Frankish kingdom. Many Saxons were baptised.

In the summer of 779, he again invaded Saxony and reconquered Eastphalia, Engria, and Westphalia. At a diet near Lippe, he divided the land into missionary districts and himself assisted in several mass baptisms (780). He then returned to Italy and, for the first time, there was no immediate Saxon revolt. In 780 Charlemagne decreed the death penalty for all Saxons who failed to be baptised, who failed to keep Christian festivals, and who cremated their dead. Saxony had peace from 780 to 782.

He returned in 782 to Saxony and instituted a code of law and appointed counts, both Saxon and Frank. The laws were draconian on religious issues, and the indigenous forms of Germanic polytheism were gravely threatened by Christianisation. This stirred a renewal of the old conflict. That year, in autumn, Widukind returned and led a new revolt, which resulted in several assaults on the church. In response, at Verden in Lower Saxony, Charlemagne allegedly ordered the beheading of 4,500 Saxons who had been caught practising their native paganism after conversion to Christianity, known as the Massacre of Verden. The massacre triggered three years of renewed bloody warfare (783-785). During this war the Frisians were also finally subdued and a large part of their fleet was burned. The war ended with Widukind accepting baptism.

Thereafter, the Saxons maintained the peace for seven years, but in 792 the Westphalians once again rose against their conquerors. The Eastphalians and Nordalbingians joined them in 793, but the insurrection did not catch on and was put down by 794. An Engrian rebellion followed in 796, but Charlemagne's personal presence and the presence of Christian Saxons and Slavs quickly crushed it. The last insurrection of the independence-minded people occurred in 804, more than thirty years after Charlemagne's first campaign against them. This time, the most unruly of them, the Nordalbingians, found themselves effectively disempowered from rebellion. According to Einhard:

The war that had lasted so many years was at length ended by their acceding to the terms offered by the King; which were renunciation of their national religious customs and the worship of devils, acceptance of the sacraments of the Christian faith and religion, and union with the Franks to form one people.

Saxon resistance to Charlemagne's rule was at an end.

In 788, Charlemagne turned his attention to Bavaria. He claimed Tassilo was an unfit ruler on account of his oath-breaking. The charges were trumped up, but Tassilo was deposed anyway and put in the monastery of Jumièges. In 794, he was made to renounce any claim to Bavaria for himself and his family (the Agilolfings) at the synod of Frankfurt. Bavaria was subdivided into Frankish counties, like Saxony.

In 788, the Avars, a pagan Asian horde which had settled down in what is today Hungary (Einhard called them Huns), invaded Friuli and Bavaria. Charles was preoccupied until 790 with other things, but in that year, he marched down the Danube into their territory and ravaged it to the Raab. Then, a Lombard army under Pippin marched into the Drava valley and ravaged Pannonia. The campaigns would have continued if the Saxons had not revolted again in 792, breaking seven years of peace.

For the next two years, Charles was occupied with the Slavs against the Saxons. Pippin and Duke Eric of Friuli continued, however, to assault the Avars' ring-shaped strongholds. The great Ring of the Avars, their capital fortress, was taken twice. The booty was sent to Charlemagne at his capital, Aachen, and redistributed to all his followers and even to foreign rulers, including King Offa of Mercia. Soon the Avar tuduns had thrown in the towel and travelled to Aachen to subject themselves to Charlemagne as vassals and Christians. This Charlemagne accepted and sent one native chief, baptised Abraham, back to Avaria with the ancient title of khagan. Abraham kept his people in line, but in 800 the Bulgarians under Krum swept the Avar state away. In the 10th century, the Magyars settled the Pannonian plain and presented a new threat to Charlemagne's descendants.

In 789, in recognition of his new pagan neighbours, the Slavs, Charlemagne marched an Austrasian-Saxon army across the Elbe into Obotrite territory. The Slavs immediately submitted under their leader Witzin. He then accepted the surrender of the Wiltzes under Dragovit and demanded many hostages and the permission to send, unmolested, missionaries into the pagan region. The army marched to the Baltic before turning around and marching to the Rhine with much booty and no harassment. The tributary Slavs became loyal allies. In 795, the peace broken by the Saxons, the Abotrites and Wiltzes rose in arms with their new master against the Saxons. Witzin died in battle and Charlemagne avenged him by harrying the Eastphalians on the Elbe. Thrasuco, his successor, led his men to conquest over the Nordalbingians and handed their leaders over to Charlemagne, who greatly honoured him. The Abotrites remained loyal until Charles' death and fought later against the Danes.

Charlemagne also directed his attention to the Slavs to the south of the Avar khaganate: the Carantanians and Carniolans. These people were subdued by the Lombards and Bavarii and made tributaries, but never incorporated into the Frankish state.

In 799, Pope Leo III had been mistreated by the Romans, who tried to put out his eyes and tear out his tongue. Leo escaped, and fled to Charlemagne at Paderborn, asking him to intervene in Rome and restore him. Charlemagne, advised by Alcuin of York, agreed to travel to Rome, doing so in November 800 and holding a council on December 1. On December 23 Leo swore an oath of innocence. At Mass, on Christmas Day (December 25), when Charlemagne knelt at the altar to pray, the pope crowned him Imperator Romanorum ("Emperor of the Romans") in Saint Peter's Basilica. In so doing, the pope was effectively attempting to transfer the office from Constantinople to Charles. Einhard says that Charlemagne was ignorant of the pope's intent and did not want any such coronation:

[H]e at first had such an aversion that he declared that he would not have set foot in the Church the day that they [the imperial titles] were conferred, although it was a great feast-day, if he could have foreseen the design of the Pope.

Many modern scholars suggest that Charlemagne was indeed aware of the coronation; certainly he cannot have missed the bejeweled crown waiting on the altar when he came to pray. In any event, he would now use these circumstances to claim that he was the renewer of the Roman Empire, which had apparently fallen into degradation under the Byzantines. However, Charles would after 806 style himself, not Imperator Romanorum ("Emperor of the Romans", a title reserved for the Byzantine emperor), but rather Imperator Romanum gubernans Imperium ("Emperor ruling the Roman Empire").

The Iconoclasm of the Isaurian Dynasty and resulting religious conflicts with the Empress Irene, sitting on the throne in Constantinople in 800, were probably the chief causes of the pope's desire to formally acclaim Charles as Roman Emperor. He also most certainly desired to increase the influence of the papacy, honour his saviour Charlemagne, and solve the constitutional issues then most troubling to European jurists in an era when Rome was not in the hands of an emperor. Thus, Charlemagne's assumption of the imperial title was not an usurpation in the eyes of the Franks or Italians. It was, however, in Byzantium, where it was protested by Irene and her successor Nicephorus I—neither of whom had any great effect in enforcing their protests.

The Byzantines, however, still held several territories in Italy: Venice (what was left of the Exarchate of Ravenna), Reggio (in Calabria), Brindisi (in Apulia), and Naples (the Ducatus Neapolitanus). These regions remained outside of Frankish hands until 804, when the Venetians, torn by infighting, transferred their allegiance to the Iron Crown of Pippin, Charles' son. The Pax Nicephori ended. Nicephorus ravaged the coasts with a fleet and the only instance of war between the Byzantines and the Franks, as it was, began. It lasted until 810, when the pro-Byzantine party in Venice gave their city back to the Byzantine Emperor and the two emperors of Europe made peace: Charlemagne received the Istrian peninsula and in 812 Emperor Michael I Rhangabes recognised his status as Emperor.

After the conquest of Nordalbingia, the Frankish frontier was brought into contact with Scandinavia. The pagan Danes, "a race almost unknown to his ancestors, but destined to be only too well known to his sons" as Charles Oman described them, inhabiting the Jutland peninsula had heard many stories from Widukind and his allies who had taken refuge with them about the dangers of the Franks and the fury which their Christian king could direct against pagan neighbours.

In 808, the king of the Danes, Godfred, built the vast Danevirke across the isthmus of Schleswig. This defence, last employed in the Danish-Prussian War of 1864, was at its beginning a 30 km long earthenwork rampart. The Danevirke protected Danish land and gave Godfred the opportunity to harass Frisia and Flanders with pirate raids. He also subdued the Frank-allied Wiltzes and fought the Abotrites.

Godfred invaded Frisia and joked of visiting Aachen, but was murdered before he could do any more, either by a Frankish assassin or by one of his own men. Godfred was succeeded by his nephew Hemming, who concluded the Treaty of Heiligen with Charlemagne in late 811.

In 813, Charlemagne called Louis the Pious, king of Aquitaine, his only surviving legitimate son, to his court. There he crowned him with his own hands as co-emperor and sent him back to Aquitaine. He then spent the autumn hunting before returning to Aachen on 1 November. In January, he fell ill with pleurisy.[9] He took to his bed on 21 January and as Einhard tells it:

He died January twenty-eighth, the seventh day from the time that he took to his bed, at nine o'clock in the morning, after partaking of the Holy Communion, in the seventy-second year of his age and the forty-seventh of his reign.

He was buried on the day of his death, in Aachen Cathedral, although the cold weather and the nature of his illness made such a hurried burial unnecessary. The earliest surviving planctus, the Planctus de obitu Karoli, was composed by a monk of Bobbio, which he had patronised.[10] A later story, told by Otho of Lomello, Count of the Palace at Aachen in the time of Otto III, would claim that he and Emperor Otto had discovered Charlemagne's tomb: the emperor, they claimed, was seated upon a throne, wearing a crown and holding a sceptre, his flesh almost entirely incorrupt. In 1165, Frederick I re-opened the tomb again, and placed the emperor in a sarcophagus beneath the floor of the cathedral.[11] In 1215 Frederick II would re-inter him in a casket made of gold and silver.

Charlemagne's death greatly affected many of his subjects, particularly those of the literary clique who had surrounded him at Aachen. An anonymous monk of Bobbio lamented:

“ From the lands where the sun rises to western shores, People are crying and wailing...the Franks, the Romans, all Christians, are stung with mourning and great worry...the young and old, glorious nobles, all lament the loss of their Caesar...the world laments the death of Charles...O Christ, you who govern the heavenly host, grant a peaceful place to Charles in your kingdom. Alas for miserable me.[12] ”

He was succeeded by his surviving son, Louis, who had been crowned the previous year. His empire lasted only another generation in its entirety; its division, according to custom, between Louis's own sons after their father's death laid the foundation for the modern states of France and Germany.

As an administrator, Charlemagne stands out for his many reforms: monetary, governmental, military, cultural and ecclesiastical. He is the main protagonist of the "Carolingian Renaissance."

Charlemagne had an important role in determining the immediate economic future of Europe. Pursuing his father's reforms, Charlemagne abolished the monetary system based on the gold sou, and he and the Anglo-Saxon King Offa of Mercia took up the system set in place by Pippin. There were strong pragmatic reasons for this abandonment of a gold standard, notably a shortage of gold itself, a direct consequence of the conclusion of peace with Byzantium and the ceding of Venice and Sicily, and the loss of their trade routes to Africa and to the east. This standardisation also had the effect of economically harmonising and unifying the complex array of currencies in use at the commencement of his reign, thus simplifying trade and commerce.

He established a new standard, the livre carolinienne (from the Latin libra, the modern pound), and based upon a pound of silver – a unit of both money and weight – which was worth 20 sous (from the Latin solidus [which was primarily an accounting device, and never actually minted], the modern shilling) or 240 deniers (from the Latin denarius, the modern penny). During this period, the livre and the sou were counting units, only the denier was a coin of the realm.

Charlemagne instituted principles for accounting practice by means of the Capitulare de villis of 802, which laid down strict rules for the way in which incomes and expenses were to be recorded.

The lending of money for interest was prohibited, strengthened in 814, when Charlemagne introduced the Capitulary for the Jews, a draconian prohibition on Jews engaging in money-lending.

In addition to this macro-management of the economy of his empire, Charlemagne also performed a significant number of acts of micro-management, such as direct control of prices and levies on certain goods and commodities.

Charlemagne applied the system to much of the European continent, and Offa's standard was voluntarily adopted by much of England. After Charlemagne's death, continental coinage degraded and most of Europe resorted to using the continued high quality English coin until about 1100.

A part of Charlemagne's success as warrior and administrator can be traced to his admiration for learning. His reign and the era it ushered in are often referred to as the Carolingian Renaissance because of the flowering of scholarship, literature, art, and architecture which characterise it. Charlemagne, brought into contact with the culture and learning of other countries (especially Visigothic Spain, Anglo-Saxon England and Lombard Italy) due to his vast conquests, greatly increased the provision of monastic schools and scriptoria (centres for book-copying) in Francia. Most of the surviving works of classical Latin were copied and preserved by Carolingian scholars. Indeed, the earliest manuscripts available for many ancient texts are Carolingian. It is almost certain that a text which survived to the Carolingian age survives still. The pan-European nature of Charlemagne's influence is indicated by the origins of many of the men who worked for him: Alcuin, an Anglo-Saxon from York; Theodulf, a Visigoth, probably from Septimania; Paul the Deacon, Lombard; Peter of Pisa and Paulinus of Aquileia, Italians; and Angilbert, Angilramm, Einhard and Waldo of Reichenau, Franks.

Charlemagne took a serious interest in scholarship, promoting the liberal arts at the court, ordering that his children and grandchildren be well-educated, and even studying himself (in a time when even leaders who promoted education did not take time to learn themselves )under the tutelage of Paul the Deacon, from whom he learned grammar, Alcuin, with whom he studied rhetoric, dialect and astronomy (he was particularly interested in the movements of the stars), and Einhard, who assisted him in his studies of arithmetic. His great scholarly failure, as Einhard relates, was his inability to write: when in his old age he began attempts to learn – practicing the formation of letters in his bed during his free time on books and wax tablets he hid under his pillow – "his effort came too late in life and achieved little success", and his ability to read – which Einhard is silent about, and which no contemporary source supports – has also been called into question.[13]

See also: Charlemagne and church music

During Charles' reign, the Roman half uncial script and its cursive version, which had given rise to various continental minuscule scripts, were combined with features from the insular scripts that were being used in Irish and English monasteries. Carolingian minuscule was created partly under the patronage of Charlemagne. Alcuin of York, who ran the palace school and scriptorium at Aachen, was probably a chief influence in this. The revolutionary character of the Carolingian reform, however, can be over-emphasised; efforts at taming the crabbed Merovingian and Germanic hands had been underway before Alcuin arrived at Aachen. The new minuscule was disseminated first from Aachen, and later from the influential scriptorium at Tours, where Alcuin retired as an abbot.

Charlemagne engaged in many reforms of Frankish governance, but he continued also in many traditional practices, such as the division of the kingdom among sons.

The Carolingian king exercised the bannum, the right to rule and command. He had supreme jurisdiction in judicial matters, made legislation, led the army, and protected both the Church and the poor. His administration was an attempt to organise the kingdom, church and nobility around him, however, it was entirely dependent upon the efficiency, loyalty and support of his subjects.

Historians have debated for centuries whether Charlemagne was aware of the Pope's intent to crown him Emperor prior to the coronation (Charlemagne declared that he would not have entered Saint Peter's had he known), but that debate has often obscured the more significant question of why the Pope granted the title and why Charlemagne chose to accept it once he did.

Roger Collins points out[14] "That the motivation behind the acceptance of the imperial title was a romantic and antiquarian interest in reviving the Roman empire is highly unlikely." For one thing, such romance would not have appealed either to Franks or Roman Catholics at the turn of the ninth century, both of whom viewed the Classical heritage of the Roman Empire with distrust. The Franks took pride in having "fought against and thrown from their shoulders the heavy yoke of the Romans" and "from the knowledge gained in baptism, clothed in gold and precious stones the bodies of the holy martyrs whom the Romans had killed by fire, by the sword and by wild animals", as Pippin III described it in a law of 763 or 764 (Collins 151). Furthermore, the new title—carrying with it the risk that the new emperor would "make drastic changes to the traditional styles and procedures of government" or "concentrate his attentions on Italy or on Mediterranean concerns more generally"—risked alienating the Frankish leadership.[15]

For both the Pope and Charlemagne, the Roman Empire remained a significant power in European politics at this time, and continued to hold a substantial portion of Italy, with borders not very far south of the city of Rome itself—this is the empire historiography has labelled the Byzantine Empire, for its capital was Constantinople (ancient Byzantium) and its people and rulers were Greek; it was a thoroughly Hellenic state. Indeed, Charlemagne was usurping the prerogatives of the Roman Emperor in Constantinople simply by sitting in judgement over the Pope in the first place:

By whom, however, could he [the Pope] be tried? Who, in other words, was qualified to pass judgement on the Vicar of Christ? In normal circumstances the only conceivable answer to that question would have been the Emperor at Constantinople; but the imperial throne was at this moment occupied by Irene. That the Empress was notorious for having blinded and murdered her own son was, in the minds of both Leo and Charles, almost immaterial: it was enough that she was a woman. The female sex was known to be incapable of governing, and by the old Salic tradition was debarred from doing so. As far as Western Europe was concerned, the Throne of the Emperors was vacant: Irene's claim to it was merely an additional proof, if any were needed, of the degradation into which the so-called Roman Empire had fallen.

—John Julius Norwich, Byzantium: The Early Centuries, pg. 378

For the Pope, then, there was "no living Emperor at the that time" (Norwich 379), though Henri Pirenne (Mohammed and Charlemagne, pg. 234n) disputes this saying that the coronation "was not in any sense explained by the fact that at this moment a woman was reigning in Constantinople." Nonetheless, the Pope took the extraordinary step of creating one. The papacy had since 727 been in conflict with Irene's predecessors in Constantinople over a number of issues, chiefly the continued Byzantine adherence to the doctrine of iconoclasm, the destruction of Christian images; while from 750, the secular power of the Byzantine Empire in central Italy had been nullified. By bestowing the Imperial crown upon Charlemagne, the Pope arrogated to himself "the right to appoint ... the Emperor of the Romans, ... establishing the imperial crown as his own personal gift but simultaneously granting himself implicit superiority over the Emperor whom he had created." And "because the Byzantines had proved so unsatisfactory from every point of view—political, military and doctrinal—he would select a westerner: the one man who by his wisdom and statesmanship and the vastness of his dominions ... stood out head and shoulders above his contemporaries."

With Charlemagne's coronation, therefore, "the Roman Empire remained, so far as either of them [Charlemagne and Leo] were concerned, one and indivisible, with Charles as its Emperor", though there can have been "little doubt that the coronation, with all that it implied, would be furiously contested in Constantinople." (Norwich, Byzantium: The Apogee, pg. 3) How realistic either Charlemagne or the Pope felt it to be that the people of Constantinople would ever accept the King of the Franks as their Emperor, we cannot know; Alcuin speaks hopefully in his letters of an Imperium Christianum ("Christian Empire"), wherein, "just as the inhabitants of the [Roman Empire] had been united by a common Roman citizenship", presumably this new empire would be united by a common Christian faith (Collins 151), certainly this is the view of Pirenne when he says "Charles was the Emperor of the ecclesia as the Pope conceived it, of the Roman Church, regarded as the universal Church" (Pirenne 233).

What we do know, from the Byzantine chronicler Theophanes (Collins 153), is that Charlemagne's reaction to his coronation was to take the initial steps toward securing the Constantinopolitan throne by sending envoys of marriage to Irene, and that Irene reacted somewhat favorably to them. Only when the people of Constantinople reacted to Irene's failure to immediately rebuff the proposal by deposing her and replacing her with one of her ministers, Nicephorus I, did Charlemagne drop any ambitions toward the Byzantine throne and begin minimising his new Imperial title, and instead return to describing himself primarily as rex Francorum et Langobardum.

The title of emperor remained in his family for years to come, however, as brothers fought over who had the supremacy in the Frankish state. The papacy itself never forgot the title nor abandoned the right to bestow it. When the family of Charles ceased to produce worthy heirs, the pope gladly crowned whichever Italian magnate could best protect him from his local enemies. This devolution led, as could have been expected, to the dormancy of the title for almost forty years (924-962). Finally, in 962, in a radically different Europe from Charlemagne's, a new Roman Emperor was crowned in Rome by a grateful pope. This emperor, Otto the Great, brought the title into the hands the kings of Germany for almost a millennium, for it was to become the Holy Roman Empire, a true imperial successor to Charles, if not Augustus.

In 806, Charlemagne first made provision for the traditional division of the empire on his death. For Charles the Younger he designated Austrasia and Neustria, Saxony, Burgundy, and Thuringia. To Pippin he gave Italy, Bavaria, and Swabia. Louis received Aquitaine, the Spanish March, and Provence. There was no mention of the imperial title however, which has led to the suggestion that, at that particular time, Charlemagne regarded the title as an honorary achievement which held no hereditary significance.

This division may have worked, but it was never to be tested. Pippin died in 810 and Charles in 811. Charlemagne then reconsidered the matter, and in 813, crowned his youngest son, Louis, co-emperor and co-King of the Franks, granting him a half-share of the empire and the rest upon Charlemagne's own death. The only part of the Empire which Louis was not promised was Italy, which Charlemagne specifically bestowed upon Pippin's illegitimate son Bernard.

Charlemagne had an immediate afterlife. The author of the Visio Karoli Magni written around 865 uses facts gathered apparently from Einhard and his own observations on the decline of Charlemagne's family after the dissensions of civil war (840–43) as the basis for a visionary tale of Charles' meeting with a prophetic spectre in a dream.

Charlemagne, being a model knight as one of the Nine Worthies, enjoyed an important afterlife in European culture. One of the great medieval literary cycles, the Charlemagne cycle or the Matter of France, centres on the deeds of Charlemagne—the King with the Grizzly Beard of Roland fame—and his historical commander of the border with Brittany, Roland, and the paladins who are analogous to the knights of the Round Table or King Arthur's court. Their tales constitute the first chansons de geste.

Charlemagne himself was accorded sainthood inside the Holy Roman Empire after the twelfth century. His canonisation by Antipope Paschal III, to gain the favour of Frederick Barbarossa in 1165, was never recognised by the Holy See, which annulled all of Paschal's ordinances at the Third Lateran Council in 1179. However, he has been acknowledged as cultus confirmed. In the Divine Comedy the spirit of Charlemagne appears to Dante in the Heaven of Mars, among the other "warriors of the faith."

Charlemagne is sometimes credited with supporting the insertion of the filioque into the Nicene Creed. The Franks had inherited a Visigothic tradition of referring to the Holy Spirit as deriving from God the Father and Son (Filioque), and under Charlemagne, the Franks challenged the 381 Council of Constantinople proclamation that the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father alone. Pope Leo III rejected this notion, and had the Nicene Creed carved into the doors of Old St. Peter's Basilica without the offending phrase; the Frankish insistence lead to bad relations between Rome and Francia. Later, the Roman Catholic Church would adopt the phrase, leading to dispute between Rome and Constantinople. Some see this as one of many pre-cursors to the East-West Schism centuries later.[16]

French volunteers in the Wehrmacht and later Waffen-SS during the World War II were organised in a unit called 33rd Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS Charlemagne (1st French). A German Waffen-SS unit used "Karl der Große" for some time in 1943, but then chose the name 10th SS Panzer Division Frundsberg instead.

The city of Aachen has, since 1949, awarded an international prize (called the Karlspreis der Stadt Aachen) in honour of Charlemagne. It is awarded annually to "personages of merit who have promoted the idea of western unity by their political, economic and literary endeavours."[17] Winners of the prize include Count Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi, the founder of the pan-European movement, Alcide De Gasperi, and Winston Churchill.

Charlemagne is memorably quoted by Dr Henry Jones Sr. (played by Sean Connery) in the film, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Immediately after using his umbrella to induce a flock of seagulls to smash through the glass cockpit of a pursuing German fighter plane, Henry Jones remarks "I suddenly remembered my Charlemagne: 'Let my armies be the rocks and the trees and the birds in the sky'." Despite the quote's popularity since the movie, there is no evidence that Charlemagne actually said this.[18]

The Economist, the weekly news and international affairs newspaper, features a one page article every week entitled "Charlemagne", focusing on European government.

Encomium

His grandson Nithard wrote "When Emperor Charles of blessed memory, rightfully called the Great by all nations, died at a ripe old age, about the third hour of the day, he left the whole of Europe flourishing. . . . But above all I believe he will be admired for the tempered severity with which he subdued the fierce and iron hearts of Franks and barbarians. Not even Roman might had been able to tame these people, but they dared do nothing in Charles's empire except what was in harmony with the public welfare. He ruled happily as king for thirty-two years and held the helm of the empire with no less success for fourteen years." (Nithard, Historiae 1.1).

Sources

Einhard, Life of Charlemange, c.829-836

Monk of St. Gall, Life of Charlemange, 883/4

-------------------- Charlemagne (pronounced /ˈʃɑrlɨmeɪn/; Latin: Carolus Magnus or Karolus Magnus, meaning Charles the Great; possibly 742 – 28 January 814) was King of the Franks from 768 and Emperor of the Romans (Imperator Romanorum) from 800 to his death in 814. He expanded the Frankish kingdom into an empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. During his reign, he conquered Italy and was crowned Imperator Augustus by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800. This temporarily made him a rival of the Byzantine Emperor in Constantinople. His rule is also associated with the Carolingian Renaissance, a revival of art, religion, and culture through the medium of the Catholic Church. Through his foreign conquests and internal reforms, Charlemagne helped define both Western Europe and the Middle Ages. He is numbered as Charles I in the regnal lists of Germany (where he is known as Karl der Große), the Holy Roman Empire, and France.

The son of King Pepin the Short and Bertrada of Laon, a Frankish queen, he succeeded his father in 768 and co-ruled with his brother Carloman I. The latter got on badly with Charlemagne, but war was prevented by the sudden death of Carloman in 771. Charlemagne continued the policy of his father towards the papacy and became its protector, removing the Lombards from power in Italy, and leading an incursion into Muslim Spain, to which he was invited by the Muslim governor of Barcelona. Charlemagne was promised several Iberian cities in return for giving military aid to the governor; however, the deal was withdrawn. Subsequently, Charlemagne's retreating army experienced its worst defeat at the hands of the Basques, at the Battle of Roncesvalles (778) memorialised, although heavily fictionalised, in the Song of Roland. He also campaigned against the peoples to his east, especially the Saxons, and after a protracted war subjected them to his rule. By forcibly converting them to Christianity, he integrated them into his realm and thus paved the way for the later Ottonian dynasty.

Today he is regarded not only as the founding father of both French and German monarchies, but also as the father of Europe[1]: his empire united most of Western Europe for the first time since the Romans, and the Carolingian renaissance encouraged the formation of a common European identity.[2]

Background

By the 6th century the West Germanic Franks were Christianised and Francia, ruled by the Merovingians, had become the most powerful of the kingdoms which succeeded the Western Roman Empire. But following the Battle of Tertry, the Merovingians declined into a state of powerlessness, for which they have been dubbed do-nothing kings (rois fainéants). Almost all government powers of any consequence were exercised by their chief officer, the mayor of the palace or major domus.

In 687, Pippin of Herstal, mayor of the palace of Austrasia, ended the strife between various kings and their mayors with his victory at Tertry and became the sole governor of the entire Frankish kingdom. Pippin himself was the grandson of two most important figures of the Austrasian Kingdom, Saint Arnulf of Metz and Pippin of Landen. Pippin the Middle was eventually succeeded by his illegitimate son Charles, later known as Charles Martel (the Hammer). After 737, Charles governed the Franks without a king on the throne but desisted from calling himself "king". Charles was succeeded by his sons Carloman and Pepin the Short, the father of Charlemagne. To curb separatism in the periphery of the realm, the brothers placed on the throne Childeric III, who was to be the last Merovingian king.

After Carloman resigned his office, Pepin, with Pope Zachary's approval, had Childeric III deposed. In 751, Pepin was elected and anointed King of the Franks and in 754 Pope Stephen II again anointed him and his young sons, now heirs to the great realm which already covered most of western and central Europe. Thus was the Merovingian dynasty replaced by the Carolingian dynasty, named after Pepin's father, Charles Martel.

Under the new dynasty, the Frankish kingdom spread to encompass an area including most of Western Europe. The division of that kingdom formed France and Germany;[3] and the religious, political, and artistic evolutions originating from a centrally positioned Francia made a defining imprint on the whole of Western Europe.

Personal Traits

Date and Place of Birth

Charlemagne is believed to have been born in 741; however, several factors have led to a reconsideration of this date. First, the year 742 was calculated from his age given at death, rather than from attestation in primary sources. Another date is given in the Annales Petaviani, that of 2 April[not in citation given] 747.[4] In that year, 2 April was at Easter. The birth of an emperor at Eastertime is a coincidence likely to provoke comment, but there was no such comment documented in 747, leading some to suspect that the Easter birthday was a pious fiction concocted as a way of honoring the Emperor. Other commentators weighing the primary records have suggested that his birth was one year later, in 748. At present, it is impossible to be certain of the date of the birth of Charlemagne. The best guesses include 1 April 747, after 15 April 747, or 1 April 748, in Herstal (where his father was born, a town close to Liège in modern day Belgium), the region from where both the Merovingian and Carolingian families originated. He went to live in his father's villa in Jupille when he was around seven, which caused Jupille to be listed as a possible place of birth in almost every history book. Other cities have been suggested, including, Prüm, Düren, Gauting and Aachen.

Dubbed Charles le Magne "Charles the Great", he was named after his grandfather, Charles Martel. The name derives from Germanic *karlaz "free man, commoner",[5] which gave German Kerl "man, guy" and English churl. His name, however, is first attested in its Latin form, "Carolus" or "Karolus."

In many European languages, the very word for "king" derives from Charles' name. (e.g., Polish: król, Czech: král, Lithuanian: karalius, Latvian: karalis, Hungarian: király, Bulgarian: крал, Serbian: краљ, Croatian: kralj, Russian: король, Turkish: kral, Slovak: král) [edit] Language

Charlemagne's native language was undoubtedly a form of Germanic idiom; however, the specifics as to which remain a matter of controversy. It was probably a Germanic dialect of the Ripuarian Franks, but linguists differ on its identity and chronology. Some linguists go so far as to say that he did not speak Old Frankish. Old Frankish is reconstructed from its descendant, Old Low Franconian, which would give rise to the Dutch language and to the modern dialects in the German North Rhineland, which were dubbed Ripuarian in modern times. Another important source are loanwords in Old French. Linguists know very little about Old Frankish, as it is attested mainly as phrases and words in the law codes of the main Frankish tribes (especially those of the Salian and Ripuarian Franks), which are written in Latin interspersed with Germanic elements.[6] The Franconian language, which was a form of Lower German, had been replaced with an Old High German form in the area comprising the contemporary Southern Rhineland, The Palatinate South Hessen and Northern parts of Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria. The present Dutch language area along with the modern Ripuarian areas in the North Rhine region preserved a Lower German form of Franconian dubbed Old Low Franconian or Old Dutch.

The area of Charlemagne's birth does not make determination of his native language easier. Most historians agree he was born around Liège, like his father, but some say he was born in or around Aachen, some 50 km (31 mi) away. At that time, this was an area of some linguistic diversity. If we take Liège (around 750) as the centre, we find:

   * Old East Low Franconian in the city, north and northwest;
   * the closely related Old Ripuarian Franconian to the east and in Aachen; and
   * Gallo-Romance (the ancestor of the Walloon dialect of Old French) in the south and southwest.

The names he gave his children may be indicators of the language he spoke, as all of his daughters received Old High German names.

Apart from his native language he also spoke Latin "as fluently as his own tongue" and understood a bit of Greek: Grecam vero melius intellegere quam pronuntiare poterat, "He understood Greek better than he could pronounce it."[7]

According to a fifteenth century Irish source, he also spoke Arabic. In the 'Gabhaltais Shearluis Mhoir' or 'Conquests of Charlemagne' from the Book of Lismore edited by Douglas Hyde, ch. 10, p. 35:

   When Agiolandus heard the Saracen language from Charles he marvelled at it greatly. For when Charles was a youth he had been among the Paynims in the city which is called Toletum (Toledo) and he had learnt the language of the Saracens in that city.

Personal Appearance

Though no description from Charlemagne's lifetime exists, his personal appearance is known from a good description by Einhard, author of the biography Vita Karoli Magni. Einhard tells in his twenty-second chapter:[8]

   He was heavily built, sturdy, and of considerable stature, although not exceptionally so, since his height was seven times the length of his own foot. He had a round head, large and lively eyes, a slightly larger nose than usual, white but still attractive hair, a bright and cheerful expression, a short and fat neck, and he enjoyed good health, except for the fevers that affected him in the last few years of his life. Toward the end he dragged one leg. Even then, he stubbornly did what he wanted and refused to listen to doctors, indeed he detested them, because they wanted to persuade him to stop eating roast meat, as was his wont, and to be content with boiled meat.

The physical portrait provided by Einhard is confirmed by contemporary depictions of the emperor, such as coins and his 8-inch bronze statue.

---------------------------------

Alternative Data from Merges:

Birthplace: Ingelheim, Nadrenia-Palatynat, Niemcy

Deathplace: Aachen, North Rhine Westphalia, Preussen, Germany

---------------------------------

-------------------- Kung av Frankrike 768-814 .

Kung av Lombard s.

Fö