Charlemagne
Key Facts
- King of the Franks from 768, becomes sole ruler of the kingdom on the death of Carloman in 771
- Leads 50 military campaigns in 46 years, subduing the Saxons, the Avars, the Lombards and the Moors
- Crowned Emperor of the Romans by Pope Leo III in Rome on December 25, 800
- Establishes the missi dominici to oversee local administration across the empire
- Champion of the Carolingian Renaissance: reform of writing and education, copying of manuscripts
- Dies on January 28, 814; the Treaty of Verdun (843) divides his empire into three founding kingdoms
Biography
Charlemagne ("Charles the Great" in Latin) was born around 742, probably in the Meuse or Rhine region, within the Carolingian dynasty. Son of King Pepin the Short and grandson of Charles Martel, who had halted the Arab advance at Poitiers in 732, he inherited the Frankish kingdom upon his father's death in 768, initially sharing it with his brother Carloman. When Carloman died in 771, Charlemagne became sole ruler of a vast territory covering present-day northern France and the Rhineland.
King of the Franks from 768, Charlemagne embarked on a series of military campaigns that transformed his kingdom into an empire. He subdued the Saxons after thirty years of fierce warfare (772-804), incorporated Bavaria, defeated the Avars on the Danube and pushed the Moors back in Spain to the Hispanic March. In Italy, he overthrew the Lombard king Desiderius in 774 and had himself crowned King of Italy. These conquests extended his authority over virtually all of Christian Western Europe.
On 25 December 800, Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne "Emperor of the Romans" in the Basilica of Saint Peter in Rome. This founding act created a major political and symbolic precedent: it revived the idea of a universal Christian empire in the West and established for centuries the complex relationship between papal and imperial power. Charlemagne reorganised the administration of his empire through counts, supervised by royal itinerant agents, the missi dominici.
Charlemagne was also the driving force behind an intellectual and cultural revival that historians call the "Carolingian Renaissance." He gathered scholars from across Europe at his court in Aachen, including Alcuin of York, to reform writing, education and liturgy. He ordered schools to be opened in monasteries and cathedrals, had ancient manuscripts copied and established the Carolingian minuscule, the ancestor of our modern Roman typefaces.
Charlemagne died on 28 January 814 in Aachen. His son Louis the Pious succeeded him, but the empire did not long survive its unity: the Treaty of Verdun (843) divided it among his three grandsons and laid the foundations for the future kingdoms of France, Germany and Italy. A founding figure of Western Europe, Charlemagne is claimed by both French and German traditions as the father of their nation.