Charlemagne (pronounced
/'??rl?me?n/;
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 which 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
France,
Germany (where he is known as
Karl der Große), 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.
