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Charlemagne succeeded in uniting the majority of Western Central Europe, and was the first recognized emperor to rule in the west after the fall of the Western Roman Empire approximately three centuries earlier. Charlemagne's rule saw a program of political and social changes that had a lasting impact on Europe in the Middle Ages.
- 9 October 768 – 28 January 814
- Bertrada of Laon
- Overview
- Early years
Charlemagne was an 8th-century Frankish king who has attained a status of almost mythical proportions in the West. Among other things, he was responsible for uniting most of Europe under his rule by power of the sword, for helping to restore the Western Roman Empire and becoming its first emperor, and for facilitating a cultural and intellectual renaissance, the ramifications of which were felt in Europe for centuries afterward.
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How did Charlemagne become emperor of the Holy Roman Empire?
Charlemagne was crowned “emperor of the Romans” by Pope Leo III in 800 CE, thus restoring the Roman Empire in the West for the first time since its dissolution in the 5th century. Charlemagne was selected for a variety of reasons, not least of which was his long-standing protectorate over the papacy. His protector status became explicit in 799, when the pope was attacked in Rome and fled to Charlemagne for asylum. The ensuing negotiations ended with Leo’s reinstallation as pope and Charlemagne’s own coronation as Holy Roman emperor.
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Around the time of the birth of Charlemagne—conventionally held to be 742 but likely to be 747 or 748—his father, Pippin III (the Short), was mayor of the palace, an official serving the Merovingian king but actually wielding effective power over the extensive Frankish kingdom. What little is known about Charlemagne’s youth suggests that he received practical training for leadership by participating in the political, social, and military activities associated with his father’s court. His early years were marked by a succession of events that had immense implications for the Frankish position in the contemporary world. In 751, with papal approval, Pippin seized the Frankish throne from the last Merovingian king, Childeric III. After meeting with Pope Stephen II at the royal palace of Ponthion in 753–754, Pippin forged an alliance with the pope by committing himself to protect Rome in return for papal sanction of the right of Pippin’s dynasty to the Frankish throne. Pippin also intervened militarily in Italy in 755 and 756 to restrain Lombard threats to Rome, and in the so-called Donation of Pippin in 756 he bestowed on the papacy a block of territory stretching across central Italy which formed the basis of a new political entity, the Papal States, over which the pope ruled.
When Pippin died in 768, his realm was divided according to Frankish custom between Charlemagne and his brother, Carloman. Almost immediately the rivalry between the two brothers threatened the unity of the Frankish kingdom. Seeking advantage over his brother, Charlemagne formed an alliance with Desiderius, king of the Lombards, accepting as his wife the daughter of the king to seal an agreement that threatened the delicate equilibrium that had been established in Italy by Pippin’s alliance with the papacy. The death of Carloman in 771 ended the mounting crisis, and Charlemagne, disregarding the rights of Carloman’s heirs, took control of the entire Frankish realm.
Nov 9, 2009 · Charlemagne was a medieval emperor who ruled much of Western Europe from 768 to 814. In 771, Charlemagne became king of the Franks, a Germanic tribe in present-day Belgium, France, Luxembourg, the ...
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Mar 25, 2019 · Charlemagne (Charles the Great, also known as Charles I, l. 742-814) was King of the Franks (r. 768-814), King of the Franks and Lombards (r. 774-814), and Holy Roman Emperor (r. 800-814). He is among the best-known and most influential figures of the Early Middle Ages for his military successes which united most of Western Europe, his ...
- Joshua J. Mark
Charlemagne - Emperor, Franks, Holy Roman Empire: Charlemagne’s prodigious range of activities during the first 30 years of his reign were prelude to what some contemporaries and many later observers viewed as the culminating event of his reign: his coronation as Roman emperor. In considerable part, that event was the consequence of an idea shaped by the interpretation given to Charlemagne ...
Apr 2, 2014 · Charlemagne was the founder of the Carolingian Empire, best known for uniting Western Europe for the first time since the fall of the Roman Empire.
Jun 27, 2023 · End of a dynasty. During the final year of his reign, Charlemagne crowned his son, Louis the Pious, king of Aquitaine, as co-emperor. When he died in 814, Louis became the sole emperor, ending a ...
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