[N3228] Charlemagne or Charles the Great German: Karl der Große, a member of the Carolingian dynasty, was King of the Franks from 768, King of the Lombards from 774, and the first Holy Roman Emperor from 800. Charlemagne succeeded in uniting the majority of western and central Europe and was the first recognized emperor to rule from western Europe after the fall of the Western Roman Empire around three centuries earlier. The expanded Frankish state that Charlemagne founded was the Carolingian Empire. He was canonized by Antipope Paschal III-an act later treated as invalid-and he is now regarded by some as beatified (which is a step on the path to sainthood) in the Catholic Church.

Charlemagne was the eldest son of Pepin the Short and Bertrada of Laon. He was born before their canonical marriage. He became king of the Franks in 768 following his father's death, and was initially co-ruler with his brother Carloman I until the latter's death in 771. As sole ruler, he continued his father's policy towards protection of the papacy and became its sole defender, removing the Lombards from power in northern Italy and leading an incursion into Muslim Spain. He also campaigned against the Saxons to his east, Christianizing them (upon penalty of death) which led to events such as the Massacre of Verden. He reached the height of his power in 800 when he was crowned Emperor of the Romans by Pope Leo III on Christmas Day at Old St. Peter's Basilica in Rome.

Charlemagne has been called the "Father of Europe" (Pater Europae), as he united most of Western Europe for the first time since the classical era of the Roman Empire, as well as uniting parts of Europe that had never been under Frankish or Roman rule. His reign spurred the Carolingian Renaissance, a period of energetic cultural and intellectual activity within the Western Church. The Eastern Orthodox Church viewed Charlemagne less favourably, due to his support of the filioque and the Pope's preference of him as emperor over the Byzantine Empire's first female monarch, Irene of Athens. These and other disputes led to the eventual split of Rome and Constantinople in the Great Schism of 1054.

Charlemagne died in 814 after contracting an infectious lung disease. He was laid to rest in the Aachen Cathedral, in his imperial capital city of Aachen. He married at least four times, and had three legitimate sons who lived to adulthood. Only the youngest of them, Louis the Pious, survived to succeed him. Charlemagne and his predecessors are the direct ancestors of many of Europe's royal houses, including the Capetian dynasty,[c] the Ottonian dynasty,[d] the House of Luxembourg[e] and the House of Ivrea.

NAMES AND NICKNAMES

The name Charlemagne (English: /ˈʃɑːrləmeɪn, ˌʃɑːrləˈmeɪn/ SHAR-lə-mayn, -⁠MAYN),[16] by which the emperor is normally known in English, comes from the French Charles-le-magne, meaning "Charles the Great".[g] In modern German, Karl der Große has the same meaning. His given name was simply Charles (Latin Carolus, Old High German Karlus, Romance Karlo).[17] He was named after his grandfather, Charles Martel, a choice which intentionally marked him as Martel's true heir.[18]

The nickname magnus (great) may have been associated with him already in his lifetime, but this is not certain. The contemporary Latin Royal Frankish Annals routinely call him Carolus magnus rex, "Charles the great king".[19] As a nickname, it is only certainly attested in the works of the Poeta Saxo around 900 and it only became standard in all the lands of his former empire around 1000.[20]

Charles' achievements gave a new meaning to his name. In many languages of Europe, the very word for "king" derives from his name; e.g., Polish: król, Ukrainian: король (korol'), Czech: král, Slovak: kráľ, Hungarian: király, Lithuanian: karalius, Latvian: karalis, Russian: король, Macedonian: крал, Bulgarian: крал, Serbo-Croatian Cyrillic: краљ/kralj, Turkish: kral. This development parallels that of the name of the Caesars in the original Roman Empire, which became kaiser and tsar (or czar), among others.

POLITICAL BACKGROUND

By the 6th century, the western Germanic tribe of the Franks had been Christianised, due, in considerable measure, to the Catholic conversion of Clovis I. Francia, ruled by the Merovingians, was the most powerful of the kingdoms that succeeded the Western Roman Empire. Following the Battle of Tertry, the Merovingians declined into powerlessness, for which they have been dubbed the rois fainéants ("do-nothing kings"). Almost all government powers were exercised by their chief officer, the mayor of the palace.

In 687, Pepin of Herstal, mayor of the palace of Austrasia, ended the strife between various kings and their mayors with his victory at Tertry. He became the sole governor of the entire Frankish kingdom. Pepin was the grandson of two important figures of the Austrasian Kingdom: Saint Arnulf of Metz and Pepin of Landen. Pepin of Herstal was eventually succeeded by his son Charles, later known as Charles Martel (Charles the Hammer).

After 737, Charles governed the Franks in lieu of a king and declined to call himself king. Charles was succeeded in 741 by his sons Carloman and Pepin the Short, the father of Charlemagne. In 743, the brothers placed Childeric III on the throne to curb separatism in the periphery. He was the last Merovingian king. Carloman resigned office in 746, preferring to enter the church as a monk. Pepin brought the question of the kingship before Pope Zachary, asking whether it was logical for a king to have no royal power. The pope handed down his decision in 749, decreeing that it was better for Pepin to be called king, as he had the powers of high office as Mayor, so as not to confuse the hierarchy. He, therefore, ordered him to become the true king.

In 750, Pepin was elected by an assembly of the Franks, anointed by the archbishop, and then raised to the office of king. The Pope branded Childeric III as "the false king" and ordered him into a monastery. The Merovingian dynasty was thereby replaced by the Carolingian dynasty, named after Charles Martel. In 753, Pope Stephen II fled from Italy to Francia, appealing to Pepin for assistance for the rights of St. Peter. He was supported in this appeal by Carloman, Charles' brother. In return, the pope could provide only legitimacy. He did this by again anointing and confirming Pepin, this time adding his young sons Carolus (Charlemagne) and Carloman to the royal patrimony. They thereby became heirs to the realm that already covered most of western Europe. In 754, Pepin accepted the Pope's invitation to visit Italy on behalf of St. Peter's rights, dealing successfully with the Lombards.

Under the Carolingians, the Frankish kingdom spread to encompass an area including most of Western Europe; the later east-west division of the kingdom formed the basis for modern France and Germany. Orman portrays the Treaty of Verdun (843) between the warring grandsons of Charlemagne as the foundation event of an independent France under its first king Charles the Bald; an independent Germany under its first king Louis the German; and an independent intermediate state stretching from the Low Countries along the borderlands to south of Rome under Lothair I, who retained the title of emperor and the capitals Aachen and Rome without the jurisdiction. The middle kingdom had broken up by 890 and partly absorbed into the Western kingdom (later France) and the Eastern kingdom (Germany) and the rest developing into smaller "buffer" states that exist between France and Germany to this day, namely Benelux and Switzerland.

RISE TO POWER

Early Life
The most likely date of Charlemagne's birth is reconstructed from several sources. The date of 742-calculated from Einhard's date of death of January 814 at age 72-predates the marriage of his parents in 744. The year given in the Annales Petaviani, 747, would be more likely, except that it contradicts Einhard and a few other sources in making Charlemagne sixty-seven years old at his death. The month and day of 2 April are based on a calendar from Lorsch Abbey.

In 747, Easter fell on 2 April, a coincidence that likely would have been remarked upon by chroniclers but was not. If Easter was being used as the beginning of the calendar year, then 2 April 747 could have been, by modern reckoning, April 748 (not on Easter). The date favoured by the preponderance of evidence is 2 April 742, based on Charlemagne's age at the time of his death. This date supports the concept that Charlemagne was technically an illegitimate child, although that is not mentioned by Einhard in either since he was born out of wedlock; Pepin and Bertrada were bound by a private contract or Friedelehe at the time of his birth, but did not marry until 744.

Charlemagne's exact birthplace is unknown, although historians have suggested Aachen in modern-day Germany, and Liège (Herstal) in present-day Belgium as possible locations. Aachen and Liège are close to the region whence the Merovingian and Carolingian families originated. Other cities have been suggested, including Düren, Gauting, Mürlenbach, Quierzy, and Prüm. No definitive evidence resolves the question.

Ancestry
Charlemagne was the eldest child of Pepin the Short (714 - 24 September 768, reigned from 751) and his wife Bertrada of Laon (720 - 12 July 783), daughter of Caribert of Laon. Many historians consider Charlemagne (Charles) to have been illegitimate, although some state that this is arguable, because Pepin did not marry Bertrada until 744, which was after Charles' birth; this status did not exclude him from the succession.

Records name only Carloman, Gisela, and three short-lived children named Pepin, Chrothais and Adelais as his younger siblings.

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.
-Einhard

Ambiguous High Office
The most powerful officers of the Frankish people, the Mayor of the Palace (Maior Domus) and one or more kings (rex, reges), were appointed by the election of the people. Elections were not periodic, but were held as required to elect officers ad quos summa imperii pertinebat, "to whom the highest matters of state pertained". Evidently, interim decisions could be made by the Pope, which ultimately needed to be ratified using an assembly of the people that met annually.

Before he was elected king in 751, Pepin was initially a mayor, a high office he held "as though hereditary" (velut hereditario fungebatur). Einhard explains that "the honour" was usually "given by the people" to the distinguished, but Pepin the Great and his brother Carloman the Wise received it as though hereditary, as had their father, Charles Martel. There was, however, a certain ambiguity about quasi-inheritance. The office was treated as joint property: one Mayorship held by two brothers jointly. Each, however, had his own geographic jurisdiction. When Carloman decided to resign, becoming ultimately a Benedictine at Monte Cassino, the question of the disposition of his quasi-share was settled by the pope. He converted the mayorship into a kingship and awarded the joint property to Pepin, who gained the right to pass it on by inheritance.

This decision was not accepted by all family members. Carloman had consented to the temporary tenancy of his own share, which he intended to pass on to his son, Drogo, when the inheritance should be settled at someone's death. By the Pope's decision, in which Pepin had a hand, Drogo was to be disqualified as an heir in favour of his cousin Charles. He took up arms in opposition to the decision and was joined by Grifo, a half-brother of Pepin and Carloman, who had been given a share by Charles Martel, but was stripped of it and held under loose arrest by his half-brothers after an attempt to seize their shares by military action. Grifo perished in combat in the Battle of Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne while Drogo was hunted down and taken into custody.

According to the Life, Pepin died in Paris on 24 September 768, whereupon the kingship passed jointly to his sons, "with divine assent" (divino nutu). The Franks "in general assembly" (generali conventu) gave them both the rank of a king (reges) but "partitioned the whole body of the kingdom equally" (totum regni corpus ex aequo partirentur). The annals tell a slightly different version, with the king dying at St-Denis, near Paris. The two "lords" (domni) were "elevated to kingship" (elevati sunt in regnum), Charles on 9 October in Noyon, Carloman on an unspecified date in Soissons. If born in 742, Charles was 26 years old, but he had been campaigning at his father's right hand for several years, which may help to account for his military skill. Carloman was 17.

The language, in either case, suggests that there were not two inheritances, which would have created distinct kings ruling over distinct kingdoms, but a single joint inheritance and a joint kingship tenanted by two equal kings, Charles and his brother Carloman. As before, distinct jurisdictions were awarded. Charles received Pepin's original share as Mayor: the outer parts of the kingdom bordering on the sea, namely Neustria, western Aquitaine, and the northern parts of Austrasia; while Carloman was awarded his uncle's former share, the inner parts: southern Austrasia, Septimania, eastern Aquitaine, Burgundy, Provence, and Swabia, lands bordering Italy. The question of whether these jurisdictions were joint shares reverting to the other brother if one brother died or were inherited property passed on to the descendants of the brother who died was never definitely settled. It came up repeatedly over the succeeding decades until the grandsons of Charlemagne created distinct sovereign kingdoms.

Aquitainian Rebellion
Formation of a new Aquitaine

In southern Gaul, Aquitaine had been Romanised and people spoke a Romance language. Similarly, Hispania had been populated by peoples who spoke various languages, including Celtic, but these had now been mostly replaced by Romance languages. Between Aquitaine and Hispania were the Euskaldunak, Latinised to Vascones, or Basques, whose country, Vasconia, extended, according to the distributions of place names attributable to the Basques, mainly in the western Pyrenees but also as far south as the upper river Ebro in Spain and as far north as the river Garonne in France. The French name Gascony derives from Vasconia. The Romans were never able to subjugate the whole of Vasconia. The soldiers they recruited for the Roman legions from those parts they did submit and where they founded the region's first cities were valued for their fighting abilities. The border with Aquitaine was at Toulouse.

In about 660, the Duchy of Vasconia united with the Duchy of Aquitaine to form a single realm under Felix of Aquitaine, ruling from Toulouse. This was a joint kingship with a Basque Duke, Lupus I. Lupus is the Latin translation of Basque Otsoa, "wolf". At Felix's death in 670 the joint property of the kingship reverted entirely to Lupus. As the Basques had no law of joint inheritance but relied on primogeniture, Lupus in effect founded a hereditary dynasty of Basque rulers of an expanded Aquitaine.

Acquisition of Aquitaine by the Carolingians
The Latin chronicles of the end of Visigothic Hispania omit many details, such as identification of characters, filling in the gaps and reconciliation of numerous contradictions. Muslim sources, however, present a more coherent view, such as in the Ta'rikh iftitah al-Andalus ("History of the Conquest of al-Andalus") by Ibn al-Qūtiyya ("the son of the Gothic woman", referring to the granddaughter of Wittiza, the last Visigothic king of a united Hispania, who married a Moor). Ibn al-Qūtiyya, who had another, much longer name, must have been relying to some degree on family oral tradition.

According to Ibn al-Qūtiyya Wittiza, the last Visigothic king of a united Hispania, died before his three sons, Almund, Romulo, and Ardabast reached maturity. Their mother was queen regent at Toledo, but Roderic, army chief of staff, staged a rebellion, capturing Córdoba. He chose to impose a joint rule over distinct jurisdictions on the true heirs. Evidence of a division of some sort can be found in the distribution of coins imprinted with the name of each king and in the king lists. Wittiza was succeeded by Roderic, who reigned for seven and a half years, followed by Achila (Aquila), who reigned three and a half years. If the reigns of both terminated with the incursion of the Saracens, then Roderic appears to have reigned a few years before the majority of Achila. The latter's kingdom was securely placed to the northeast, while Roderic seems to have taken the rest, notably modern Portugal.

The Saracens crossed the mountains to claim Ardo's Septimania, only to encounter the Basque dynasty of Aquitaine, always the allies of the Goths. Odo the Great of Aquitaine was at first victorious at the Battle of Toulouse in 721. Saracen troops gradually massed in Septimania and, in 732, an army under Emir Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi advanced into Vasconia, and Odo was defeated at the Battle of the River Garonne. They took Bordeaux and were advancing towards Tours when Odo, powerless to stop them, appealed to his arch-enemy, Charles Martel, mayor of the Franks. In one of the first of the lightning marches for which the Carolingian kings became famous, Charles and his army appeared in the path of the Saracens between Tours and Poitiers, and in the Battle of Tours decisively defeated and killed al-Ghafiqi. The Moors returned twice more, each time suffering defeat at Charles' hands-at the River Berre near Narbonne in 737 and in the Dauphiné in 740. Odo's price for salvation from the Saracens was incorporation into the Frankish kingdom, a decision that was repugnant to him and also to his heirs.

Loss and Recovery of Aquitane
After the death of his father, Hunald I allied himself with free Lombardy. However, Odo had ambiguously left the kingdom jointly to his two sons, Hunald and Hatto. The latter, loyal to Francia, now went to war with his brother over full possession. Victorious, Hunald blinded and imprisoned his brother, only to be so stricken by conscience that he resigned and entered the church as a monk to do penance. The story is told in Annales Mettenses priores. His son Waifer took an early inheritance, becoming duke of Aquitaine and ratifying the alliance with Lombardy. Waifer, deciding to honour it, repeated his father's decision, which he justified by arguing that any agreements with Charles Martel became invalid on Martel's death. Since Aquitaine was now Pepin's inheritance because of the earlier assistance given by Charles Martel, according to some, the latter and his son, the young Charles, hunted down Waifer, who could only conduct a guerrilla war, and executed him.

Among the contingents of the Frankish army were Bavarians under Tassilo III, Duke of Bavaria, an Agilofing, the hereditary Bavarian ducal family. Grifo had installed himself as Duke of Bavaria, but Pepin replaced him with a member of the ducal family yet a child, Tassilo, whose protector he had become after the death of his father. The loyalty of the Agilolfings was perpetually in question, but Pepin exacted numerous oaths of loyalty from Tassilo. However, the latter had married Liutperga, a daughter of Desiderius, king of Lombardy. At a critical point in the campaign, Tassilo left the field with all his Bavarians. Out of reach of Pepin, he repudiated all loyalty to Francia. Pepin had no chance to respond as he grew ill and died within a few weeks after Waifer's execution.

The first event of the brothers' reign was the uprising of the Aquitainians and Gascons in 769, in that territory split between the two kings. One year earlier, Pepin had finally defeated Waifer, Duke of Aquitaine, after waging a destructive, ten-year war against Aquitaine. Now, Hunald II led the Aquitainians as far north as Angoulême. Charles met Carloman, but Carloman refused to participate and returned to Burgundy. Charles went to war, leading an army to Bordeaux, where he built a fortified camp on the mound at Fronsac. Hunald was forced to flee to the court of Duke Lupus II of Gascony. Lupus, fearing Charles, turned Hunald over in exchange for peace, and Hunald was put in a monastery. Gascon lords also surrendered, and Aquitaine and Gascony were finally fully subdued by the Franks.

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

Less than a year after his marriage, Charlemagne repudiated Desiderata and married a 13-year-old Swabian named Hildegard. The repudiated Desiderata returned to her father's court at Pavia. Her father's wrath was now aroused, and he would have gladly allied with Carloman to defeat Charles. Before any open hostilities could be declared, however, Carloman died on 5 December 771, apparently of natural causes. Carloman's widow Gerberga fled to Desiderius' court with her sons for protection.

WIVES, CONCUBINES, AND CHILDREN
Charlemagne had eighteen children with seven of his ten known wives or concubines. Nonetheless, he had only four legitimate grandsons, the four sons of his fourth son, Louis. In addition, he had a grandson (Bernard of Italy, the only son of his third son, Pepin of Italy), who was illegitimate but included in the line of inheritance. Among his descendants are several royal dynasties, including the Habsburg, and Capetian dynasties. By consequence, most if not all established European noble families ever since can genealogically trace some of their background to Charlemagne.

During the first peace of any substantial length (780-782), Charles began to appoint his sons to positions of authority. In 781, during a visit to Rome, he made his two youngest sons kings, crowned by the Pope. The elder of these two, Carloman, was made the king of Italy, taking the Iron Crown that his father had first worn in 774, and in the same ceremony was renamed "Pepin" (not to be confused with Charlemagne's eldest, possibly illegitimate son, Pepin the Hunchback). The younger of the two, Louis, became King of Aquitaine. Charlemagne ordered Pepin and Louis to be raised in the customs of their kingdoms, and he gave their regents some control of their subkingdoms, but kept the real power, though he intended his sons to inherit their realms. He did not tolerate insubordination in his sons: in 792, he banished Pepin the Hunchback to Prüm Abbey because the young man had joined a rebellion against him.

Charles was determined to have his children educated, including his daughters, as his parents had instilled the importance of learning in him at an early age. His children were also taught skills in accord with their aristocratic status, which included training in riding and weaponry for his sons, and embroidery, spinning and weaving for his daughters.

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

Charlemagne kept his daughters at home with him and refused to allow them to contract sacramental marriages (though he originally condoned an engagement between his eldest daughter Rotrude and Constantine VI of Byzantium, this engagement was annulled when Rotrude was 11). Charlemagne's opposition to his daughters' marriages may possibly have intended to prevent the creation of cadet branches of the family to challenge the main line, as had been the case with Tassilo of Bavaria. However, he tolerated their extramarital relationships, even rewarding their common-law husbands and treasuring the illegitimate grandchildren they produced for him. He also 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.

DEATH

In 813, Charlemagne called Louis the Pious, king of Aquitaine, his only surviving legitimate son, to his court. There Charlemagne crowned his son 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. In deep depression (mostly because many of his plans were not yet realised), 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 that same day, in Aachen Cathedral. The earliest surviving planctus, the Planctus de obitu Karoli, was composed by a monk of Bobbio, which he had patronised. A later story, told by Otho of Lomello, Count of the Palace at Aachen in the time of Emperor Otto III, would claim that he and Otto had discovered Charlemagne's tomb: Charlemagne, they claimed, was seated upon a throne, wearing a crown and holding a sceptre, his flesh almost entirely incorrupt. In 1165, Emperor Frederick I re-opened the tomb again and placed the emperor in a sarcophagus beneath the floor of the cathedral. In 1215 Emperor Frederick II re-interred him in a casket made of gold and silver known as the Karlsschrein.

Charlemagne's death emotionally 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.

Louis succeeded him as Charles had intended. He left a testament allocating his assets in 811 that was not updated prior to his death. He left most of his wealth to the Church, to be used for charity. 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 Germany and France.