Key takeaways
- Wikipedia gives Charlemagne's dates as 2 April 748 – 28 January 814: king of the Franks from 768, of the Lombards from 774, emperor from 800.
- Pope Leo III crowned him 'emperor of the Romans' at St Peter's on Christmas Day 800, the first reigning western emperor since 476.
- Historians disagree on whether he planned the coronation; Einhard says he would have stayed away had he known, which some read as a literary device.
- The annals record 4,500 Saxon prisoners beheaded at Verden in 782; Wikipedia quotes Fried that the figure may be exaggerated but the event is not in doubt.
- Wikipedia credits Carolingian scriptoria with an estimated 90,000 manuscripts in the ninth century and the Carolingian minuscule script.
- The empire was divided at the Treaty of Verdun after his son Louis died; the Holy Roman Empire founded by Otto lasted until 1806.
Charlemagne — Charles the Great — was king of the Franks from 768, king of the Lombards from 774, and from Christmas Day 800 emperor of what is now called the Carolingian Empire. Wikipedia describes him as the first recognised emperor to rule from the west in roughly three centuries. Much of what we know about him personally comes from one biography, Einhard's Life of Charlemagne, which is both indispensable and, in places, demonstrably shaped by literary models.
A Frankish family that took the throne
Charlemagne's family were not born kings. Wikipedia traces the line through the mayors of the palace — officials who held real power while Merovingian kings reigned. His grandfather Charles Martel left the throne vacant from 737; his father Pepin the Short deposed the last Merovingian, Childeric III, in 751 or 752. Early Carolingian sources claim the pope sanctioned that seizure in advance, but modern historians dispute it; papal anointing may have come only in 754.
When Pepin died on 24 September 768, Charlemagne and his brother Carloman were crowned separately on 9 October and ruled as uneasy partners. Carloman died suddenly on 4 December 771, leaving Charlemagne sole king.
Conquests from Pavia to Saxony
Charlemagne's reign was a long series of campaigns. In 773–774 he besieged the Lombard capital, Pavia, at Pope Adrian I's request; by June 774 the city had surrendered and he took the title King of the Lombards. Wikipedia quotes the authors of The Carolingian World calling one kingdom's takeover of another "without parallel".
Spain went less well. A 778 expedition across the Pyrenees ended in an ambush by Basque forces at Roncevaux Pass. Bavaria was absorbed after Duke Tassilo was deposed in 788, and campaigns against the Avars followed.
The Saxon wars were the longest and harshest. Einhard, in the Fordham Medieval Sourcebook translation, says the Saxon war lasted "thirty-three successive years", and writes that no war undertaken by the Franks was carried on with such persistence and bitterness. In 782, after a Frankish defeat, the annals record that Charlemagne had 4,500 Saxon prisoners beheaded at Verden. Wikipedia quotes Johannes Fried: "Although this figure may be exaggerated, the basic truth of the event is not in doubt." The laws issued in the same period, the Capitulatio de partibus Saxoniae, included the death penalty for pagan practices and constituted, in a phrase Wikipedia quotes, "a program for the forced conversion of the Saxons".
Christmas Day 800 and the coronation debate
The coronation began with a papal crisis. Leo III's enemies attacked him in April 799, trying to remove his eyes and tongue; he fled north to Charlemagne. Charlemagne travelled to Rome, held an assembly on the charges, and Leo swore his innocence on 23 December 800. Two days later, at mass in St Peter's, Leo proclaimed Charlemagne Imperator Romanorum and crowned him.
Who planned it is a live argument. Einhard writes that Charlemagne had such an aversion to the titles that he would not have set foot in the church "if he could have foreseen the design of the Pope". Wikipedia notes modern historians have read that either as truthful or as a literary device showing humility. Roger Collins argues the coronation was planned as early as 799; Fried says Charlemagne meant to take the title by 798 "at the latest".
The title also created a diplomatic problem. In Constantinople, Empress Irene had taken the throne from her son in 797, and the eastern emperors regarded themselves as the Roman emperors. Wikipedia calls the resulting rivalry "the problem of two emperors"; Einhard says the eastern emperors "took this step very ill". The eastern empire's side of that story is in Byzantium: a thousand years after Rome. Charlemagne also exchanged envoys with the Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid, who sent an elephant named Abul-Abbas that reached Aachen in 802 — a link to the early caliphates.
Schools, scripts and the Carolingian Renaissance
Wikipedia credits Charlemagne with promoting learning "as a matter of policy and direct patronage", aiming at a more effective clergy, with his aims set out in the Admonitio generalis and the Epistola de litteris colendis. Scholars at his court included Alcuin of York, Theodulf of Orléans, Peter of Pisa and Dungal of Bobbio. Monastic and cathedral scriptoria produced an estimated 90,000 manuscripts during the ninth century, and the Carolingian minuscule script developed in this copying influenced Renaissance and modern typefaces.
Einhard adds that after becoming emperor Charlemagne tried to reconcile the Franks' two sets of laws, but went no further than "a few capitularies, and those imperfect ones", while having the unwritten laws of his subject peoples written down. Wikipedia also describes the 802 Capitulare missorum generale, which required all free men to take an oath of loyalty to him.
Reading Einhard against the dates
Worked example. Wikipedia reports Einhard as giving Charlemagne's age at death as 72; the Fordham translation has him dying "in the seventy-second year of his age" on 28 January 814, while the epitaph it quotes says "at the age of seventy". Subtracting 72 from 814 gives a birth year of about 742 — the older tradition. But Wikipedia notes that Lorsch Abbey commemorated 2 April as his birthday, and that Matthias Becher showed the recorded year was really 748, because the annalists began their year at Easter. Born 2 April 748, Charlemagne died aged 65 — about seven years younger than Einhard says. Wikipedia suggests all three early sources for the higher age may have been influenced by Psalm 90's "threescore years and ten", and Einhard by Suetonius's biographies of the Caesars. The method for weighing those claims is in when two sources disagree on a date.
The same arithmetic places the coronation: 800 − 476 = 324 years after the last western emperor, Romulus Augustulus, was deposed. As king, Charlemagne reigned about 45 years from his 768 coronation; as emperor, a little over 13.
After 814: division and a long afterlife
Charlemagne crowned his only surviving son, Louis, co-emperor at Aachen on 11 September 813 and died of pleurisy in January 814. Wikipedia notes the stability of his reign "did not outlive him for a long time". After Louis's death the Treaty of Verdun split the empire into West, East and Middle Francia. Otto the Great was crowned emperor in 962, and the Holy Roman Empire lasted until 1806.
Wikipedia records that many historians call Charlemagne the "Father of Europe". The transition he sits in is covered by what late antiquity means, and the raids that hit his successors' coasts by the Vikings. Martin Luther, Wikipedia adds, criticised him for accepting his crown from a pope — a thread for the Protestant Reformation.
Placing 800 on a world timeline
World History Timeline Sim, our own app, lets you browse major events by year, era, region, country or category, so you can set 800 beside what was happening in Baghdad or Constantinople. Time Travel Mode asks what you would have done at a turning point, but it is alternate history: its chains of consequences are simulations, not what happened. The listing describes it as built for curiosity-led learning and as a companion to coursework, not a replacement for it; for the evidence itself, Einhard's Life is freely readable on the Fordham Sourcebook. It is free on Google Play with ads and optional in-app purchases; more apps are in education and brain training.
Good to know
Frequently asked questions
Why was Charlemagne crowned emperor on Christmas Day 800?
When was Charlemagne actually born?
Could Charlemagne read and write?
What happened to Charlemagne's empire after his death in 814?
Sources
- Charlemagne (opens in a new tab)Wikipedia — accessed
- Einhard: The Life of Charlemagne (opens in a new tab)Internet Medieval Sourcebook, Fordham University — accessed
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