Charlemagne (742–814)

Charlemagne's Career

Charles was the elder son of Pepin the Short, son of the Charles Martel who had famously defeated an Arab raid at Poitiers in 732. When Charles was born, Pepin held the position of Mayor of the Palace to the last Merovingian king, Childeric III. That real power rested with the descendants of Charles Martel was recognized by Pope Stephen III in 754 at Pepin's request, and the Carolingians (from Carolus, Latin for “Charles”) assumed the full royal dignity. The child Charles and his younger brother Carloman accompanied their father on a number of military expeditions as they grew up, which served to prove their mettle to Pepin's followers and to educate them in the ways of ruling.

Pepin died in 768, having arranged for his kingdom to be partitioned between his sons—the Franks did not practice primogeniture in this period. Ideally, the brothers would have cooperated in ruling their parts of the Frankish regnum, but Carloman showed signs of fractiousness, and Charles prepared for a struggle by winning the support of powerful friends and relatives including his mother Bertha, daughter of the count of Laon. Fortunately for Charles and the kingdom, Carloman died in 771 and Charles assumed control of the entire realm.

Charles then embarked on the career of conquest and consolidation that would posthumously earn him the nickname “the Great.” Nearly forty years of campaigning brought large new areas under Frankish rule, with most of the gains coming before about 790, after which time the king engaged more in consolidation and suppression of rebellion than in new offensive actions. Appeals for protection from Pope Adrian led to war with the Lombard kingdom in northern Italy, and the peninsula to just south of Rome came under Frankish rule. Campaigns in the Pyrenees stabilized the frontier with Muslim Spain; it was during the return from one of these that a Basque ambush on the Frankish rearguard took place, an incident that became transformed into a heroic battle against the Moors immortalized in The Song of Roland. The conquest of Bavaria brought the Franks into contact with the Avars along the upper Danube. But the crown jewel in Charlemagne's conquests was Saxony, a pagan territory in northern Germany that fell to persistent campaigning, including rare winter operations, and was finally pacified after Charlemagne's forces subdued three major revolts. The conquests of Bavaria and Saxony together added significantly to the world of Roman-influenced Latin Christianity; it was during this period that the Catholic Church first became established in Germany. Charlemagne's efforts were crowned, quite literally, on Christmas Day of 800 when Pope Leo III bestowed the title of Emperor of the Romans on him. Even the Byzantines, to whom that title had previously been reserved, had to acknowledge Charlemagne's position as emperor in the West, for by this time he ruled virtually all western Europe outside Iberia and the British Isles. He died in January 814, leaving his Empire intact to his only son Louis.

...