Charlemagne
Key Facts
- Roi des Francs à partir de 768, devient seul maître du royaume à la mort de Carloman en 771
- Mène 50 campagnes militaires en 46 ans, soumettant les Saxons, les Avars, les Lombards et les Maures
- Couronné Empereur des Romains par le pape Léon III à Rome le 25 décembre 800
- Instaure les missi dominici pour contrôler l'administration locale de l'empire
- Promoteur de la Renaissance carolingienne : réforme de l'écriture, de l'éducation, copie des manuscrits
- Mort le 28 janvier 814 ; le traité de Verdun (843) divise son empire en trois royaumes fondateurs
Biography
Charlemagne — "Charles the Great" in Latin — was born around 742, probably in the Meuse or Rhine region, within the Carolingian dynasty. Son of King Pepin the Short and grandson of Charles Martel, who had halted the Arab advance at Poitiers in 732, he inherited the Frankish kingdom upon his father's death in 768, initially sharing it with his brother Carloman. When Carloman died in 771, Charlemagne became sole ruler of a vast territory covering present-day northern France and the Rhineland.
King of the Franks from 768, Charlemagne embarked on a series of military campaigns that transformed his kingdom into an empire. He subdued the Saxons after thirty years of fierce warfare (772–804), incorporated Bavaria, defeated the Avars on the Danube and pushed the Moors back in Spain to the Hispanic March. In Italy, he overthrew the Lombard king Desiderius in 774 and had himself crowned King of Italy. These conquests extended his authority over virtually all of Christian Western Europe.
On 25 December 800, Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne "Emperor of the Romans" in the Basilica of Saint Peter in Rome. This founding act created a major political and symbolic precedent: it revived the idea of a universal Christian empire in the West and established for centuries the complex relationship between papal and imperial power. Charlemagne reorganised the administration of his empire through counts, supervised by royal itinerant agents, the missi dominici.
Charlemagne was also the driving force behind an intellectual and cultural revival that historians call the "Carolingian Renaissance." He gathered scholars from across Europe at his court in Aachen — including Alcuin of York — to reform writing, education and liturgy. He ordered schools to be opened in monasteries and cathedrals, had ancient manuscripts copied and established the Carolingian minuscule, the ancestor of our modern Roman typefaces.
Charlemagne died on 28 January 814 in Aachen. His son Louis the Pious succeeded him, but the empire did not long survive its unity: the Treaty of Verdun (843) divided it among his three grandsons and laid the foundations for the future kingdoms of France, Germany and Italy. A founding figure of Western Europe, Charlemagne is claimed by both French and German traditions as the father of their nation.