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Charlemagne (/ˈ ʃ ɑr l ɨ m eɪ n / or /ˈ ʃ ɑr l ə m eɪ n /; French pronunciation: [ʃaʁ.lə.maɲ]; c. 742 – 28 January 814), also known as Charles the Great (Latin: Carolus Magnus or Karolus Magnus), was King of the Franks from 768 and Emperor of the Romans (Imperator Romanorum) from 800 to his death in 814. He expanded the Frankish kingdom into an empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. During his reign, he conquered Italy and was crownedImperator Augustus by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800 in Rome.
His rule is also associated with the Carolingian Renaissance, a revival of art, religion, and culture through the medium of the Catholic Church. Through his foreign conquests and internal reforms, Charlemagne helped define both Western Europe and the European Middle Ages. He is numbered as Charles I in the regnal lists of Germany, the Holy Roman Empire, and France.
The son of King Pepin the Short and Bertrada of Laon, a Frankish queen, he succeeded his father in 768 and was initially co-ruler with his brother Carloman I. It has often been suggested that the relationship between Charlemagne and Carloman was not good, but it has also been argued that tensions were exaggerated by Carolingian chroniclers.[2]
Nevertheless further conflict was prevented by the sudden death of Carloman in 771, in unexplained circumstances. Charlemagne continued the policy of his father towards the papacy and became its protector, removing the Lombards from power in Italy, and leading an incursion into Muslim Spain, to which he was invited by the Muslim governor of Barcelona. Charlemagne was promised several Iberian cities in return for giving military aid to the governor; however, the deal was withdrawn.
Subsequently, Charlemagne's retreating army experienced its worst defeat at the hands of the Basques, at the Battle of Roncesvalles (778) (memorialised, although heavily fictionalised, in the Song of Roland). He also campaigned against the peoples to his east, especially the Saxons, and after a protracted war subjected them to his rule. By forcibly Christianizing the Saxons and banning on penalty of death their native Germanic paganism, he integrated them into his realm and thus paved the way for the later Ottonian dynasty.
The French and German monarchies descending from the empire ruled by Charlemagne as Holy Roman Emperor cover most of Europe. In his acceptance speech of the Charlemagne Prize Pope John Paul II referred to him as the Pater Europae ("father of Europe"):[3] his empire united most of Western Europe for the first time since the Romans, and the Carolingian renaissance encouraged the formation of a common European identity.[4]

Political background

By the 6th century, the West Germanic Franks had been Christianised and Francia, ruled by the Merovingians, was the most powerful of the kingdoms that succeeded the Western Roman Empire. But following the Battle of Tertry, the Merovingians declined into a state of powerlessness, for which they have been dubbed the do-nothing kings (rois fainéants). Almost all government powers of any consequence were exercised by their chief officer, the mayor of the palace or major domus.
In 687, Pippin of Herstal(or Heristal), mayor of the palace of Austrasia, ended the strife between various kings and their mayors with his victory at Tertry and became the sole governor of the entire Frankish kingdom. Pippin himself was the grandson of two of the most important figures of the Austrasian Kingdom, Saint Arnulf of Metz and Pippin of Landen. Pippin the Middle was eventually succeeded by his illegitimate son Charles, later known as Charles Martel (the Hammer).
After 737, Charles governed the Franks without a king on the throne but declined to call himself "king". Charles was succeeded in 741 by his sons Carloman and Pepin the Short, the father of Charlemagne. To curb separatism in the periphery of the realm, in 743 the brothers placed on the throne Childeric III, who was to be the last Merovingian king.
After Carloman resigned office in 746 to enter the church by preference 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. He decreed (mandavit) that it was better for Pepin, who had the powers of high office as Mayor, to be called king, so as not to confuse the hierarchy (ordo). He therefore ordered him (iussit) to become "true king."
In 750, Pepin was elected by an assembly of the Franks, anointed by the archbishop and then raised (elevatus) to the office of king. Branding Childeric III as "the false king," the Pope ordered him into a monastery. Thus was the Merovingian dynasty replaced by the Carolingian dynasty, named after Pepin's father, Charles Martel.
In 753 Pope Stephen II fled from Italy to Francia appealing for assistance pro iustitiis sancti Petri ("for the rights of St. Peter") to Pepin. He was supported in this appeal by Carloman, Charles' brother. In return the pope could only provide legitimacy, which he did by again anointing and confirming Pepin, this time adding his young sons, Carolus and Carloman, to the royal patrimony, now heirs to the great realm that already covered most of western and central Europe. In 754 Pepin accepted the Pope's invitation to visit Italy on behalf of St. Peter's rights, dealing successfully with the Lombards.[5]
Under the Carolingians, the Frankish kingdom spread to encompass an area including most of Western Europe. The division of that kingdom formed France and Germany;[6] and the religious, political, and artistic evolutions originating from a centrally positioned Francia made a defining imprint on the whole of Europe.

Personal background</SPAN>

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 and Bertrada of Cologne. Records name only Carloman, Gisela, and a short-lived child named Pippin as his younger siblings. The semi-mythical Redburga, wife of King Egbert of Wessex, is sometimes claimed to be his sister (or sister-in-law or niece).

Date of birth

The most likely date of Charlemagne's birth is reconstructed from a number of sources. A date of 742 calculated from Einhard's date of death as January 814 at age 72 suffers from the defect of being two years before his parents' marriage in 744.

The year given in the Annales Petaviani as 747 would be more likely, except that it contradicts Einhard and a few other sources in making Charlemagne less than a septuagenarian at his death. A month and day of April 2 is established by a calendar from Lorsch Abbey.[7]

In 747 that day fell on Easter, a coincidence that would have been remembered 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, 2 April 748 (not an Easter). The date favored by the preponderance of evidence is 2 April 742, based on the septuagenarian age at death. This date would appear to support an initial illegitimacy of birth, which is not, however, mentioned by Einhard.

Place of birth</SPAN>

Charlemagne was most likely born in Herstal, Wallonia, where his father was born, a town close to Liège in modern day Belgium. The Merovingians had a number of hunting villas in the vicinity. Liège is close to the region from where both the Merovingian and Carolingian families originated. He went to live in his father's villa in Jupille when he was around seven, which caused Jupille to be listed as a possible place of birth in almost every history book. Other cities have been suggested, including Aachen, Düren, Gauting, Mürlenbach,[10] and Prüm. No definitive evidence as to which is the right candidate exists.

Name</SPAN>

Dubbed Charles le Magne, "Charles the Great," by subsequent Old French historians,becoming Charlemagne in English after the Norman conquest of England, he was named Karl (Carolus) after his grandfather, Charles Martel. Carolus Magnus was universal, leading to numerous translations in many languages of Europe: German Karl der Grosse, Dutch Karel de Grote, Danish Karl den Store, Italian Carlo Magno, Hungarian Nagy Károly, Polish Karol Wielki, Czech Karel Veliký, Russian Karl Velikij, and so on.
According to Julius Pokorny, the historical linguist and Indo-Europeanist, the root meaning of Karl is "old man", from Indo-European *ĝer-, where the ĝ is a palatal consonant, meaning "to rub; to be old; grain." An old man has been worn away and is now grey with age.
"Old man" descended into words with different senses. In all the reflex languages a husband is "the old man" or in feminine form "the old lady". He can be an "old fool" as in English churl or a "sad case" as in Persian zar, but in the Germanic languages he becomes something more exalted. Old Norse Karl, Old English Ceorl, Old High German karel is a free man, a citizen, not a slave or an alien. As far as the civilizations established in imitation of classical city-states are concerned, such as the Roman, which had its senatus, "the old men," Karl means respected senior, similar to the English vernacular for a commander, "the old man." The common Germanic was *karilaz, on which the Latin Carolus, English Charles, is based.[13]
Regardless of its previously understood meaning, Charles' achievements altered the meaning of the word. In many European languages, the very word for "king" derives from his name; e.g., Polish: król, Czech: král, Slovak: kráľ, Hungarian: király, Lithuanian: karalius, Latvian: karalis, Russian: король, Macedonian: крал, Bulgarian: крал, Serbian: краљ/kralj, Croatian: kralj, Turkish: kral. This development parallels that of the name of the Caesars in the original Roman Empire, which became Kaiser and Czar, among others.[14]

Language</SPAN>

By Charlemagne's time the French vernacular had already diverged significantly from Latin. This is evidenced by one of the regulations of the Council of Tours (813), which required that the parish priests preach either in the "rusticam Romanam linguam" (Romance) or "Theotiscam" (the Germanic vernacular) rather than in Latin. The goal of this rule was to make the sermons comprehensible to the common people, who must therefore have been either Romance speakers or Germanic speakers.[15] Charlemagne himself probably spoke a Rhenish Franconian dialect of Old High German.[16]
Apart from his native language he also spoke Latin "as well as his native tongue" and understood a bit of Greek, according to his biographer Einhard (Grecam vero melius intellegere quam pronuntiare poterat, "he could understand Greek better than he could speak it").[17] Einhard also writes that Charlemagne started a "grammar of his native language" and "gave the months names in his own tongue".[18] All of his daughters received Old High German names.[citation needed]
The largely fictional account of Charlemagne’s Iberian campaigns by Pseudo-Turpin, written some three centuries after his death, gave rise to the legend that the king also spoke Arabic.[19]

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