Charlemagne

Charlemagne was born around 742, son of Pippin III, founder of the Carolingian dynasty. Einhard called inquiry into his birth inappropriate — historians suspect a pre-marital child. He inherited jointly with his brother Carloman in 768 and ruled alone from 771 after Carloman's sudden death.

Most of his life was war. He subdued the Lombards in 774, taking the Iron Crown. The Saxon wars from 772 took thirty-two years, ending only in 804. The shadow side belongs in the record: in 782 the Royal Annals report 4,500 Saxon prisoners executed in a single day at Verden to enforce conversion — a clear case of forced Christianisation. In 778 his Spanish expedition ended with a Basque ambush at Roncevaux, immortalised in the Song of Roland. By his death his realm covered modern France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, and parts of Germany, Italy and Spain.

Domestically he led the Carolingian Renaissance. Alcuin of York, Theodulf of Spain and Peter of Pisa joined his court to revive Latin learning. He established cathedral schools, standardised Carolingian minuscule — ancestor of modern lowercase letters — and pushed the copying of classical manuscripts that saved much of antiquity. Counts governed districts, travelling missi dominici audited them. He fixed a silver coinage and exchanged ambassadors with Harun al-Rashid, who sent an elephant named Abul-Abbas. Einhard says he could read but never mastered writing; tablets under his pillow were for practice.

On Christmas Day 800, in St Peter's, Pope Leo III placed an imperial crown on his head. Einhard claims the king was surprised; most scholarship reads it as theatrical fiction. Constantinople refused to recognise him as Roman emperor, accepting only emperor of the Franks. Charlemagne died at Aachen on 28 January 814. His empire fragmented in the 843 Treaty of Verdun into seeds of France, Germany and the Low Countries. Both France and Germany claim him as founder; the title pater Europae has stuck.