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Charles the Great: 768-814



King of the Lombards: 774

Charlemagne's campaign in northern Italy, in the first years of his reign, is carried out in alliance with the pope. From his boyhood his family has maintained a strong link with Rome. Charlemagne is twelve when he is annointed by the pope (Stephen II), together with his father and brother, at St Denis in 754 - an event which prompts his father to undertake two Italian campaigns against the Lombards.

Now in 772 another pope, Adrian I, asks for a repeat of the same favour. Charlemagne, like his father, invades the Lombards twice, in 773 and 774. The result is a major extension of his empire and a new title for himself - king of the Lombards.

Conversion of the Saxons: 772-804

North of the Alps Charlemagne extends his territory eastwards to include Bavaria, but his main efforts within Germany are directed against the Saxons.

The Saxons, restless Germanic tribesmen, have long plagued the settled Frankish territories by raiding from their forest sanctuaries. Charlemagne the emperor is harmed by their depredations; Charlemagne the Christian is outraged by their pagan practices. From 772 he wages ferocious war against them, beginning with the destruction of one of their great shrines and its sacred central feature - the Irminsul or 'pillar of the world', a massive wooden column believed to support the universe.

It takes Charlemagne thirty years to subdue the Saxons; not until 804 are they finally transformed into settled Christians within his empire. It has been a brutal process. Charlemagne's method is military conquest followed by forced conversion and the planting of missionary outposts, usually in the form of bishoprics. In his book of rules, the official punishment for refusing to be baptized is death.

The chronicles record that on one day some 4500 reluctant Saxons are executed for not worshipping the right god.

A brief crusade: 778

One of Charlemagne's few unsuccessful campaigns is his first attempt to liberate northern Spain from the Muslims. His intervention is invited by Muslim opponents of the caliph in Cordoba. And his imagination is no doubt fired by his grandfather's famous success near Tours in 732.

Charlemagne marches south in 778, besieges and takes the town of Pamplona, is frustrated in his attempt to take Saragossa and then - with nothing achieved - retreats northwards. An incident of some kind takes place at a pass (traditionally identified as the pass of Roncesvalles), where either Basques or Gascons attack the rearguard of his army. Paradoxically, in the heroic fantasy of the Chanson de Roland, this minor failure becomes the most famous moment in the whole Charlemagne legend.

Holy Roman Emperor: 800




The Holy Roman Empire only becomes formally established in the next century. But it is implicit in the title adopted by Charlemagne in 800: 'Charles, most serene Augustus, crowned by God, great and pacific emperor, governing the Roman empire.'

Aachen or Aix-la-Chapelle: 805

Five years after the coronation in Rome, Leo III is again with Charlemagne at a religious ceremony. But this time it is in Germany. He is consecrating Charlemagne's spectacular new church in Aachen, begun just nine years previously in 796.

The French name of Aachen, Aix-la-Chapelle, specifically features this famous building - a small but richly decorated octagonal chapel which Charlemagne has consciously modelled on another famous imperial church, Justinian's San Vitale in Ravenna.

Much is significant about the choice of Aachen as Charlemagne's seat of power. It is in the north of his empire, at the opposite extreme from Rome. The pope's journey north in 805 makes it plain that Rome cannot assume precedence in this new Christian partnership; and when Charlemagne decides to crown his only surviving son, Louis, as co-emperor in 813, the ceremony takes place in the imperial chapel at Aachen without the pope.

The site of Aachen is also ideal in terms of Charlemagne's united Frankish empire. It lies exactly between the west and east Frankish kingdoms, a fact reflected in its modern position at the intersection between the borders of Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany.

A centre of Christian learning:780-814

While extending his territories, Charlemagne needs to improve the administration of the empire. Christian clerics (the only literate group in the barbarian north) are enlisted as his civil servants at Aachen, where the emperor also establishes a programme of education and cultural revival.


The Carolingian inheritance:814



The legendary Charlemagne: from the 9th century

Charlemagne and his age become idealized in a feudal Europe, eager for heroes. The French poems known as the chansons de geste describe in heroic terms the supposed exploits of the emperor and his twelve fellow knights, the famous paladins (the number twelve, popular also in monastic circles, echoes the apostles). Even disaster becomes a tale of heroism, as in the Chanson de Roland.

Charlemagne is the Alexander the Great and the Julius Caesar of Christian Europe. In France and Germany, from the 12th century, he is even venerated as a saint.