Early Life
Charlemagne, born in 742, was a son of Bertrada of Laon and the first Carolingian king of Francia Peppin the Short. Charlemagne's ancestry included the famous Charles Martel who led the Frankish army into victory against a Muslim army putting a stop to their advance into Europe. His ancestors also held the powerful position of Mayor of the Palace - a position similar to a Prime Minister - for the Merovingian Kings. In 751, with Papal support, Pepin decided to usurp the throne and put an end to the Merovingian dynasty ushering in the Carolingian Dynasty.
Not much has been known regarding the upbringing of the young Charlemagne. As a son of the King, he trained as a warrior mastering different weapons as well as horsemanship. He probably joined his father in campaigns introducing him to the art of war and to his warriors and commanders. He also studied Latin and Greek. He viewed his early education as lacking, thus he strived later in his life to further his literacy along with the whole population.
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| Charlemagne in the Left and Pepin the Short in the Right (10th-century copy of a 9th-century original) |
In 768, Pepin the Short passed away. Under Frankish law, however, the Kingdom would be split for each of the sons of the deceased ruler. As a result, Charlemagne ruled half of Francia while the other by his brother Carloman. Charlemagne and Carloman, however, had a tense relationship and the specter of civil war loomed greatly. In preparation, Charlemagne allied with King Desiderius of the Lombards and sealed it with his marriage to the Lombard leader’s daughter. Luckily for Francia, Carloman passed away in 771. Moreover, Charlemagne maneuvered to disinherit Carloman’s heirs making him the sole ruler of Francia and eliminating civil war. He then mustered the resources of the Kingdom to do his duty as King.
Charlemagne, the Conqueror
As a Frankish ruler, Charlemagne inherited from his father and the preceding Merovingian Kings the tradition of a warrior King. He must fight and win battles to provide plunder and spoils for his warriors. He then went to war against various surrounding Germanic tribes taking their riches and annexing their lands. In 773, when King Desiderius threatened Rome and the Papal States under Pope Adrian I, Charlemagne, a devout and pious Christian, intervened in support of the Papacy ending the alliance forged with the Lombards in 771. Charlemagne won and establish and in 781 established a sub-Kingdom in Italy headed by his son Peppin. Moreover, his victory ensured the Pope of his capability to become Rome’s new defender.
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| Charlemagne meeting Pope Adrian I in 772 |
After a campaign in the Italian Peninsula, in 778, with the hope of expelling the Muslims from the region, Charlemagne turned his attention to the Iberian Peninsula. This campaign, however, ended in failure and the Frankish army retreated. A setback immortalized in The Song of Roland. In 781, Charlemagne established another sub-kingdom in Aquitaine headed by his son Louis (the future Emperor Louis the Pious).
He continued to launch military campaigns throughout the 780s and 790s. In 787, he attacked the Bavarians, then in 791, he began to fight against the Avars in Central Europe following up with another campaign in 795 to 796 that contributed to the weakening of the nomadic people’s hold over Central Europe. On top of these campaigns, he already engaged in conflict with the Saxons starting in 772 and lasted for about 30 years until 804.
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| Surrender of Saxon Leader Widukind in 785, 1840 by Ary Scheffer |
When his military campaigns subsided, Charlemagne controlled a vast empire stretching from the North Sea to the Mediterranean and from the Pyrenees to Bohemia. An Empire dubbed today as the Carolingian Empire.
Crusader King
While the duties of a Frankish King contributed to Charlemagne’s image as a warlord, religion played a role in his conquest. In 751, Christianity or the Papacy rather provided Pepin the Short the legitimacy he needed to overthrow the Merovingian Kings. In addition to legitimacy, it also provided a unifying denominator for the diverse population under the new Carolingian Empire. Lastly, Christianity’s advancement also boosted morale and determination for victory.
The conquest of Charlemagne aimed in destroying paganism. A bad side of his reign, thus, emerged. Either voluntary or sword, his army converted as many pagans as possible. The Massacre of Verden in 782, where 4,500 Saxons said to have perished for their failure to convert to Christianism, exemplified Charlemagne’s brutal Christianization.
On the other hand, in times of peace, Charlemagne provided full support to the establishment of the church as part of the fabric of the Carolingian Empire. He provided money and privileges to various churches and monasteries. He provided immunity grants allowing abbots and bishops to rule their estates freely and without intervention from local counts. Furthermore, clerics also manned key government positions and even contributed to the function of the monarchy. For example, the Chancery that recorded and prepared court documents mostly taken by ecclesiastics. Besides, clerics served as agents and emissaries of the crown. The entanglement of Church and State, thus, existed during Charlemagne’s reign.
Education and Culture
While Charlemagne made a name for himself as a conqueror, he also cultivated education and culture with tremendous effort. He welcomed intellectuals in his court promoting the so-called Carolingian Renaissance – a movement to revitalized arts, literature, and education that disintegrated after the fall of Rome.
Under his patronage, many intellectuals from various places, such as Italy, Spain, Ireland, and England, came to his favorite residence in Aachen. For instance, he employed Einhard to write his biography called the Vita Karoli Magni or Life of Charlemagne that provided accounts of the reign of the Frankish ruler. Paul the Deacon, Paulinus of Aquileia, Peter of Pisa, and especially Alcuin all went to the court of Charlemagne. Charlemagne’s patronage made Alcuin dubbed Aachen as the “new Athens” showing confidence in the rise of intellectualism in the city.
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| Alcuin in the Middle |
The Frankish ruler also revitalized education. The teaching of Latin spread assisted by a manual on the language written by various scholars in Charlemagne’s court. The Carolingian minuscule became a prominent writing system for Europe and became the foundation for the modern alphabet. Record keeping and copying of important texts expanded with the establishment of royal scriptoriums.
Aachen grew into an educational hub. Though a Frankish king ruled from a saddle and a capital absent, Aachen served as Charlemagne’s favorite residence, thus it embodied the monarch’s ambitions. The city saw the rise of a palace with a school for higher learning. Libraries and scriptoria also had been constructed. Following Aachen, schools and scriptoria also rose up across the Empire promoting literacy and learning.
Charlemagne’s reign saw the revival of learning. Even in his old age, Charlemagne studied and hoped his people to follow suit. His patronage of intellectuals and education allowed him to create a diverse image of Charlemagne, from a warlord to a patron of learning.
Administration
The Christian value of compassion made Charlemagne devoted to the welfare of his subjects. He strived to manage a vast empire despite the limitations in infrastructure and communications. He maintained control of the monarchy and ensured discipline among his officials.
Charlemagne divided his realm into different counties and appointed counts for each to administer justice, collect taxes, oversee conscription, and maintenance of order. Each of the counts answered to Charlemagne and faced dismissal on the ruler’s decision. For border territories, however, Charlemagne formed special counties headed by grafs or margraves responsible also for the defense of the territory. To serve as judges and law experts, Charlemagne also appointed scabini to counties.
In 802, Charlemagne began to appoint royal agents called missi dominici. The agents proclaim Charlemagne’s decrees, investigate local officials, and correct abuses and injustices made by counts. Each missi dominici oversaw districts called missaticae with each being visited by 2 missi dominici annually. By 812, however, the number of rounds increased from 1 to 4 annually. Once again, clerics mostly served this role.
Although far from being a legislature and democratic, Charlemagne also convened an assembly of clerics, trusted counselors, military commanders, and nobles known as Mayfield. The body served as a venue to voice suggestions and problems that faced the Empire. It also became a source for Charlemagne of information regarding the realm. However, it lacked the authority to force the ruler to act.
Economic Affairs
To improve the living standards of his subject, Charlemagne organized and improved the economic situation of his realm. Through infrastructure, standardization, and reform, an economic revival began after a slump that began when Rome fell.
Charlemagne paid attention to his finance. He understood the importance of properly managing resources to support his reign. In 802, he ordered a strict inventory and monitoring of income and expenses of all crown lands under the Capitulare de Villis. Being the largest landowner in the Kingdom, Charlemagne aimed to monitor his sources of income well.
The Frankish ruler also revitalized trade through series of measures. He ordered the construction of a canal now known as Fossa Carolina connecting the Rhine and Danube rivers between Rednitz and Altmuhl for faster riverine transportation of goods. He also standardized weights and measurements and protected merchants traversing the Empire. He continued his father’s monetary reform, abandoning gold in favor of silver as the supply of the former dwindled. He also introduced the livre carolinienne where a pound of silver made 20 sous with each sous composed of 12 deniers. The use of livre carolinienne remained the basis of accounting in France until the French Revolution.
Finally, Charlemagne wanted to ensure the supply of food for the realm. He promoted an increase in agricultural productivity. In times of famine, he decreed a ban on the export of corn.
Overall, Charlemagne’s effort allowed the economy to recover even by little from the collapse of the Roman Empire.
Diplomacy
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| Harun al-Rashid receiving a delegation of Charlemagne in Baghdad, by Julius Köckert (1864) |
Despite being constantly at war for 30 years of his reign, Charlemagne, later on, fostered stable relations with neighboring countries and cultures, from Saxons to Avars and even towards the Islamic world. The sending of envoys by Charlemagne to Abbasid Caliph Harun al-Rashid became a diplomatic victory for both rulers displaying peaceful relations between 2 different worlds.
The Emperor of the Romans
Charlemagne established an Empire at the heart of Europe. For his military strength and piety towards Christianity, the Papacy awarded him glory remembering the past and dominated the future of Europe for about a millennium.
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| Imperial Coronation of Charlemagne, by Friedrich Kaulbach, 1861 |
After supporting Pope Leo III, the Bishop of Rome rewarded Charlemagne with an illustrious title in St. Peter’s Basilica on Christmas day 800. Charlemagne, already the King of the Franks and Lombards, added to his titles Imperator Romanorum or Emperor of the Romans invoking the once great Roman Empire's glory. The decision of conferring the title to Charlemagne came as a response to the growing conflict with the Bulgars and Arabs of the Emperor of the Romans sitting in the east – in Constantinople. The prioritization of the Byzantine military towards threats in the Balkans and Anatolia led to the neglect of their military commitments in Italy. This retreat made the Pope look elsewhere for a defender which the Frankish juggernaut filled. And in 799 when Leo suffered from violence in the hands of the nephew of his predecessor and his cohort, Charlemagne backed him and orchestrated his return to the Eternal City. In other words, he owed Charlemagne his restoration. Then, a woman, Empress Irene, took over as the head of the Eastern Roman Empire in 791. For the Pope, a woman to hold the title might as well be a vacant position. For these factors, Charlemagne received the title of Emperor of Romans which later evolved to become Holy Roman Emperor.
Charlemagne coronation not just began a title that Germans fought over for the next millennium, but also traditions stayed and defined the ceremony. For instance, the anointing of the hand during Charlemagne’s coronation as well as the addition of “by the grace of God” that justified the divine rights of monarchs began to be traditions in coronations over centuries. Finally, the Oath of Allegiance by his subject that went out of fashion during the Merovingian Kings returned.
Demise
Charlemagne enjoyed his new title for another 14 years. During that period, Charlemagne began to prepare for succession when his time comes to an end. In 813, he made his son Louis his co-Emperor and by 814, he passed away. His remains laid to rest in Aachen Cathedral. Charlemagne’s Empire, however, failed to remain for a century facing division with the Treaty of Verdun in 848. In 1165, many revered his glory days and deeds that in 1165 he was canonized to a saint, but the political factors of the canonization led to its void in 1179.
Summing Up
Charlemagne established an Empire that had not yet been seen since the fall of Rome. He achieved many accomplishments in military affairs, religion, culture, economics, and education that he earned the epithet of the Great. Nevertheless, his achievements, especially in the military and religion should be equally remembered. He expanded his realm and church through coercion and violence. Greatness thus has a price. Charlemagne paid for it, despite this, his reign made a profound effect that built the foundation of modern Europe from its government, religion, and culture allowing him to be dubbed as the “Father of Europe.”
See also:
Bibliography:
Book:
Gwatkin, H.M. & J.P. Whitney (eds.). The Cambridge Medieval History, Volume II. London: Cambridge University Press, 1913.
Website:
“10000 years of economy.” CITECO. Accessed on February 27, 2021. URL: https://www.citeco.fr/10000-years-history-economics/antiquity-to-middle-ages/charlemagne-s-monetary-reforms
“Charlemagne’s Reforms.” Lumen Learning. Accessed on February 27, 2021. URL: https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-hccc-worldhistory/chapter/charlemagnes-reforms/
Cantor, Norman. “What Europe Can Learn from Charlemagne?” Wall Street Journal. Accessed on February 27, 2021. URL: https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB915568226969614000
History.com Editors. “Charlemagne.” HISTORY. Accessed on February 27, 2021. URL: https://www.history.com/topics/middle-ages/charlemagne
Sullivan, R.E. “Charlemagne.” Encyclopedia Britannica. Accessed on February 27, 2021. URL: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Charlemagne
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