Charlemagne was a fierce medieval warrior king. The empire he founded lasted nearly a thousand years.
PIPPIN THE SHORT
Charlemagne was born around 742. Ten or so years later, his father became King Pippin the Short of the Franks, the tribe that had fought the Romans hundreds of years before. The Franks had settled in Gaul (the country now called France, plus a few extra bits of neighbouring countries).
TROUBLESOME SAXONS
When Pippin died in 768, Charlemagne and his brother Carloman ruled jointly until 771, when Carloman died and Charlemagne took control. He fought the kingdom of Saxony in what’s now northern France, but it took him over thirty years of continual battles to defeat them. In 782 he ruthlessly killed 4,500 Saxon prisoners of war. When he finally won, in 804, he made the Saxons give up their pagan beliefs and become Christians.
TROUBLE IN ITALY
Meanwhile, back in 773, Pope Adrian I asked Charlemagne for help with the Lombards, who were causing trouble in Italy. Charlemagne sent his troops straight away and lost no time in thrashing them. Now he was King of the Lombards as well as King of the Franks.
CONQUERING
Charlemagne didn’t stop there. He captured more land, in what’s now part of Germany and Austria, converting people to Christianity as he went. When he invaded Spain he was beaten by the Moorish (Muslim) Spanish rulers – which must have really annoyed him, because they weren’t Christian.
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION
Charlemagne could speak several languages, and was a keen astronomer. He encouraged education, arts and literature during his reign, but most schools were only for religious scholars. Despite his passion for learning, Charlemagne couldn’t read or write, even though he tried very hard to learn.
THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE
In 800 Charlemagne saved Pope Leo III from an uprising. As a thank you, Leo proclaimed Charlemagne Emperor of the Romans on Christmas Day 800. Charlemagne tried to make the Roman Empire as powerful as it had been before. The Holy Roman Empire, as it became known later, lasted almost a thousand years, until 1806.
Find out more about the Franks and other barbarian tribes here.
