Charlemagne, Charles I the Great (742–814)

King of the Franks from 768 and Holy Roman Emperor from 800. By inheritance (his father was Pepin the Short) and extensive campaigns of conquest, he united most of Western Europe by 804, when after 30 years of war the Saxons came under his control.

Pepin had been mayor of the palace in Merovingian Neustria until he was crowned king by Pope Stephen II (also known as Stephen III, died in 757) in 754, and his sons Carl (Charlemagne) and Carloman were crowned as joint heirs. When Pepin died in 768 Charlemagne inherited the northern Frankish kingdom, and when Carloman died in 771 he also took possession of the rest of his father's lands. He was involved in the first of his Saxon campaigns (772–77) when the Pope's call for help against the Lombards reached him; he crossed the Alps, captured Pavia, and took the title of king of the Lombards in 773.

The defeat and Christianizing of the Saxon peoples occupied the greater part of Charlemagne's reign. In 792 northern Saxony surrendered, and in 804 the whole region came under his rule. In 777 the emir of Zaragoza asked for Charlemagne's help against the emir of Córdoba. Charlemagne crossed the mountains of the Pyrenees in 778 and reached the River Ebro in northeast Spain. However, he had to turn back from Zaragoza. During the retreat of Charlemagne's forces, Roland, warden of the Breton March, and other Frankish nobles were ambushed and killed by Basques at Roncesvalles. The battle was later glorified in the Chanson de Roland.

In 795 the district between the Pyrenees and the Llobregat, on the southern side of the mountain range, was organized as the Spanish March. The independent duchy of Bavaria was brought into Charlemagne's kingdom in 788, and the Avar people were defeated in war between 791 and 796. Charlemagne's last campaign was against a Danish attack on his northern frontier in 810.

The power and supremacy of the Frankish king in Europe was recognized by the decision of Pope Leo III to crown Charlemagne as Holy Roman Emperor in Rome, on Christmas Day 800. Charlemagne died on 28 January 814 in Aachen, where he was buried. Soon a cycle of heroic legends and romances developed around him, including epics by the Italian poets Ariosto, Boiardo, and Tasso.

Charlemagne enjoyed links and government contacts with Byzantium, Baghdad, Mercia, Northumbria, and other regions in and around Europe. Jury courts were introduced and the laws of the Franks rewritten. The laws of conquered peoples were also recorded in writing, some for the first time. A new coinage was introduced, weights and measures were reformed, and communications were improved. Charlemagne also took a lively interest in theology, organized the church in his empire, and encouraged missionary work and reform of the monasteries. The Carolingian Renaissance of learning began when he persuaded the Northumbrian scholar Alcuin to enter his service in 782. Charlemagne gathered a collection of great scholars and religious thinkers around him. Although he never learned to read, he collected the old heroic sagas, began a Frankish grammar, and promoted religious instruction in the language of the ordinary people. The arts were also encouraged;Carolingian art included illuminated manuscripts and metalwork.