Charlemagne: The Father of Europe

       Charlemagne, also known as Charles the Great, was one of the most significant rulers in European history; he was the first unifier of Western and Central Europe after the fall of the Western Roman Empire almost three hundred years earlier! After the Western Roman Empire collapsed and in the region of Gaul especially western Europe had been split into much smaller factions, and there was no one to pick up the pieces. Until Charlemagne a common misconception about Charlemagne is that he was a great King of France. That’s an extreme understatement. Charlemagne ruled much, much more than France and, in fact, preceded the country itself. 

        Charlemagne was a Frank, and the Franks have a long history, beginning before Rome itself. The Romans gave them their name we know them by now, the Franks, which means “ferocious” – and ferocious they were, indeed. For Charlemagne to have conquered and flourished the way he did, he would have needed to embody that tradition. His own grandfather was Charles Martel, a very notable military genius, best known for his victory in the battle of Tours.

       Charlemagne’s family line of Franks had been ruling the smaller pieces left of Rome; after the fall of the dynasty of Merovingians, they were no strangers to power – and the cultivation of it. Charlemagne united Western Europe, and his rule extended over to what is now France, northern Italy, Germany, Austria, Spain, the Netherlands, Poland, and many others. This level of unification hadn’t been seen for centuries and is why some consider him to be the Father of Europe, the Pater Europe. His name became so synonymous with victory, kingship, and leadership that many words for “king” in western European languages derive from his name, Charlemagne; the Polish król, the Czech král, the Latvian karalis, and more. This sort of international linguistic recognition puts Charlemagne on par with Julius Caesar, for whom the Russian word for king, czar comes from. 

       To unify Western and Central Europe wasn’t an easy job. Charlemagne needed victory after victory. His battles with the Saxons, Lombards, Saracens, Aquitaines, Moors, Bavarians, and the Slavs were all carefully planned – and his battles mostly won. It was the Basques, those hardy people living in the Pyrenees, whose language is older than Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit – people whose unique and total knowledge of the mountains and their passes finally created a defeat for Charlemagne. That did not stop him for long; he continued onto Hispaniola and battled the Moors, successfully adding what is now Spain into his Kingdom. It wasn’t just enough for him to rule such a kingdom, despite its ever-growing territories and despite it being one of the largest kingdoms in centuries.

      Charlemagne wanted an empire. And to do that, he needed to be crowned Emperor by the Pope himself. Charlemagne had been a staunch ally to Pope Adrian I since his assistance with his victory against the Lombards, which had helped maintain prosperity and peace in Rome. The Pope was quite happy with the arrangement; no one would dare attack Rome with Charlemagne as a friend and ally. They had had a good relationship for over two decades. Charlemagne had been maintaining a good relationship with the Eastern Roman Empire and working in tandem with Pope Adrian to do so. But because of Pope Adrian’s independence, whenever they disagreed, it made the Pope nervous; after all, Charlemagne ruled over a significant portion of Italy, which is today’s Lombardy region.

         Unfortunately, by the time Charlemagne had decided that he wanted to be crowned Emperor, Adrian had passed, and Pope Leo III sat in the Vatican. Pope Leo III wanted to maintain cordial relations with Charlemagne since this had helped Pope Adrian I maintain Rome and ensure its safety. Plus, it would be vitally important for his image to maintain Charlemagne’s help and goodwill. However, it was challenging to gain that level of trust. Pope Adrian had befriended him a few years after Charlemagne’s father passed, and Charlemagne grew to see him as a father figure. It would not be easy to build a friendship on the same level as the previous Pope – and people knew it. Pope Leo was attacked and left to die in the streets of Rome, so he fled to Charlemagne for help. Charlemagne assisted him, and to strengthen their bond, a year later, on Christmas day, Pope Leo consecrated Charlemagne as the Emperor of Rome. The whole Roman Empire. The Eastern Roman Empire, otherwise known as the Byzantine Empire, still existed and was ruled by empress Irene of Athens. Relations were tense between the two rulers, as their borders were very close, especially around Venice. 

      Charlemagne had delegated many of his military tasks to his sons and turned his mind towards less militant matters, embracing more cultured, artistic inclinations. This would lead to one of the first great medieval renaissances during the Middle Ages. Along with founding the Carolingian Empire, Charlemagne also helped spur along one of the first of three great medieval renaissances in the Church, The Carolingian Renaissance – a vital contributor to the substantial increase in literature, writing, and other forms of art.

        He modeled this renaissance against Rome’s - the ancient, classical Rome, not the deteriorating Western Rome of 300 years ago. And one of his first acts was to standardize the currency based on Roman currency. This would become a precursor to the British pound, shillings, and pennies. But his focus would lie more in education and literature. Starting a great school for noble folk in Aachen, he delegated to his dear friend and influential scholar, Alcuin, the task of creating a standardized curriculum so that all of his subjects could learn to read. Alcuin also established a library that showcased the value of books in a time before printing presses. Soon, with the advent of higher literacy, many scholars began clamoring for their own libraries – a goal that Charlemagne was more than happy to support. He even standardized capital letters and certain forms of typography. Part of his reasoning for promoting literacy was bringing the Bible to more people. It was translated so that all of his linguistically diverse subjects could study and read it. 

     The Carolingian Renaissance was also responsible for preserving many Latin texts. Before printing presses, monks had to laboriously hand copy every single letter, page, manuscript, and book for hundreds of these texts. It’s safe to say, without this enormous task, the efforts of Latin scholars would have long been lost to history, perhaps on par with the tragedy of the Library of Alexandria. Because of his efforts, we have Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations and Virgil’s Aeneid.

      Without Charlemagne’s dedication, we’d also be deprived of The History of the Roman Empire by Tacitus or Julius Caesar’s personal account of his conquests of Gaul. We’d have no Cicero or Pliny’s Natural History. Ironically enough, Charlemagne never learned how to write, though he could read. This may be why he prized the written word so much; he could appreciate the talents of others and wanted to share them with his empire. At 71, Charlemagne developed pleurisy, contracted a fever, and died on January 21, may have played a part in his death, along with his tendency to push himself to the brink of everything he put his mind to. Living to 71 was a feat in itself for that period, given the average lifespan was much shorter. He had ruled Francia for nearly fifty years, created an Empire, and started a Renaissance.

       Charlemagne’s legacy can still be felt today. In fact, in a standard deck of playing cards, the King of Hearts is modeled after him. His military conquests are legendary, his unification came at a bloody price, but ultimately, those became the first paving stones towards what is now modern Europe. Librarians, bibliophiles, and Classical scholars have much to thank him for. 

      He started as the King of the Franks, then the King of the Franks and the Lombards; then, many conquests later, he became the Emperor of Rome and the Emperor of the Carolingian Empire. It isn’t easy to comprehend the magnitude of all that he’s done or imagine our current world without his impact, but one thing is for sure: we won’t forget his history or his legacy, and his story will live on.