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Note: Brøderbund WFT Vol. 1, Ed. 1, Tree #0816, Date of Import: Mar 22, 1997]
Charlemagne, in Latin Carolus Magnus (Charles the Great) (742-814), king
of the Franks (768-814) and Emperor of the Romans (800-14), who led his
Frankish armies to victory over numerous other peoples and established
his rule in most of western and central Europe. He was the best-known and
most influential king in Europe in the Middle Ages.
Early Years
Charlemagne was born probably in Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle), on April 2,
742, the son of the Frankish king Pepin the Short and the grandson of
Charles Martel. In 751 Pepin dethroned the last Merovingian king and
assumed the royal title himself. He was crowned by Pope Stephen II in
754. Besides anointing Pepin, Pope Stephen anointed both Charlemagne and
his younger brother Carloman.
Within the year Pepin invaded Italy to protect the pope against the
Lombards, and in 756 he again had to rush to the pope's aid. From 760 on,
Pepin's main military efforts went into the conquest of Aquitaine, the
lands south of the Loire River. Charlemagne accompanied his father on
most of these expeditions.
Campaigns
When Pepin died in 768, the rule of his realms was to be shared between
his two sons. Charlemagne sought an alliance with the Lombards by
marrying (770) the daughter of their king, Desiderius (reigned 757-774).
In 771 Carloman died suddenly. Charlemagne then seized his territories,
but Carloman's heirs took refuge at the court of Desiderius. By that time
Charlemagne had repudiated his wife, and Desiderius was no longer
friendly. In 772, when Pope Adrian I appealed to Charlemagne for help
against Desiderius, the Frankish king invaded Italy, deposed his
erstwhile father-in-law (774), and himself assumed the royal title. He
then journeyed to Rome and reaffirmed his father's promise to protect
papal lands. As early as 772 Charlemagne had fought onslaughts of the
heathen Saxons on his lands. Buoyed by his Italian success, he now (775)
embarked on a campaign to conquer and Christianize them. That campaign
had some initial success but was to drag on for 30 years, in which time
he conducted many other campaigns as well. He fought in Spain in 778; on
the return trip his rear guard, led by Roland, was ambushed, a story
immortalized in The Song of Roland. In 788 he subjected the Bavarians to
his rule, and between 791 and 796 Charlemagne's armies conquered the
empire of the Avars (corresponding roughly to modern Hungary and Austria).
Coronation
Having thus established Frankish rule over so many other peoples,
Charlemagne had in fact built an empire and become an emperor. It
remained only for him to add the title. On Christmas Day, in 800,
Charlemagne knelt to pray in Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome. Pope Leo III
then placed a crown upon his head, and the people assembled in the church
acclaimed him the great, pacific emperor of the Romans.
Charlemagne's biographer, Einhard, reported that the king was surprised
by this coronation and that had he known it was going to happen, he would
not have gone into the church that day. This report has led to much
speculation by historians. Charlemagne probably desired and expected to
get the imperial title and he subsequently used it. In 813 he designated
his sole surviving son, Louis, as his successor, and personally crowned
him.
Administration
Charlemagne established a more permanent royal capital than had any of
his predecessors. His favorite residence from 794 on was at
Aix-la-Chapelle. He had a church and a palace constructed there, based in
part on architectural borrowings from Ravenna and Rome. At his court he
gathered scholars from all over Europe, the most famous being the English
cleric Alcuin of York, whom he placed in charge of the palace school.
Administration of the empire was entrusted to some 250 royal
administrators called counts. Charlemagne issued hundreds of decrees,
called capitularies, dealing with a broad range of topics from judicial
and military matters to monasteries, education, and the management of
royal estates.
The empire did not expand after 800; indeed, already in the 790s the
seacoasts and river valleys experienced the first, dreaded visits of the
Vikings. Charlemagne ordered a special watch against them in every
harbor, but with little effect. He died before their full, destructive
force was unleashed on the empire.
Evaluation
Charlemagne is important not only for the number of his victories and the
size of his empire, but for the special blend of tradition and innovation
that he represented. On the one hand, he was a traditional Germanic
warrior, who spent most of his adult life fighting. In the Saxon
campaigns he imposed baptism by the sword, and he retaliated against
rebels with merciless slaughter. On the other hand, he placed his immense
power and prestige at the service of Christian doctrine, the monastic
life, the teaching of Latin, the copying of books, and the rule of law.
His life, held up as a model to most later kings, thus embodied the
fusion of Germanic, Roman, and Christian cultures that became the basis
of European civilization.
"Charlemagne," Microsoft (R) Encarta. Copyright (c) 1994 Microsoft
Corporation. Copyright (c) 1994 Funk & Wagnall's Corporation.
All notes of this line;
Ancestral Roots of Sixty Colonists by Frederic Lewis Weis
Eight lines of descent of John Prescot, founder of Lancaster, Mass
by Frederick Lewis Weis
Some Magna Carta Barons and Other royal Linages by Dorothy a.
Sherman Lainson;B.A.; M.N.
Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists(7th Ed) by Frederick Lewis
Weis, Th.D.; F.A.S.G. (line 50)
CHARLEMAGNE (742?-814). "By the sword and the cross," Charlemagne
(Charles the Great) became master of Western Europe. It was falling into
decay when Charlemagne became joint king of the Franks in 768. Except in
the monasteries, people had all but forgotten education and the arts.
Boldly Charlemagne conquered barbarians and kings alike. By restoring the
roots of learning and order, he preserved many political rights and
revived culture.
Charlemagne's grandfather was Charles Martel, the warrior who crushed
the Saracens (see Charles Martel). Charlemagne was the elder son of
Bertrade ("Bertha Greatfoot") and Pepin the Short, first "mayor of the
palace" to become king of the Franks. Although schools had almost
disappeared in the 8th century, historians believe that Bertrade gave
young Charles some education and that he learned to read. His devotion to
the church motivated him throughout life.
Charlemagne was tall, powerful, and tireless. His secretary, Eginhard,
wrote that Charlemagne had fair hair and a "face laughing and merry . . .
his appearance was always stately and dignified." He had a ready wit, but
could be stern. His tastes were simple and moderate. He delighted in
hunting, riding, and swimming. He wore the Frankish dress linen shirt and
breeches, a silk-fringed tunic, hose wrapped with bands, and, in winter,
a tight coat of otter or marten skins. Over all these garments "he flung
a blue cloak, and he always had a sword girt about him."
Charlemagne's character was contradictory. In an age when the usual
penalty for defeat was death, Charlemagne several times spared the lives
of his defeated foes; yet in 782 at Verden, after a Saxon uprising, he
ordered 4,500 Saxons beheaded. He compelled the clergy and nobles to
reform, but he divorced two of his four wives without any cause. He
forced kings and princes to kneel at his feet, yet his mother and his two
favorite wives often overruled him in his own household.
Charlemagne Begins His Reign
In 768, when Charlemagne was 26, he and his brother Carloman inherited
the kingdom of the Franks. In 771 Carloman died, and Charlemagne became
sole ruler of the kingdom. At that time the northern half of Europe was
still pagan and lawless. In the south, the Roman Catholic church was
striving to assert its power against the Lombard kingdom in Italy. In
Charlemagne's own realm, the Franks were falling back into barbarian
ways, neglecting their education and religion.
Charlemagne was determined to strengthen his realm and to bring order
to Europe. In 772 he launched a 30-year campaign that conquered and
Christianized the powerful pagan Saxons in the north. He subdued the
Avars, a huge Tatar tribe on the Danube. He compelled the rebellious
Bavarian dukes to submit to him.
When possible he preferred to settle matters peacefully, however. For
example, Charlemagne offered to pay the Lombard king Desiderius for
return of lands to the pope, but, when Desiderius refused, Charlemagne
seized his kingdom in 773 to 774 and restored the Papal States.
The key to Charlemagne's amazing conquests was his ability to
organize. During his reign he sent out more than 50 military expeditions.
He rode as commander at the head of at least half of them. He moved his
armies over wide reaches of country with unbelievable speed, but every
move was planned in advance. Before a campaign he told the counts,
princes, and bishops throughout his realm how many men they should bring,
what arms they were to carry, and even what to load in the supply wagons.
These feats of organization and the swift marches later led Napoleon to
study his tactics.
One of Charlemagne's minor campaigns has become the most famous. In
778 he led his army into Spain, where they laid siege to Saragossa. They
failed to take the city, and during their retreat a group of Basques
ambushed the rear guard at Roncesvalles and killed "Count Roland." Roland
became a great hero of medieval songs and romances (see Roland).
By 800 Charlemagne was the undisputed ruler of Western Europe. His
vast realm covered what are now France, Switzerland, Belgium, and the
Netherlands. It included half of present-day Italy and Germany, part of
Austria, and the Spanish March ("border"). The broad March reached to the
Ebro River. By thus establishing a central government over Western
Europe, Charlemagne restored much of the unity of the old Roman Empire
and paved the way for the development of modern Europe.
Crowned Emperor
On Christmas Day in 800, while Charlemagne knelt in prayer in St.
Peter's in Rome, Pope Leo III seized a golden crown from the altar and
placed it on the bowed head of the king. The throng in the church
shouted, "To Charles the August, crowned by God, great and pacific
emperor, long life and victory!"
Charlemagne is said to have been surprised by the coronation,
declaring that he would not have come into the church had he known the
pope's plan. However, some historians say the pope would not have dared
to act without Charlemagne's knowledge.
The coronation was the foundation of the Holy Roman Empire. Though
Charlemagne did not use the title, he is considered the first Holy Roman
emperor (see Holy Roman Empire).
Reform and Renaissance
Charlemagne had deep sympathy for the peasants and believed that
government should be for the benefit of the governed. When he came to the
throne, various local governors, called "counts," had become lax and
oppressive. To reform them, he expanded the work of investigators, called
missi dominici. He prescribed their duties in documents called
capitularies and sent them out in teams of two a churchman and a noble.
They rode to all parts of the realm, inspecting government, administering
justice, and reawakening all citizens to their civil and religious duties.
Twice a year Charlemagne summoned the chief men of the empire to
discuss its affairs. In all problems he was the final arbiter, even in
church issues, and he largely unified church and state.
Charlemagne was a tireless reformer who tried to improve his people's
lot in many ways. He set up money standards to encourage commerce, tried
to build a Rhine-Danube canal, and urged better farming methods. He
especially worked to spread education and Christianity in every class of
people.
He revived the Palace School at Aachen, his capital. He set up other
schools, opening them to peasant boys as well as nobles.
Charlemagne never stopped studying. He brought an English monk,
Alcuin, and other scholars to his court. He learned to read Latin and
some Greek but apparently did not master writing. At meals, instead of
having jesters perform, he listened to men reading from learned works.
To revive church music, Charlemagne had monks sent from Rome to train
his Frankish singers. To restore some appreciation of art, he brought
valuable pieces from Italy. An impressive monument to his religious
devotion is the cathedral at Aachen, which he built and where he was
buried (see Aachen).
At Charlemagne's death in 814 only one of his three sons, Louis, was
living. Louis's weak rule brought on the rise of civil wars and revolts.
After his death his three quarreling sons split the empire between them
by the Partition of Verdun in 843.
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Excerpted from Compton`s Interactive Encyclopedia
Copyright © 1993, 1994 Compton`s NewMedia, Inc.
HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE. From Christmas Day in AD 800 until Aug. 6, 1806,
there existed in Europe a peculiar political institution called the Holy
Roman Empire. The name of the empire as it is known today did not come
into general use until 1254. It has truly been said that this political
arrangement was not holy, or Roman, or an empire. Any holiness attached
to it came from the claims of the popes in their attempts to assert
religious control in Europe. It was Roman to the extent that it tried to
revive, without success, the political authority of the Roman Empire in
the West as a countermeasure to the Byzantine Empire in the East. It was
an empire in the loosest sense of the word at no time was it able to
consolidate unchallenged political control over the vast territories it
pretended to rule. There was no central government, no unity of language,
no common system of law, no sense of common loyalty among the many states
within it. Over the centuries the empire's boundaries shifted and shrank
drastically.
Origins
The original Roman Empire ended in Italy and Western Europe in AD 476,
when the last emperor Romulus Augustulus was deposed. Political power
passed to Constantinople (now Istanbul), the capital of the Byzantine
Empire. Theoretically Constantinople included all of Europe in its
domain. Realistically, however, this proved impossible, as barbarian
kingdoms were established throughout Western Europe. The only figure in
the West who had any claim to universal authority was the pope in Rome,
and he was legally bishop of Rome, confirmed in his position by the
Byzantine emperor.
By the 8th century, Byzantine control of Italy had vanished. The
Lombard kingdom of northern Italy had driven out the emperor's
representative in Ravenna in 751. There were also strong religious
differences between the pope and the church in Constantinople differences
that would lead to a complete break in 1054. Confronted with this
situation, the Roman popes sought political protection from the only
people who would give it the kings of the Franks, the strongest power
north of the Alps. In 754 the Frankish king Pepin the Short invaded Italy
and conquered the Lombard kingdom. Two years later he assigned the former
Byzantine territory around Ravenna to the pope. This was the birth of the
Papal States of Italy, which would endure until the unification of Italy
in the 19th century.
This close cooperation between popes and the Frankish kings would have
far-reaching consequences. It laid the basis for centuries of conflict
between emperors and popes over who had the supreme authority in Europe.
According to the popes, the empire was the political arm of the church.
The emperors, on the other hand, saw themselves as directly responsible
to God, and they relied on conquest and control for their power.
There is little doubt that the popes hoped to become the successors of
emperors in the West. Since this was politically impossible, the next
best solution was to assert religious control by means of political
institutions. On Dec. 25, 800, Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne emperor
during a service at St. Peter's Basilica in Rome (see Charlemagne). The
act was illegal, because popes never had the right to crown emperors. The
crowning did nothing for Charlemagne. He was as before king of the Franks
and Lombards and the most powerful monarch in Europe. The main practical
outcome of Leo's act was to complete the separation between East and
West. It thereby set up a rivalry with Constantinople, a rivalry in which
neither side had a real advantage. Most significantly the coronation
involved the new emperor and his successors in the political pretensions
of the papacy.
Charlemagne's Empire
The empire lasted as long as it did because the idea was politically
and religiously appealing to the peoples and rulers of Europe. It did not
endure unbroken, however. Charlemagne's kingdom did not remain whole very
long after his death. His domains were fragmented by his successors. The
last of his descendants to hold the title of emperor was Charles III the
Fat (881-87). From 888 France, Germany, and Italy were separate states
(though not unified nations by any means). A succession of emperors,
mostly nominees of the popes, followed Charles. With the death of the
last of these in 924, the powerful Roman family of the Crescentii
abolished the title of emperor in Italy at least for a time.
Rise of the Germanic Empire
The imperial title had died temporarily in Italy, but it persisted
north of the Alps. It was a notion of empire that had nothing to do with
Rome. By the middle of the 10th century there were two Frankish kingdoms
east and west. The West Kingdom was composed largely of today's France.
The East Frankish Kingdom was Germanic. From this time the Holy Roman
Empire was to be basically Germanic, though it maintained pretensions of
rule over greater territory, including Italy. In the German lands the
kings were Saxon, not Frankish.
Otto I (died 973) was the first of the Saxon kings powerful enough to
assert control over Germany and Italy. He was crowned emperor by Pope
John XII in 962. Although he held the title, he made no pretense of
governing the East Frankish lands. From his reign the empire was to be a
union of German states and northern Italy.
Otto I did not claim the title of Roman emperor, but his descendants
did. Otto II did so to proclaim his rivalry with the emperor at
Constantinople. Otto III (ruled 983-1002) made Rome his capital. He felt
himself to be the political power by which Christian domination would
spread throughout Europe. Popes were subject to him and his successors
down to Henry III (1039-56). By that time effective rule over Germany and
Italy together had become impracticable. Distance alone made it difficult.
Reassertion of Papal Power
For more than 200 years, from 1056 until 1273, the popes made a
political comeback. Some very strong-minded individuals were elected pope
among them, Gregory VII and Innocent III were the most notable. They wasted no time in refuting the pretensions of the emperors to control the
church.
It was the Investiture Controversy that brought matters to a head. At
issue was the question whether political figures, such as emperors and
kings, had the right to appoint bishops and heads of monasteries and to
invest them with the symbols of their office. At the heart of the issue
was the place of the emperor in Christian society, especially his
relationship with the papacy. It was Pope Gregory VII (pope 1073-85) who
initiated the controversy in 1076 by stating that only the pope had the
right to crown emperors, just as it was his right to appoint bishops and
other church officials. The controversy was brought to a close in 1122 by
an agreement between Pope Calixtus II and Emperor Henry V, but future
popes revived the issue as they saw fit.
The era of the Hohenstaufen emperors (1138-1254, except for the years
1198-1214) was a time of almost unceasing conflict between popes and
emperors (see Hohenstaufen Dynasty). The greatest of these, Frederick I
Barbarossa, added the word holy to the name of his empire to balance the
claims of the Holy Church. He emphasized continuity with the past, going
back to the days of Charlemagne. His rights as emperor, he determined,
were not based on the deed of Leo III but on the territorial conquest of
the Franks. Lawyers for the emperors argued against the popes, saying
that "he who is chosen by the election of the princes alone is the true
emperor." (The emperors were generally chosen by this time through an
election held by German princes.)
The conflicts with the popes drew the Hohenstaufen emperors into
Italian politics. The temptation to control Italy, and thus Rome, was
persistent. Henry VI married the heiress to Sicily, and the Norman
Kingdom of Sicily was used to restore imperial power in Italy. The popes
reacted vigorously to this threat. They found allies in their opposition
to the emperors, and by 1245 it was possible to depose Frederick II. His
death in 1250 effectively ended the Holy Roman Empire of the Middle Ages.
Over the next two decades the imperial structure fell apart in Italy.
Hapsburg Rulers
If most of Italy was lost, the empire maintained itself north of the
Alps in Germany for several centuries. It became little more than a
coalition of German states, each with its own ruler. When Rudolf I of the
House of Hapsburg became German king in 1273, he was the head of a
federation of German princes. He abandoned all claims to the center and
south of Italy and retained only nominal title to the north. (The north
of Italy was not entirely free of Hapsburg domination until after World
War I.) After him only four emperors were crowned by a pope or his
delegate. The last was Charles V, a Hapsburg who was also king of Spain.
By the end of the Middle Ages, any hope of reviving anything like a
real empire in Europe had become impossible. France and Spain were the
most powerful kingdoms in Europe. Both were contending for control of the
continent. The weak and disunited German states were in no position to
establish any kind of control, even within their own boundaries. (Germany
did not become united until 1870.) Charles IV therefore set out to make
the empire a solely German institution. By an agreement with Pope Clement
V, he abandoned Italy. He went to Rome for his coronation on April 5,
1355. He then refashioned the empire into the Holy Roman Empire of the
German Nation.
From then the empire was essentially part of the history of Germany. A
few emperors, notably Charles V, entertained a larger vision of power,
but there was no way for him to unite his Spanish and Austrian
possessions with Germany as long as France stood in the way. (See also
Germany, "History.")
The 16th-century Reformation in the church further divided the weak
empire. Germany was split into two religious camps, and the emperor was
little more than the head of a religious faction. The electors, the real
heads of the German states, were entrenched by virtue of championing
either Roman Catholicism or Lutheranism.
The Thirty Years' War, originally a religious conflict, devastated
Germany and further weakened what little reality the empire had left. No
emperor afterward ever tried to establish a central authority. (See also
Thirty Years' War.)
The end came with Napoleon. For several centuries France had been
intending to annex at least the fringes of the empire. It had never
happened. When Napoleon carried his wars eastward, however, he was
resolved to terminate the reign of Emperor Francis II (later Francis I of
Austria). The emperor saw what was coming, and he resigned his title on
Aug. 6, 1806. The empire ceased to exist as a political reality. It
persisted for some time as an ideal. It was used as an inspiration for
the German Empire of 1870 and more so by Adolf Hitler's Third Reich
(Empire) in the 1930s.
KING OF FRANCE (768-814); HOLLY ROMAN EMPERIOR (800)
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Excerpted from Compton`s Interactive Encyclopedia
Copyright © 1993, 1994 Compton`s NewMedia, Inc.
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