Era VII · Medieval Europe

Charlemagne

In a reign of near-constant war, a Frankish king welds much of western and central Europe into one realm — and revives a Roman imperial title.

A.D. 768–814 · Francia, Italy, Saxony, the Danube
After Einhard’s Life and the Frankish annals. A map study — the campaign is told on the interactive map below; the fuller narrative essay is in preparation.

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†A.D. 768 · A Frankish king inherits

A new empire in the Latin West

Restored portrait of Saint Boniface — **Saint Boniface**Anglo-Saxon missionary to the Germans, c. 675–754 A.D.

The Frankish king Charlemagne spent a reign of nearly half a century at war — against the Lombards in Italy, the Saxons across the Rhine, the Avars on the Danube, and the Muslims of Spain — welding much of western and central Europe into a single realm. On Christmas Day of the year 800, in Rome, the pope crowned him emperor, reviving in the Latin West an imperial title that had been vacant there for more than three centuries.

Early Middle Ages · The Carolingian Empire

Charlemagne: The Forging of the Western Empire, 768–814 A.D.

Scroll to follow Charles the Great as he conquers the Lombards, fights the Saxon wars, storms the Avar Ring, and is crowned Emperor in Rome.

768–771 A.D.

The Divided Kingdom & Sole Rule

Upon the death of King Pepin the Short in 768, the Frankish realm is partitioned between his two sons, Charles and Carloman. Intense fraternal rivalry threatens civil war until Carloman dies suddenly in December 771. At age twenty-nine, Charles is proclaimed sole king of the Franks. Tall, athletic, and possessed of formidable energy, Charles inaugurates forty-six years of unbroken military campaigns to expand the boundaries of the Christian West, governing his vast realms from the newly built palace complex at Aachen.

773–774 A.D.

The Iron Crown: The Conquest of Lombardy

When King Desiderius of the Lombards threatens the Papacy, Pope Hadrian I appeals to Charles for salvation. In autumn 773, Charles leads two massive Frankish columns over the snowbound passes of Mont Cenis and the Great Saint Bernard, outflanking the Lombard fortifications in the Susa valley. He invests the fortified Lombard capital of Pavia in a grueling nine-month siege. Pavia yields in June 774; Desiderius is exiled to a Frankish monastery. Charles places the iron crown of Lombardy on his own head, assuming the unprecedented double title Rex Francorum et Langobardorum.

772–785 A.D.

Thirty-Three Years of Fire: The Saxon Wars

To the northeast lie the fierce, unchristianized Saxons. Charles launches eighteen campaigns into their dense forests. In 772, he fells their sacred world-tree, the Irminsul, and holds imperial diets at Paderborn. When the rebel chieftain Widukind leads an uprising that annihilates a Frankish division at the Süntel hills, Charles exacts terrible vengeance: at Verden in 782, four thousand five hundred Saxon captives are beheaded in a single day. Broken by relentless scorched-earth warfare, Widukind surrenders in 785 and accepts baptism, with Charles standing as his godfather.

778 A.D.

The Spanish March & The Horn of Roland

Invited by the rebellious Muslim governor of Barcelona to intervene in the Iberian Peninsula, Charles leads an army across the Pyrenees to besiege Zaragoza. The siege stalls, and news of a fresh Saxon revolt forces Charles to withdraw. As the Frankish army winds through the narrow, misty defile of Roncesvalles on August 15, 778, Basque highlanders launch a devastating ambush on the rearguard, slaying Count Roland, warden of the Breton March. Roland’s desperate blowing of his olifant horn becomes the foundation of medieval Europe's greatest epic poem, the Song of Roland. Charles later returns to establish the Spanish March around Barcelona.

788–796 A.D.

Bavaria & The Golden Hoard of the Avars

Charles deposes his cousin Duke Tassilo III of Bavaria at Regensburg, absorbing the duchy directly into the crown. Beyond Bavaria sits the nomadic Avar Khaganate, who for two centuries had pillaged the Balkans and extracted tons of gold tribute from Byzantium. In 796, Charles’s son Pepin of Italy and Margrave Eric of Friuli storm the fabled Avar Ring — a massive concentric nine-walled earthwork fortress. The Avar nobility is exterminated; fifteen huge wagons, each drawn by four oxen, haul the accumulated golden hoard of the steppe nomads back to Aachen, permanently enriching the Frankish treasury.

Christmas Day 800 A.D.

Imperator Romanorum: The Father of Europe

In November 800, Charles arrives in Rome to investigate charges against Pope Leo III, who had been brutally assaulted by rival factions. On Christmas Day in Saint Peter's Basilica, as Charles rises from prayer at the altar, Leo places a magnificent golden crown upon his head. The clergy and people acclaim him thrice: 'To Charles Augustus, crowned by God, the great and peacemaking Emperor of the Romans, life and victory!' The Western Roman Empire, extinct for over three centuries, is revived. Charlemagne reigns over modern France, Germany, Italy, and the Low Countries until his death in 814, revered as the Pater Europae — the Father of Europe.

768–771

Carolingian palace / royal centeropposing capital / fortressmajor siege / battle / assemblyCharlemagne’s campaign hostimperial coronation return

Sites: Carolingian annals and historical records (Einhard, Vita Karoli Magni; Royal Frankish Annals). Land, lakes and rivers: Natural Earth (public domain). Routes are schematic.

‡What it changed

Aftermath

Charlemagne’s empire did not long outlast his heirs; within two generations it was partitioned. But the thing it embodied — an alliance of Frankish power with the Roman church — shaped the politics of Latin Europe for the next thousand years.