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Charlemagne (English language: ; French language: ; , meaning Charles the Great) (742/747 – 28 January 814) was King of the Franks from 768 to his death. He expanded the Frankish kingdoms into a Frankish Empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. During his reign, he conquered Kingdom of Italy (medieval) and was crowned by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800, in an attempted revival of the Western Roman Empire. Through his foreign conquests and internal reforms, Charlemagne helped define Western Europe and the Middle Ages. His rule is also associated with the Carolingian Renaissance, a revival of art, religion, and culture.

His original name in the Old Frankish language was never recorded, but early instances of his name in Latin read "Carolus" or "Karolus". The son of King Pippin the Short and Bertrada of Laon, he succeeded his father and co-ruled with his brother Carloman, son of Pippin III. The latter withdrew, seemingly voluntarily, from public life in 747 and became a monk, dying in 771. Charlemagne continued the policy of his father towards the papacy and became its protector, removing the Lombards from power in Italy, and waging war on the Saracens, who menaced his realm from Spain. It was during one of these campaigns that Charlemagne experienced the worst defeat of his life, at Battle of Roncesvalles (778). He also campaigned against the peoples to his east, especially the Saxons, and after a protracted war subjected them to his rule. By converting them to Christianity, he integrated them into his realm and thus paved the way for the later Ottonian dynasty.

Today regarded by some as the founding father of both France and Germany and sometimes as the Father of Europe, he was the first ruler of a Western European empire since the fall of Rome.Riché. H. G. Wells said in his Short History of the World:

Background (about 870).By the 6th century, the Franks were Germanic Christianity, and the Frankish Empire ruled by the Merovingians had become the most powerful of the kingdoms which succeeded the Western Roman Empire. But following the Battle of Tertry, the Merovingians declined into a state of powerlessness, for which they have been dubbed do-nothing kings (). Almost all government powers of any consequence were exercised by their chief officer, the mayor of the palace or major domus.

In 687, Pippin of Herstal, mayor of the palace of Austrasia, ended the strife between various kings and their mayors with his victory at Tertry and became the sole governor of the entire Frankish kingdom. Pippin himself was the grandson of two most important figures of the Austrasian Kingdom, Saint Arnulf of Metz and Pippin of Landen. Pippin the Middle was eventually succeeded by his illegitimate son Charles, later known as Charles Martel (the Hammer). After 737, Charles governed the Franks without a king on the throne but desisted from calling himself "king". Charles was succeeded by his sons Carloman, son of Charles Martel and Pippin the Short, the father of Charlemagne. To curb separatism in the periphery of the realm, the brothers placed on the throne Childeric III, who was to be the last Merovingian king.

After Carloman resigned his office, Pippin had Childeric III deposed with Pope Zachary's approval. In 751, Pippin was elected and anointed King of the Franks and in 754, Pope Stephen II again anointed him and his young sons, now heirs to the great realm which already covered most of western and central Europe. Thus was the Merovingian dynasty replaced by the Carolingian dynasty, named after Pippin's father Charles Martel.

Under the new dynasty, the Frankish kingdom spread to encompass an area including most of Western Europe. The division of that kingdom formed History of France and History of Germany;Oman, Charles. The Dark Ages 476–919. Rivingtons: London, 1914. Regards Charlemagne's grandsons as the first kings of France and Germany, which at the time comprised the whole of the Carolingian Empire save Italy. and the Religion, Politics, and artistic evolutions originating from a centrally-positioned Francia made a defining imprint on the whole of Western Europe.

Personal traits Date and place of birth Charlemagne is traditionally believed to have been born on April 2, 742; however, several factors have led to a reconsideration of this date. First, the year 742 was calculated from his age given at death, rather than from attestation in primary sources. Another date is given in the Annales Petarienses, April 1, 747. In that year, April 1 was at Easter. The birth of an emperor at eastertime is a coincidence likely to provoke comment, but there was no such comment documented in 747, leading some to suspect that the Easter birthday was a pious fiction concocted as a way of honoring the Emperor. Other commentators weighing the primary records have suggested that his birth was one year later, in 748. At present, it is impossible to be certain of the date of the birth of Charlemagne. The best guesses include April 1, 747, after April 15, 747, or April 1, 748, in Herstal (where his father was born), a city close to Liège (city), in Belgium, the region from where both the Merovingian and Carolingian families originate. He went to live in his father's villa in Jupille when he was around seven, which caused Jupille to be listed as a possible place of birth in almost every history book. Other cities have been suggested, including, Prüm, Düren, Gauting and Aachen.

Language Charlemagne's Native language is a matter of controversy. He spoke the Germanic languages of the Franks of his day, which should be called Old Frankish, but Linguistics differ on the identity and periodisation of the language, some going so far as to say that he did not speak Old Frankish as he was born in 742 or 747, by which time Old Frankish had become extinct. Old Frankish is reconstructed from its descendant, Old Low Franconian, also called Old Dutch, and from loanwords to Old French. Linguists know very little about Old Frankish, as it attested mainly as phrases and words in the law codes of the main Frankish tribes (especially those of the Salian and Ripuarian Franks), which are written in Latin interspersed with Germanic elements. Original text of the salic law.

The area of Charlemagne's birth does not make determination of his native language easier. Most historians agree he was born around Liège (city), like his father, but some say he was born in or around Aachen, some fifty kilometres away. At that time, this was an area of great linguistic diversity. If we take Liège (around 750) as the centre, we find Low Franconian in the north and northwest, Gallo-Romance (the ancestor of Old French) in the south and southwest and various Old High German dialects in the east. If Gallo-Romance is excluded, that means he either spoke Old Low Franconian or an Old High German dialect, probably with a strong Frankish influence.

Apart from his native language he also spoke some Latin language and understood a bit of Greek language: Grecam vero melius intellegere quam pronuntiare poterat, "He understood Greek better than he could pronounce it."Einhard, Life, 25.

Names of Charlemagne Because of the number of languages spoken within his Empire, Charlemagne's name has been preserved in many different languages in different forms. The language of Charlemagne itself does not exist anymore, but evolved into the Franconian languages. "Charles" derives from a Germanic stem meaning "man" or "free man". Etymology of "Charles/Karl/Karel". It is related to the English "churl". In many Slavic languages, the very word for "king" derives from Charles' Slavicised name.

Modern variants in Germanic languages (except English) are:

The Germanic name was Latinised (Latin: Carolus Magnus) and preserved in the modern Romance languages (as well as English):

Modern variants in and the Slavic languages influenced by the Germanic name are:

The Breton language variant is Karl-Veur.

The Germanic variants (den Store, de Grote, de Grutte,der Große, and de Groussen) also refer to the fact that Charlemagne was tall (seven of his own feet, or 1.93 m (6 ft 4))Which means that Charlemagne had modern European Shoe sizes#Foot length versus shoe length 44 or American shoe size 10..Names of other Carolingian rulers also refer to their physical features. For example Pippin the Short, Charles the Bald, Charles the Fat, Louis the Blind, and Louis the Child.

Personal appearance names the "King with the Grizzly Beard"—Facsimile of an engraving from the end of the sixteenth century.

Though no description from Charlemagne's lifetime exists, his personal appearance is known from a good description by Einhard, author of the biographical Vita Caroli Magni. He is well known to have been tall, stately, and fair-haired, with a disproportionately thick neck. His skeleton was measured during the 18th century and his height was determined to be 1.93 m (6 ft 4 in ), andas Einhard tells it in his twenty-second chapter:

Charles was large and strong, and of lofty stature, though not disproportionately tall (his height is well known to have been seven times the length of his foot); the upper part of his head was round, his eyes very large and animated, nose a little long, hair fair, and face laughing and merry. Thus his appearance was always stately and dignified, whether he was standing or sitting; although his neck was thick and somewhat short, and his belly rather prominent; but the symmetry of the rest of his body concealed these defects. His gait was firm, his whole carriage manly, and his voice clear, but not so strong as his size led one to expect.

The Roman tradition of realistic personal portraiture was in complete eclipse at this time, where individual traits were submerged in iconic typecastings. Charlemagne, as an ideal ruler, ought to be portrayed in the corresponding fashion, any contemporary would have assumed. The images of enthroned Charlemagne, God's representative on Earth, bear more connections to the icons of Christ in majesty than to modern (or antique) conceptions of portraiture. Charlemagne in later imagery (as in the Albrecht Dürer portrait) is often portrayed with flowing blond hair, due to a misunderstanding of Einhard, who describes Charlemagne as having canitie pulchra, or "beautiful white hair", which has been rendered as blonde or fair in many translations. The Latin word for blond is flavus, and rutilo, meaning auburn, is the word Tacitus uses for the hair of Germanic peoples.

Dress

Charlemagne wore the traditional, inconspicuous and distinctly non-aristocratic costume of the Frankish people, described by Einhard thus:

He used to wear the national, that is to say, the Frank dress: next to his skin a linen shirt and linen breeches, and above these a tunic fringed with silk; while hose fastened by bands covered his lower limbs, and shoes his feet, and he protected his shoulders and chest in winter by a close-fitting coat of otter or marten skins.

He wore a blue cloak and always carried a sword with him. The typical sword was of a golden or silver hilt. He wore fancy jewelled swords to banquets or ambassadorial receptions. Nevertheless:

He despised foreign costumes, however handsome, and never allowed himself to be robed in them, except twice in Rome, when he donned the Roman tunic, chlamys, and shoes; the first time at the request of Pope Hadrian, the second to gratify Leo, Hadrian's successor.

He could rise to the occasion when necessary. On great feast days, he wore embroidery and jewels on his clothing and shoes. He had a golden buckle for his cloak on such occasions and would appear with his great Diadem (personal wear), but he despised such apparel, according to Einhard, and usually dressed like the common people.

Rise to power Early life Charlemagne was the eldest child of Pippin the Short (714 – 24 September 768, reigned from 751) and his wife Bertrada of Laon (720 – 12 July 783), daughter of Caribert of Laon and Bertrada of Cologne. The reliable records name only Carloman, son of Pippin III and Gisela as his younger siblings. Later accounts, however, indicate that Redburga, wife of King Egbert of Wessex, might have been his sister (or sister-in-law or niece), and the legendary material makes him Roland's maternal uncle through a lady Bertha.

Much of what is known of Charlemagne's life comes from his biographer, Einhard, who wrote a Vita Caroli Magni (or Vita Karoli Magni), the Life of Charlemagne. Einhard says of the early life of Charles:

It would be folly, I think, to write a word concerning Charles' birth and infancy, or even his boyhood, for nothing has ever been written on the subject, and there is no one alive now who can give information on it. Accordingly, I determined to pass that by as unknown, and to proceed at once to treat of his character, his deed, and such other facts of his life as are worth telling and setting forth, and shall first give an account of his deed at home and abroad, then of his character and pursuits, and lastly of his administration and death, omitting nothing worth knowing or necessary to know.

On the death of Pippin, the kingdom of the Franks was divided—following tradition—between Charlemagne and Carloman. Charles took the outer parts of the kingdom, bordering on the sea, namely Neustria, western Aquitaine, and the northern parts of Austrasia, while Carloman retained the inner parts: southern Austrasia, Septimania, eastern Aquitaine, Burgundy, Provence, and Swabia, lands bordering on Italy. Perhaps Pippin regarded Charlemagne as the better warrior, but Carloman may have regarded himself as the more deserving son, being the son, not of a mayor of the palace, but of a king.

Joint rule On 9 October, immediately after the funeral of their father, both the kings withdrew from Saint Denis to be proclaimed by their nobles and consecrated by the bishops, Charlemagne in Noyon and Carloman in Soissons.

The first event of the brothers' reign was the rising of the Aquitainians and Gascons, in 769, in that territory split between the two kings. Years before Pippin had suppressed the revolt of Waifer of Aquitaine, Duke of Aquitaine. Now, one Hunald (seemingly other than Hunald of Aquitaine the duke) led the Aquitainians as far north as Angoulême. Charlemagne met Carloman, but Carloman refused to participate and returned to Burgundy. Charlemagne went to war, leading an army to Bordeaux, where he set up a camp at Fronsac. Hunold was forced to flee to the court of Duke Lop II of Gascony. Lupus, fearing Charlemagne, turned Hunold over in exchange for peace. He was put in a monastery. Aquitaine was finally fully subdued by the Franks.

The brothers maintained lukewarm relations with the assistance of their mother Bertrada, but Charlemagne signed a treaty with Duke Tassilo III of Bavaria and married a daughter of King Desiderius of the Lombards who may have been named Gerperga in order to surround Carloman with his own allies. Though Pope Stephen III first opposed the marriage with the Lombard princess, he would have little to fear of a Frankish-Lombard alliance in a few months.

Charlemagne repudiated his wife and quickly married another, a 13-year-old Swabian named Hildegard, wife of Charlemagne. The repudiated Gerperga returned to her father's court at Pavia. The Lombard's wrath was now aroused and he would gladly have allied with Carloman to defeat Charles. But before war could break out, Carloman died on 5 December 771. Carloman's wife Gerberge (often confused by contemporary historians with Charlemagne's former wife, who probably shared her name) fled to Desiderius' court with her sons for protection. This action is usually considered either a sign of Charlemagne's enmity or Gerberga's confusion.

Italian campaigns Conquest of Lombardy was threatened by invaders, the king rushed to Rome to provide assistance. Shown here, the pope asks Charlemagne for help at a meeting near Rome.At the succession of Pope Hadrian I in 772, he demanded the return of certain cities in the former exarchate of Ravenna as in accordance with a promise of Desiderius' succession. Desiderius instead took over certain papal cities and invaded the Pentapolis, heading for Rome. Hadrian sent embassies to Charlemagne in autumn requesting he enforce the policies of his father, Pippin. Desiderius sent his own embassies denying the pope's charges. The embassies both met at Thionville and Charlemagne upheld the pope's side. Charlemagne promptly demanded what the pope had demanded and Desiderius promptly swore never to comply. The invasion was not short in coming. Charlemagne and his uncle Bernhard, son of Charles Martel crossed the Alps in 773 and chased the Lombards back to battle of Pavia (773). Charlemagne temporarily left the siege to deal with Adelchis, son of Desiderius, who was raising an army at Verona. The young prince was chased to the Adriatic littoral and he fled to Constantinople to plead for assistance from Constantine V, who was waging war with the Bulgars.

The siege lasted until the spring of 774, when Charlemagne visited the pope in Rome. There he confirmed his father's grants of land, with some later chronicles claiming—falsely—that he also expanded them, granting Tuscany, Emilia, Venice, and Corsica. The pope granted him the title patrician. He then returned to Pavia, where the Lombards were on the verge of surrendering.

In return for their lives, the Lombards surrendered and opened the gates in early summer. Desiderius was sent to the abbey of Corbie and his son Adelchis died in Constantinople a patrician. Charles, unusually, had himself crowned with the Iron Crown of Lombardy and made the magnates of Lombardy do homage to him at Pavia. Only Duke Arechis II of Benevento refused to submit and proclaimed independence. Charlemagne was now master of Italy as king of the Lombards. He left Italy with a garrison in Pavia and few Frankish counts in place that very year.

Southern Italy There was still instability, however, in Italy. In 776, Dukes Hrodgaud of Friuli and Hildeprand of Spoleto rebelled. Charlemagne whisked back from Saxony and defeated the duke of Friuli in battle. The duke was slain. The duke of Spoleto signed a treaty. Their co-conspirator, Arechis, was not subdued and Adelchis, their candidate in Byzantium, never left that city. Northern Italy was now faithfully his.

In 787, Charlemagne directed his attention towards Benevento, where Arechis was reigning independently. He besieged Salerno and Arechis submitted to vassalage. However, with his death in 792, Benevento again proclaimed independence under his son Grimoald III of Benevento. Grimoald was attacked by armies of Charles' or his sons' many times, but Charlemagne himself never returned to the Mezzogiorno and Grimoald never was forced to surrender to Frankish suzerainty.

Charles and his children During the first peace of any substantial length (780–782), Charles began to appoint his sons to positions of authority within the realm, in the tradition of the kings and mayors of the past. In 780, he had disinherited his eldest son, Pippin the Hunchback, because the young man had joined a rebellion against him. Pippin had been duped, through flattery, into joining a rebellion of nobles who pretended to despise Charles' treatment of Himiltrude, Pippin's mother, in 770. Charles renamed his son Pippin of Italy as Pippin to keep the name alive in the dynasty. In 781, he made his oldest three sons kings. The eldest, Charles the Younger, son of Charlemagne, received the kingdom of Neustria, containing the regions of Anjou, Maine, and Touraine. The second eldest, Pippin, was made king of Italy, taking the Iron Crown which his father had first worn in 774. His third eldest son, Louis the Pious, became king of Aquitaine. He tried to make his sons a true Neustrian, Italian, and Aquitainian and he gave their regents some control of their subkingdoms, but real power was always in his hands, though he intended each to inherit their realm some day.

The sons fought many wars on behalf of their father when they came of age. Charles was mostly preoccupied with the Bretons, whose border he shared and who insurrected on at least two occasions and were easily put down, but he was also sent against the Saxons on multiple occasions. In 805 and 806, he was sent into the Böhmerwald (modern Bohemia) to deal with the Slavs living there (Czech peoples). He subjected them to Frankish authority and devastated the valley of the Elbe, forcing a tribute on them. Pippin had to hold the Eurasian Avars and Beneventan borders, but also fought the Slavs to his north. He was uniquely poised to fight the Byzantine Empire when finally that conflict arose after Charlemagne's imperial coronation and a Venetia (region)n rebellion. Finally, Louis was in charge of the Spanish March and also went to southern Italy to fight the duke of Benevento on at least one occasion. He took Barcelona in a great siege in the year 797 (see below).

It is difficult to understand Charlemagne's attitude toward his daughters. None of them contracted a sacramental marriage. This may have been an attempt to control the number of potential alliances. Charlemagne certainly refused to believe the stories (mostly true) of their wild behaviour. After his death the surviving daughters entered or were forced to enter nunneries by their own brother, the pious Louis. At least one of them, Bertha, had a recognised relationship, if not a marriage, with Angilbert, a member of Charlemagne's court circle.

Spanish campaigns Roncesvalles campaign to Charlemagne in an illlustration taken from a manuscript of a chanson de geste.To the Diet of Paderborn had come representatives of the Muslim rulers of Gerona, Barcelona, and Huesca. Their masters had been cornered in the Iberian Peninsula peninsula by Abd ar-Rahman I, the Umayyad emir of Córdoba. The Moorish rulers offered their homage to the great king of the Franks in return for military support. Seeing an opportunity to extend Christendom and his own power and believing the Saxons to be a fully conquered nation, he agreed to go to Spain.

In 778, he led the Neustrian army across the Western Pyrenees, while the Austrasians, Lombards, and Burgundians passed over the Eastern Pyrenees. The armies met at Zaragoza and received the homage of Soloman ibn al-Arabi and Kasmin ibn Yusuf, the foreign rulers. Zaragoza did not fall soon enough for Charles, however. Indeed, Charlemagne was facing the toughest battle of his career and, in fear of losing, he decided to retreat and head home. He could not trust the Moors, nor the Basques, whom he had subdued by conquering Pamplona. He turned to leave Iberia, but as he was passing through the Pass of Roncesvalles one of the most famous events of his long reign occurred. The Basques fell on his rearguard and baggage train, utterly destroying it. The Battle of Roncevaux Pass, less a battle than a mere skirmish, left many famous dead: among which were the seneschal Eggihard, the count of the palace Anselm, and the warden of the Breton March, Roland, inspiring the subsequent creation of the Song of Roland (Chanson de Roland). Thus ended the Spanish campaign in complete disaster.

Wars with the Moors The conquest of Italy brought Charlemagne in contact with the Saracens who, at the time, controlled the Mediterranean Sea. Pippin, his son, was much occupied with Saracens in Italy. Charlemagne conquered Corsica and Sardinia at an unknown date and in 799 the Balearic Islands. The islands were often attacked by Saracen pirates, but the counts of Genoa and Tuscany (Boniface I of Tuscany) kept them at bay with large fleets until the end of Charlemagne's reign. Charlemagne even had contact with the caliphal court in Baghdad. In 797 (or possibly 801), the caliph of Baghdad, Harun al-Rashid, presented Charlemagne with an Asian elephant named Abul-Abbas and a mechanical clock, out of which came a mechanical bird to announce the hours.

In Hispania, the struggle against the Moors continued unabated throughout the latter half of his reign. His son Louis was in charge of the Spanish border. In 785, his men captured Gerona permanently and extended Frankish control into the Catalonia littoral for the duration of Charlemagne's reign (and much longer, it remained nominally Frankish until the Treaty of Corbeil (1258) in 1258). The Muslim chiefs in the northeast of Al-Andalus were constantly revolting against Córdoban authority and they often turned to the Franks for help. The Frankish border was slowly extended until 795, when Gerona, Cardona, Osona, and Urgel were united into the new Spanish March, within the old duchy of Septimania.

In 797, Barcelona, the greatest city of the region, fell to the Franks when Zeid, its governor, rebelled against Córdoba and, failing, handed it to them. The Umayyad authority recaptured it in 799. However, Louis of Aquitaine marched the entire army of his kingdom over the Pyrenees and besieged it for two years, wintering there from 800 to 801, when it capitulated. The Franks continued to press forwards against the emir. They took Tarragona in 809 and Tortosa in 811. The last conquest brought them to the mouth of the Ebro and gave them raiding access to Kingdom of Valencia, prompting the Emir al-Hakam I to recognise their conquests in 812.

Eastern campaigns Saxon Wars Charlemagne was engaged in almost constant battle throughout his reign, often at the head of his elite scara (historical) bodyguard squadrons, with his legendary sword Joyeuse in hand. After thirty years of war and eighteen battles—the Saxon Wars—he conquered Saxonia and proceeded to convert the conquered to Roman Catholicism, using force where necessary.

The Saxons were divided into four subgroups in four regions. Nearest to Austrasia was Westphalia and furthest away was Eastphalia. In between these two kingdoms was that of Engria and north of these three, at the base of the Jutland peninsula, was Nordalbingia.

In his first campaign, Charlemagne forced the Engrians in 773 to submit and cut down an Irminsul pillar near Paderborn. The campaign was cut short by his first expedition to Italy. He returned in the year 775, marching through Westphalia and conquering the Saxon fort of Sigiburg. He then crossed Engria, where he defeated the Saxons again. Finally, in Eastphalia, he defeated a Saxon force, and its leader Hessi converted to Christianity. He returned through Westphalia, leaving encampments at Sigiburg and Eresburg, which had, up until then, been important Saxon bastions. All Saxony but Nordalbingia was under his control, but Saxon resistance had not ended.

Following his campaign in Italy subjugating the dukes of Friuli and Spoleto, Charlemagne returned very rapidly to Saxony in 776, where a rebellion had destroyed his fortress at Eresburg. The Saxons were once again brought to heel, but their main leader, duke Widukind, managed to escape to Denmark, home of his wife. Charlemagne built a new camp at Karlstadt. In 777, he called a national diet at Paderborn to integrate Saxony fully into the Frankish kingdom. Many Saxons were baptised.

In the summer of 779, he again invaded Saxony and reconquered Eastphalia, Engria, and Westphalia. At a diet near Lippe, he divided the land into missionary districts and himself assisted in several mass baptisms (780). He then returned to Italy and, for the first time, there was no immediate Saxon revolt. From 780 to 782, the land had peace.

He returned in 782 to Saxony and instituted a code of law and appointed counts, both Saxon and Frank. The laws were wikt:draconian on religious issues, and the indigenous forms of Germanic polytheism were gravely threatened by Christianisation. This stirred a renewal of the old conflict. That year, in autumn, Widukind returned and led a new revolt, which resulted in several assaults on the church. In response, at Verden, Germany in Lower Saxony, Charlemagne allegedly ordered the beheading of 4,500 Saxons who had been caught practising their native paganism after conversion to Christianity, known as the Bloody Verdict of Verden or Massacre of Verden. The massacre triggered two years of renewed bloody warfare (783-785). During this war the Frisians were also finally subdued and a large part of their fleet was burned. The war ended with Widukind accepting baptism.

Thereafter, the Saxons maintained the peace for seven years, but in 792 the Westphalians once again rose against their conquerors. The Eastphalians and Nordalbingians joined them in 793, but the insurrection did not catch on and was put down by 794. An Engrian rebellion followed in 796, but Charlemagne's personal presence and the presence of loyal Christian Saxons and Slavic peoples quickly crushed it. The last insurrection of the independence-minded people occurred in 804, more than thirty years after Charlemagne's first campaign against them. This time, the most unruly of them, the Nordalbingians, found themselves effectively disempowered from rebellion. According to Einhard:

The war that had lasted so many years was at length ended by their acceding to the terms offered by the King; which were renunciation of their national religious customs and the worship of devils, acceptance of the sacraments of the Christian faith and religion, and union with the Franks to form one people.

Submission of Bavaria In 788, Charlemagne turned his attention to Bavaria. He claimed Tassilo was an unfit ruler on account of his oath-breaking. The charges were trumped up, but Tassilo was deposed anyway and put in the monastery of Jumièges. In 794, he was made to renounce any claim to Bavaria for himself and his family (the Agilolfings) at the synod of Frankfurt. Bavaria was subdivided into Frankish counties, like Saxony.

Avar campaigns In 788, the Eurasian Avars, a pagan Asian horde which had settled down in what is today Hungary (Einhard called them Huns), invaded Friuli and Bavaria. Charles was preoccupied until 790 with other things, but in that year, he marched down the Danube into their territory and ravaged it to the Raab. Then, a Lombard army under Pippin marched into the Drava valley and ravaged Pannonia. The campaigns would have continued if the Saxons had not revolted again in 792, breaking seven years of peace.

For the next two years, Charles was occupied with the Slavs against the Saxons. Pippin and Duke Eric of Friuli continued, however, to assault the Avars' ring-shaped strongholds. The great Ring of the Avars, their capital fortress, was taken twice. The booty was sent to Charlemagne at his capital, Aachen, and redistributed to all his followers and even to foreign rulers, including King Offa of Mercia. Soon the Avar tuduns had thrown in the towel and travelled to Aachen to subject themselves to Charlemagne as vassals and Christians. This Charlemagne accepted and sent one native chief, baptised Abraham, back to Avaria with the ancient title of khagan. Abraham kept his people in line, but in 800 the First Bulgarian Empire under Krum had swept the Avar state away. In the 10th century, the Magyars settled the Pannonian plain and presented a new threat to Charlemagne's descendants.

Slav expeditions In 789, in recognition of his new pagan neighbours, the Slavic peoples, Charlemagne marched an Austrasian-Saxon army across the Elbe into Abotrite territory. The Slavs immediately submitted under their leader Witzin. He then accepted the surrender of the Wiltzes under Dragovit and demanded many hostages and the permission to send, unmolested, missionaries into the pagan region. The army marched to the Baltic region before turning around and marching to the Rhine with much booty and no harassment. The tributary Slavs became loyal allies. In 795, the peace broken by the Saxons, the Abotrites and Wiltzes rose in arms with their new master against the Saxons. Witzin died in battle and Charlemagne avenged him by harrying the Eastphalians on the Elbe. Thrasuco, his successor, led his men to conquest over the Nordalbingians and handed their leaders over to Charlemagne, who greatly honoured him. The Abotrites remained loyal until Charles' death and fought later against the Danes.

Charlemagne also directed his attention to the South Slavs to the south of the Avar khaganate: the Carantanians and Slovenes. These people were subdued by the Lombards and Bavarii and made tributaries, but never incorporated into the Frankish state.

Imperium Imperial diplomacy at Aachen Cathedral.Matters of Charlemagne's reign came to a head in late 800. In 799, Pope Leo III had been mistreated by the Romans, who tried to put out his eyes and tear out his tongue. He was deposed and put in a monastery. Charlemagne, advised by Alcuin of York, refused to recognise the deposition. He travelled to Rome in November 800 and held a council on December 1. On December 23, Leo swore an oath of innocence. At Mass, on Christmas Day (December 25), when Charlemagne knelt the altar to pray, the pope crowned him Imperator Romanorum ("Emperor of the Romans") in Old Saint Peter's Basilica. In so doing, the pope was effectively attempting to transfer the office from Constantinople to Charles. Einhard says that Charlemagne was ignorant of the pope's intent and did not want any such coronation: he at first had such an aversion that he declared that he would not have set foot in the Church the day that they imperial titles were conferred, although it was a great feast-day, if he could have foreseen the design of the Pope.

Many modern scholars suggest that Charlemagne was indeed aware of the coronation; certainly he cannot have missed the bejeweled crown waiting on the altar when he came to pray. In any event, he would now use these circumstances to claim that he was the renewer of the Western Roman Empire, which had expired in 476. To avoid frictions with the Byzantine Empire (i.e. the Eastern Roman Empire), Charles later styled himself, not Imperator Romanorum ("Emperor of the Romans", a title reserved for the Byzantine emperor), but rather Imperator Romanum gubernans Imperium ("Emperor ruling the Roman Empire").

The iconoclasm (Byzantine) of the Leo III the Isaurian and resulting religious conflicts with the Empress Byzantine Empress Irene, sitting on the throne in Constantinople in 800, were probably the chief causes of the pope's desire to formally resurrect the Roman imperial title in the West. He also most certainly desired to increase the influence of the papacy, honour his saviour Charlemagne, and solve the constitutional issues then most troubling to European jurists in an era when Rome was not in the hands of an emperor. Thus, Charlemagne's assumption of the title of Augustus (honorific), Constantine I, and Justinian I was not an usurpation in the eyes of the Franks or Italians. It was though in Byzantium, where it was protested by Irene and the usurper Nicephorus I — neither of whom had any great effect in enforcing their protests.

The Byzantines, however, still held several territories in Italy: Venice (what was left of the Exarchate of Ravenna), Reggio Calabria (Calabria, the toe), Brindisi (Apulia, the heel), and Naples (the Ducatus Neapolitanus). These regions remained outside of Frankish hands until 804, when the Venetians, torn by infighting, transferred their allegiance to the Iron Crown of Pippin, Charles' son. The Pax Nicephori ended. Nicephorus ravaged the coasts with a fleet and the only instance of war between the Byzantines and the Franks, as it was, began. It lasted until 810, when the pro-Byzantine party in Venice gave their city back to the Byzantine Emperor and the two emperors of Europe made peace: Charlemagne received the Istrian peninsula and in 812 Emperor Michael I Rhangabes recognised his status as Emperor.

Danish attacks After the conquest of Nordalbingia, the Frankish frontier was brought into contact with Scandinavia. The Norse paganism Danes, "a race almost unknown to his ancestors, but destined to be only too well known to his sons" as Charles Oman described them, inhabiting the Jutland peninsula had heard many stories from Widukind and his allies who had taken refuge with them about the dangers of the Franks and the fury which their Christian king could direct against pagan neighbours.

In 808, the king of the Danes, Gudfred, built the vast Danevirke across the isthmus of Schleswig. This defence, last employed in the Danish-Prussian War of 1864, was at its beginning a 30 km long earthenwork rampart. The Danevirke protected Danish land and gave Godfred the opportunity to harass Frisia and Flanders with pirate raids. He also subdued the Frank-allied Wiltzes and fought the Abotrites.

Godfred invaded Frisia and joked of visiting Aachen, but was murdered before he could do any more, either by a Frankish assassin or by one of his own men. Godfred was succeeded by his nephew King Hemming and he concluded the Treaty of Heiligen with Charlemagne in late 811.

Death image:AachenerDomSarg.jpg sarcophagus of CharlemagneIn 813, Charlemagne called Louis the Pious, king of Aquitaine, his only surviving legitimate son, to his court. There he crowned him as his heir and sent him back to Aquitaine. He then spent the autumn hunting before returning to Aachen on 1 November. In January, he fell ill with pleurisy (Einhard 59). He took to his bed on 21 January and as Einhard tells it:

He died January twenty-eighth, the seventh day from the time that he took to his bed, at nine o'clock in the morning, after partaking of the Holy Communion, in the seventy-second year of his age and the forty-seventh of his reign.

When Charlemagne died in 28 January 814, he was buried in his own Aachen Cathedral. He was succeeded by his surviving son, Louis, who had been crowned the previous year. His empire lasted only another generation in its entirety; its division, according to custom, between Louis's own sons after their father's death laid the foundation for the modern states of France and Germany.

Administration As an administrator, Charlemagne stands out for his many reforms: monetary, governmental, military, cultural and ecclesiastical. He is the main protagonist of the "Carolingian Renaissance".

Economic and Monetary reforms of Charlemagne, from the subscription of a royal diploma: "".

Charlemagne had an important role in determining the immediate economic future of Europe. Pursuing his father's reforms, Charlemagne abolished the monetary system based on the gold , and he and the Anglo-Saxon monarchs Offa of Mercia took up the system set in place by Pippin. There were strong pragmatic reasons for this abandonment of a gold standard, notably a shortage of gold itself, a direct consequence of the conclusion of peace with Byzantium and the ceding of Venice and Sicily, and the loss of their trade routes to Africa and to the east. This standardisation also had the effect of economically harmonising and unifying the complex array of currencies in use at the commencement of his reign, thus simplifying trade and commerce.

He established a new standard, the (from the Latin Ancient Roman units of measurement, the modern pound (currency)), and based upon a pound of silver;a unit of both money and weight—which was worth 20 sous (from the Latin (which was primarily an accounting device, and never actually minted), the modern shilling) or 240 (from the Latin , the modern penny). During this period, the and the were counting units, only the was a coin of the realm.

Charlemagne instituted principles for accountancy by means of the Capitulare de villis of 802, which laid down strict rules for the way in which incomes and expenses were to be recorded.

The lending of money for interest was prohibited, strengthened in 814, when Charlemagne introduced the Capitulary for the Jews, a draconian prohibition on Jews engaging in money-lending.

In addition to this macro-management of the economy of his empire, Charlemagne also performed a significant number of acts of micro-management, such as direct control of prices and levies on certain goods and commodities.

Charlemagne applied the system to much of the European continent, and Offa's standard was voluntarily adopted by much of England. After Charlemagne's death, continental coinage degraded and most of Europe resorted to using the continued high quality English coin until about 1100.

Education reforms A part of Charlemagne's success as warrior and administrator can be traced to his admiration for learning. His reign and the era it ushered in are often referred to as the Carolingian Renaissance because of the flowering of scholarship, literature, art, and architecture which characterise it. Charlemagne, brought into contact with the culture and learning of other countries (especially Visigothic Spain, Anglo-Saxon England and Lombard Italy) due to his vast conquests, greatly increased the provision of monastic schools and scriptoria (centres for book-copying) in Francia. Most of the surviving works of classical Latin were copied and preserved by Carolingian scholars. Indeed, the earliest manuscripts available for many ancient texts are Carolingian. It is almost certain that a text which survived to the Carolingian age survives still. The pan-European nature of Charlemagne's influence is indicated by the origins of many of the men who worked for him: Alcuin, an Anglo-Saxons from York; Theodulf, a Visigoths, probably from Septimania; Paul the Deacon, Peter of Pisa and Paulinus of Aquileia, Lombards; and Angilbert, Angilramm, Einhard and Waldo of Reichenau, Franks.

Charlemagne took a serious interest in scholarship and had learned to read in his adulthood. Although he never quite learned how to write, he used to keep a slate and stylus underneath his pillow, according to Einhard. His handwriting was bad, and Einhard (25) tells us that "his effort writing came too late in life and achieved little success." Even learning to read was quite an achievement for kings at this time, most of whom were illiterate. Charlemagne's commitment to education is also demonstrated by his passion for studying astronomy and arithmetic, his knowledge of which he used to investigate the movement of the stars.

Writing reforms of Charlemagne's reign.During Charles' reign, the uncial script and its cursive version, which had given rise to various continental minuscule scripts, were combined with features from the insular scripts that were being used in Ireland and England monasteries. Carolingian minuscule was created partly under the patronage of Charlemagne. Alcuin of York, who ran the palace school and scriptorium at Aachen, was probably a chief influence in this. The revolutionary character of the Carolingian reform, however, can be over-emphasised; efforts at taming the crabbed Merovingian and Germanic hands had been underway before Alcuin arrived at Aachen. The new minuscule was disseminated first from Aachen, and later from the influential scriptorium at Tours, where Alcuin retired as an abbot.

Political reforms Charlemagne engaged in many reforms of Frankish governance, but he continued also in many traditional practices, such as the division of the kingdom among sons.

Organisation The Carolingian king exercised the bannum, the right to rule and command. He had supreme jurisdiction in judicial matters, made legislation, led the army, and protected both the Church and the poor. His administration was an attempt to organise the kingdom, church and nobility around him, however, it was entirely dependent upon the efficiency, loyalty and support of his subjects.

Imperial coronation Historians have debated for centuries whether Charlemagne was aware of the Pope's intent to crown him Emperor prior to the coronation(Charlemagne declared that he would not have entered Saint Peter's had he known), but that debate has often obscured the more significant question of why the Pope granted the title and why Charlemagne chose to accept it once he did.

Roger Collins points out (Charlemagne, pg. 147) "that the motivation behind the acceptance of the imperial title was a romantic and antiquarian interest in reviving the Roman empire is highly unlikely." For one thing, such romance would not have appealed either Charlemagne (English language: ; French language: ; , meaning Charles the Great) (742/747 – 28 January 814) was King of the Franks from 768 to his death. He expanded the Frankish kingdoms into a Frankish Empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. During his reign, he conquered Kingdom of Italy (medieval) and was crowned by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800, in an attempted revival of the Western Roman Empire. Through his foreign conquests and internal reforms, Charlemagne helped define Western Europe and the Middle Ages. His rule is also associated with the Carolingian Renaissance, a revival of art, religion, and culture.

His original name in the Old Frankish language was never recorded, but early instances of his name in Latin read "Carolus" or "Karolus". The son of King Pippin the Short and Bertrada of Laon, he succeeded his father and co-ruled with his brother Carloman, son of Pippin III. The latter withdrew, seemingly voluntarily, from public life in 747 and became a monk, dying in 771. Charlemagne continued the policy of his father towards the papacy and became its protector, removing the Lombards from power in Italy, and waging war on the Saracens, who menaced his realm from Spain. It was during one of these campaigns that Charlemagne experienced the worst defeat of his life, at Battle of Roncesvalles (778). He also campaigned against the peoples to his east, especially the Saxons, and after a protracted war subjected them to his rule. By converting them to Christianity, he integrated them into his realm and thus paved the way for the later Ottonian dynasty.

Today regarded by some as the founding father of both France and Germany and sometimes as the Father of Europe, he was the first ruler of a Western European empire since the fall of Rome.Riché. H. G. Wells said in his Short History of the World:

Background (about 870).By the 6th century, the Franks were Germanic Christianity, and the Frankish Empire ruled by the Merovingians had become the most powerful of the kingdoms which succeeded the Western Roman Empire. But following the Battle of Tertry, the Merovingians declined into a state of powerlessness, for which they have been dubbed do-nothing kings (). Almost all government powers of any consequence were exercised by their chief officer, the mayor of the palace or major domus.

In 687, Pippin of Herstal, mayor of the palace of Austrasia, ended the strife between various kings and their mayors with his victory at Tertry and became the sole governor of the entire Frankish kingdom. Pippin himself was the grandson of two most important figures of the Austrasian Kingdom, Saint Arnulf of Metz and Pippin of Landen. Pippin the Middle was eventually succeeded by his illegitimate son Charles, later known as Charles Martel (the Hammer). After 737, Charles governed the Franks without a king on the throne but desisted from calling himself "king". Charles was succeeded by his sons Carloman, son of Charles Martel and Pippin the Short, the father of Charlemagne. To curb separatism in the periphery of the realm, the brothers placed on the throne Childeric III, who was to be the last Merovingian king.

After Carloman resigned his office, Pippin had Childeric III deposed with Pope Zachary's approval. In 751, Pippin was elected and anointed King of the Franks and in 754, Pope Stephen II again anointed him and his young sons, now heirs to the great realm which already covered most of western and central Europe. Thus was the Merovingian dynasty replaced by the Carolingian dynasty, named after Pippin's father Charles Martel.

Under the new dynasty, the Frankish kingdom spread to encompass an area including most of Western Europe. The division of that kingdom formed History of France and History of Germany;Oman, Charles. The Dark Ages 476–919. Rivingtons: London, 1914. Regards Charlemagne's grandsons as the first kings of France and Germany, which at the time comprised the whole of the Carolingian Empire save Italy. and the Religion, Politics, and artistic evolutions originating from a centrally-positioned Francia made a defining imprint on the whole of Western Europe.

Personal traits Date and place of birth Charlemagne is traditionally believed to have been born on April 2, 742; however, several factors have led to a reconsideration of this date. First, the year 742 was calculated from his age given at death, rather than from attestation in primary sources. Another date is given in the Annales Petarienses, April 1, 747. In that year, April 1 was at Easter. The birth of an emperor at eastertime is a coincidence likely to provoke comment, but there was no such comment documented in 747, leading some to suspect that the Easter birthday was a pious fiction concocted as a way of honoring the Emperor. Other commentators weighing the primary records have suggested that his birth was one year later, in 748. At present, it is impossible to be certain of the date of the birth of Charlemagne. The best guesses include April 1, 747, after April 15, 747, or April 1, 748, in Herstal (where his father was born), a city close to Liège (city), in Belgium, the region from where both the Merovingian and Carolingian families originate. He went to live in his father's villa in Jupille when he was around seven, which caused Jupille to be listed as a possible place of birth in almost every history book. Other cities have been suggested, including, Prüm, Düren, Gauting and Aachen.

Language Charlemagne's Native language is a matter of controversy. He spoke the Germanic languages of the Franks of his day, which should be called Old Frankish, but Linguistics differ on the identity and periodisation of the language, some going so far as to say that he did not speak Old Frankish as he was born in 742 or 747, by which time Old Frankish had become extinct. Old Frankish is reconstructed from its descendant, Old Low Franconian, also called Old Dutch, and from loanwords to Old French. Linguists know very little about Old Frankish, as it attested mainly as phrases and words in the law codes of the main Frankish tribes (especially those of the Salian and Ripuarian Franks), which are written in Latin interspersed with Germanic elements. Original text of the salic law.

The area of Charlemagne's birth does not make determination of his native language easier. Most historians agree he was born around Liège (city), like his father, but some say he was born in or around Aachen, some fifty kilometres away. At that time, this was an area of great linguistic diversity. If we take Liège (around 750) as the centre, we find Low Franconian in the north and northwest, Gallo-Romance (the ancestor of Old French) in the south and southwest and various Old High German dialects in the east. If Gallo-Romance is excluded, that means he either spoke Old Low Franconian or an Old High German dialect, probably with a strong Frankish influence.

Apart from his native language he also spoke some Latin language and understood a bit of Greek language: Grecam vero melius intellegere quam pronuntiare poterat, "He understood Greek better than he could pronounce it."Einhard, Life, 25.

Names of Charlemagne Because of the number of languages spoken within his Empire, Charlemagne's name has been preserved in many different languages in different forms. The language of Charlemagne itself does not exist anymore, but evolved into the Franconian languages. "Charles" derives from a Germanic stem meaning "man" or "free man". Etymology of "Charles/Karl/Karel". It is related to the English "churl". In many Slavic languages, the very word for "king" derives from Charles' Slavicised name.

Modern variants in Germanic languages (except English) are:

The Germanic name was Latinised (Latin: Carolus Magnus) and preserved in the modern Romance languages (as well as English):

Modern variants in and the Slavic languages influenced by the Germanic name are:

The Breton language variant is Karl-Veur.

The Germanic variants (den Store, de Grote, de Grutte,der Große, and de Groussen) also refer to the fact that Charlemagne was tall (seven of his own feet, or 1.93 m (6 ft 4))Which means that Charlemagne had modern European Shoe sizes#Foot length versus shoe length 44 or American shoe size 10..Names of other Carolingian rulers also refer to their physical features. For example Pippin the Short, Charles the Bald, Charles the Fat, Louis the Blind, and Louis the Child.

Personal appearance names the "King with the Grizzly Beard"—Facsimile of an engraving from the end of the sixteenth century.

Though no description from Charlemagne's lifetime exists, his personal appearance is known from a good description by Einhard, author of the biographical Vita Caroli Magni. He is well known to have been tall, stately, and fair-haired, with a disproportionately thick neck. His skeleton was measured during the 18th century and his height was determined to be 1.93 m (6 ft 4 in ), andas Einhard tells it in his twenty-second chapter:

Charles was large and strong, and of lofty stature, though not disproportionately tall (his height is well known to have been seven times the length of his foot); the upper part of his head was round, his eyes very large and animated, nose a little long, hair fair, and face laughing and merry. Thus his appearance was always stately and dignified, whether he was standing or sitting; although his neck was thick and somewhat short, and his belly rather prominent; but the symmetry of the rest of his body concealed these defects. His gait was firm, his whole carriage manly, and his voice clear, but not so strong as his size led one to expect.

The Roman tradition of realistic personal portraiture was in complete eclipse at this time, where individual traits were submerged in iconic typecastings. Charlemagne, as an ideal ruler, ought to be portrayed in the corresponding fashion, any contemporary would have assumed. The images of enthroned Charlemagne, God's representative on Earth, bear more connections to the icons of Christ in majesty than to modern (or antique) conceptions of portraiture. Charlemagne in later imagery (as in the Albrecht Dürer portrait) is often portrayed with flowing blond hair, due to a misunderstanding of Einhard, who describes Charlemagne as having canitie pulchra, or "beautiful white hair", which has been rendered as blonde or fair in many translations. The Latin word for blond is flavus, and rutilo, meaning auburn, is the word Tacitus uses for the hair of Germanic peoples.

Dress

Charlemagne wore the traditional, inconspicuous and distinctly non-aristocratic costume of the Frankish people, described by Einhard thus:

He used to wear the national, that is to say, the Frank dress: next to his skin a linen shirt and linen breeches, and above these a tunic fringed with silk; while hose fastened by bands covered his lower limbs, and shoes his feet, and he protected his shoulders and chest in winter by a close-fitting coat of otter or marten skins.

He wore a blue cloak and always carried a sword with him. The typical sword was of a golden or silver hilt. He wore fancy jewelled swords to banquets or ambassadorial receptions. Nevertheless:

He despised foreign costumes, however handsome, and never allowed himself to be robed in them, except twice in Rome, when he donned the Roman tunic, chlamys, and shoes; the first time at the request of Pope Hadrian, the second to gratify Leo, Hadrian's successor.

He could rise to the occasion when necessary. On great feast days, he wore embroidery and jewels on his clothing and shoes. He had a golden buckle for his cloak on such occasions and would appear with his great Diadem (personal wear), but he despised such apparel, according to Einhard, and usually dressed like the common people.

Rise to power Early life Charlemagne was the eldest child of Pippin the Short (714 – 24 September 768, reigned from 751) and his wife Bertrada of Laon (720 – 12 July 783), daughter of Caribert of Laon and Bertrada of Cologne. The reliable records name only Carloman, son of Pippin III and Gisela as his younger siblings. Later accounts, however, indicate that Redburga, wife of King Egbert of Wessex, might have been his sister (or sister-in-law or niece), and the legendary material makes him Roland's maternal uncle through a lady Bertha.

Much of what is known of Charlemagne's life comes from his biographer, Einhard, who wrote a Vita Caroli Magni (or Vita Karoli Magni), the Life of Charlemagne. Einhard says of the early life of Charles:

It would be folly, I think, to write a word concerning Charles' birth and infancy, or even his boyhood, for nothing has ever been written on the subject, and there is no one alive now who can give information on it. Accordingly, I determined to pass that by as unknown, and to proceed at once to treat of his character, his deed, and such other facts of his life as are worth telling and setting forth, and shall first give an account of his deed at home and abroad, then of his character and pursuits, and lastly of his administration and death, omitting nothing worth knowing or necessary to know.

On the death of Pippin, the kingdom of the Franks was divided—following tradition—between Charlemagne and Carloman. Charles took the outer parts of the kingdom, bordering on the sea, namely Neustria, western Aquitaine, and the northern parts of Austrasia, while Carloman retained the inner parts: southern Austrasia, Septimania, eastern Aquitaine, Burgundy, Provence, and Swabia, lands bordering on Italy. Perhaps Pippin regarded Charlemagne as the better warrior, but Carloman may have regarded himself as the more deserving son, being the son, not of a mayor of the palace, but of a king.

Joint rule On 9 October, immediately after the funeral of their father, both the kings withdrew from Saint Denis to be proclaimed by their nobles and consecrated by the bishops, Charlemagne in Noyon and Carloman in Soissons.

The first event of the brothers' reign was the rising of the Aquitainians and Gascons, in 769, in that territory split between the two kings. Years before Pippin had suppressed the revolt of Waifer of Aquitaine, Duke of Aquitaine. Now, one Hunald (seemingly other than Hunald of Aquitaine the duke) led the Aquitainians as far north as Angoulême. Charlemagne met Carloman, but Carloman refused to participate and returned to Burgundy. Charlemagne went to war, leading an army to Bordeaux, where he set up a camp at Fronsac. Hunold was forced to flee to the court of Duke Lop II of Gascony. Lupus, fearing Charlemagne, turned Hunold over in exchange for peace. He was put in a monastery. Aquitaine was finally fully subdued by the Franks.

The brothers maintained lukewarm relations with the assistance of their mother Bertrada, but Charlemagne signed a treaty with Duke Tassilo III of Bavaria and married a daughter of King Desiderius of the Lombards who may have been named Gerperga in order to surround Carloman with his own allies. Though Pope Stephen III first opposed the marriage with the Lombard princess, he would have little to fear of a Frankish-Lombard alliance in a few months.

Charlemagne repudiated his wife and quickly married another, a 13-year-old Swabian named Hildegard, wife of Charlemagne. The repudiated Gerperga returned to her father's court at Pavia. The Lombard's wrath was now aroused and he would gladly have allied with Carloman to defeat Charles. But before war could break out, Carloman died on 5 December 771. Carloman's wife Gerberge (often confused by contemporary historians with Charlemagne's former wife, who probably shared her name) fled to Desiderius' court with her sons for protection. This action is usually considered either a sign of Charlemagne's enmity or Gerberga's confusion.

Italian campaigns Conquest of Lombardy was threatened by invaders, the king rushed to Rome to provide assistance. Shown here, the pope asks Charlemagne for help at a meeting near Rome.At the succession of Pope Hadrian I in 772, he demanded the return of certain cities in the former exarchate of Ravenna as in accordance with a promise of Desiderius' succession. Desiderius instead took over certain papal cities and invaded the Pentapolis, heading for Rome. Hadrian sent embassies to Charlemagne in autumn requesting he enforce the policies of his father, Pippin. Desiderius sent his own embassies denying the pope's charges. The embassies both met at Thionville and Charlemagne upheld the pope's side. Charlemagne promptly demanded what the pope had demanded and Desiderius promptly swore never to comply. The invasion was not short in coming. Charlemagne and his uncle Bernhard, son of Charles Martel crossed the Alps in 773 and chased the Lombards back to battle of Pavia (773). Charlemagne temporarily left the siege to deal with Adelchis, son of Desiderius, who was raising an army at Verona. The young prince was chased to the Adriatic littoral and he fled to Constantinople to plead for assistance from Constantine V, who was waging war with the Bulgars.

The siege lasted until the spring of 774, when Charlemagne visited the pope in Rome. There he confirmed his father's grants of land, with some later chronicles claiming—falsely—that he also expanded them, granting Tuscany, Emilia, Venice, and Corsica. The pope granted him the title patrician. He then returned to Pavia, where the Lombards were on the verge of surrendering.

In return for their lives, the Lombards surrendered and opened the gates in early summer. Desiderius was sent to the abbey of Corbie and his son Adelchis died in Constantinople a patrician. Charles, unusually, had himself crowned with the Iron Crown of Lombardy and made the magnates of Lombardy do homage to him at Pavia. Only Duke Arechis II of Benevento refused to submit and proclaimed independence. Charlemagne was now master of Italy as king of the Lombards. He left Italy with a garrison in Pavia and few Frankish counts in place that very year.

Southern Italy There was still instability, however, in Italy. In 776, Dukes Hrodgaud of Friuli and Hildeprand of Spoleto rebelled. Charlemagne whisked back from Saxony and defeated the duke of Friuli in battle. The duke was slain. The duke of Spoleto signed a treaty. Their co-conspirator, Arechis, was not subdued and Adelchis, their candidate in Byzantium, never left that city. Northern Italy was now faithfully his.

In 787, Charlemagne directed his attention towards Benevento, where Arechis was reigning independently. He besieged Salerno and Arechis submitted to vassalage. However, with his death in 792, Benevento again proclaimed independence under his son Grimoald III of Benevento. Grimoald was attacked by armies of Charles' or his sons' many times, but Charlemagne himself never returned to the Mezzogiorno and Grimoald never was forced to surrender to Frankish suzerainty.

Charles and his children During the first peace of any substantial length (780–782), Charles began to appoint his sons to positions of authority within the realm, in the tradition of the kings and mayors of the past. In 780, he had disinherited his eldest son, Pippin the Hunchback, because the young man had joined a rebellion against him. Pippin had been duped, through flattery, into joining a rebellion of nobles who pretended to despise Charles' treatment of Himiltrude, Pippin's mother, in 770. Charles renamed his son Pippin of Italy as Pippin to keep the name alive in the dynasty. In 781, he made his oldest three sons kings. The eldest, Charles the Younger, son of Charlemagne, received the kingdom of Neustria, containing the regions of Anjou, Maine, and Touraine. The second eldest, Pippin, was made king of Italy, taking the Iron Crown which his father had first worn in 774. His third eldest son, Louis the Pious, became king of Aquitaine. He tried to make his sons a true Neustrian, Italian, and Aquitainian and he gave their regents some control of their subkingdoms, but real power was always in his hands, though he intended each to inherit their realm some day.

The sons fought many wars on behalf of their father when they came of age. Charles was mostly preoccupied with the Bretons, whose border he shared and who insurrected on at least two occasions and were easily put down, but he was also sent against the Saxons on multiple occasions. In 805 and 806, he was sent into the Böhmerwald (modern Bohemia) to deal with the Slavs living there (Czech peoples). He subjected them to Frankish authority and devastated the valley of the Elbe, forcing a tribute on them. Pippin had to hold the Eurasian Avars and Beneventan borders, but also fought the Slavs to his north. He was uniquely poised to fight the Byzantine Empire when finally that conflict arose after Charlemagne's imperial coronation and a Venetia (region)n rebellion. Finally, Louis was in charge of the Spanish March and also went to southern Italy to fight the duke of Benevento on at least one occasion. He took Barcelona in a great siege in the year 797 (see below).

It is difficult to understand Charlemagne's attitude toward his daughters. None of them contracted a sacramental marriage. This may have been an attempt to control the number of potential alliances. Charlemagne certainly refused to believe the stories (mostly true) of their wild behaviour. After his death the surviving daughters entered or were forced to enter nunneries by their own brother, the pious Louis. At least one of them, Bertha, had a recognised relationship, if not a marriage, with Angilbert, a member of Charlemagne's court circle.

Spanish campaigns Roncesvalles campaign to Charlemagne in an illlustration taken from a manuscript of a chanson de geste.To the Diet of Paderborn had come representatives of the Muslim rulers of Gerona, Barcelona, and Huesca. Their masters had been cornered in the Iberian Peninsula peninsula by Abd ar-Rahman I, the Umayyad emir of Córdoba. The Moorish rulers offered their homage to the great king of the Franks in return for military support. Seeing an opportunity to extend Christendom and his own power and believing the Saxons to be a fully conquered nation, he agreed to go to Spain.

In 778, he led the Neustrian army across the Western Pyrenees, while the Austrasians, Lombards, and Burgundians passed over the Eastern Pyrenees. The armies met at Zaragoza and received the homage of Soloman ibn al-Arabi and Kasmin ibn Yusuf, the foreign rulers. Zaragoza did not fall soon enough for Charles, however. Indeed, Charlemagne was facing the toughest battle of his career and, in fear of losing, he decided to retreat and head home. He could not trust the Moors, nor the Basques, whom he had subdued by conquering Pamplona. He turned to leave Iberia, but as he was passing through the Pass of Roncesvalles one of the most famous events of his long reign occurred. The Basques fell on his rearguard and baggage train, utterly destroying it. The Battle of Roncevaux Pass, less a battle than a mere skirmish, left many famous dead: among which were the seneschal Eggihard, the count of the palace Anselm, and the warden of the Breton March, Roland, inspiring the subsequent creation of the Song of Roland (Chanson de Roland). Thus ended the Spanish campaign in complete disaster.

Wars with the Moors The conquest of Italy brought Charlemagne in contact with the Saracens who, at the time, controlled the Mediterranean Sea. Pippin, his son, was much occupied with Saracens in Italy. Charlemagne conquered Corsica and Sardinia at an unknown date and in 799 the Balearic Islands. The islands were often attacked by Saracen pirates, but the counts of Genoa and Tuscany (Boniface I of Tuscany) kept them at bay with large fleets until the end of Charlemagne's reign. Charlemagne even had contact with the caliphal court in Baghdad. In 797 (or possibly 801), the caliph of Baghdad, Harun al-Rashid, presented Charlemagne with an Asian elephant named Abul-Abbas and a mechanical clock, out of which came a mechanical bird to announce the hours.

In Hispania, the struggle against the Moors continued unabated throughout the latter half of his reign. His son Louis was in charge of the Spanish border. In 785, his men captured Gerona permanently and extended Frankish control into the Catalonia littoral for the duration of Charlemagne's reign (and much longer, it remained nominally Frankish until the Treaty of Corbeil (1258) in 1258). The Muslim chiefs in the northeast of Al-Andalus were constantly revolting against Córdoban authority and they often turned to the Franks for help. The Frankish border was slowly extended until 795, when Gerona, Cardona, Osona, and Urgel were united into the new Spanish March, within the old duchy of Septimania.

In 797, Barcelona, the greatest city of the region, fell to the Franks when Zeid, its governor, rebelled against Córdoba and, failing, handed it to them. The Umayyad authority recaptured it in 799. However, Louis of Aquitaine marched the entire army of his kingdom over the Pyrenees and besieged it for two years, wintering there from 800 to 801, when it capitulated. The Franks continued to press forwards against the emir. They took Tarragona in 809 and Tortosa in 811. The last conquest brought them to the mouth of the Ebro and gave them raiding access to Kingdom of Valencia, prompting the Emir al-Hakam I to recognise their conquests in 812.

Eastern campaigns Saxon Wars Charlemagne was engaged in almost constant battle throughout his reign, often at the head of his elite scara (historical) bodyguard squadrons, with his legendary sword Joyeuse in hand. After thirty years of war and eighteen battles—the Saxon Wars—he conquered Saxonia and proceeded to convert the conquered to Roman Catholicism, using force where necessary.

The Saxons were divided into four subgroups in four regions. Nearest to Austrasia was Westphalia and furthest away was Eastphalia. In between these two kingdoms was that of Engria and north of these three, at the base of the Jutland peninsula, was Nordalbingia.

In his first campaign, Charlemagne forced the Engrians in 773 to submit and cut down an Irminsul pillar near Paderborn. The campaign was cut short by his first expedition to Italy. He returned in the year 775, marching through Westphalia and conquering the Saxon fort of Sigiburg. He then crossed Engria, where he defeated the Saxons again. Finally, in Eastphalia, he defeated a Saxon force, and its leader Hessi converted to Christianity. He returned through Westphalia, leaving encampments at Sigiburg and Eresburg, which had, up until then, been important Saxon bastions. All Saxony but Nordalbingia was under his control, but Saxon resistance had not ended.

Following his campaign in Italy subjugating the dukes of Friuli and Spoleto, Charlemagne returned very rapidly to Saxony in 776, where a rebellion had destroyed his fortress at Eresburg. The Saxons were once again brought to heel, but their main leader, duke Widukind, managed to escape to Denmark, home of his wife. Charlemagne built a new camp at Karlstadt. In 777, he called a national diet at Paderborn to integrate Saxony fully into the Frankish kingdom. Many Saxons were baptised.

In the summer of 779, he again invaded Saxony and reconquered Eastphalia, Engria, and Westphalia. At a diet near Lippe, he divided the land into missionary districts and himself assisted in several mass baptisms (780). He then returned to Italy and, for the first time, there was no immediate Saxon revolt. From 780 to 782, the land had peace.

He returned in 782 to Saxony and instituted a code of law and appointed counts, both Saxon and Frank. The laws were wikt:draconian on religious issues, and the indigenous forms of Germanic polytheism were gravely threatened by Christianisation. This stirred a renewal of the old conflict. That year, in autumn, Widukind returned and led a new revolt, which resulted in several assaults on the church. In response, at Verden, Germany in Lower Saxony, Charlemagne allegedly ordered the beheading of 4,500 Saxons who had been caught practising their native paganism after conversion to Christianity, known as the Bloody Verdict of Verden or Massacre of Verden. The massacre triggered two years of renewed bloody warfare (783-785). During this war the Frisians were also finally subdued and a large part of their fleet was burned. The war ended with Widukind accepting baptism.

Thereafter, the Saxons maintained the peace for seven years, but in 792 the Westphalians once again rose against their conquerors. The Eastphalians and Nordalbingians joined them in 793, but the insurrection did not catch on and was put down by 794. An Engrian rebellion followed in 796, but Charlemagne's personal presence and the presence of loyal Christian Saxons and Slavic peoples quickly crushed it. The last insurrection of the independence-minded people occurred in 804, more than thirty years after Charlemagne's first campaign against them. This time, the most unruly of them, the Nordalbingians, found themselves effectively disempowered from rebellion. According to Einhard:

The war that had lasted so many years was at length ended by their acceding to the terms offered by the King; which were renunciation of their national religious customs and the worship of devils, acceptance of the sacraments of the Christian faith and religion, and union with the Franks to form one people.

Submission of Bavaria In 788, Charlemagne turned his attention to Bavaria. He claimed Tassilo was an unfit ruler on account of his oath-breaking. The charges were trumped up, but Tassilo was deposed anyway and put in the monastery of Jumièges. In 794, he was made to renounce any claim to Bavaria for himself and his family (the Agilolfings) at the synod of Frankfurt. Bavaria was subdivided into Frankish counties, like Saxony.

Avar campaigns In 788, the Eurasian Avars, a pagan Asian horde which had settled down in what is today Hungary (Einhard called them Huns), invaded Friuli and Bavaria. Charles was preoccupied until 790 with other things, but in that year, he marched down the Danube into their territory and ravaged it to the Raab. Then, a Lombard army under Pippin marched into the Drava valley and ravaged Pannonia. The campaigns would have continued if the Saxons had not revolted again in 792, breaking seven years of peace.

For the next two years, Charles was occupied with the Slavs against the Saxons. Pippin and Duke Eric of Friuli continued, however, to assault the Avars' ring-shaped strongholds. The great Ring of the Avars, their capital fortress, was taken twice. The booty was sent to Charlemagne at his capital, Aachen, and redistributed to all his followers and even to foreign rulers, including King Offa of Mercia. Soon the Avar tuduns had thrown in the towel and travelled to Aachen to subject themselves to Charlemagne as vassals and Christians. This Charlemagne accepted and sent one native chief, baptised Abraham, back to Avaria with the ancient title of khagan. Abraham kept his people in line, but in 800 the First Bulgarian Empire under Krum had swept the Avar state away. In the 10th century, the Magyars settled the Pannonian plain and presented a new threat to Charlemagne's descendants.

Slav expeditions In 789, in recognition of his new pagan neighbours, the Slavic peoples, Charlemagne marched an Austrasian-Saxon army across the Elbe into Abotrite territory. The Slavs immediately submitted under their leader Witzin. He then accepted the surrender of the Wiltzes under Dragovit and demanded many hostages and the permission to send, unmolested, missionaries into the pagan region. The army marched to the Baltic region before turning around and marching to the Rhine with much booty and no harassment. The tributary Slavs became loyal allies. In 795, the peace broken by the Saxons, the Abotrites and Wiltzes rose in arms with their new master against the Saxons. Witzin died in battle and Charlemagne avenged him by harrying the Eastphalians on the Elbe. Thrasuco, his successor, led his men to conquest over the Nordalbingians and handed their leaders over to Charlemagne, who greatly honoured him. The Abotrites remained loyal until Charles' death and fought later against the Danes.

Charlemagne also directed his attention to the South Slavs to the south of the Avar khaganate: the Carantanians and Slovenes. These people were subdued by the Lombards and Bavarii and made tributaries, but never incorporated into the Frankish state.

Imperium Imperial diplomacy at Aachen Cathedral.Matters of Charlemagne's reign came to a head in late 800. In 799, Pope Leo III had been mistreated by the Romans, who tried to put out his eyes and tear out his tongue. He was deposed and put in a monastery. Charlemagne, advised by Alcuin of York, refused to recognise the deposition. He travelled to Rome in November 800 and held a council on December 1. On December 23, Leo swore an oath of innocence. At Mass, on Christmas Day (December 25), when Charlemagne knelt the altar to pray, the pope crowned him Imperator Romanorum ("Emperor of the Romans") in Old Saint Peter's Basilica. In so doing, the pope was effectively attempting to transfer the office from Constantinople to Charles. Einhard says that Charlemagne was ignorant of the pope's intent and did not want any such coronation: he at first had such an aversion that he declared that he would not have set foot in the Church the day that they imperial titles were conferred, although it was a great feast-day, if he could have foreseen the design of the Pope.

Many modern scholars suggest that Charlemagne was indeed aware of the coronation; certainly he cannot have missed the bejeweled crown waiting on the altar when he came to pray. In any event, he would now use these circumstances to claim that he was the renewer of the Western Roman Empire, which had expired in 476. To avoid frictions with the Byzantine Empire (i.e. the Eastern Roman Empire), Charles later styled himself, not Imperator Romanorum ("Emperor of the Romans", a title reserved for the Byzantine emperor), but rather Imperator Romanum gubernans Imperium ("Emperor ruling the Roman Empire").

The iconoclasm (Byzantine) of the Leo III the Isaurian and resulting religious conflicts with the Empress Byzantine Empress Irene, sitting on the throne in Constantinople in 800, were probably the chief causes of the pope's desire to formally resurrect the Roman imperial title in the West. He also most certainly desired to increase the influence of the papacy, honour his saviour Charlemagne, and solve the constitutional issues then most troubling to European jurists in an era when Rome was not in the hands of an emperor. Thus, Charlemagne's assumption of the title of Augustus (honorific), Constantine I, and Justinian I was not an usurpation in the eyes of the Franks or Italians. It was though in Byzantium, where it was protested by Irene and the usurper Nicephorus I — neither of whom had any great effect in enforcing their protests.

The Byzantines, however, still held several territories in Italy: Venice (what was left of the Exarchate of Ravenna), Reggio Calabria (Calabria, the toe), Brindisi (Apulia, the heel), and Naples (the Ducatus Neapolitanus). These regions remained outside of Frankish hands until 804, when the Venetians, torn by infighting, transferred their allegiance to the Iron Crown of Pippin, Charles' son. The Pax Nicephori ended. Nicephorus ravaged the coasts with a fleet and the only instance of war between the Byzantines and the Franks, as it was, began. It lasted until 810, when the pro-Byzantine party in Venice gave their city back to the Byzantine Emperor and the two emperors of Europe made peace: Charlemagne received the Istrian peninsula and in 812 Emperor Michael I Rhangabes recognised his status as Emperor.

Danish attacks After the conquest of Nordalbingia, the Frankish frontier was brought into contact with Scandinavia. The Norse paganism Danes, "a race almost unknown to his ancestors, but destined to be only too well known to his sons" as Charles Oman described them, inhabiting the Jutland peninsula had heard many stories from Widukind and his allies who had taken refuge with them about the dangers of the Franks and the fury which their Christian king could direct against pagan neighbours.

In 808, the king of the Danes, Gudfred, built the vast Danevirke across the isthmus of Schleswig. This defence, last employed in the Danish-Prussian War of 1864, was at its beginning a 30 km long earthenwork rampart. The Danevirke protected Danish land and gave Godfred the opportunity to harass Frisia and Flanders with pirate raids. He also subdued the Frank-allied Wiltzes and fought the Abotrites.

Godfred invaded Frisia and joked of visiting Aachen, but was murdered before he could do any more, either by a Frankish assassin or by one of his own men. Godfred was succeeded by his nephew King Hemming and he concluded the Treaty of Heiligen with Charlemagne in late 811.

Death image:AachenerDomSarg.jpg sarcophagus of CharlemagneIn 813, Charlemagne called Louis the Pious, king of Aquitaine, his only surviving legitimate son, to his court. There he crowned him as his heir and sent him back to Aquitaine. He then spent the autumn hunting before returning to Aachen on 1 November. In January, he fell ill with pleurisy (Einhard 59). He took to his bed on 21 January and as Einhard tells it:

He died January twenty-eighth, the seventh day from the time that he took to his bed, at nine o'clock in the morning, after partaking of the Holy Communion, in the seventy-second year of his age and the forty-seventh of his reign.

When Charlemagne died in 28 January 814, he was buried in his own Aachen Cathedral. He was succeeded by his surviving son, Louis, who had been crowned the previous year. His empire lasted only another generation in its entirety; its division, according to custom, between Louis's own sons after their father's death laid the foundation for the modern states of France and Germany.

Administration As an administrator, Charlemagne stands out for his many reforms: monetary, governmental, military, cultural and ecclesiastical. He is the main protagonist of the "Carolingian Renaissance".

Economic and Monetary reforms of Charlemagne, from the subscription of a royal diploma: "".

Charlemagne had an important role in determining the immediate economic future of Europe. Pursuing his father's reforms, Charlemagne abolished the monetary system based on the gold , and he and the Anglo-Saxon monarchs Offa of Mercia took up the system set in place by Pippin. There were strong pragmatic reasons for this abandonment of a gold standard, notably a shortage of gold itself, a direct consequence of the conclusion of peace with Byzantium and the ceding of Venice and Sicily, and the loss of their trade routes to Africa and to the east. This standardisation also had the effect of economically harmonising and unifying the complex array of currencies in use at the commencement of his reign, thus simplifying trade and commerce.

He established a new standard, the (from the Latin Ancient Roman units of measurement, the modern pound (currency)), and based upon a pound of silver;a unit of both money and weight—which was worth 20 sous (from the Latin (which was primarily an accounting device, and never actually minted), the modern shilling) or 240 (from the Latin , the modern penny). During this period, the and the were counting units, only the was a coin of the realm.

Charlemagne instituted principles for accountancy by means of the Capitulare de villis of 802, which laid down strict rules for the way in which incomes and expenses were to be recorded.

The lending of money for interest was prohibited, strengthened in 814, when Charlemagne introduced the Capitulary for the Jews, a draconian prohibition on Jews engaging in money-lending.

In addition to this macro-management of the economy of his empire, Charlemagne also performed a significant number of acts of micro-management, such as direct control of prices and levies on certain goods and commodities.

Charlemagne applied the system to much of the European continent, and Offa's standard was voluntarily adopted by much of England. After Charlemagne's death, continental coinage degraded and most of Europe resorted to using the continued high quality English coin until about 1100.

Education reforms A part of Charlemagne's success as warrior and administrator can be traced to his admiration for learning. His reign and the era it ushered in are often referred to as the Carolingian Renaissance because of the flowering of scholarship, literature, art, and architecture which characterise it. Charlemagne, brought into contact with the culture and learning of other countries (especially Visigothic Spain, Anglo-Saxon England and Lombard Italy) due to his vast conquests, greatly increased the provision of monastic schools and scriptoria (centres for book-copying) in Francia. Most of the surviving works of classical Latin were copied and preserved by Carolingian scholars. Indeed, the earliest manuscripts available for many ancient texts are Carolingian. It is almost certain that a text which survived to the Carolingian age survives still. The pan-European nature of Charlemagne's influence is indicated by the origins of many of the men who worked for him: Alcuin, an Anglo-Saxons from York; Theodulf, a Visigoths, probably from Septimania; Paul the Deacon, Peter of Pisa and Paulinus of Aquileia, Lombards; and Angilbert, Angilramm, Einhard and Waldo of Reichenau, Franks.

Charlemagne took a serious interest in scholarship and had learned to read in his adulthood. Although he never quite learned how to write, he used to keep a slate and stylus underneath his pillow, according to Einhard. His handwriting was bad, and Einhard (25) tells us that "his effort writing came too late in life and achieved little success." Even learning to read was quite an achievement for kings at this time, most of whom were illiterate. Charlemagne's commitment to education is also demonstrated by his passion for studying astronomy and arithmetic, his knowledge of which he used to investigate the movement of the stars.

Writing reforms of Charlemagne's reign.During Charles' reign, the uncial script and its cursive version, which had given rise to various continental minuscule scripts, were combined with features from the insular scripts that were being used in Ireland and England monasteries. Carolingian minuscule was created partly under the patronage of Charlemagne. Alcuin of York, who ran the palace school and scriptorium at Aachen, was probably a chief influence in this. The revolutionary character of the Carolingian reform, however, can be over-emphasised; efforts at taming the crabbed Merovingian and Germanic hands had been underway before Alcuin arrived at Aachen. The new minuscule was disseminated first from Aachen, and later from the influential scriptorium at Tours, where Alcuin retired as an abbot.

Political reforms Charlemagne engaged in many reforms of Frankish governance, but he continued also in many traditional practices, such as the division of the kingdom among sons.

Organisation The Carolingian king exercised the bannum, the right to rule and command. He had supreme jurisdiction in judicial matters, made legislation, led the army, and protected both the Church and the poor. His administration was an attempt to organise the kingdom, church and nobility around him, however, it was entirely dependent upon the efficiency, loyalty and support of his subjects.

Imperial coronation Historians have debated for centuries whether Charlemagne was aware of the Pope's intent to crown him Emperor prior to the coronation(Charlemagne declared that he would not have entered Saint Peter's had he known), but that debate has often obscured the more significant question of why the Pope granted the title and why Charlemagne chose to accept it once he did.

Roger Collins points out (Charlemagne, pg. 147) "that the motivation behind the acceptance of the imperial title was a romantic and antiquarian interest in reviving the Roman empire is highly unlikely." For one thing, such romance would not have appealed either

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