Who was Charlemagne?

Who was Charlemagne?

Charles the Great or Charlemagne, was the son of Pepin the Short, who seized the Frankish kingdom from Childeric, the last of the Merovingian kings. On his death, his kingdom got divided between his two sons, Charles and Carloman. With the death of the latter, Charles became king of all of France. On Christmas day 800 AD, he was crowned as King of Franks and the Holy Roman Emperor by Pope Leo III. This date is often looked upon as the beginning of the Middle Ages.


Charlemagne began his work as an emperor in right earnest with a cross in one hand and a sword in the other. He set right the situation in Europe that was torn by conflict, greed and superstition. He conquered Saxons, Lombards, Magyars and Avars and fought the Moslems in Spain.


At the end of his reign Charlemagne was presiding over an empire that stretched from the Baltic to Spain, and from Britanny to the Lower Danube. This great king was not just a conqueror, but the patron of the arts and letters who encouraged arts and architecture. With his death, the empire passed on to his son, Louis the ‘Pious’, who later divided it between his two sons. In their hands, the empire broke up into pieces, following quarrels