Charlemagne

The rise of the Carolingian dynasty led by Charlemagne, who lived in the seventh century the moment of greatest power and expansion, and its dependence on the Holy See, not only modified the geographical limits of the European continent. The new Frankish sovereignty was decisive in the foundation of both the nobility and religion in later Europe. In this lies its most outstanding characteristic and the one that keeps the greatest difference with the preceding Roman Gaul. Just as in ancient times Christianity had advanced from the bottom up, in the Frankish kingdom the path was the opposite:it was the king who first assumed the conversion and then imposed it on the nobility and finally on the people.

Importanteventsinthelifeofcharlemagne

• 742 Born in Neustria.
• 768 His father, Pepin III, dies. Charles and Carloman share the Frankish kingdom.
• 771 Carloman dies. Carlos becomes sole sovereign.
• 778 Unsuccessful campaign in Spain. Basque attack in Roncesvalles. Roldan's death.
• 800 Leo III crowns him emperor
• 814 He died in Aachen.

From the Life of Charlemagne , which around 830 was written by Einhard, the Frankish monk confidant of the last years of his life and the first of his biographers Until well into the 16th century, when different scholars made an effort to represent his work with greater objectivity, the figure of Charlemagne has been conforming or deforming without too much rigor. With the flow of the centuries, in Germany, France and Italy, apologists and detractors have been succeeding each other who have been changing their real significance according to their own interests and, in many cases, with their political orientation.

The rise of the Carolingian dynasty

Without a predecessor like Pepin the Short, Charles I would never have become Charlemagne . Pepin was not only the founder of a dynasty; he was also the forerunner who prepared the ground for someone else to use later as a springboard. Butler of the palace, like all his Pippinid ancestors, it was he who materialized the ascent to royal power after several generations — Pepin the Elder, Pepin of Heristal, Grimoaldo, Carlos Martel — led to the same end:the gradual and tenacious marginalization of the Merovingian kings. In fact, the Merovingian dynasty - its name comes from Meroveo, one of its first leaders - had no power at all. Its last monarchs earned the nickname of rois fainéants ('lazy kings'), because they did not move a finger to stop the barbarism that over two and a half centuries was gaining ground on Roman civilization until it disappeared. The Merovingians used to always choose their stewardes from among the members of the same family of Frankish warriors who possessed, near Metz, vast domains. The most prominent males of that family used to be given the name of Carlos (Latin Carolus), and from this derives the name "Carolingian" of the dynasty. The butler of the palace was not a mere domestic manager, obviously, but a kind of prime minister, head of the warriors and the advisers of the kings , while the latter limited themselves to signing their decisions, by right. The coup d'état by which the Carolingian dynasty, in full agreement, replaced the Merovingian dynasty was the work of Pepin. After the death of Charles Martel in 741, Pepin the Short and his brother Carloman assumed power over the Franks .

Freed from Carloman, who, attracted by the contemplative life —surely because of a crisis of conscience— abandons his reign in 747 and retires first to Mount Soracte and then to Monte Cassino, where he would die seven years later, Pepin has before him the propitious moment :Childeric III, the last Merovingian descendant, was tonsured and locked up in a monastery. He had just taken the decisive step whereby three years later he took the title of king and consecration was conferred on him, extensive to his wife, Bertreda, and to his two children. This ceremony, carried out with all the pomp, strengthened the Carolingian house and closely linked its policy to the Holy See, which, threatened by the Lombards, made the new Frankish monarch the titled protector of the head of the Church. For Pepin the Short it is a hard task, to which is added the obligation to make their weapons felt on all fronts to those who only saw in the dynastic change an opportunity to throw off the yoke. But it is precisely this double duty fulfilled to the letter that gives the reign of the first Carolingian king its significance in history. Pepin travels all its borders, defeats the Saxons at Iburg, imposes the oath of vassalage on his nephew Tasilon, Duke of Bavaria, continues the retreat of Islam, already marginalized by Charles Martel north of the Pyrenees, advances through Septimania, takes Narbonne and maintains repeated campaigns in rebellious Aquitaine until his death, at the age of fifty-four. It was precisely in Aquitaine, apparently, where he became seriously ill. His subsequent pilgrimage to Saint Martin of Tours would take him to the grave. On September 24, 768, Pepin III the Short died without foreseeing the disagreements that would ensue between his two heirs .

The path to consecration

If contemporary accounts are accurate, Charlemagne was born on April 2, 742, a few months after his father Pepin the Short and his uncle Carloman assumed power . This succession of events makes it more reliable that her birth took place in Neustria, contrary to the version, also quite widespread, that it took place in the castle of Ingelheim, near Mainz, since, when the kingdom was divided among the brothers in 741, it was Carloman who kept the Germanic east (ie Austrasia, Germany and Thuringia) and their father the Romanesque west (Neustria, Burgundy and Provence). Little or nothing is known about his childhood. It is known, yes, that he was the bastard son of Bertreda, daughter of Cariberto, count of Laon, and Pepin III, and that he was legitimized at the age of seven, when in 749 his parents were united in marriage, which is why later he will wield against him his brother Carloman, born in 751, who considered himself the legitimate firstborn. With the exception of this known fact, the annals of the empire mention it only once when, on the occasion of the consecration of Pepin III by Pope Stephen II at Saint-Denis, in 754, Charles was led to meet him at Wallis - the Papa was coming from Saint-Maurice—and later accompanied him to join his father at the winter residence at Ponthion. His uncle Carlomán had just died and his father took over all the power over the kingdom. Carlos was then twelve years old and it would take another fourteen for the days of his life to claim the interest of his contemporaries. Einhard, who was his courtier, confesses, in his Life of Charlemagne , which cannot provide any true news about his youth, which is why his chronicle starts from 768, the date of the consecration of Carlos I, when he was already twenty-six years old. In 768, then, after the death of his father, history repeats itself:Carlos and Carlomán divide the inheritance according to the last paternal dispositions. Queen Bertrada presides over the distribution and establishment of the two kingdoms and on October 9 Carlomán is consecrated in Soissons and Carlos in Noyon .
Soon these disagreements between the two brothers led to a greater ascendancy of Bertreda over them and even in the politics of the kingdom. While Charles I, faced with the challenge of Aquitaine once again in danger, met with Carloman in Moncontour (today Haute-Vienne) to beg him for help that Carloman refused to grant him (Carloman was still a teenager), thus creating an open enmity that would last longer. beyond his death, Bertreda, unaware of the policy carried out by her husband and wishing for a Franco-Lombard approach, ignores the new Pope Stephen III and agrees with the Lombard king Didier the marriage of her two children with two descendants of that . Just as it is not surprising that Carlomán willingly accepted the marriage imposed by his mother with Princess Gerberge, it is curious that Carlos agreed to marry a Lombard princess. The truth is that after his triumph in Aquitaine the date was set, and on Christmas 770 his marriage to Desirée was celebrated in Mainz .
December 4, 771 Carloman dies suddenly in Laon and the past repeats itself once again. Like Pepin at the death of his brother Carlomán, Carlos I will be the sole sovereign of the Frankish states, thus inaugurating the moment of greatest glory of the Carolingian dynasty founded by his father. From now on, he will decide to follow Pepin III, but imprinting on the action of his predecessor such a rhythm that since the time of Caesar the world had not known anything like it. After the disappearance of Carloman, he takes over the kingdom without taking into account the rights of his children, repudiates her Lombard wife, returning her to Didier, and Gerberge with her two children takes refuge in Pavia. Bertreda's hour had been fleeting:a dream of Franco-Lombard fusion was broken.

The Iron Crown

This rupture was an open declaration of war. The Bishop of Rome, Hadrian, is intimidated by the Pavia court into crowning Carloman's son. The bishop refuses. Lombard troops invade San Pedro. Hadrian asks the King of the Franks for help. Carlos, after the triumph of the battle, has himself proclaimed king of the Lombards, makes the iron crown his own (which was gold, like all royal crowns, only it took its name from the circle of that metal in the which is mounted) and reaffirms his right as protector of the Eternal City. Adalgisio, Didier's successor, was able to flee to Byzantium. Didier ended up with his family in a Frankish convent. Charlemagne had already won a second kingdom. This war was carried out between 773 and 774; earlier, immediately after repudiating the Lombard princess, the Frankish king had married Hildegarde, a thirteen-year-old girl belonging to the high Alamanni nobility, who in ten years of marriage gave him nine children. Although he had seized the Italian crown, Charlemagne never gained the trust of the Lombard people. For the Italians he was always a foreigner and did not enter the national history as happened in France and Germany. Although he was considered the true holder of civil power, he reserved for himself the northern part of the kingdom, ceded Ravenna and Rome to the pope and later procured his own court for his son Pepin, with the insight to appoint one of the chiefs Lombards as their minister and educator.

The Hispanic Brand

After securing the situation in Heretania and resolving the problem in Lombardy, Carlos I had a third idea, cemented by the victory that his grandfather, Carlos Martel, had obtained over the Arabs:the creation of a Hispanic border mark. This possible feat took shape after the visit made in 777 by two Arab princes, Sulaiman ibn al-Aarabí, Wali of Barcelona, ​​and the son-in-law of the last governor of Septimania under Carlos Martel. They gave him the keys to Barcelona and it is possible that also those of Zaragoza, threatened by the internal rivalry that Islamic Spain suffered at the time. In 778 Charlemagne assembled a very large army, ready to make the offer effective. Burgundians, Alemanni, Bavarians, Provençals, Aquitanians and Lombards advanced with the Franks, a fraction from Narbonne to Barcelona, ​​and another, in which he went, to Pamplona and Zaragoza through the Pyrenees. Barcelona did not resist. His fraction, however, was prevented from advancing by Al-Husain, and it seems that the king, after a few days, had to resume his retreat. This rapid interruption of what was the greatest military expedition of his entire life is incomprehensible. According to Arab sources, he must have taken the Valí de Barcelona prisoner, which, added to the absurd destruction of Pamplona on the way back, infuriated the Basques concentrated in Roncesvalles, who achieved an unprecedented victory over the Frankish cavalry, perishing in the same many of its principal chiefs, including Roland, the Margrave of Brittany, the seneschal Einhard, and Anselm, the commander of the palace guard. After the defeat, Charlemagne had to face a new misfortune. At the foot of the Pyrenees, in Chasseneuil, his wife had just given birth to twins, of whom only one—Louis the Pious—remained alive. Charlemagne would never set foot in Spain again. Notwithstanding the historical foundations, the popular fantasy would end up making the defeat understandable; the Chanson de Roland notice it. But his relationship with Spain would not end there. Twenty years later, in 797, a new wali from Barcelona would bring to Aachen (in German Aachen and Aix-la-Chapelle for the French) the keys to his city. Shortly after relations began with Alfonso II of Asturias, and from 798 the campaigns of his son Luis, king of Aquitaine, continued on Spain. In 801 he managed, with the support of some Frankish chiefs, to take Barcelona and the Marca Hispánica was created, which extended to the Ebro and which, even during Charlemagne's lifetime, was recognized by the sovereign of Córdoba.
The occupation of the Carolingians was war. For her they were prepared and victories were the best way to access royalty. In the century that elapsed between the entrance to the government of his grandfather Carlos Martel until the death of Charlemagne (714-814), few were the years in which there were no campaigns. A summer without war was then considered dead time. After the monotonous winters, in the confinement of castles and villages, the war arose as an eagerly awaited period of freedom. The pleasure of movement, the enjoyment of riding well, of one's skill, and the promise of new landscapes to discover were the only fun. So much so, that when Charlemagne failed to issue a call-up in 790, the annals of the kingdom felt compelled to excuse his inaction. The campaigns against Saxony lasted for more than thirty years, from a first diet achieved in 772, before the Lombard war, until 804, when it was finally incorporated into the Frankish state. At first Charlemagne tried to favor the work of the missionaries; soon, though not forgetting the work of conversion, he launched into an open, methodical, and bloodthirsty conquest. To the resistance of the Saxons, led by Widukindo, he opposed terror, executing 4,500 of them near Verdun. After the defeat of Widukindo, Charlemagne reached Pannonia, extending its borders to the east . The Avars did not put up any resistance:they did not want war. And the Franks got their hands on precious booty without a fight. They even accepted without protest his conversion to Christianity. This pacifism must have disconcerted Charlemagne, who, urged on by a new outbreak of Saxon rebellion, in 793, resolved to execute the khaghan of the Avars and his viceroy, the Jugurri, as punishment for the "lost war". This would certainly not be his most reckless action. Suffice it to refer to the sentence he imposed on his cousin Tasilon, Duke of Bavaria, and the obscure reasons that led to it. After enduring constant insults from the king for more than two decades, he was sentenced to death, in 788, for having deserted the army in the campaign Pepin the Short had undertaken against Aquitaine twenty-five years earlier, in 763. Charlemagne, after forcing him to self-incrimination, ended up sparing his life, changing the death penalty for a life sentence, although tonsuring and locking up his son Theodo in a convent as well.
In 790, after creating a new Brand, the Breton, which gave his son Charles the Younger to his, shifted its center of gravity to the east and established his residence in Aachen. He was not yet emperor, but the Frankish state was a vast consolidated empire.

TheCarolingianadministration

Charlemagne tried to organize the entrusted territories. In his immense empire, where some regions retained relative autonomy, he maintained the Frankish institutions. A count was placed at the head of each pagus and he received extensive military and administrative powers. The bishop or the abbot of the monasteries advised or supervised the count, promulgated and applied the ordinances sent from the palace, called capitular because they were divided into chapters. The missi dominici they commanded over the men who depended on their host and contributed to controlling the region; grouped in pairs, one layman and the other religious, they attended the assemblies organized at the beginning of the summer, which were attended by the king and often by the marquises in charge of the border marks. A great effort was also made to promote studies and the revival of the ancient civilization. he called Alcuin, Paul the Deacon, Peter of Pisa and the Spaniard Teodulfo. He created a palatine school to train lay state servants and clerics . Libraries were enriched and the study of theology and sacred texts was encouraged, reestablishing the use of Latin. He used Christianity as a sure link between the peculiarities of his empire.

The imperial coronation

On December 1, 800 Charlemagne arrived in Rome ready to be crowned as agreed with the pope a few months earlier in the Aachen palace , where Leo III had taken refuge fleeing from the Romans. The opposition of the nobility had made him become a subordinate of the Frankish king, who this time had to arbitrate between them, undoubtedly in favor of the pope. Charlemagne, who at the age of fifty-eight was still as tall and straight as in his youth, wore Roman dress at the request of Leo III, who agreed to hold the event in St. Peter's, since to the Franks it seemed like a sanctuary important than Santa María la Mayor. On December 25, 800, the pope placed the crown on him and immediately proceeded to confirm him through the acclamation of the people . Frankish royal lauds were sung to him, which must have been memorized very quickly, and Greek and Latin texts were added to the Saxon litanies. But how could he, who was born to be a Frankish king, rule a Church, a nobility and a country that considered themselves superior to his own? On the other hand, he was unwilling to discuss with the Byzantine emperor a title that added nothing to his power in the West. Lastly, he would never admit that his new romanity was superior to his old condition. The truth is that he returned to Aachen with the title of imperator and new worries. Somehow, the end was not far off. In 806 he divided his empire between his sons Charles, Pepin, and Louis in anticipation of his death. Seven years later, already recognized as emperor by Byzantium, he arranges for Louis to be crowned co-emperor after the death of his two other sons. Luis crowns himself.
On January 28, 814, Charlemagne died at the age of seventy-one and was buried the same day in the palace chapel . After three and a half centuries, on December 29, 1165, Federico Barbarossa had him proclaimed a saint; His bones were kept in a relic chest and raised to the altar of his Aachen church.