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hi everyone welcome back to the history and 20 podcast again thanks for tuning in so today we're talking about Charlemagne so if you've heard of him I haven't heard about him well he'll find out a bit today so I'll start off a bit with just a quick sort of overview of his personal profile so he was born well for a start we don't actually know so he was born and we know he's born on the 2nd of April and it was either in the 7 4 to 7 for 7 or 7 for 8 in the Frankish Kingdom which I'll put some maps up later on throughout the video so be able to visualize it but it's pretty much in somewhere in modern-day France he died on the 28th of January 814 aged 65 66 or 71 in arkin in Frankia which is of course now in modern-day Germany yeah as for his reign really reigned as king of the Franks from the 9th October 7 6 8 to the 28th to January 8 1 4 as king of the Lombards from 10th of July 774 to the 28th to January 8 14 and as Holy Roman Emperor from the 25th of December Christmas Day 800 228 to January 814 so all these different wrens will hopefully like make sense as I talked through his life and Roman stuff so he had four marriages he's married four times her two debt desiderata don't have sprouts it apologies you know married for a year then Hildegard of Vin's go again apologies for pronunciation Estrada and lead guard and he had he had like four notable children while legitimate children are suppose Pepin the Hunchback Charles the younger Pepin of Italy and Louis the pious and he had roughly about eighteen children in total and who's part of the Carolinian dynasty so if you hear that term Carolinian mentioned throughout all the Caroline's that's you're on the front it's his family like like it'll be the Plantagenet sits same thing so we'll start with his early life from circa 742 to about 770 so he was called Charlemagne he was also known as Charles the great or Charles the first and he was king of the Franks from seven six eight as I said king of the Lombards from 7:4 and the holy roman emperor from 800 but how did he get there in the first place so first of all there's actually debate throughout when Charlemagne was even born so it's often assumed that he was born in either of those aforementioned years seven four two four seven or four eight but is we know that his father was the first Carolinian king of the Franks Pepin the short he reigned from seven five one six eight and the debate largely lies around the fact that we don't know about when he was born properly because if he was born in seven four two it means he would have been born out-of-wedlock which is something that was completely unacceptable for a king in medieval Europe so that's why I think it's a lot of debate about this whether he didn't want to admit as historians and biographers didn't want to admit but we don't know but what we do know is that either way Charlemagne was born at some point during the seventh Ortiz in the Frankish Kingdom now unfortunately there isn't actually much evidence from his early years we do know that he was the eldest child of Pepin the short and his wife but rather of Leon and he had a younger brother called Carla man so Charlemagne and Carla man not confusing at all right and he call ruled with Charlemagne as carlomon the first from 7 6 8 to 7 1 so well facade to the should we said that tumultuous period in the way at seven 60s where Pepin the short had decided before his death to split up his kingdom between his two sons Charlemagne and carlomon now this was never going to work when obviously both his sons were both fighting for the crown and neither one wanted to rule jointly with the other so after roughly three years of quarreling with one another Carla man was dead now there's a contemporary report that suggested he died of a bad nosebleed so I mean he probably did have a bad nosebleed from lots of wounds inflicted to his face but that's what the reports that died were bad nosebleed now ignoring these suspicious circumstances surrounding Carla man's death Charlemagne clearly wasted no time in season what he viewed as his rightful lands so in 771 he took away lands from Carla lands two young sons who weren't old enough to actually challenge him for it and then he combined it with his own inheritance which was mostly in modern-day Belgium and Germany so now Charlemagne is clearly ready to take on Europe and you might be able to see that from the map of up on the screen she'll be up on the screen now so let's move on to his early conquests which I've sort of pieced together from about 770 to roughly 780 so these were arguably the most adventurous years of Charlemagne's life so he started by like said he united together the two halves of his father's realm which were gifted to himself and carlomon which in sorry in medieval terms referred to new stria and Austria not Austria or Australia in medieval european geographical zones like I said so ultimately this stretched from his Frankish Kingdom from the Danube River right over the Atlantic Ocean in an east-west direction and from the Netherlands to Provence in a north-south direction so huge swathe of territories got that's all his now now his next major campaign took himself towards Italy where he conquered Lombardi south of the Alps if you remember I mentioned he was king of the Lombards well this is where he came into a Lombardi south of the French Alps so from winter 773 to summer 774 he managed to consolidate hold over this kingdom he was crowned king of the Lombards on 10th of July 774 so upon seeing how easy made this mission contemporary chroniclers actually reported that other Germanic tribes beyond the Elbe River in Central Europe paid homage to Charlemagne just to avoid his conquest because of how successful and brutally was although many of them still remained pagan because Charlemagne was a staunch Catholic so in the following year in 775 Charlemagne begun the long conquest of Saxony which was arguably as harvest conquest and he eventually succeeded in converting the Saxons to Catholicism but it did take him until 804 to fully subdued so almost 30 years now the next section I decide to talk about is I wanted to give a bit of a cultural insight into his life in case anyone's interest in that - no it's no sometimes it's always battles and fighting and stuff and that's not everyone's cup of tea so I thought I'll have a look into the cultural aspect doing thoughtfully some people find that interesting so I've sort of divided this next section I've just had to call it the far of Europe and courtly life so circa 772 about 800 ere day now amongst all of the fighting which almost constantly did throughout Israel Charlemagne's caught was sophisticated so for instance it was actually in this court that the ancient term of Europe was revived now the Carolinians needed the term to describe the section of the Norn world which they dominated and more importantly they needed a term which distinguished themselves from the pagan lands of Central and Eastern Europe it distinguish themselves from Byzantium and from Christendom as a whole now the historian Norman Davies argues that this first Europe therefore was an ephemeral Western concept which lasted no longer than Charlemagne himself but even so this plays a large part in to why Charlemagne's often referred to as the father of Europe because not only has he actually brought all of his were like kingdoms together but he's actually decided to join this term as Europe now in addition to this Charlemagne was an enthusiastic builder so he built palaces all across his realm again Ingelheim and Arkan now we also built bridges over the Rhine at Minh's and linked together the tributaries of the Rhine and the Danube with a canal that was known as the Kaiser garb on top of a she was a pioneer of Romanesque architecture north of the Alps because he brought these architectural influences from Lombardi across the mountain range into northwestern Europe now he sought to make his capital of our canon northern Rome a context or in San Jenkins so he based his polity in Chapel and sent Vittal in Ravenna and he begged the port for mosaics from Ravenna to adorn it so he's looking on to Rome as this cultural and architectural masterpiece he wants to make his capital of Aachen in like said northern some modern-day Germany he wants to make it a new Rome almost what else do we have about him do we know about and well he was a patron of education and learning but despite this he himself was actually a litoris which is quite surprising someone who saw such a sort of patron of education that he's actually illiterate but one of his most famous scholars was an English monk al Cohen of York who was around from 735 to 804 now Alcuin became head of Arkans polish school as well as Charlemagne spiritual advisor and he presided over what became what came to be known in history is the Carolinian Renaissance so obviously we know about all heard about the Renaissance in Europe in the 17th century da Vinci and Michelangelo and ala but this was known as the Carolinian Renaissance that happened in the ninth century eighth and ninth century but yeah so Charlemagne as we'll see later governed the church an integral part of his demands now some historians call him hypocritical for some of his actions because while he forbade his bishops to engage in battle personally the way he spread the gospel through his kingdoms he conquered was through fire and sword so bit hypocritical but which medieval rulers weren't her so it's all the fun of it so the next section I've divided up it divided up into is called Holy Roman Emperor and layer to yours so this is from about seven eight eight to eight fourteen so after we finished conquering over but conquering Bavaria in 7/18 the west of Charlemagne's empire was relatively secure and it gave him chance to turn his attentions to problems elsewhere notably in the east so over in Byzantium the Emperor Leo the fourth had died leaving his consort Empress Irene in charge now this was the main problem Irene was sitting in his consort until her son Constantine the sixth was of age because he was still a minor he wasn't 16 yet and the main problem in the West was that a woman was in charge of the Byzantine Empire which was something absolutely unfathomable to most medieval kings now Irene also called the second counts of Nakia ornacia in 787 which condemned iconoclasm now iconoclasm is the use of imagery and icons in the Catholic Church and she condemned this as heretical Charlemagne was irritated that he himself had not been called to the council so he demanded an explanation from poor Perry in the first but before Adrian could respond Charlemagne ordered his theologians to produce a defense of iconoclasm which came to be known as the Libre Carolee knee now due to this his relationship with Adrian the first was strained but this cloud eventually passed and bought on civil terms right I'm variants death in December 795 but it wasn't all over yet scuse me this is where the main event begins so Adrienne's successor portly or the third not to be confused with the Byzantine Emperor on the same name of course he was not of noble birth and some even spread rumors that he was an Arab so as a result Adrian's family and friends tried to have him eradicated so on the 25th of April 799 a group led by the lip pops a nephew attacked Leo while he was on a solemn procession in Rome now the failed and their mission of blinding him and cutting off his tongue which is something that would have forced him to resign as Pope but the left and unconscious instead luckily was actually rescued by passers-by and Friends and removed to safety at Charlemagne's Court in Paderborn now the two both became good friends and on Leo's return to Rome in November 799 he found himself facing charges of adultery simony and perjury now Charlemagne was suspicious of these wild accusations and moreover questioned how could a pope be tried so how could God's voice on earth be tried and by whom now normally the answer would have been by the emperor in Constantinople but Eirene was on the throne so a woman passing judgment on a man in medieval Europe was incomprehensible so as far as Western Europe was concerned throne of emperors in Byzantium was vacant the irene a woman even sat on the throne in the first place showed our father Roman Empire had fallen in the eyes of the Pope and Charlemagne so by the time Charlemagne had reached Rome in November 800 he'd been firmly reminded by Alcuin that he had no more authority to pass judgment on the Pope than Irene did but he also knew that while the accusations remained unsettled christened them lacked both an emperor and a poor now on the 23rd of December portly of 3rd solemnly saw on the gospel that the accusations were untrue and remarkably the Assembly actually accepted the claim and his name was cleared and two days later on Christmas Day 800 portly or the third led the imperial crown on Charlemagne's head and crowned him Holy Roman Emperor but why did Leo give Charlemagne this title of Holy Roman Emperor it seemed at the time that Charlemagne would prove a more useful ally than a distant Constantinople so should accusations come against the papacy again then it will be easier for the accusing party and the purpose each sought out in Central Europe rather than wait for response from an emperor on the fringes of Asia now historian John Julius Norwich argues that Leo the 3rd created Charlemagne as Holy Roman Emperor because open quote the Byzantines had proved so unsatisfactory from every point of view political military and doctrinal he would select a westerner the one man who by his wisdom his statesmanship and the vastness of his dominions stood head and shoulders above his contemporaries close quote so that's quite an interesting view from John Julius Norwich there but even for all the pomp and ceremony and the imperial title being given to him various chroniclers and historians alike have since argued that it was a complete surprise to Charlemagne that he was awarded this title so Charlemagne's biographer the abbot Einhard claimed that the coronation occurred spontaneously but despite this argument regardless if it was spontaneous or carefully rehearsed the coronation happened and left a catholic emperor in the West independent of Byzantium and the once barbaric Frankish Kingdom which Charlemagne had inherited from his father in 768 was now upgraded and dependent on the Pope for its new status moreover Einhard also wrote that Charlemagne claimed that he would never have set foot in the Basilica had he known that Leo would place the imperial crown upon his head and to an extent this argument rings true because for the rest of his life Charlemagne continued to stone himself as Rex francorum at longer bar doram which means king of the franks and the Lombards rather than as Holy Roman Emperor and I'll just quickly skip to the end the basically the remaining years after Charlemagne's coronation so a few more conquests further imperial expansion and surprisingly little involvement in religious matters despite this title looks like said he never used it and Charlemagne actually died peacefully on the 28th of January 814 in arc and where he was buried and his eldest surviving son Louie the pious succeeded him I think as Louie the 1st of France maybe a mistake column Louie because it was plenty of them in French history so what legacy did Charlemagne leave behind well like said before a few people have gone down in history as well as Charlemagne so to this day still inspires people from all walks of life and I've done if you've heard of sort of an indie music band called blossoms they released a song called Charlemagne in 2015 which suggests that people have still heard of him today so yeah and obviously despite the claim that he wasn't uninterested in the imperial title he nevertheless took his royal seriously so the renewed Empire was intended to be both Roman and Christian and the historian David Starkey writes that Charlemagne was short soldier of the faith and reformer of the Church on the one hand and on the other restorer of the Roman Empire whose inheritance of law language literature architecture and forms of government he was determined to revive moreover despite the fact that the Eastern Roman Empire was reduced to Asia Minor and it's Mediterranean outposts Charlemagne is the secular head of Western Christendom was the first figure since the Roman emperors to span at least the heart of Europe so his legacy is Holy Roman Emperor and probably all the third can also be thanked for this stood the test of time the Holy Roman Empire was a prominent feature of Europe's political geography until it was dismantled by another Frenchman one you may have heard of a guy called Napoleon in 1806 so for over 1,000 years this title stood strong and survived numerous European dynasties survived the planted units the Carolinians the hub's bergs the Wallen Stein's everyone so on out survived them all now Charlemagne was also canonized although this process wasn't fully completed until 1165 because his sexual conquests would be no less extensive than his imperialistic ones and it might be something to do with the fact that he had 18 legitimate children with up to 10 wives I'm not sure what could have somewhat to do with that but who knows her so to sum up his legacy in simple terms I'll read a quote from his epitaph on his to marken which is sadly lost now in it read beneath this tomb lies the body of Charles great an orthodox emperor who nobly increased the kingdom of the Franks and reigned prosperously for 40 seven years and I think that sums him up pretty nicely Sothis ends the story of the father of Europe himself Charlemagne so thanks for listening and I'll catch you next time