Charlemagne is on the standard list of European nation-founders. He died in 814. What did he actually rule?
Charlemagne (768–814) was the Frankish king who built a continental empire roughly twice the size of modern France. The pope crowned him Emperor in Rome on Christmas Day 800 — the formal beginning of what would later be called the Holy Roman Empire, although in his lifetime it was just *the Empire*. After his death the empire was divided among his grandsons at the Treaty of Verdun (843), producing the rough geographic templates of modern France, Germany, and Italy. The eastern European territories were ruled by separate non-Frankish dynasties his whole life.
Read the full facts →Charlemagne (Charles the Great, c. 742–814 AD) was a Frankish king who united most of western and central Europe under his rule and was crowned Holy Roman Emperor by Pope Leo III on Christmas Day 800. He is the founder of the medieval European state system.
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