Charlemagne

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Charlemagn e & the Franks

The Franks are from France, but theyre not French!

The Franks were a Germanic tribe.

In 507, a Frankish king named Clovis defeated the Visigoths and pushed them into Hispania.

In 732, another Frankish king named Charles Martel defeated the Moorish army at Poitiers and stopped them from invading the rest of Europe.

His son Pepin the Short helped the Pope defend Italy from invasion so he was crowned king and thus began the Carolingian Empire.

Charlemagne was Pepin the Shorts son and Carolingian refers to Charlemagne.

The Carolingian Empire lasted from the 12th to the 14th centuries.

The Carolingian Empire was huge:

Charlemagne wanted to restore the Western Roman Empire against other Germanic tribes and Moors. He conquered: -the Iberian Peninsula -modern France, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, Holland, Italy, and Romania. This is why he is called the father of Europe.

On Christmas Day, 800, Charlemagne was crowned Holy Roman Emperor by the Pope in St. Peters basilica in Rome.

They say that Charlemagne was very tall, with long white hair and a happy face.

He loved food, music, reading, taking naps, hunting, riding horses, swimming & hot baths.

He really liked education. He opened a school called Palatine where his kids & advisers studied Antiquity, the arts, the humanities & science. The Palatine School was the model for all schools in Europe.

The Palatine School ushered in an age of splendor called the Carolingian Renaissance. Painted miniatures of the evangelists, mosaics, and metalwork from this era are very famous, as is the religious architecture.

Aachen, Germany, was the cultural center of Charlemagnes empire and home to his court.

Charlemagnes court was directed by his chamberlain, and his territory was divided into counties, each governed by a count.

Charlemagne gave land to his favorite nobles who reigned over the peasants in their territory. This dependency was the beginning of feudalism, when the lord let peasants live on his land in exchange for work or military service.

Because the economy under Charlemagne was agricultural, there was no need for cities as trade centers, so they disappeared and most of the empire was rural.

QuickTime and a decompressor are needed to see this picture.

When Charlemagne died in 814 his son Louis the Pious took the crown but had to fight to keep control of the empire.

Then in 843 his three sons divided the empire in the Treaty of Verdun: -Charles the Bald got France. -Lothair got Italy and central Europe. -Louis the Germanic got Germany.

And that was the end of the Carolingian Empire!

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