Charlemagne

Charles was a son of Pepin the Short. Einhard says that on Pepin’s death he and his brother Carloman were made kings together and that he ruled alone after Carloman’s death (Einhard, Life of Charlemagne 3). At the request of Pope Hadrian I he overthrew the Lombard kingdom in Italy (Einhard, Life of Charlemagne 6). In the General Admonition of 789 he styled himself the defender and helper of the church and set out a programme for its correction (Charlemagne’s Reform of Church and Learning) (Admonitio generalis preface (pp. 53–54)).

Einhard describes his devotion to the church of St Peter at Rome, which he visited four times, and the basilica he built at Aachen (Einhard, Life of Charlemagne 26–27). On his last visit to Rome he received the titles of emperor and Augustus (Charlemagne Is Crowned Emperor) (Einhard, Life of Charlemagne 28). He died at Aachen on 28 January 814, in the seventy-second year of his age and the forty-seventh of his reign according to Einhard, and was buried in his own church the same day (Einhard, Life of Charlemagne 30–31).