Charlemagne – Universal History

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. Therein lies its most outstanding characteristic and the one that keeps the greatest difference with the preceding Roman Gaul. Just as in Antiquity 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.

Important events in the life of Charlemagne

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

From the Life of Charlemagnewho around 830 wrote Eginardo, the frank confidant monk of his last years of life and first of his biographersUntil well into the 16th century, when different scholars strove to represent his work more objectively, the figure of Charlemagne has been conforming or deforming without too much rigor. Over the centuries, in Germany, France and Italy, apologists and detractors followed one another, who have varied 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 precursor who prepared the ground for another to use it later as a springboard. Mayordomo of the palace, like all his Pipinid ancestors, it was he who materialized the rise to royal power after several generations —Pipin the Elder, Pepin of Heristal, Grimoaldo, Carlos Martel— aimed at the same end: the gradual and tenacious marginalization of 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’), since they did not lift a finger to stop the barbarism that over the course of two and a half centuries was gaining ground on the Roman civilization until making it disappear. The Merovingians were in the habit of always choosing their stewards from members of the same family of Frankish warriors who owned vast domains near Metz. The most outstanding males of that family used to be given the name of Carlos (in Latin Carolus), and from this derives the “Carolingian” name of the dynasty. The mayordomo of the palace was not a mere household manager, obviously, but a kind of prime minister, head of the warriors and of the kings’ advisers., while they limited themselves to signing their decisions, by right. The coup d’état by which the Carolingian dynasty, agreeing fully and rightly, replaced the Merovingian dynasty was the work of Pepin. After Charles Martel’s death in 741, Pepin the Short and his brother Carloman assumed power over the Franks..

charlemagne

Disengaged from Carloman, who, attracted by the contemplative life —probably because of a crisis of conscience— abandoned his reign in 747 and retired first to Mount Soracte and then to Monte Cassino, where he would die seven years later, Pepin had 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, extending to his wife, Bertreda, and his two sons. 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 tough undertaking, to which is added the obligation to make their weapons felt on all fronts by 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 crosses all its borders, defeats the Saxons in Iburg, imposes the oath of vassalage on his nephew Tasilón, Duke of Bavaria, continues the retreat of Islam, already marginalized by Carlos Martel to the north of the Pyrenees, advances through Septimania, takes Narbonne and he maintained repeated campaigns in the 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 San Martín de Tours would take him to the grave. On September 24, 768, Pepin III the Short died without foreseeing the disagreements that would arise between his two heirs..

The path to consecration

If the accounts of contemporaries are accurate, Charlemagne was born on April 2, 742, a few months after Pepin the Short, his father, and his uncle Carloman assumed power.. This succession of events makes it more reliable that his birth took place in Neustria, contrary to the version, also quite widespread, that it occurred in the castle of Ingelheim, near Mainz, since, when the kingdom was divided among the brothers in 741, it was Carloman who got the Germanic east (i.e. Austrasia, Germany, and Thuringia) and his 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 married, a reason that later he will wield against him his brother Carloman, born in 751, who was considered 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 Pope came from Saint-Maurice – and later accompanied him to join his father in the winter residence of Ponthion. His uncle Carloman had just died and his father had taken over all the power over the kingdom. Carlos was then twelve years old and another fourteen would have to pass for the days of his life to claim the interest of his contemporaries. Eginardo, 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 latest paternal provisions. Queen Bertrada presides over the distribution and establishment of the two kingdoms and on October 9 Carloman 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 Carlos I, faced with the challenge of Aquitaine once again in danger, meets with Carloman in Moncontour (today Haute-Vienne) to beg him for help that he refuses to grant him (Carloman is still a teenager), thus creating an open enmity that would last longer. After his death, Bertreda, ignorant of the policy carried out by her husband and eager for a Franco-Lombard rapprochement, ignored the new Pope Stephen III and agreed with the Lombard king Didier the wedding of her two sons with two of his descendants. . Just as it is not surprising that Carloman 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 after his triumph in Aquitaine the date was fixed, and at Christmas 770 his marriage to Desirée was celebrated in Mainz..
On December 4, 771, Carloman died suddenly in Laon. and the past repeats itself once more. Like Pepin on the death of his brother Carloman, 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 break was an open declaration of war. The bishop of Rome, Adriano, is intimidated by the court of Pavia to crown the son of Carloman. 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, except that he took his name from the circle of that metal on the which is mounted) and reaffirms his right as protector of the Eternal City. Adalgisius, Didier’s successor, was able to flee to Byzantium. Didier ended up with his family in a free convent. Charlemagne had already won a second kingdom. This war took place 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 Aleman nobility, who in ten years of marriage gave him nine children. Although he had seized the Italian crown, Charlemagne never gained the confidence of the Lombard people. For the Italians he was always a foreigner and did not enter national history as he did in France and Germany. Although he was considered the true possessor of civil power, he reserved the northern part of the kingdom for himself, ceded Ravenna and Rome to the pope and later provided his son Pepin with a court of his own, with the insight to appoint one of the chiefs. Lombards as their minister and educator.

Throne of Charlemagne

The Hispanic Brand

After securing the situation in Aquitania 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 brand. This possible feat took shape after the visit made to him in 777 by two princes…