Charlemagne ruled for how many years

When Carloman died suddenly in , Charlemagne became sole ruler. Charlemagne spent the early part of his reign on several military campaigns to expand his kingdom. He invaded Saxony in and eventually achieved its total conquest and conversion to Christianity.

He also extended his dominance to the south, conquering the kingdom of the Lombards in northern Italy. In , he invaded northern Spain, then controlled by the Moors. Between and , Charlemagne added Bohemia to his empire and subdued the Avars in the middle Danube basin to form a buffer state for the eastern border of his empire.

Charlemagne went to his aid in Rome and defeated the rebellion. As a token of thanks, Leo crowned Charlemagne on Christmas Day that year, declaring him emperor of the Romans. Although this did not give Charlemagne any new powers, it legitimised his rule over his Italian territories and attempted to revive the imperial tradition of the western Roman emperor. A skilled military strategist, he spent much of his reign engaged in warfare in order to accomplish his goals.

In this role, he encouraged the Carolingian Renaissance, a cultural and intellectual revival in Europe. Today, Charlemagne is referred to by some as the father of Europe. Charlemagne was born around , the son of Bertrada of Laon d. Once in power, Charlemagne sought to unite all the Germanic peoples into one kingdom, and convert his subjects to Christianity. In order to carry out this mission, he spent the majority of his reign engaged in military campaigns.

Soon after becoming king, he conquered the Lombards in present-day northern Italy , the Avars in modern-day Austria and Hungary and Bavaria, among others.

Charlemagne waged a bloody, three-decades-long series of battles against the Saxons, a Germanic tribe of pagan worshippers, and earned a reputation for ruthlessness. In at the Massacre of Verden, Charlemagne reportedly ordered the slaughter of some 4, Saxons.

In his personal life, Charlemagne had multiple wives and mistresses and perhaps as many as 18 children. He allegedly loved his daughters so much that he prohibited them from marrying while he was alive. Einhard c. In his role as a zealous defender of Christianity, Charlemagne gave money and land to the Christian church and protected the popes. As emperor, Charlemagne proved to be a talented diplomat and able administrator of the vast area he controlled.

He promoted education and encouraged the Carolingian Renaissance, a period of renewed emphasis on scholarship and culture. He instituted economic and religious reforms, and was a driving force behind the Carolingian miniscule, a standardized form of writing that later became a basis for modern European printed alphabets. Charlemagne ruled from a number of cities and palaces, but spent significant time in Aachen.

His palace there included a school, for which he recruited the best teachers in the land. In addition to learning, Charlemagne was interested in athletic pursuits. At his request, Pope Hadrian I sent monks from Rome to the court of Aachen to instruct his chapel's choir in This event helped spark the spread of traditional Gregorian chant through the Frankish churches. In , Charlemagne also issued a decree to his empire's clergy, instructing them to learn and sing properly the Cantus Romanus , or Roman chant.

Music schools were also founded under Charlemagne's reign, and monks transcribing music helped preserve the Gregorian chant into the present day. Charlemagne was a fierce proponent of Christianity, yet he had great respect for the culture of pagan antiquity. He also saw his empire as a direct successor to the glory of the Roman world. The scholars of the Carolingian Renaissance discovered and preserved as much of antiquity as possible, and its survival into the modern day is largely thanks to their efforts.

On Frankish campaigns, soldiers would bring back ancient Latin literature alongside other loot. Carolingian monks meticulously copied these old texts into new volumes, helping preserve Cicero, Pliny the Younger, Ovid, and Ammianus Marcellinus.

As Charlemagne conquered Western Europe, he recognized the need for a standard currency. Instead of a variety of different gold coins, his government produced and disseminated silver coinage that could be traded across the empire—the first common currency on the continent since the Roman era.

Charlemagne was an imposing figure, with a height estimated between 5 feet 10 inches and 6 feet 4 inches, which was quite a bit taller than the average male height at the time. Yet he wasn't showy in his style. According to Einhard, he dressed in the ordinary clothes of the Frankish people, with a blue cloak over his tunic, linen shirt, and long hose. The one bit of flash he always had was a sword, worn on a belt of gold or silver. To dress up for special occasions, he'd sport a jeweled sword.

He also was not fond of flamboyant dress in the people around him. An anecdotal tale from the 9th-century De Carolo Magno relates how he spent a whole day tormenting some courtiers who returned from a festival decked out in silk and ribbons.

He made them go hunting with him without a chance to change their clothes, and immediately upon returning had them attending him into the night. The next morning he ordered them to return, dressed in their wrecked finery, and ridiculed them for demeaning themselves by wearing such impractical clothes.

Amidst all those years riding around Europe waging war, Charlemagne somehow found time to get married to five different women and have relationships with several concubines. He fathered around 18 children.