NameCharlemagne Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire
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Birth2 Apr 742, Aix La Chapelle, Austrasia
Death28 Jan 814, Aix La Chapelle, Austrasia
Alias/AKAEmperor CHARLEMAGNE "Charles The Great" CAROLING of The West
Spouses
Birthabt 758, Aachen, Rhineland, Prussia
Death30 Apr 783, Thionville, Austrasia
BurialAbbaye De St Arnoul, Metz, Austrasia
MarriageBET ABT 771 AND 772, Aachen, Rhineland, Prussia
Notes for Charlemagne Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire
Charlemagne
b. April 2, c. 742
d. Jan. 28, 814, Aix-la-Chapelle, or Aachen, Austrasia also called CHARLES I, by name CHARLES THE GREAT, French CHARLES LE GRAND, Latin CAROLUS MAGNUS, German KARL DER GROSSE king of the Franks (768-814), king of the Lombards (774-814), and emperor (800-814).
As king of the Franks, Charlemagne conquered the Lombard kingdom in Italy, subdued the Saxons, annexed Bavaria to his kingdom, fought campaigns in Spain and Hungary, and, with the exception of the Kingdom of Asturias in Spain, southern Italy, and the British Isles, united in one superstate practically all the Christian lands of western Europe. In 800 he assumed the title of emperor. (He is reckoned as Charles I of the Holy Roman Empire, as well as Charles I of France.) Besides expanding its political power, he also brought about a cultural renaissance in his empire. Although this imperium survived its founder by only one generation, the medieval kingdoms of France and Germany derived all their constitutional traditions from Charles's monarchy. Throughout medieval Europe, the person of Charles was considered the prototype of a Christian king and emperor.
. . .
The strength of Charlemagne's personality was evidently rooted in the unbroken conviction of being at one with the divine will. Without inward contradiction, he was able to combine personal piety with enjoyment of life, a religious sense of mission with a strong will to power, rough manners with a striving for intellectual growth, and intransigence against his enemies with rectitude. In his politically conditioned religiosity, the empire and the church grew into an institutional and spiritual unit. Although his empire survived him by only one generation, it contributed decisively to the eventual reconstitution, in the mind of a western Europe fragmented since the end of the Roman Empire, of a common intellectual, religious, and political inheritance on which later centuries could draw. Charlemagne did not create this inheritance single-handedly, but one would be hard put to imagine it without him. One of the poets at his court called him rex pater Europae--"King father of Europe." In truth, there is no other man who similarly left his mark on European history during the centuries of the Middle Ages.
birth 2 Apr. 748?? in Aachen, Germany??
Notes for Hildegard (Spouse 1)
aka Hildegarde of Swabia
Married 771, Aix-la-Chapelle (Aachen) to , Charlemagne Emperor of the West, King of Franks
Child 1: , Pepin I of Italy, King of Italy, b. APR 773
Child 2: , Charles the younger, Duke of Ingelheim, b. 772
Child 3: , Louis I the Pious of Aquitaine, King of France, b. AUG 778
Child 4: , Bertha, b. 779
Child 5: , Rotrud, b. CIR 755
Child 6: , Adelaide, b. 773
Child 7: , Lothar, b. 778
Child 8: , Gisela
Child 9: , Hildegard
Notes for Himiltrude (Spouse 2)
Notes:
Weis' "Ancestral Roots. . ." (191:14) identifies her only as an unknown concubine of Charlemagne.
Settipani's "La prehistoire des Capetiens" gives her name as Hiltrude and identifies her as the mother of ALPAIS.