Charlemagne, also known as Charles the Great or Charles I, was one of the most influential and powerful rulers of medieval Europe. Born in the 8th century, he became King of the Franks and went on to build a vast empire that would shape the course of European history for centuries to come. Charlemagne was born around 742 AD in Herstal, a town in present-day Belgium. He was the eldest son of Pepin the Short, the King of the Franks, and Bertrada of Laon. Charlemagne's exact date of birth is unknown, but it is believed to have been on April 2nd, based on a reference in the Lorsch Abbey calendar. Pepin the Short, Charlemagne's father, had risen to power through a series of military conquests and political maneuverings. He had deposed the last Merovingian king, Childeric III, with the support of the Pope, and had himself crowned as the first Carolingian king in 751 AD. Pepin's reign marked the beginning of a new era in Frankish history, as the Carolingians would go on to rule for more than two centuries. Charlemagne grew up in a time of great change and turmoil in Europe. The Western Roman Empire had fallen centuries earlier, and the continent was divided into a patchwork of kingdoms and principalities. The Franks, under Pepin's leadership, had emerged as one of the most powerful of these kingdoms, controlling much of present-day France and parts of Germany. As a young man, Charlemagne received a thorough education in the arts of war and governance. He learned to read and write in Latin, which was the language of the Church and of scholarship at the time. He also studied history, theology, and the classics, and developed a lifelong love of learning that would later lead him to establish a palace school at his court. In 768 AD, Pepin the Short died, and his kingdom was divided between his two sons, Charlemagne and his younger brother Carloman. The brothers ruled jointly for a time, but tensions soon arose between them. In 771 AD, Carloman died suddenly, leaving Charlemagne as the sole ruler of the Frankish kingdom. As king, Charlemagne set out to expand and consolidate his territory through a series of military campaigns. His first major victory came in 774 AD, when he invaded the Kingdom of the Lombards in northern Italy. The Lombards had been a thorn in the side of the Papacy for years, and Pope Adrian I had called on Charlemagne for help. Charlemagne defeated the Lombard king, Desiderius, and annexed his territory to the Frankish kingdom. Charlemagne's next major campaign was against the Saxons, a pagan tribe that inhabited the regions of present-day northern Germany and the Netherlands. The Saxons had long resisted Frankish rule and had frequently raided Frankish territories. In 772 AD, Charlemagne launched a series of military campaigns against the Saxons that would last for more than three decades. The Saxon Wars, as they came to be known, were a brutal and bloody conflict. Charlemagne's armies devastated Saxon lands, destroying pagan shrines and forcibly converting the population to Christianity. The Saxons, led by their chief Widukind, put up a fierce resistance, but were eventually defeated. In 785 AD, Widukind submitted to Charlemagne and was baptized as a Christian. With the Saxons subdued, Charlemagne turned his attention to other parts of Europe. In 788 AD, he annexed the Duchy of Bavaria, which had been ruled by his cousin Tassilo III. In 795 AD, he launched a campaign against the Avars, a nomadic people who inhabited the Carpathian Basin in present-day Hungary. The Avars were eventually defeated, and their territory was incorporated into the Frankish kingdom. Charlemagne's military campaigns were not limited to Europe. In 778 AD, he led an expedition into Spain to aid the Abbasid caliph of Baghdad against the Umayyad Emirate of Córdoba. The...
