Charlemagne King of France, Emperor of Rom ^{1 2 3 4}

   Other names for Charlemagne were Carolus Magnus, Charles I Holy Roman Emperor and Charles the Great.

  Research Notes:

Source: Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists Who Came to America before 1700 by Frederick Lewis Weis and Walter Lee Sheppard, Jr, ed. by William R. Beall & Kaleen E. Beall, Baltimore, 2008, Line 50-13 has b. 2 Apr 747, d. Aix la Chapelle, 28 Jan 813/4, King of France 768-814, crowned Holy Roman Emperor 25 Dec. 800.

From Wikipedia - Charlemagne :

Charlemagne (Latin : Carolus Magnus or Karolus Magnus, meaning Charles the Great) (742 /747 - 28 January 814 ) was King of the Franks from 768 to his death. He expanded the Frankish kingdoms into a Frankish Empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. During his reign, he conquered Italy and was crowned Imperator Augustus by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800 as a rival of the Byzantine Emperor in Constantinople . His rule is also associated with the Carolingian Renaissance , a revival of art, religion, and culture through the medium of the Catholic Church . Through his foreign conquests and internal reforms, Charlemagne helped define both Western Europe and the Middle Ages . He is numbered as Charles I in the regnal lists of France , Germany , and the Holy Roman Empire .

The son of King Pippin the Short and Bertrada of Laon , he succeeded his father and co-ruled with his brother Carloman I . The latter got on badly with Charlemagne, but war was prevented by the sudden death of Carloman in 771. Charlemagne continued the policy of his father towards the papacy and became its protector, removing the Lombards from power in Italy, and waging war on the Saracens , who menaced his realm from Spain . It was during one of these campaigns that Charlemagne experienced the worst defeat of his life, at Roncesvalles (778). He also campaigned against the peoples to his east, especially the Saxons , and after a protracted war subjected them to his rule. By forcibly converting them to Christianity, he integrated them into his realm and thus paved the way for the later Ottonian dynasty .

Today he is not only regarded as the founding father of both French and German monarchies, but as the father of Europe: his empire united most of Western Europe for the first time since the Romans, and the Carolingian renaissance encouraged the formation of a common European identity..,

Date and place of birth
Charlemagne is traditionally believed to have been born on April 2 , 742; however, several factors have led to a reconsideration of this date. First, the year 742 was calculated from his age given at death, rather than from attestation in primary sources. Another date is given in the Annales Petarienses , April 1 , 747. In that year, April 1 was at Easter . The birth of an emperor at eastertime is a coincidence likely to provoke comment, but there was no such comment documented in 747, leading some to suspect that the Easter birthday was a pious fiction concocted as a way of honoring the Emperor. Other commentators weighing the primary records have suggested that his birth was one year later, in 748. At present, it is impossible to be certain of the date of the birth of Charlemagne. The best guesses include April 1 , 747, after April 15 , 747, or April 1 , 748, in Herstal (where his father was born, a city close to Liège in modern day Belgium ), the region from where both the Merovingian and Carolingian families originate. He went to live in his father's villa in Jupille when he was around seven, which caused Jupille to be listed as a possible place of birth in almost every history book. Other cities have been suggested, including, Prüm , Düren , Gauting and Aachen ...

Early life
Charlemagne was the eldest child of Pippin the Short (714 - 24 September 768, reigned from 751) and his wife Bertrada of Laon (720 - 12 July 783 ), daughter of Caribert of Laon and Bertrada of Cologne . Records name only Carloman , Gisela , and a short-lived child named Pippin as his younger siblings. The semi-mythical Redburga , wife of King Egbert of Wessex , is sometimes claimed to be his sister (or sister-in-law or niece), and the legendary material makes him Roland 's maternal uncle through a lady Bertha.

Much of what is known of Charlemagne's life comes from his biographer, Einhard , who wrote a Vita Caroli Magni (or Vita Karoli Magni), the Life of Charlemagne...

Charles and his children
During the first peace of any substantial length (780-782), Charles began to appoint his sons to positions of authority within the realm, in the tradition of the kings and mayors of the past. In 781 he made his two younger sons kings, having them crowned by the Pope. The elder of these two, Carloman , was made king of Italy , taking the Iron Crown which his father had first worn in 774, and in the same ceremony was renamed "Pippin". The younger of the two, Louis , became king of Aquitaine . He ordered Pippin and Louis to be raised in the customs of their kingdoms, and he gave their regents some control of their subkingdoms, but real power was always in his hands, though he intended each to inherit their realm some day. Nor did he tolerate insubordination in his sons: in 792, he banished his eldest, though illegitimate, son, Pippin the Hunchback , to the monastery of Prüm, because the young man had joined a rebellion against him.

The sons fought many wars on behalf of their father when they came of age. Charles was mostly preoccupied with the Bretons, whose border he shared and who insurrected on at least two occasions and were easily put down, but he was also sent against the Saxons on multiple occasions. In 805 and 806, he was sent into the Böhmerwald (modern Bohemia ) to deal with the Slavs living there (Czechs ). He subjected them to Frankish authority and devastated the valley of the Elbe, forcing a tribute on them. Pippin had to hold the Avar and Beneventan borders, but also fought the Slavs to his north. He was uniquely poised to fight the Byzantine Empire when finally that conflict arose after Charlemagne's imperial coronation and a Venetian rebellion. Finally, Louis was in charge of the Spanish March and also went to southern Italy to fight the duke of Benevento on at least one occasion. He took Barcelona in a great siege in the year 797 (see below).
Charlemagne's attitude toward his daughters has been the subject of much discussion. He kept them at home with him, and refused to allow them to contract sacramental marriages - possibly to prevent the creation of cadet branches of the family to challenge the main line, as had been the case with Tassilo of Bavaria - yet he tolerated their extramarital relationships, even rewarding their common-law husbands, and treasured the bastard grandchildren they produced for him. He also, apparently, refused to believe stories of their wild behaviour. After his death the surviving daughters were banished from the court by their brother, the pious Louis, to take up residence in the convents they had been bequeathed by their father. At least one of them, Bertha, had a recognised relationship, if not a marriage, with Angilbert , a member of Charlemagne's court circle...

Death
In 813, Charlemagne called Louis the Pious , king of Aquitaine , his only surviving legitimate son, to his court. There he crowned him with his own hands as co-emperor and sent him back to Aquitaine. He then spent the autumn hunting before returning to Aachen on 1 November . In January, he fell ill with pleurisy (Einhard 59). He took to his bed on 21 January and as Einhard tells it:
He died January twenty-eighth, the seventh day from the time that he took to his bed, at nine o'clock in the morning, after partaking of the Holy Communion , in the seventy-second year of his age and the forty-seventh of his reign.

He was buried on the day of his death, in Aachen Cathedral , although the cold weather and the nature of his illness made such a hurried burial unnecessary. A later story, told by Otho of Lomello, Count of the Palace at Aachen in the time of Otto III , would claim that he and Emperor Otto had discovered Charlemagne's tomb: the emperor, they claimed, was seated upon a throne, wearing a crown and holding a sceptre, his flesh almost entirely incorrupt. The story was proved false by Frederick I , who discovered the remains of the emperor in a sarcophagus beneath the floor of the chapel.[7]


Charlemagne's death greatly affected many of his subjects, particularly those of the literary clique who had surrounded him at Aachen...

Marriages and heirs
Charlemagne had seventeen children over the course of his life with eight of his ten known wives or concubinues.

His first relationship was with Himiltrude . The nature of this relationship is variously described as concubinage , a legal marriage or as a Friedelehe .[12] Charlemagne put her aside when he married Desiderata. The union produced two children:
Amaudru, a daughter[13]
Pippin the Hunchback (c. 769-811)
After her, his first wife was Desiderata , daughter of Desiderius , king of the Lombards , married in 770, annulled in 771

His second wife was Hildegard (757 or 758-783), married 771, died 783. By her he had nine children:
Charles the Younger (c.772-4 December 811 ), Duke of Maine, and crowned King of the Franks on 25 December 800
Carloman, renamed Pippin (April 773-8 July 810 ), King of Italy
Adalhaid (774), who was born whilst her parents were on campaign in Italy. She was sent back to Francia, but died before reaching Lyons
Rotrude (or Hruodrud) (775-6 June 810 )
Louis (778-20 June 840 ), twin of Lothair, King of Aquitaine since 781, crowned Holy Roman Emperor in 813, senior Emperor from 814
Lothair (778 -6 February 779 /780 ), twin of Louis, he died in infancy[14]
Bertha (779-826)
Gisela (781-808)
Hildegarde (782-783)

His third wife was Fastrada , married 784, died 794. By her he had:
Theodrada (b.784), abbess of Argenteuil
Hiltrude (b.787)
His fourth wife was Luitgard , married 794, died childless

Concubinages and illegitimate children
His first known concubine was Gersuinda . By her he had:
Adaltrude (b.774)
His second known concubine was Madelgard . By her he had:
Ruodhaid (775-810), abbess of Faremoutiers
His third known concubine was Amaltrud of Vienne . By her he had:
Alpaida (b.794)
His fourth known concubine was Regina . By her he had:
Drogo (801-855), Bishop of Metz from 823 and abbot of Luxeuil Abbey
Hugh (802-844), archchancellor of the Empire
His fifth known concubine was Ethelind . By her he had:
Richbod (805-844), Abbott of Saint-Riquier
Theodoric (b. 807)

  Noted events in his life were:

• Acceded: as Emperor of the West & King of Franks, 768.

• Acceded: as King of the Lombards, 774.

• Crowned: Holy Roman Emperor, 25 Dec 800.

Charlemagne married Hildegard of Vinzgouw, daughter of Gerold of Swabia, Count in Linzgau, Prefect in Bavaria and Emma of Allemania, before 30 Apr 771 in Aix-la-Chapelle (Aachen), Rhineland, Prussia (Germany). (Hildegard of Vinzgouw was born about 758 in Aix-la-Chapelle (Aachen), Rhineland, Prussia (Germany), died on 30 Apr 783 in Thionville, (Moselle, Lorraine), Austrasia (France) and was buried in Abbaye de St. Arnoul, Metz, (Moselle, Lorraine), Austrasia (France).)

Charlemagne next had a relationship with Himiltrude.

Charlemagne next married Desiderata in 770.

Charlemagne next married Fastrade in 784. (Fastrade died in 794.)

Charlemagne next married Luitgard in 794.