110 Fun Facts About Charlemagne

Who was Charlemagne's father?

Pepin the Short. Already the real ruler of the Franks, he had the last Merovingian king deposed in 751 and became the first Frankish king to be anointed.

Which grandfather of Charlemagne won the Battle of Tours in 732?

Charles Martel. He was never king, yet he ruled the whole Frankish realm while its kings reigned in name only, and his byname Martel means 'the hammer'.

What does the name Charlemagne mean, from the French?

Charles the Great. The name is the French form of the Latin Carolus Magnus, and Charles itself goes back to a Germanic word, Karl, that meant simply 'man'.

Charlemagne's name became the word for 'king' in which language family?

Slavic. Russian korol', Polish król and Slovak kráľ all go back to Karl, just as Caesar's name gave German its Kaiser and Russian its tsar.

Before taking the crown, Charlemagne's father ruled as what?

Mayor of the palace. The office had eclipsed the figurehead Merovingian kings, and in 751 Charlemagne's father dropped the pretence, had the last of them deposed and took the crown himself.

Which last Merovingian king did Charlemagne's father depose in 751 or 752 to take the throne himself?

Childeric III was shut away in the monastery of Saint-Bertin, and the pope later crossed the Alps to anoint the new king in person.

With which brother did Charlemagne share the Frankish kingdom from 768 until 771?

Carloman died suddenly in December 771; his widow fled with their sons to the Lombard court, and Charlemagne took the whole kingdom.

Which Lombard king did Charlemagne depose in 774 after the siege of Pavia?

Desiderius had been Charlemagne's father-in-law until the Frank sent his daughter home; after Pavia fell he lived out his days in a monastery.

What became of Charlemagne's nephews, his late brother's sons, after he captured Verona in 774?

Their fate is unknown: the boys and their mother vanish from the record once Verona fell, and historians suspect a monastery, a common end for unwanted heirs.

What pagan Saxon monument did Charlemagne destroy at Eresburg in 772?

The Irminsul, a sacred pillar or tree trunk, fell in the raid that opened more than thirty years of near-continuous war with the Saxons.

Which Saxon leader fled to Denmark in 777 and resisted Charlemagne until his baptism in 785?

Widukind was baptised with Charlemagne himself standing as godfather, which ended that phase of the Saxon Wars.

The annals say Charlemagne had 4,500 Saxon rebels beheaded in 782 at which town?

Verden. A Saxon revolt had just beaten a Frankish army; when Charlemagne marched in, the Saxons submitted and handed over the men blamed for it themselves.

What did Charlemagne's Capitulatio de partibus Saxoniae prescribe for Saxons who refused baptism?

The death penalty covered even eating meat in Lent, though anyone who confessed to a priest and did penance could be spared.

At which pass in the Pyrenees was Charlemagne's rearguard ambushed by Basques in 778?

Roncevaux. The Basques wiped out the rearguard to the last man, plundered the baggage train and slipped away under cover of night.

Which medieval epic poem grew out of the ambush of Charlemagne's rearguard in 778?

The Song of Roland, written some three centuries later, turns the Basque ambushers into a Saracen army and a border skirmish into a heroic last stand.

Which first cousin of Charlemagne, Duke of Bavaria, was deposed and sent to a monastery in 788?

Tassilo was accused of plotting with the Avars, stripped of his duchy and shut in a monastery, and Bavaria was absorbed into the Frankish kingdom.

Which sidelined son of Charlemagne plotted in 792 to assassinate his father and brothers?

Pepin the Hunchback was betrayed before he could strike; his fellow plotters were punished, and he was tonsured and sent to the monastery of Prüm.

On what day was Charlemagne crowned emperor in St Peter's Basilica?

Christmas Day 800. Two days earlier the pope had sworn an oath clearing himself of the charges his Roman enemies had brought against him.

Which pope crowned Charlemagne emperor?

Leo III had been attacked in Rome in 799 by enemies who tried to cut out his eyes and tongue, and had fled north to Charlemagne for protection.

Charlemagne was the first reigning emperor in the West since the deposition of whom in 476?

Romulus Augustulus was a boy-emperor whom the general Odoacer deposed and sent into retirement; Charlemagne's crowning left two rival emperors, in the West and at Constantinople.

According to his biographer, Charlemagne said he would never have done what had he known the pope planned to crown him?

Entered the church. Historians still argue over whether the remark is true or a biographer's device to show the new emperor's humility.

Which Byzantine empress, who had blinded her own son, did Charlemagne reportedly propose to?

Irene's match with Charlemagne, reported by the chronicler Theophanes, came to nothing: her own officials deposed her in 802 and exiled her to Lesbos.

To win Byzantine recognition as emperor, Charlemagne gave up his claim to which Adriatic city?

Venice. His son, the king of Italy, had brought it under Frankish rule; once the claim was dropped, Byzantine envoys hailed Charlemagne as emperor at his own court in 812.

Which Abbasid caliph exchanged envoys with Charlemagne in the 790s?

Harun al-Rashid and Charlemagne had rivals in common: the Umayyad emirate in Spain and the Byzantine Empire, with which the caliph was at war.

Which animal, named Abul-Abbas, reached Charlemagne's court in 802 as a gift from the Abbasid caliph?

An elephant. Charlemagne had asked the caliph for one himself; Abul-Abbas wintered in Italy, crossed the Alps and lived until 810.

Which Jerusalem shrine did the Abbasid caliph place under Charlemagne's nominal rule?

The Holy Sepulchre. His biographer says the caliph made the site over to him, and Charlemagne's agents later surveyed the Holy Land's churches to work out the funds they needed.

Which single Latin word did Charlemagne's council of 809 defend adding to the Creed?

Filioque, meaning 'and the Son'. The pope accepted the teaching but refused to alter the Creed, and displayed it in Rome on two silver shields without the word.

Charlemagne's palace chapel was modelled on San Vitale, a church in which Italian city?

Ravenna. Charlemagne's builders copied the eight-sided church and hauled marble columns north from Ravenna and Rome because none good enough could be found nearer.

Which scholar did Charlemagne recruit in 781 to direct learning at his court?

Alcuin of York headed the most renowned centre of learning in England when the king met him in Italy and talked him into coming; his pupils at court included Charlemagne himself.

Which script, developed under Charlemagne, went on to influence Renaissance and modern typefaces?

Monastic scriptoria produced an estimated 90,000 manuscripts in the 9th century.

What were Charlemagne's travelling royal inspectors, sent out in pairs of one cleric and one layman, called?

Missi dominici, 'envoys of the lord', rode set circuits to check on local counts; the 802 law that paired them also made every free man swear loyalty to Charlemagne.

Which Frankish courtier wrote the Vita Karoli Magni, modelled on Suetonius?

Einhard knew the emperor well in his later years, yet admitted that nobody alive could tell him anything about Charlemagne's birth or boyhood.

According to his biographer, Charlemagne's height was seven times the length of what?

His own foot. A 2010 scan of his shin bone agreed he was tall, about 1.84 metres, but suggested a slim frame, not the heavy build his biographer described.

According to his biographer, which natural feature drew Charlemagne to the site of his favourite palace?

Hot springs. A strong swimmer, he bathed in them with his sons, nobles and bodyguards, sometimes a hundred or more men at once.

How did Charlemagne's look break with the long-haired Merovingian kings before him?

Short hair and a moustache. His coins show him cropped like a Roman emperor; the flowing beard of later statues and stained glass was an invention of the centuries after him.

Which of Charlemagne's wives, mother of Louis and Pepin of Italy, died in 783 after her final pregnancy?

Hildegard came from a great Swabian family, and marrying her in 771 won Charlemagne allies in his late brother's lands; she bore him nine children in eleven years.

His biographer says Charlemagne kept tablets under his pillow to practise which skill, with little success?

Writing. He began too late in life to train his hand to form the letters, although he spoke Latin as easily as his native tongue.

What did Charlemagne never allow any of his daughters to do?

Marry. His biographer says he could not bear to part with them, so they stayed at court, where several had children out of wedlock anyway.

Which Anglo-Saxon king agreed a formal peace with Charlemagne in 796, protecting trade and English pilgrims?

Offa had quarrelled with Charlemagne around 790, and for a time trade between their kingdoms stopped; the peace of 796 put English merchants under the Frank's protection.

King Gudfred, murdered by his own men in 810 as Charlemagne marched against him, ruled which people?

The Danes. Gudfred had boasted he would fight the emperor in the field; after his murder his successor made peace with the Franks at once.

Which city did Charlemagne's son Louis capture from the Emirate of Córdoba in 801?

Barcelona became the stronghold of the Spanish March, the Frankish buffer zone south of the Pyrenees from which Catalonia later grew.

Charlemagne's Divisio Regnorum of 806 split his realm among three sons but left out who would inherit what?

The imperial title. The gap closed itself: by 811 two of the three sons had died, and in 813 Charlemagne made the survivor co-emperor.

Which sword, by legend Charlemagne's own, was carried at the coronations of French kings?

Joyeuse, 'the joyful', now hangs in the Louvre, though experts date its blade anywhere from Charlemagne's century to the 13th.

Which illness killed Charlemagne in January 814 after a week in bed with fever?

Pleurisy, a pain in the side on top of his fever. He fasted through the illness, eating nothing and taking only an occasional drink.

What were Charlemagne's recorded last words?

"Into your hands, Lord, I commend my spirit" echoes Christ's dying words in Luke's Gospel; Charlemagne is said to have chanted the verse softly as he died, after taking a last communion.

Which Holy Roman Emperor exhumed Charlemagne in 1165 and had an antipope declare him a saint?

Frederick Barbarossa had his antipope Paschal III canonise Charlemagne for political ends; Rome never ratified the act, though it let a local cult carry on.

Which 843 agreement divided Charlemagne's empire among his grandsons into West, East and Middle Francia?

The Treaty of Verdun ended three years of open war between the three brothers; the western and eastern kingdoms it created grew into France and Germany.

Which East Frankish king revived Charlemagne's empire as the Holy Roman Empire in 962?

Otto the Great was crowned emperor in Rome in 962; the empire he founded outlived him by more than eight centuries, until Napoleon's wars ended it in 1806.

By what title is Charlemagne often known to historians?

The Father of Europe. He was hailed as 'pater Europae' in his own lifetime, and the title has made him a modern symbol of European integration.

Which name is given to the twelve legendary knights of Charlemagne's court?

The Paladins. A paladin was at first a real palatinus, a court official; the romances turned the word into a knight.

His biographer says Charlemagne loved hearing which work by St Augustine read aloud at dinner?

The City of God. Its picture of a society ordered by faith shaped how he and his advisers saw kingship: an office given by God to carry out a divine plan.

Charlemagne is counted among which group of exemplary heroes fixed in medieval art and literature?

The Nine Worthies mix history and legend: Charlemagne, a real emperor, is one of their three Christian heroes beside the legendary King Arthur.

According to his biographer, Charlemagne gave new Frankish names to which of these?

The months of the year. January became Wintarmanoth, 'winter month', and he went on to give the winds twelve Frankish names as well, where only four had been in use.

Which Protestant reformer criticised Charlemagne for accepting his crown from the pope?

Calvin, by contrast, saw him as a forerunner of the Reformation for condemning image-worship in the Libri Carolini.

Which Enlightenment thinker praised Charlemagne for balancing the orders of the state and shielding freemen from the nobles?

Montesquieu wrote in The Spirit of the Laws that Charlemagne marched his nobles from one campaign to the next so that they had no time to form conspiracies.

Which 787 church council, held without any Frankish bishops, did Charlemagne's scholars attack in the Libri Carolini?

The Second Council of Nicaea restored the veneration of icons with the pope's approval, so the rebuttal from Charlemagne's court set him against Rome as well as Constantinople.

Which city, Charlemagne's capital and burial place, was the first major German city to fall to the Allies in 1944?

Aachen. Hitler ordered the city of Charlemagne held at all costs, and it fell to American troops only after bitter street fighting.

For which great-grandson of Charlemagne did a monk of St Gall write the anecdote-filled Gesta Karoli Magni?

Charles the Fat visited the abbey of St Gall in December 883, and the monk's book of stories about his great-grandfather was written for him in the years that followed.

Which Lombard duchy in southern Italy did Charlemagne threaten in 787 until Duke Arechis offered hostages and fealty?

Benevento. Arechis handed over his son Grimoald as a hostage; when Charlemagne later sent Grimoald home to rule, he soon turned against the Franks himself.

Charlemagne's Admonitio generalis of 789 ordered every monastery and cathedral to set up what?

A school. Boys were to learn reading, chant and grammar there, so that future priests could understand the scriptures and copy them from correct texts.

In the traditional Paris pattern of French playing cards, which court card is named after Charlemagne?

The King of Hearts carries his name in the Paris pattern, where the king of diamonds is Julius Caesar and the king of clubs is Alexander.

Which veteran English actor sang the part of Charlemagne on two heavy metal concept albums late in life?

Christopher Lee released the second album, The Omens of Death, on his 91st birthday, having already recorded with the metal bands Rhapsody of Fire and Manowar.

Charlemagne's coinage reform counted 240 silver coins to one larger unit, a reckoning which country kept until 1971?

Britain counted twelve pence to the shilling and twenty shillings to the pound until Decimal Day in 1971, and the d in £sd stood for the denarius.

Which microstate's national anthem, El Gran Carlemany, credits Charlemagne with granting the country its independence?

Andorra's anthem retells the legend that Charlemagne won its valleys back from the Moors and freed its people as a reward for guiding his army.

Corton-Charlemagne, a grand cru white wine from a hill Charlemagne once owned, is made in which French region?

Burgundy's Corton hill grows only Chardonnay and Pinot Blanc for this wine, and a 'Clos de Charlemagne' was already being leased there in 1375.

Which British prime minister of the Second World War received the Charlemagne Prize for promoting a united continent?

Winston Churchill was honoured for his defence of freedom and his call to the young to secure the continent's future, joining laureates such as Jean Monnet and Konrad Adenauer.

Charlemagne's biographer says the ageing king resented his doctors for telling him to give up which favourite food?

Roast meat came to his table still on the spit, his favourite of every dish, and he ignored the physicians who wanted him to eat it boiled instead.

In a monk's tale, a bishop teaches Charlemagne to eat the rind of which food, which he then orders by the cartload?

Cheese was all the bishop could serve on a meatless Friday; won over by the rind he had cut away, the king asked for two cartloads a year.

Which timekeeping marvel with mechanical knights did the Abbasid caliph send as a gift to Charlemagne's court?

A water clock from Baghdad marked each hour by dropping bronze balls into a bowl, and Charlemagne's court is said to have taken its sounds for sorcery.

Which modern country grew out of East Francia, the share of Charlemagne's empire that went to his grandson Louis?

Germany began as East Francia, whose first king is remembered as Louis the German; his court was the first to call the whole eastern kingdom East Francia.

Which poet placed Charlemagne among the warriors of the faith in the heaven of Mars?

Dante has these souls form a glowing Greek cross on the planet in his Paradiso, among them the biblical Joshua and the crusader Godfrey of Bouillon.

In the medieval epic of the Pyrenees ambush, what is the name of the famously hard sword of Charlemagne's nephew?

Durendal, in one legend, was hurled away by its dying owner to keep it from the enemy and came to rest in a cliff at Rocamadour in France.

In the medieval epic about the ambush of Charlemagne's rearguard, which knight betrays the Frankish army to its enemies?

Ganelon is the hero's own stepfather in the poem, and he is thought to be modelled on Wenilo, an archbishop who betrayed a later Frankish king.

Charlemagne's Fossa Carolina of 793 was a canal dug to link the Rhine basin with the basin of which river?

The Danube basin lay barely two kilometres away across the watershed in Bavaria, but marshy ground and constant rain kept sliding the spoil back into the ditch.

Which steppe people of the Hungarian plain lost a treasure-filled stronghold called the Ring to Charlemagne's armies?

The Avars had kept the spoils of earlier raids in the Ring, and Charlemagne's biographer marvelled at the gold and silver the Franks carried home.

What name was given to a militarised frontier district of Charlemagne's empire, like the one guarding the Pyrenees?

A march gave its commander wide military powers and a rank above ordinary counts, and the ranks of marquis and marchese began with such border lords.

Which Lombard monk, drawn to Charlemagne's court after the conquest of Italy, wrote the History of the Lombards?

Paul the Deacon first wrote to Charlemagne to plead for his brother, a prisoner after a revolt in Friuli, and stayed on to compile a book of sermons at the king's request.

Within his circle of court scholars, Charlemagne was addressed by the name of which biblical king?

David was the scholars' name for him, a nod to the poet and warrior king of Israel, and the masters and pupils around him traded joking nicknames of their own.

Which relic at Monza, said to hold a nail from the Crucifixion, is tied by tradition to Charlemagne's Lombard kingship?

The Iron Crown is named for the thin band inside its gold circlet, held to be beaten from the nail; later emperors were crowned kings of Italy with it.

Which pope called Charlemagne into Italy against the Lombards in 773 and was later mourned by him as a friend?

Adrian I, also spelled Hadrian, was the pontiff Charlemagne loved most of all his friends; the king is said to have wept at his death as for a brother.

In which Saxon town did Charlemagne shelter the pontiff who fled an attack in Rome in 799 and later made him emperor?

Paderborn hosted the fugitive for three months, and it was during that stay that the plan to make Charlemagne emperor is said to have been settled.

Which Spanish city did Charlemagne besiege for over a month in 778, before the retreat that ended in a mountain ambush?

Zaragoza had been promised to him by rebel governors as an easy prize, but its ruler refused to open the gates and the Franks marched home without it.

Which German city first appears in written records in 794, when Charlemagne gathered a great synod of bishops there?

Frankfurt means 'ford of the Franks', and the bishops who met there condemned the Adoptionist teaching that was then spreading from Spain.

Charlemagne had whose monastic Rule copied and sent out so that monks across his realm would follow one standard?

Saint Benedict's Rule became the pattern for western monasteries, and reforming orders such as the Cistercians and Trappists later claimed to restore it.

Which body of sacred plainsong did Charlemagne spread across his empire in place of the old Gallican rite?

Gregorian chant is named for Pope Gregory I, though scholars doubt he composed it, and Charlemagne pushed it to bind his lands to Roman practice.

Charlemagne's endorsement helped spread which system of numbering years, devised in Rome by the monk Dionysius Exiguus?

Anno Domini dating was worked out in 525 yet was not widely used until the ninth century, after Charlemagne and his successors had taken it up.

Charlemagne's Capitulare de villis laid down detailed rules for the management of which part of his kingdom?

Crown estates had their lands, animals and justice regulated by the text, and a companion document records audits of how real ones were being run.

Which Frankish queen, nicknamed Broadfoot in later legend, was the mother of Charlemagne?

Bertrada of Laon was the first queen of the new dynasty and a diplomat in her own right, travelling to Italy to arrange a Lombard bride for her son.

Which French region takes its name from a kingdom ruled by Charlemagne's descendants named Lothair?

Lorraine keeps the name of Lotharingia, the northern third of the middle kingdom, a land long sandwiched between the western and eastern Frankish realms.

The oldest surviving text in a form of French is an oath sworn by two of Charlemagne's grandsons in which city?

Strasbourg heard each brother swear in the other's tongue, one in early French and one in Old High German, so that both armies could understand.

Which dynasty, begun by a Frankish noble named Hugh in 987, replaced Charlemagne's line on the West Frankish throne?

The Capetians started with Hugh Capet, elected after the last king of Charlemagne's line died, and Hugh himself could claim the emperor as an ancestor.

The medieval Crown of Charlemagne, long used to crown the kings of France, was destroyed during which upheaval?

The French Revolution swept away the crown with much of the regalia; it had probably been made for a grandson of Charlemagne, not for the emperor himself.

The domed central space of Charlemagne's palace chapel, ringed by a sixteen-sided aisle, has which shape?

An octagon rises beneath the dome, a design credited to the architect Odo of Metz, who is known from a single inscription and nothing else.

In a legendary chronicle, which apostle appears to Charlemagne in a dream and urges him to wrest Spain from the Moors?

Saint James sends him to Santiago de Compostela in the tale, which critics read as propaganda for the pilgrim road that leads to the shrine there.

The famous epic about the ambush of Charlemagne's rearguard replaces the real Basque attackers with a vast army of whom?

Saracens numbering 400,000 take the Basques' place in the legend, turning an attack on a baggage train into a clash between Christians and Muslims.

Charlemagne caught his final illness soon after spending the autumn of 813 on which favourite pastime near his palace?

Hunting filled his last autumn even though he was weak with age, and he took to his bed with a high fever the following January.

Charlemagne was probably laid to rest in a reused Roman marble sarcophagus carved with the abduction of which goddess?

Proserpina's return from the underworld may have been read as an image of resurrection; the emperor's bones had left the coffin for a golden shrine by 1215.

The court poet Angilbert, who had children with Charlemagne's daughter Bertha, was nicknamed after which ancient poet?

Homer was the name Angilbert earned for his verse, and his son Nithard went on to record the oaths sworn by Charlemagne's warring grandsons.

Charlemagne and his brother were crowned on the same day in 768 in separate towns; where was Charlemagne's ceremony?

Noyon saw Charlemagne made king on 9 October while his brother was crowned at Soissons, and the two went on to keep separate palaces.

Which Byzantine emperor at last sent envoys to recognise Charlemagne as emperor, years after the coronation in Rome?

Michael I confirmed a peace that the previous emperor had been negotiating when he fell in battle, and Charlemagne soon struck coins naming himself emperor.

Which ruler first united the Frankish tribes under a single throne and was baptised a Catholic around the year 500?

Clovis I turned a cluster of petty kingships into one realm that passed to his heirs, and Charles de Gaulle called him the first king of what would become France.

In which city, later the coronation site of the kings of France, was the first Christian king of the Franks baptised?

Reims kept a flask of holy oil said to have been brought by a white dove for that baptism, and later kings were anointed from it in the cathedral.

The Franks' ancient Salic law was invoked centuries later in France to bar whom from inheriting the throne?

Women were shut out only from ancestral 'Salic land' in the original code; it was hundreds of years before the clause was turned on the succession itself.

The francisca, so typical of Frankish warriors that it shares their name, was what kind of weapon?

A throwing axe with a thick, sharp head, it was hurled on a single signal in the first charge to shatter enemy shields, as the historian Procopius described.

Golden bees found in 1653 in the tomb of an early Frankish king were adopted as the emblem of which later ruler?

Napoleon wanted a symbol older than the royal lily, and the 300 gold insects found on the buried king's cloak at Tournai gave him one.

Which eastern Frankish kingdom, with its capital at Metz, was the original power base of Charlemagne's family?

Austrasia centred on the lands between the Meuse, Moselle and middle Rhine and held the Franks' original territory, unlike Neustria, the newer land to the west.

Which mocking label is given to the last rulers of the Franks' first dynasty, figureheads who had lost all real power?

The do-nothing kings owe their image to Charlemagne's biographer, who pictured them riding to the yearly assembly in a cart drawn by oxen.

The Germanic language spoken by the early Franks is the direct ancestor of which modern language?

Dutch grew out of the Frankish spoken in the Low Countries, while the Franks who settled in Gaul were outnumbered and took up the local Romance speech.

Charlemagne's grandfather halted an invading army of which caliphate between Tours and Poitiers in 732?

The Umayyads had sent the force north under their governor of al-Andalus, Abd al-Rahman al-Ghafiqi, who was killed in the fighting before his army withdrew.

Which abbey near Paris, burial place of French kings, holds the graves of Charlemagne's father and grandfather?

Saint-Denis was made a royal abbey by Dagobert I, and Charlemagne was present in 775 when the rebuilt abbey was consecrated.