Charlemagne

Charlemagne, whose real name was Charles and adopt the word le Magne to describe him as great. He had little book learning; he tried in his old age to learn writing, but never quite succeeded. Charlemagne was obsessed with the Roman Empire and wanted to be one of Roman's empire. He was appointed by the Pope as the church protector, which he always did first. Charlemagne build programs to support scholarship and education. Charlemagne expended the Carolingian Empire by massive territorial expansion. Charlemagne began his acquisition by first invading Italy, and gain control of the Lombard Kings. After capturing northern Italy he moved to battle against the Saxons. The fighting took over thirty-years, but Charlemagne was triumph and converted the Saxon people to Christianity by having large baptisms at point of sword. While battling the Saxons, Charlemagne began a campaigned against the Avars, who at once had fought the Byzantines. To continue his expansion, he concentrated to the southeast that leads to al-Andalus. Here was he suffered his first defeat, and was face to set-up a military buffer region between al-Andalus and his own kingdom. The region controlled by Charlemagne during the 790,s was huge, whose stretched eastward to the Saale river, southeast to what is now know Austria, and south to Spain and Italy. To centralize his power he built a capital city at Aachen, which had a church. Charlemagne began to focus on reviving the Christian and classical learning. Charlemagne was a brilliant man, and to discourage corruption, he appointed special officials called missi dominici ("those set out by the lord king) to watch his governors and had the power to manipulate the law.

Charlemagne's successors discontinue the tradition and ended up breaking the empire into different countries. The first was his son Louis the Pious who took the protector of church more seriously. He has three kids and married Ermengard, who died. After remarrying a powerful women Judith and had more sons. At the end the brothers, which included Charles, Pippin, fought each other and ending splitting the kijngdom. The kingdom to which today is France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxenbourg, and Switzerland. By this time the empire of Charlemagne was used in history books.