cHarlegmanye 768 to 814 leaves lasting and imp legacy in a bunch of diff ways cult religious mil social etc one of the keys to his success was his ability as a military leader he survived potential conflict with his brother bc his brother died b4 civil war was sparked his first great conquest was in North east in Saxony these guys are Pagans in 772 charlegmane made this a way of conquest and conversion est and imposed Christianity on the Saxons took him 30 years to defeat saxons and defeat them and convert them then priests come and build churches then Saxons revolt and then preists revive and we see this cycle for 30 years he also has attention in SouthEast where there is a Hun capitol there and he got very wealthy from this Charlemagne also invaded Italy in order to protect the pope from the Lombards and to defeat the Lombard Kings and then Char made himself the King of the Lombards so that he would have an official legal status in Italy in 778 he fought the Muslims in Spain wasn t too successful bc muslims that brought him in didn t give him much help and then the Saxons are revolting again so Charlemagne has to leave as Char is leaving a lot of his army is sacked by ppl living in mnts between france and spain he spreads Christianity his wars help exapand Ch religion he did this because its what Kings to do conquest means more and land money and power and it also brought him happy soldiers bc the soldiers are getting paid it makes sense to fight for another reason too Char going from palace to palace and he builds great palace complex Germany almost touching Belgium with a chapel which was inspired by northern itallian late roman models and he we have the interior of Charlemagnes chapel with late roman styles in his Church we have Jesus portrayed as the great king of kings and ruler of all and great judge of the end of time Charlemagne makes it seem like on top is Jesus and on bottom is people and mid way b w these two is himself that s where he understands his position on Earth to be he sawhimself as God s representative on Earth char was crowned and anointed with holy oil when crowned he stood on earth to defend God s Church and you see this in his conquests drive by religious responsibility good king to God he created new office of judge by issuing a series of laws called the capitularies means chapter designed to improve organization in the Kingdom better econ and law he appointed counts as his local country representatives and make sure there was justice everywhere to make sure counts and judges doing their work he appointed the Micci dominici messengers of the lord King 2 of them and they were sent out in order to make sure judges are acting fairly and that the counts were administrating the right way micci made sure kingdom was being run well Char reformed kingdom and made many captiullaires to help church and defend it from external enemies and internal weaknesses he made reforms to better the lives of priests and informing priests that they knew how to preach nor should have wives or mistresses and that they had to behold their responsibility he was motivated by sense of resp to God he believed he was Gods chosen representative a new David almost personal resp by him to provide his subjects the means to get to heaven he believed that it was essential for Ch s in his kingdom to know the lords prayer and the apostle creed rules of Ch to teach his ppl he needs teachers Alcuin late 8th and early 9th a learned man and he was good friends with Char Alcuin was from GB and Char welcomed many great scholars from all over world like Italy and Spain we need teachers and we need books so the Carolingians wrote books Alcuin and others brought books with them and they copied these books foundation of Carolingian Renaissance Char desire to teach basic prinicples to his subjects inspired this Ren and is personified by Al and books others show up with copies of the Bible copies of St Augustine and Jerome and Gregory the Great use these books to raise level of learning in Carolingian world as a greater conversion of the empire to Chr showed up with these books copied an studied this books Car Ren began as a move to strengthen Ch in the kingdom but it led to an increase in study and book prediction and the illumination decoration of these books Caro art they made fancy covered books with many pictures in them and here we see great example of how German Ch and Roman cultures come together Matthew is a Ch but his model in writing his divine revelation is based on pre Ch Roman artistic models the decorations you see could be quite lavish sometimes used gold for covers gospels are in the form of ancient roman scribes but here we can see artistic abilities of Caro and see importance of books reminds us how imp books were to the Caro and the great range of Ch works were copied and preserved for future gens by Caro it wasn t just ancient Ch writers Roman writers too like Cicero greatest Roman latin stylist Caro went to ancient romans to learn how to write well so Caro saved ancient Roman writings for future generations Caros overtime became confident and they wrote books themselves too in elegant way invented new alphabet that formed the basis Caro wrote biogrophaies and works of hist saints lives poetry bio on Char secular and church law works of theology shows great sophistaction of writers and goes back to Char s want to spread Ch wich called upon abbotts to teach boys Leo III 795 816 after election to Pope hes attacked on streets and thrown into prison for corruption allegations some of Char men quickly took him to Char palace where he regained powers of sight and speech and so he defended himself and criticized his attackers and Char a year later makes his way to Rome and in 800 Char holds a huge court proceeding and Leo swears his innocence char agrees and then Char puts penalty on his attackers Char then decides to hang out in Rome and celebrate Christmas there then he makes his way to Church where Leo crowns him a Roman Emperor 800 then Char laid foundation for Holy roman Empire exists until 1806 also in order to be emp you need to be crowned by Pope this is the new standard this moment testifies to Char s greatness as a rule Char succeeded by his son Lewis ruled til 840 lewis had not 1 not 2 but 3 major problems his 3 sons in late 820 s Lewis faced revolts by his sons which undermined authority of empire and this led to open civil war btw Lothar Lewis the German and Charles the