Background
Charlemagne was the son of Pepin, who died in 768. In Latin his name is Carolus Magnus. He was not only a good warrior, but he was smart as well. He was very successful in expanding the Carolingian Empire.
Expansion of the Carolingian Empire
The Franks had a small army, but they still had trouble getting around. Charlemagne overtook the Lombards in 773 in Italy. After that, he went to Spain and was unsuccessful. The Basques were able to attack while they were traveling through the Pyrenees. Even though he didn't have success there, he did defeat the Saxons in Germany near the Elbe River. The Saxons didn't go down without a fight, however. They forced Charlemagne to go through 18 campaigns in order to convert everyone to Christianity and to take control.He also fought against and defeated the Bavarians in 787. Charlemagne had expanded the empire tremendously.
Governing the Empire
Charlemagne used the large estates in order to get goods like food. He also convinced the noblemen to keep helping him by offering them land to have for their life. There were counts who helped to represent the king throughout the empire and were normally Merovingian. The Merovingian royal line began to fade away though. Charlemagne also wanted the counts' powers to be limited. He required them to be moved frequently and to have to serve far from home. He also used the miss dominici, who were messengers that made sure the counts were doing their job. The government was not efficient, and things didn't run well because of the size of the empire. The Catholic Church during this time was starting to fade away. The positions were left open, with many people not even knowing how to do their job.
Charlemagne as Emperor
Charlemagne did become very powerful to the point of becoming the emperor of the Romans. The papacy had a very close relationship with the Franks. The papacy began to migrate towards the Frankish kingdom and farther away from the Byzantine empire. Pope Leo III got away from Rome and fled to Charlemagne. Charlemagne helped him and was therefore loved by many of the Romans. It was the Christmas in 800 when Charlemagne was declared emperor.
The Significance of Charlemagne
There is not much known of the topic of that moment, and there are many things in question about that event. He had a biographer named Einhard who said that Charlemagne was no happy with what the pope did by declaring him emperor. There were some benefits like the fact that Charlemagne was now as powerful as the Byzantine emperor and that he now had a good relationship with the papacy. This coronation mixed together German, Roman, and Christian. Charlemagne was a very important figure in the spread of a Christian kingdom, and he helped with much of Europe's future foundation.