CHARLEMAGNE, KARL DER Gnoss, or Charles the Great, sot of Pepin be Bref, king of the Franks, and of Bertha, daughter o Caribert, count of Leon, and grandson of Charles Martel, was bort about 742 in the castle of Salzburg in Bavaria, a country which Pepit had conquered, as well as part of Saxony. Pepin died in 768, mac Charles and Karlomann, his eons, succeeded to the vast dominions o the Franks. Charles had Austrasia and Neustria, with part o Germany ; Karlomann had Burgundy and South Gaul. Karlomanr died in 771, leaving two infant sons, but Charles possessed himself of his dominions; and Karlomann's widow, with her children, tool refuge at the court of Desiderius, king of the Longobards. Charles was now sovereign of the whole Frankish monarchy, which extended not only over the present France, but also over nearly one-half of Germany. The Franks were still, in a great measure, a Germar nation; and the native language of Charles was a dialect of the Ten. tonic. In 772 Charles began his wars against the Saxons, which continued with various interruptions till 803. Witikind, the principal chief of the Saxons, a cunning and brave barbarian, gave him full employment for many years. The Saxons were Pagans, and Charles and his Franks seem to have felt little scruple in maasacreing them by thousands, even after they had laid down their arms. In 774 Charles being applied to by Pope Adrian I. against Desiderius, king of the Longobards, who threatened Rome, hastened from Germany tc Italy, crossed the Alps by the peas of Susa, defeated Desiderius at Pavia, and took him prisoner. He assumed the crown of Lombardy, and confirmed Pepin's donation of the Exarchate of Ravenna and the Pentapolis to the Pope, who on his part acknowledged Charles as Patrician of Rome and Suzerain of Italy, with the right of confirming the election of the popes. In 775 Charles proceeded again to Germany against the Saxons. In the following year he returned to Italy to quell some insurrections; in 773 he went to Spain against the Sara cens, and conquered part of Catalonia, Aragon, and Navarre ; but on recrossing the Pyrenees, his rear guard was defeated at Roncesvallea by the Vascones and the Saracens united. Several nobles of Charles's court fell on that day, among whom was Roland, warden of the borders of Brittany, 'Prmfectus Brittannici Limenis,' who has become the hero of many a romantic tale. In 780 Witikind having defeated several bodies of Franks, Charles found it necessary to visit Germany again in person ; and after several sanguinary campaigns, Witikind was obliged to submit and receive baptism. The alternative of death or Christianity was held out to thousands of the Saxons, who gene rally preferred the latter; and Charles, by transplanting whole colonies of them into remote parts of Franco or Italy, broke their strength.
Tassilo, duke of Bavaria, a feudatory of the Frankish monarchs, having assisted or connived at Witikind's incursions, Charles invaded Bavaria, and brought the duke before the •diet of the great lords assembled at Ingelheim, where Tassilo was found guilty of treason and condemned to death. Charles spared his life, but bad him con fined in a convent in 794. As for Witikind lie lived the rest of his days in peace, on his domains in the north of Germany, and his posterity is said to be perpetuated in the House of Oldenburg, the stock of the present reigning houses of Denmark and Russia.
In the year 800 Charles being victorious everywhere, and master of the best part of Europe, visited Rome, where he was solemnly er6wned Emperor of the West by Pope Leo III., with the title of Carolus I. Caesar Augustus. He was called by the historians Carolus Magnus, from which the French have made Charlemagne; German writers call him Karl der Gross. Nicepborua I., emperor of Con stantinople, sent an embassy to Charles by which be acknowledged him Emperor of the West, with the title of Augustus, defining at the same time the limits between the two empires, which seem to have been the Raab in Hungary, and the mountains of Carniola down to the Gulf of Istria; and in Italy, the old boundary between the duchy of Benevento, and the Greek possessions in Apulia and Magna Grecia. Charlemagne bad therefore Germany, the Netherlands, the Gauls, the greater part of Italy and Spain as far as the Ebro, with the Balearic Islands, Corsica, and Sardinia. From the Ebro to the mouth of the Elbe, from the Atlantic to the mountains of Bohemia and the Raab, and from the British Channel to the Volturno—was the extent of his dominions. He was on good terms with the Saxon kings of Britain. The kalifs of Baghdad sent embassies to him. Bohemia, which was then inhabited by Slavonian tribes, he never subjugated. About 807 or 803, the first mention occurs in history of the Normans and Danes making descents on the coast of France. Charlemagne seems to have felt the danger of this new enemy, for he took great pains to fortify the extensive coast-line of his dominions; be stationed armed vessels in every harbour, and made Boulogne one of his principal naval stations. In 813 Charlemagne named his third eon Louis, called after wards Louis he Ddbonnaire, his colleague in the empire. He had lost his two elder sons, Pepin and Charles; but he appointed Bernard, the son of Charles, king of Italy. In January 814, Charlemagne died of pleurisy at Aix-la-Chapelle after a reign of forty-seven years. He was buried with great pomp in the cathedral at Aix-la-Chapelle.