Martel and Pippin III enjoyed close relations with clergy
and identifi ed with religious reform. The prologue to
the mid-eighth-century revision of the Salic Law un-
abashedly depicted the Franks as God’s new Chosen
People. Within this tradition Charles enacted religious
reforms and promoted Christianity as vigorously as
he waged war and managed his kingdom. He drew
talented churchmen to his court as advisers, many of
whom he was able to place strategically in bishoprics
and monasteries throughout his realm. These church-
men often performed important political duties as well.
Court scholars honored Charles’s patronage of their
work by calling him David after the biblical king. In
religious matters, however, Charles modeled himself
on Johiah, the Hebrew king who undertook a root and
branch reform of Israel based on biblical precepts. His
great reform capitulary, the Admonitio Generalis of 789,
outlines the king’s blueprint for a biblically based soci-
ety. With the biblical kings of old, Charles confi dently
determined religious policy and used his court to defi ne
religious orthodoxy in the West, especially opposing
Spanish views on the nature of Christ and Byzantine
views of images in worship.
The centrality of the Bible in Carolingian political
culture sparked reform in education and stimulated liter-
ary culture. During Charles’s reign political authority in
a massive, sustained, and visible way promoted intel-
lectual culture as essential to the well-being of society.
Charles’s patronage attracted the leading scholars of
Europe to his court, often non-Franks such as the Anglo-
Saxon Alcuin, the Visigoth Theodulf, the Italian Peter of
Pisa, and the Irishman Dungal. Alcuin, who enjoyed a
close personal relationship with Charles, played an es-
pecially signifi cant role in establishing a new pedagogy
and in training Frankish students to serve as “soldiers
of Christ” in the parishes, cathedrals, and monasteries
of Carolingian Europe. Charles interacted comfortably
with his court scholars, admired Augustine’s City of
God, spoke Latin fl uently, and was particularly inter-
ested in astronomy and time reckoning. In their pursuit
of biblical wisdom as a guide for the reform of their
society, Carolingian scholars produced a more legible
form of Latin script, Carolingian minuscule. In their
efforts to improve learning in Latin and the liberal arts
as a stepping-stone to more profound comprehension of
sacred wisdom, they copied Roman texts that might oth-
erwise have perished. Carolingian masters and students
composed the fi rst audience to systematically read and
interpret the works of the Christian church fathers. In
their numerous commentaries, technical schoolbooks,
theological, philosophical, and political treatises, his-
tories, poetry, and letters, they attempted to integrate
secular learning and sacred wisdom in the services of
Carolingian society. The emergence of controversy
and debate on fundamental theological, philosophical,
political, and legal issues testifi es to the sophistication
and originality of the new culture. Charles’s patronage
and the wealth fl owing into the hands of aristocrats
and ecclesiastics also stimulated artistic production in
the form of metalwork, elaborate book covers, jewelry,
crystal, ivory carving, painting, and manuscript illumi-
nation. Some six hundred new buildings went up in the
Carolingian realms, including cathedrals, monasteries,
and palace complexes at Aachen and Paderborn.
On December 25, 800, Pope Leo III (795–816)
crowned Charles emperor in Rome. Charles’s continent-
wide conquests and strong leadership certainly justifi ed
the title, but contemporary sources are unclear about the
meaning of the coronation and modern scholars continue
to debate its signifi cance. Not even the participants
seemed fully aware of the implication of the revival of
the imperial title in the West. Certainly the coronation
was not a surprise, as Einhard reported, since Charles’s
circle in the late 790s had already begun to describe
him in imperial terms. Charles had come to Rome to
rescue the city from his political enemies. The pope
no doubt saw conferral of the imperial title as a means
to draw Charles even closer to the see of St. Peter and
to forge new links with a Western emperor to replace
the fractured links with the emperor in Constantinople.
“David” was to become Constantine. Again, Rome was
disappointed in the new arrangement since Charles
dominated the Roman church as he had the church to
the north of the Alps. The great programmatic Capitulary
of 802 defi ning an imperial Christian political culture
for Europe was crafted in Aachen, not Rome. What the
imperial offi ce meant to the relationship between pope
and emperor, religion and politics, would be debated for
centuries to come. For Charles the emperorship was a
personal honor. When in 806 he outlined the future divi-
sion of the empire among his legitimate sons, Charles,
Pippin, and Louis, the question of the imperial title
was ignored. In 813, with two of his three heirs dead,
Charles bestowed the title on Louis without benefi t of
papal consultation or approval.
The division of 806 and Louis’s coronation in 813
were the actions of a man contemplating his last years.
Charles died on January 28, 814 at Aachen and was
buried there. His long reign strengthened the power of
his family in Europe, entrenched warrior-aristocrats as
partners with kings in governing, promoted a distinctly
European Christian religion and culture, defi ned a new
sacral kingship, and revived the ambiguous ideology of
empire. More than anything, Charles consolidated the
fundamental elements of an emerging European identity
that late generations would refi ne and burnish.
See also Charles Martel; Einhard; Hadrian I, Pope;
Louis the Pious; PepinCHARLEMAGNE (747–814)