On Christmas Day in the year 800, in St. Peter's basilica in Rome, Pope Leo III placed a crown on the head of a Frankish king named Charles — and, without quite meaning to, invented Europe. The coronation revived the idea of a Western empire three centuries after Rome's fall, and the continent has been arguing about its meaning ever since.
Aachen ★ Verdun Rome the Pyrenees the Elbe Greatest extent — stylized map 768 King of the Franks 800 Crowned emperor 814 Zenith 843 Treaty of Verdun 887 Charles the Fat deposed 888 Empire breaks Rise · zenith · fall The rise Charles — Charlemagne — had been king of the Franks since 768, and he spent three decades making the title real. He crushed the Lombards in Italy, ground down the Saxons in a thirty-year war, and smashed the Avars of the Danube basin, seizing a treasure so vast it took fifteen wagons to carry away. By 800 he ruled from the Pyrenees to the Elbe, and his power dwarfed the pope's — which is precisely why the pope crowned him.
