Charlemagne (c.748–814) — Charles the Great — was the Frankish king who reunited most of Western Europe for the first time since Rome, and was crowned Emperor of the Romans by Pope Leo III on Christmas Day 800, founding an imperial tradition that would endure for a thousand years.
His forty-six-year reign doubled the Frankish realm, forced the conversion of the Saxons at swordpoint, and launched the Carolingian Renaissance — a revival of learning, law and art centered on his palace at Aachen. The French call him Charlemagne; the Germans call him Karl der Große; both claim him as a founding father.
