At the head of the Franks as mayor of the palace from 741, and as king from 752, Pepin had completed in France and extended in Italy the work which his father, Charles Martel, had begun and carried on, from 714 to 741, in state and church.  He left France reunited in one and placed at the head of Christian Europe.  He died at the monastery of St. Denis, September 18, 768, leaving his kingdom and his dynasty thus ready to the hands of his son, whom history has dubbed Charlemagne.

CAREER OF CHARLEMAGNE

A.D. 772-814

FRANCOIS P.G.  GUIZOT

In Charles, the son of Pepin the Short, later known as Charlemagne, or Charles the Great, the Carlovingians saw the culminating glory of their line, while in French history the splendor of his name outshines that of all other rulers.  It seemed an act of fate that his brother and joint heir to the Frankish kingdom should die and leave the monarchy wholly in his hands, for his genius was to prove equal to its field of action.

The kingdom which Charlemagne inherited was great in extent, lying mainly between the Loire and the Rhine, including Alemannia and Burgundy, while his sphere of influence—­to use the modern phrase—­covered many provinces and districts over which his rule was wholly or in part acknowledged—­Aquitaine, Bavaria, Brittany, Frisia, Thuringia, and others.

To enlarge still further the bounds of his kingdom was the task to which the young monarch at once addressed himself, and upon which he entered with all the advantages of family prestige, a commanding and engaging personality, proven courage and skill in war, as well as talent and accomplishments in civil affairs.

The central purpose of Charlemagne, to the service of which all his policies and his conduct were directed, was the maintenance of the Christian religion as embodied in the Western Church, whose great champion he became, and in that character occupies his lofty place in the history of Europe and of the world.  At this period the two great powers in the Christian world were the Roman pontiff and the Frankish king; and when, on Christmas Day, A.D. 800, Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne emperor of the Romans, and in the Holy Roman Empire restored the Western Empire, extinct since 476, he welded church and state in what long proved to be indissoluble bonds, somewhat—­it must be added—­to the chagrin of the Byzantine emperors of the Eastern Roman Empire at Constantinople.  This was an event the significance of which only later times could learn to estimate.  The Holy Roman Empire henceforth held a leading part in the world’s affairs, the influence of which is still active in the survivals of its power among nations.

Charlemagne served the Church and fulfilled his own purposes through the military subjugation