State · 25 December 800 CE
Charlemagne crowned emperor
Old St Peter's Basilica, Rome (Italy)
Charlemagne, king of the Franks from 768 and of the Lombards from 774, conquered Saxony, Bavaria, northern Italy and part of northern Spain, uniting most of Western and Central Europe. On Christmas Day 800 Pope Leo III crowned him emperor in Rome.
From his palace at Aachen he sponsored a revival of learning, the Carolingian Renaissance, led by scholars such as Alcuin of York, whose scribes spread the clear Carolingian minuscule handwriting.
Why it mattered
Carolingian copyists made the earliest surviving copies of many Latin classics, including Cicero, Horace and Lucretius, and Charlemagne's lasting influence on the continent has earned him the title 'Father of Europe'.
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