Notater |
- Efter faderens bestemmelse skulle Karl dele tronen med broderen Karloman, men da denne døde ung, blev Karl enehersker. Han var stor og stærk (siges at have kunnet rette en hestesko ud med hænderne), var en dygtig rytter og svømmer og en ivrig jæger. Sagde heller ikke nej til kvinder, muntre fester og god mad og drikke.
Men frem for alt var han en fremragende hærfører og administrator. Han var i besiddelse af en stærk vilje, som han rettede mod det ene mål at skabe et stærkt og mægtigt Frankerrige.
På Pavens anmodning om hjælp mod longobarderne drog Karl i 743 med en hær over Alperne og besejrede longobarderne, tog sin tidligere svigerfar til fange og kronede sig selv som Konge af Lombardiet.
I Rom blev Karl kåret til patricier, og byen modtog ham som en redningsmand. I den gamle Peterskirkes krypt svor
konge og pave hinanden evig troskab. Karl lovede at beskytte kirkestatens territorium, og paven at være sin tro beskytters vasal. 772 angreb han sakserne, ødelagde deres gamle helligdom "Irminsul" (verdensaltets søjle) i Westphalen og rykkede frem til Weser.
775 underlagde han sig Sakserriget, som han derefter bestræbte sig på at kristne. Sakserne rejste sig
bestandig til oprør. I 782 kom Widukind tilbage og førte an i en ny frihedskamp, da den frankiske hær befandt sig i øst for at underkue den slaviske sorber-stamme. Karl fremskyndede krigen, besejrede saksernes armé endnu
engang, og han tog en frygtelig hævn: på en eneste dag henrettede han 4500 oprørske saksere. I de følgende år gentog sakserne deres forsøg med frisernes
hjælp, men frankerne var langt de stærkeste.
I 785 bøjede også Widukin sig og bad om fred. I julen sluttede han sig under Karls overhøjhed - og lod sig
døbe. Efter nye oprør underlagde Karl sig 804 hele saksernes rige. Kort forinden var det lykkedes Karl også at undertvinge Bayern, der blev en frankisk provins.
Avarerne var Karls sidste farlige fjender. De boede ved Tisza-flodens bredder i det nuværende ungarn, hvorfra de havde hersket over mange slaviske og germanske stammer. De havde samlet store rigdomme. 1788 stormede de vestpå,
men blev standset ved Donau. Karl besluttede at eliminere den avarisketrussel, og i 791 rykkede hans hær ind i deres land, dog uden at opnå afgørende resultat. Fire år senere fornyedes angrebet med en større styrke og med hjælp fra slaviske stammer. Avarernes vognfæstning blev stormet og
erobret, og deres enorme skatte blev som krigsbytte ført til Frankerriget. Avarernes tid var forbi, men Karls rige ekspanderede helt til Pannonien og Kroatien. Frankerriget var nu en stormagt. Karl havde på forskellig vis skaffet sig herredømmet over størstedelen af det tidligere romerske kejserrige, og i virkeligheden herskede han som en kejser i
og med, at han sad inde med den højeste verdslige magt i sit rige. Ydermere styrede han Kirken i sin egenskab af pavens beskytter. Karl nærede dog ikke noget ønske om at blive Roms kejser, da kejseren af Byzans havde en hævdvunden ret til den romerske kejsertitel, og den ville Karl ikke anfægte. Skæbnen ville imidlertid, ar Karl skulle blive kejser imod sin vilje. Pave Leo 3.'s livsførelse gav anledning til et oprør mod ham i Rom 799.
Han flygtede og søgte beskyttelse hos Karl. Karl bragte paven tilbage til Rom og ved hjælp af Karl tog paven påny magten kort før jul år 800.
Da Karl siden deltog i julemessen i Peterskirken, overrump-lede paven ham, ved at sætte kronen på hans hoved, mens koret sang og folket deltog i kejserhyldningen og ønskede Karl fremgang som "Guds udkårne store og fredbringende
kejser af Rom". Han blev kanoniseret 1165.
At han var en stor/høj mand sås, da man i 1800-tallet i Aachen åbnede hans relikvieskrin. En måling viste, at han havde været 192 cm. høj.
Kilde: Politikens verdenshistorie, ved Erling Bjøl, bind 8, "Europas fødsel".
- BIOGRAPHY
Charles was born about 747, the son of Pippin 'the Short', king of the Franks, and his wife Bertrada. He came to be known as Charles The Great or Charlemagne for good reasons. His long reign changed the face of Europe politically and culturally, and he himself would remain in the minds of people in the Middle Ages as the ideal king. Many historians have taken his reign to be the true beginning of the Middle Ages. Yet in terms of territorial expansion and consolidation, of Church reform and entanglement with Rome, Charlemagne's reign merely brought the policies of his father Pippin to their logical conclusions.
Charlemagne became the subject of the first medieval biography of a layman, written by Einhard, one of his courtiers. Using as his literary model, the word portrait by Suetonius of the Emperor Augustus, Einhard described Charlemagne's appearance, his dress, his eating and drinking habits, his religious practices and intellectual interests, giving us a vivid if not perhaps entirely reliable picture of the Frankish monarch. He was strong, tall, and healthy, and ate moderately. He loved exercise: riding and hunting, and perhaps more surprising, swimming. Einhard tells us that he chose Aachen as the site for his palace because of its hot springs, and that he bathed there with his family, friends and courtiers. He spoke and read Latin as well as his native Frankish, and could understand Greek and even speak it a little. He learned grammar, rhetoric, and mathematics from the learned clerics he gathered around him, but although he kept writing-tablets under his pillow for practice (he used to wake up several times in the night) he never mastered the art of writing. He was able to make such a mark upon European history because he was a tireless and remarkably successful general. He concluded Pippin's wars with Aquitaine, and proclaimed his son Louis king in 781; the one serious defeat he suffered was in these wars, at Roncevaux in the Pyrenees, a defeat one day immortalised in 'The Song of Roland' and later 'chansons de geste'.
He added Saxony to his realm after years of vicious campaigning. Towards the end of his reign he moved against the Danes. He destroyed the kingdom of the Avars in Hungary. He subdued the Bretons, the Bavarians, and various Slav people. In the south he began the reconquest of Spain from the Arabs and established the Spanish March in the northeast of the peninsula.
But perhaps his most significant campaigns were south of the Alps, in Italy. Pope Hadrian appealed to Charlemagne for help against Desiderius of the Lombards. The campaign in the winter of 773-4 was short and decisive. Desiderius was exiled, and Charlemagne, 'King of the Franks', added 'and the Lombards' to his title. Later he appointed his son Pepin as King of Italy.
Popes were still not free of all their enemies. In 799 a rival party of Roman aristocrats ambushed Leo III, intending to gouge out his eyes and cut off his tongue. Leo fled to Charlemagne, who was at Paderborn preparing for another war against the Saxons. Charlemagne ordered Leo III to be restored, and in 800 he came to Rome himself. On Christmas Day 800, in St. Peter's, Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne Emperor of the Romans.
Charlemagne married three times. In 769 he married a daughter of Desiderius, king of The Longobards. They had no progeny and were divorced in early 771. On 30 April that year he married Hildegardis, daughter of Gerold I, count in the Kraichgau and Vintzgau, and his wife Imma/Emma. They had nine children, of whom Pippin I, Louis I, Rotrud and Bertha would have progeny. Hildegardis died in 783, and later that year he married Fastrada, with whom he had two daughters of whom Hiltrud would have progeny. He also had children by several mistresses, including Drogo and Hugo by a mistress Regina, who would both become distinguished churchmen, Drogo becoming archbishop and bishop of Metz, and Hugo becoming abbot of St. Quintin and chancellor to his half-brother Emperor Louis 'the Pious'.
Charlemagne died at Aachen on 28 January 814, and was succeeded by his son Louis. [12]
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