Middle Ages - Charlemagne

Charlemagne ( 2 April 742/747/748 - 28 January 814), also known as Charles the Great, was King of the Franks who united most of Western Europe during the Middle Ages and laid the foundations for modern France and Germany. He took the Frankish throne from 768, became King of Italy from 774, and from 800 was the first recognized Roman emperor in Western Europe since the collapse of the Western Roman Empire three centuries earlier. The expanded Frankish state he founded is called the Carolingian Empire. Called the Father of Europe (pater Europae, his rule spurred the Carolingian Renaissance, a period of cultural and intellectual activity within the Catholic Church. Both the French and German monarchies considered their kingdoms to be descendants of Charlemagne's empire.