Name: Charlemagne
Title / office: Holy Roman Emperor, King of Franks
Where born: Near Liège, Belgium
Where died: Aachen, Germany
When lived: c.742 – 814
From whom was influenced: Pippin III (father), Charles martel
Who inspired: Napoleon Bonaparte, Adolf Hitler and the European Union
Nicknames: The Father of Europe and Charles The Great
Other information : He belonged to Carolingian dynasty
Biography :
Charlemagne (c.742-814), also known as Karl and Charles the Great, was a medieval emperor who ruled much of Western Europe from 768 to 814. In 771, Charlemagne became king of the Franks, a Germanic tribe in present-day Belgium, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and western Germany. He embarked on a mission to unite all Germanic peoples into one kingdom, and convert his subjects to Christianity. A skilled military strategist, he spent much of his reign engaged in warfare in order to accomplish his goals. In 800, Pope Leo III (750-816) crowned Charlemagne emperor of the Romans. In this role, he encouraged the Carolingian Renaissance, a cultural and intellectual revival in Europe. When he died in 814, Charlemagne’s empire encompassed much of Western Europe, and he had also ensured the survival of Christianity in the West. Today, Charlemagne is referred to by some as the father of Europe.
Text :
You nobles, you sons of my chiefs, you superfine dandies, you have trusted to your birth and your possessions and have set at naught my orders to your own advancement; you have neglected the pursuit of learning and you have given yourselves over to luxury and sport, to idleness and profitless pastimes. By the King of Heaven, I take no account of your noble birth and your fine looks, though others may admire you for them. Know this for certain, that unless you make up for your former sloth by vigourous study, you will never get any favour from Charles.
De Carolo Magno.
According to historians, King Charlemagne was extremely passionate with learning and education, and that made him inaugurate a scheme of educational reform, in the various schools established or reformed by imperial decrees throughout the vast empire over which he reigned. His reign is often referred to as the Carolingian Renaissance because of the flowering of scholarship, literature, art and architecture that characterise it.
In fact, Contrary to what the French popular song says (“qui a eu cette idée folle un jour d’inventer l’école? C’est ce sacré Charlemagne!”) it is not Charlemagne who invented school! The myth really settled between 1881 and 1882 when Jules Ferry laid the foundations of the modern school, but the links between Charlemagne and the school were "invented" long before.
As related by Notker the Stammerer in De Carolo Magno, the text above was a speech for noble-born students whose work was poor while lesser-born children had worked hard to write well.
References :
Www.history.com ---> Article : Biography, Significance & Death
Book: Charlemagne, Empire and Society, edited by Joanna Story in 2005
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