Matthew Gabriele

So most of their campaigning was done to the Northeast, into an area called Saxony, which is a modern region in Germany as well.

But in Saxony, the polytheistic Saxons at the time had been kind of the long-term enemies of the Franks for quite a while.

And it was a way of demonstrating power.

It was a way of asserting control, but also, again, a way of gathering plunder from non-Christian enemies in order to redistribute that elsewhere.

In places where they fought other Christians, there was a portrayal of the Franks as kind of the right kind of Christians and their enemies as kind of the wrong kind of Christians.

And one of the ways that they emphasized this was the Frankish alliance with the papacy, the Bishop of Rome, so that they had the backup of the Bishop of Rome and the entire church establishment on their side to help them justify the conquest of these other Christian peoples.

The Saxons really were the most intransigent enemies and the ones in which, very frankly, the greatest number of activities were, but also the greatest atrocities were committed.

And the sources record massacres of thousands of people at times at the end of campaigns, destruction of polytheistic or pagan temples, if you prefer.

And in fact, forced migration in which thousands of Saxons were forcibly relocated into Francia and then Frankish nobles and Frankish freemen were put into their place in order to finally subdue the subjugated population.

When she passes away, he remarries another woman at the age of 50 by the name of Liutgaard, who they don't have any children together.

But interest first among them, he is having relationships and having children as well.

In 799, the Pope in Rome, Leo III, is attacked during a procession.

He's captured and he manages to flee the city of Rome.

There's dramatic accounts of him scaling the walls and jumping outside and then running north to Paderborn in modern Germany to meet Charlemagne there.

Charlemagne sends an army south and then marches south as well, reestablishes the pope in Rome, establishes justice, puts the perpetrators of this attack on trial.

And then on Christmas Day in the year 800, Leo rewards him by putting a crown on Charlemagne's head and claiming him as Roman emperor.

Now, the actual reality is a little bit more complicated because Charlemagne had probably been planning to become emperor for some time beforehand.

What being Roman emperor does, it allows him equal footing to negotiate with the Byzantine emperor, with the Eastern Roman emperor in the east, but also allows him jurisdiction in Italy in and around Rome and then further to the south as well.

And this was an important part of his expansionistic plans in order to demonstrate that this marriage between the papacy, between the church and the state had kind of finally come to fruition, but also allow him to push further south into the rich heartlands of southern Italy, which he was very much interested in doing.

He relies a lot on centralizing his authority, establishing basically a capital at the city of Aachen, which is in modern Western Germany.