A carved ivory plaque from Carolingian times showing the Virgin Mary as the Church
Plaque with the Virgin Mary as a Personification of the Church, ca. 800–825
Marked Aachen

SubjectIn outline · lessons being written

Charlemagne

King of the Franks from 768, Charlemagne conquered much of western Europe and was crowned emperor by the pope in Rome on Christmas Day 800. His court at Aachen set scholars to copy old books in a clear new handwriting.

Date
About AD 748 to 814VII · After the empires
Place
Aachen · Rome · RoncesvallesEurope
Laid out as
A lifeOne person’s life, from birth to death, and what they left behind.
Lessons
6 planned, none written yet

The lessons we plan

Titles may change as they are written

  1. IKing of the Franks
  2. IIWars with the Saxons
  3. IIIChristmas Day, 800
  4. IVAachen
  5. VScholars and a new script
  6. VIThe empire divided

Still to come

The people and objects these lessons will cover

People

  • Charlemagne
  • Alcuin of York
  • Einhard
  • Harun al-Rashid

Objects

  • The Palatine Chapel, Aachen
  • Caroline minuscule manuscripts
  • Charlemagne’s chess pieces (in legend)

Where it sits

All of human history, era by era

Early human ancestryOur species and the Old Stone AgeFarming and the New Stone AgeFirst cities and the Bronze AgeThe Iron Age and growing statesThe classical worldAfter the empiresMedieval networks and empiresOceans crossedRevolutions and the first factoriesIndustry, empire and world warThe world since 1945

AD 748 to AD 814. Each era is drawn the same width, so the earliest are squeezed: era II alone is over 300,000 years.

Nearby in time and place

This page is an outline. The summary above is a starting point; each lesson, when it is written, will give its sources, its pictures and where historians disagree. Spotted a mistake?