Charlemagne
Biography
Charles the Great united most of Western Europe for the first time since Rome. Crowned Imperator by Pope Leo III on Christmas Day 800, he fused Germanic, Roman, and Christian traditions into the medieval order. His palace school at Aachen sparked the Carolingian Renaissance. The empire divided among grandsons at Verdun 843, but the imperial idea endured, the HRE claimed his mantle, the EU cites him as founding symbol.
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