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Cargando... Charlemagnepor Matthias Becher
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Charlemagne—ruler of the vast Frankish kingdom from 768 to his death in 814 and Holy Roman emperor from the year 800—is considered the father of Europe. He founded the first empire in western Europe after the fall of Rome, and his court at Aix-la-Chapelle was a center of classical learning and a focus of the Carolingian Renaissance. This book is a splendid introduction to Charlemagne’s life and legend.Matthias Becher describes Charlemagne’s rise to emperor and traces his political and military maneuvering against the Saxons, the Lombards, and others, as Charlemagne incorporated these lands into his own realm. Becher points out that under Charlemagne, jury courts were introduced, the laws of the Franks revised and written down, new coinage introduced, weights and measures reformed, and a Frankish grammar begun. Charlemagne tried to give his kingdom a spiritual basis by referring to antique traditions, says Becher, and he explores the tensions that existed in Charlemagne’s court between modern ideas and traditional thinking. He concludes by discussing Charlemagne’s kinship network, the evolving arrangements for his succession, the effects of his reign, and his posthumous fame. Concise, insightful, and eminently readable, this biography of Charlemagne provides a wealth of information about a remarkable man and his times. No se han encontrado descripciones de biblioteca. |
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 Google Books — Cargando...GénerosSistema Decimal Melvil (DDC)944.014092History and Geography Europe France and region France Early history -987 751-987Clasificación de la Biblioteca del CongresoValoraciónPromedio: (4)
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The story begins on Christmas Day of the year 800, when Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne "Emperor of the Romans," an event which will lay the formation for the rise of medieval Europe. In a Europe where the Roman Emperor had been gone for centuries, how was it that Charlemagne had consolidated the disparate Merovingian territories into a united Frankish kingdom? This question is at the heart of the book.
When Charlemagne's father, Pippin the Short died, he left Charlemagne and his brother Carloman I as co-emperors. After just a few years of rule, however, Carloman died unexpectedly at the age of twenty, leaving his older brother as the sole ruler from 771 until his death 43 years later. Becher covers many of the most interesting topics of Charlemagne's reign in detail: the conquering of the Saxons, Avars, and Bavarians, the political influence of Leo III, his vastly influential educational reforms (due in part to his brilliant librarian at Aachen, Alcuin), and changes in ecclesiastical structure. Becher ends the discussion with "Epilogue: Hero and Saint," discussing how Charlemagne's complex role in Frankish history has been taken up by historians over the past twelve centuries, from Notker to Ranke.
This book, along with Einhart and Notker, serve as a wonderful introduction to Charlemagne's life and times. For the more sophisticated student who wishes to fill in the gaps left by these three accounts, Rosamond McKitterick's much more extensive "Charlemagne: The Formation of a European Identity" comes highly recommended. (