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| 795–96 |
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| The Avars (on the lower Danube) were reduced. | 1 |
| Establishment of marks (after c. 782) to hold the conquests: Dane Mark, the Altmark (against the Wends), Thuringian Mark, Bohemian Mark, Ostmark (against the Avars), Friulian Mark (on the Italian border), and the Spanish Mark. These marks were also centers of colonization and germanization. | 2 |
| Reform of the Church along Roman lines had, for Charlemagne, three purposes: (1) the establishment of peace throughout the empire by means of a uniform Roman ritual (replacing the Gallican) that would win divine favor; (2) development of an educated clergy capable of effective pastoral and missionary work; (3) the creation of a body of literate clerics who could serve as instruments of his administration. The Capitulary (a royal-administrative order divided into capitula, or articles) of Herstal (779) advanced these goals by providing secular assistance to local clergy and assisting in the expansion of a parish system with regular services into rural areas throughout the empire. Charlemagne presided at synods, settled dogmatic questions, established schools for the education of the clergy, made ecclesiastical appointments, and, above all, insisted that all clerics—bishops, abbots, parish priests—properly discharge their religious duties; thus, he subordinated the institutional Church to the king as the divinely appointed head of Christendom. The Church was strengthened and tied closely to the monarchy. | 3 |
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| 800 |
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| Imperial Coronation of Charlemagne. The political and religious turmoil in the Byzantine Empire, especially during the iconoclastic controversy (See 726); Charlemagne's behavior as leader of the West in his relations with the Abbasid Caliphate of Baghdad (See 797) and with the patriarch of Jerusalem; the removal of the Byzantine emperor's name from papal documents during the reign of Pope Adrian (771–95); and the difficulties Pope Leo III (795–816) experienced with both the emperor at Constantinople and the Roman nobility, leading to the pope's increasing dependence on Charles—these developments form the background to the imperial coronation. | 4 |
| According to Charlemagne's biographer, Einhard, on Christmas Day 800, at the beginning of Mass, the pope crowned Charles emperor, the Romans acclaimed him as emperor, and the pope performed the (Byzantine) proskynesis (obeisance) due an emperor. Eventually the Frankish chancery adopted the description “the most serene, august, pacific great emperor crowned by God governing the Roman Empire, who is, by the mercy of God, King of the Franks and the Lombards” as an integral part of Charles's title. For Alcuin and the political theorists at Charles's court, the image implied a return to the model of the biblical King David and to the images of Theodoric and Constantine, not to the image of the Byzantine emperor. While the imperial style conferred dignity and some political advantage in Italy, and the imperial motto Renovatio romani imperii (Renewal of the Roman Empire) suggested a revival of the Roman Empire in the West, still, for the aristocratic families in the rest of the Carolingian world, the title was meaningless—his Frankish supporters considered him a Frankish king. The Greeks regarded Charlemagne as a usurper and the papal coronation as an act of rebellion; that event marked a decisive break between Rome and Constantinople. | 5 |
| GOVERNMENT. (1) In the Frankish kingdom: centralization continued; taxation in the Roman sense (which survived only under local and private auspices) was replaced by services in return for land grants (the economic basis of Carolingian society). Such services included labor on public works among the lower ranks, the provision of food for the court and public officials on duty, and judicial and military obligations (primarily among the upper ranks). Charlemagne's continuous campaigns reduced the small farmers, accentuating the tendency to serfdom. Charlemagne tried to offset this tendency by allowing groups of poorer farmers to cooperate in sending a single soldier, and by excusing the poorest from ordinary field service. Systematization of the army and of military service was also begun. Commendation and immunity continued, and the basis of later feudal development was firmly established. | 6 |
| Administration. Modern scholarship stresses that Carolingian political power and effective administration rested on the cooperation of the Frankish aristocracy, the dominant social class. The great comital landlords held real power at the local level. Their loyalty to the monarchy was acquired and maintained by grants of land and war booty. Aristocratic families gradually improved their economic position, and countships often became hereditary in one family, “though not usually in patrilinear succession.” With the help of the aristocracy, Pepin III and Charlemagne were able to wage wars of expansion and to suppress rebellion. To limit local abuses, the missi dominici (usually a bishop and count) were introduced (802) as officers on circuit in a given district. The missi held their own courts, had power to remove a count for cause, and were charged with the supervision of financial, judicial, and clerical administration. They formed an essential link between the local and central governments. Under the counts were viscounts and vicars (centenarii). Margraves (Mark Grafen) were set over the marks, with extended powers to meet the needs of their position. Local administration of justice was reformed by the introduction of scabini, local landowners appointed by the counts to sit as permanent judiciary officers. | 7 |
| Education and learning. To advance his religious and educational reforms, Charlemagne drew scholars from across Europe: Alcuin of York (England); Peter of Pisa, and Paul the Deacon of Aquileia (Italy); Theodulf of Orleans and Einhard of Fulda to his court at Aachen, where Alcuin set up the Palace School, which became a center for the study of liberal arts and the copying of manuscripts. (Other scriptoria were at the monasteries of Corbie, St. Denis, St. Wandrille, St. Martin of Tours, Metz, Verona, Lucca.) Scholars at these centers expanded literacy, developed the Carolingian minuscule script (so called because it has lowercase letters; the Romans had only capitals), and copied and preserved classical, patristic, and early medieval texts. Using minuscule meant that a sheet of vellum (lambskin or calfskin) could contain more letters, which illustrates how a small technological change had broad cultural consequences. Though the scriptoria showed little creativity, many manuscripts were preserved and the foundation was laid for later study. | 8 |
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| 814–87 |
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| The disintegration of the Carolingian Empire. Such efficiency as the Carolingian government possessed under Charlemagne derived from his personality rather than from permanent institutions. The empire's vast size, the poor communication among the parts, the great ethnic diversity, and the lack of adequate administrative machinery (bureaucracy) sped disintegration. Local administration was carried on by unpaid officials whose compensation was a share of the revenue. Local offices tended to become hereditary. The tentative partitions of the empire in Charlemagne's lifetime followed Frankish tradition. Only one son, Louis the Pious, survived, and the empire was passed on to him undivided. The decisive stage in the partition of the empire came under Louis and his heirs. | 9 |
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| 814–40 |
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| Louis the Pious (emperor), educated at the Palace School, crowned in his father's lifetime. Sincerely religious, a reformer of his court, the Frankish Church, and the monasteries, he allowed himself to be crowned again by the pope (816). The influence of his ecclesiastical adviser Benedict of Aniane on an ideology of political Augustinianism—to the detriment of traditional Frankish principles—increased tension with the aristocracy. Louis was ineffectual as a soldier and ruler. He and his heirs concentrated on a long struggle (leading to civil war) over territorial questions, to the neglect of government, foreign policy, and defense—a program that hastened the breakup of the empire. | 10 |
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| 817–38 |
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| A significant series of partitions involved Louis's sons: Lothair (d. 855), Louis the German (d. 876), Pepin (d. 838), and their half-brother, Charles the Bald (d. 877). | 11 |
| The division of 817: Aquitaine and parts of Septimania and Burgundy went to Pepin, as subking; Bavaria and the marches to the east were assigned to Louis the German as subking, undivided; Francia, German and Gallic, and most of Burgundy were retained by Louis and his eldest son, Lothair. Italy went to a third subking. | 12 |
| The division of 838: Charles the Bald was assigned Neustria, and to this was added Aquitaine on the death of Pepin. Charles's holding, which had no name, approximated (accidentally) medieval France and was mainly Romance in speech. | 13 |
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| 840–55 |
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| Lothair I (emperor). On the death of Louis the Pious, the three heirs contained their struggle, and after the indecisive battle of Fontenay (841), Carolingian prestige sank to a new depth. Charles the Bald and Louis the German formed an alliance against Lothair (who was supported by the clergy in the interests of unity) in the bilingual (Teutonic and Romance) Oaths of Strassburg (842), sworn by the rulers and their armies, each in their own vernacular. They then forced a family compact on Lothair at Verdun. | 14 |
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| 843 |
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| The Treaty of Verdun divided the administration and control of the Carolingian Empire as follows: (1) Lothair kept the (empty) title of emperor and was king of Italy and of an amorphous territory (the “middle kingdom”) which was bounded roughly by the Scheldt, the upper Meuse, the Saône, and the Rhône on the west, and by the Rhine and Frisia on the east (i.e., the territory of Provence, Burgundy, and what was later called Lotharingia); (2) Louis the German, as king of the (East) Franks, ruled a realm essentially Teutonic in blood, speech, and geography, extending from the Rhine (except Frisia) to the eastern frontier of the empire; (3) Charles the Bald, as king of the (West) Franks, received a realm (loosely called Carolingia for a time) made up of West Francia and Aquitaine, Gascony, Septimania, etc.; mainly Romance in speech; approximating medieval France in general outline. | 15 |
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| 855–75 |
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| Louis II (emperor). At Lothair I's death, his lands were divided as follows among his sons: Louis II received Italy; Charles (d. 863), the newly formed kingdom of Provence (centered around the city of Arles); and Lothair II, the inchoate aggregate (from Frisia to the Alps and from the Rhine to Scheldt) which began to be called Lotharii regnum or Lotharingia (modern Lorraine). | 16 |
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| 875–77 |
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| Charles the Bald, emperor. | 17 |
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| 877–81 |
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| Anarchy and interregnum in the empire. | 18 |
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| 879 |
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| The kingdom of Burgundy (Cisjuran Burgundy) was established by Boso of Provence. | 19 |
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| 888 |
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| The kingdom of Juran Burgundy (Besançon, Basel, Lausanne, Geneva, etc.) was erected by Rudolf I. It passed to the empire by bequest in the time of Conrad II. | 20 |
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