Charlemagne

Charlemagne (c. 747–814), also known as Charles the Great, was King of the Franks from 768, King of the Lombards from 774 and, from 800, the first emperor in Western Europe since the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Through decades of campaigns he brought much of Western and Central Europe under a single rule. The turning point came on Christmas Day 800, when Pope Leo III crowned him emperor in Rome, joining Frankish kingship with Roman and Christian tradition. At his court in Aachen, scholars such as Alcuin of York led a revival of learning now called the Carolingian Renaissance, founding schools, copying classical and Christian texts and spreading the clear Carolingian minuscule script, ancestor of modern lowercase letters. His Palatine Chapel survives within Aachen Cathedral. Often called "the Father of Europe," he laid foundations of medieval Christendom and European culture.