How Did Charlemagne Influence The Empire Of Europe

What we today call Europe is very different from what was called Europe in the eighth and ninth centuries. Charlemagne had a large impact on the Empire he was the Emperor of and he considered himself the "rex, pater Europae", which means "king, father of Europe". One of the debate in academic research about Charlemagne and his influence on Europe can be questioned as the following interrogation : did Charlemagne and his empire shape Europe and if he did, in what way?

According to Barraclouch, the unity imposed by the Franks wasn't we could today call European unity or European integration. He considered, the term wasn't appropriate term at this time. In his academic research he shared his opinion on the role of the Carolingian Empire

in shaping Europe and reports what Dawson said about it. Dawson claimed that the Carolingian Empire is the "foundation and starting point of western civilization" agreeing with Deslile Burns who defended the same idea by saying that it was the "birth of Europe". For Barraclough these two statements are an exaggeration. He agrees that the Carolingian Empire did great achievements that lasted for some time but it wasn't in his opinion the start of the shape of Europe as an entity. In the opposite, he considered the Carolingian Empire as a conclusion to the Ancient time. Joseph Calmette, in his book L'effondrement d'un empire et la naissance d'une Europe, agreed with it by saying that the Carolingian unity wasn't the shape of the European unity at all. According to Tierney and Painter, Charlemagne's Empire "might be considered as a 'false start' in history of Europe". In the sense that the political unity of the Empire didn't last - actually after Charlemagne's death.
Tierney and Painter admit that if we see it under another angle, historians can see that the unification of the Roman, German and Christian cultures, was the establishment of a development. The pro-side of the debate shows that the Carolingian Empire was the start of shaping Europe.

Delanty considers that the Franks "created an embryonic Europe". He justifies this conception by explaining that the modern vision of Europe has its origins in the Carolingian Empire. Indeed, one of the first use of the term "Europe" was at Charlemagne's court in Aachen. Rietbergen mentions that Alcuin and Einhardt presented Charlemagne as the man who wanted to exercise his power over the "regnum europae" (European kingdom). Palmer and Colton agrees by saying that Charlemagne's Empire can be seen as a first shape of Europe, a unit of society and culture, which was different from the Mediterranean world in the Antiquity. For them, a proof that the west was united was that they had a capital which was Aix-la-Chapelle. Charlemagne was German and its people were Germans, French, Italians.

In questioning if the Carolingian Empire did shape Europe, the interrogation about its role in giving Europe its heritage at least cannot be avoid.

Barraclough writes in his research that the Franks spread the notion of a Christian Empire as a unifying force in Europe. The imperial power remained inserted in Carolingian conceptions. The empire claimed to represent Europe and to be a Christian Empire. Delanty agreed and wrote about the fact that the Frankish kingdom was very important for the formation of the medieval Christendom later in history and it reflected the Christian move from the Mediterranean to the North of Europe. As Tierney and Painter mentioned, the coronation of Charlemagne created the symbol for several centuries of unity in western Europe. It symbolized an ordered western Christian society, totally different from the Byzantine or from the Islamic civilizations. With his coronation, Charlemagne's Empire became associated to Christianity. This combination produced a political and cultural identity for Europe, for many centuries. It gave to Europe a civilizational unity. The papacy became the centre of gravity of Europe again. According to Rietbergen, Charlemagne used his predecessors tradition of authority and reviewed them. That's how he established Christianity among all the lands he conquered. The Carolingian empire by spreading Roman Christianity became "a transcontinental church". Northern and central Europe adopted the common Christian ideology which at the time was presented as an universal one. It helped the Papacy to create a common history that according to them was needed. Even Eastern Europe was part of the Christian culture, which under Charlemagne's reign meant that it was part of the European culture. Palmer and Colton, said that, later, in Christian countries people came together within the spreading system of the Latin church. While Tierney and Painter agreed on the fact that Charlemagne forced conquered people to become

Christians, which is one of the reason why Christianity spread quickly and everywhere in the empire.

Something Charlemagne also had an important role in was the spread of education, even though he mostly pursued it and only the clergy was actually benefiting from it as Palmer and Colton reported in their book. In his research, Rietbergen reports that one of Charlemagne's biggest accomplishment was the spread of education all over the Empire. To achieve this he asked the court nobles to furnish their part of the kingdom with schools and not only in monasteries so that people could get educated. Palmer and Colton also added that the scholars brought together by Charlemagne had to make history available for men to learn it. However, a large part of the society didn't have access to it.

Two other characteristics can be added to what can be considered part of the heritage of the Carolingian empire. The first one is feudalism mentioned by Barraclough and Delanty. The Carolingian Empire created similarity in thought and intellectual attitudes which were considered the basics of feudalism. It played a greater role than Roman past in the making of modern Europe. Palmer and Colton also indicated another development occurring its development during the Carolingian Empire which was the "Carolingian Renaissance". It wasn't as meaningful as the real Renaissance. Some scholars had a great interest in art and literature of the Classical Antiquity. Only a few major features of this Renaissance survived.

This paper aspires to give an idea of the modern debate that can be found on this topic.