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. After successful campaigns against the Saxons, Lombards, and others, he founded the first empire in Wstern 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.
