The coronation of Charlemagne was the high point of his career. He devoted the remaining fourteen years of his life
The Palatine Chapel in Aachen, Charlemagne's capital, was the site of the crowning of his successor, his son Louis the Pious, in 813. Reproduced by permission of the Corbis Corporation.
To the administration of his empire rather than to the conquest of new territory, and he spent most of his time in Aachen, which was famed for its soothing mineral baths. In 806, he started making arrangements to pass his lands on to his three sons, but by 813, only one was still living. Therefore in a magnificent ceremony at Aachen, he placed the crown on the head of his son Louis the Pious. On January 21, 814, following a bath in the mineral springs, Charlemagne developed a sudden fever and died a week later.
His empire did not last long: in the Treaty of Verdun (843), Louis divided it between his three sons, and it gradually fell apart. Descendants of Charlemagne ruled France until 887, and parts of Germany until 911. The idea of a unified western empire, however, was a powerful one, and lafer Offo fhe Greaf (912-973) would revive the concept when he founded the Holy Roman Empire. A later Holy Roman emperor, Frederick I Barbarossa (ruled 1152-90) had Charlemagne canonized, or declared a saint.
World History
