Coordinates	52°9′54″N22°16′17″N
Title	Rex Francorum (''King of the Franks'') Rex Longobardorum (''King of the Lombards'') Imperator Romanorum (''Emperor of the Romans'')
Reign	768–814
Coronation	Noyon, 9 October 768Pavia, 10 July 774Rome, 25 December 800
Cor-type	HRE
Predecessor	Pepin the Short
Successor	Louis the Pious
Royal house	Carolingian
Father	Pepin the Short
Mother	Bertrada of Laon
Birth date	2 April 742 (?)
Birth place	Liège
Death date	28 January 814 (aged around 71)
Death place	Aachen
Place of burial	Aachen Cathedral

Name	Blessed Carolus Magnus
Feast day	28 January (Aachen and Osnabrück)
Venerated in	Roman Catholic Church (Germany and France)
Beatified date	814
Beatified place	Aachen
Beatified by	a court bishop, later confirmed by Pope Benedict XIV
Canonized date	1166
Canonized by	Antipope Paschal III
Attributes	Fleur-de-lis; German Eagle
Patronage	Lovers (both licit and illicit), schoolchildren, the Kings of France and Germany, men on horseback, men on the scaffold, crusaders
Major shrine	Aachen Cathedral
Issues	}}

Charlemagne (, also ; ; ; , meaning Charles the Great; possibly 74228 January 814) was King of the Franks from 768 and Emperor of the Romans (''Imperator Romanorum'') from 800 to his death in 814. He expanded the Frankish kingdom into an empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. During his reign, he conquered Italy and was crowned by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800. His rule is also associated with the Carolingian Renaissance, a revival of art, religion, and culture through the medium of the Catholic Church. Through his foreign conquests and internal reforms, Charlemagne helped define both Western Europe and the European Middle Ages. He is numbered as Charles I in the regnal lists of Germany, the Holy Roman Empire, and France.

The son of King Pepin the Short and Bertrada of Laon, a Frankish queen, he succeeded his father in 768 and was initially co-ruler with his brother Carloman I. It has often been suggested that the relationship between Charlemagne and Carloman was not good, but it has also been argued that tensions were exaggerated by Carolingian chroniclers. Nevertheless conflict was prevented by the sudden death of Carloman in 771, in unexplained circumstances. Charlemagne continued the policy of his father towards the papacy and became its protector, removing the Lombards from power in Italy, and leading an incursion into Muslim Spain, to which he was invited by the Muslim governor of Barcelona. Charlemagne was promised several Iberian cities in return for giving military aid to the governor; however, the deal was withdrawn. Subsequently, Charlemagne's retreating army experienced its worst defeat at the hands of the Basques, at the Battle of Roncesvalles (778) (memorialised, although heavily fictionalised, in the ''Song of Roland''). He also campaigned against the peoples to his east, especially the Saxons, and after a protracted war subjected them to his rule. By forcibly Christianizing the Saxons and banning on penalty of death their native Germanic paganism, he integrated them into his realm and thus paved the way for the later Ottonian dynasty.

Today he is regarded not only as the founding father of both French and German monarchies, but also as a ''Pater Europae'' (father of Europe): his empire united most of Western Europe for the first time since the Romans, and the Carolingian renaissance encouraged the formation of a common European identity.

Background

By the 6th century, the West Germanic Franks were Christianised and Francia, ruled by the Merovingians, had become the most powerful of the kingdoms which succeeded the Western Roman Empire. But following the Battle of Tertry, the Merovingians declined into a state of powerlessness, for which they have been dubbed the do-nothing kings (''rois fainéants''). Almost all government powers of any consequence were exercised by their chief officer, the mayor of the palace or ''major domus''.

In 687, Pippin of Herstal, mayor of the palace of Austrasia, ended the strife between various kings and their mayors with his victory at Tertry and became the sole governor of the entire Frankish kingdom. Pippin himself was the grandson of two of the most important figures of the Austrasian Kingdom, Saint Arnulf of Metz and Pippin of Landen. Pippin the Middle was eventually succeeded by his illegitimate son Charles, later known as Charles Martel (the Hammer). After 737, Charles governed the Franks without a king on the throne but declined to call himself "king". Charles was succeeded by his sons Carloman and Pepin the Short, the father of Charlemagne. To curb separatism in the periphery of the realm, the brothers placed on the throne Childeric III, who was to be the last Merovingian king.

After Carloman resigned his office, Pepin, with Pope Zachary's approval, had Childeric III deposed. In 750, Pepin was elected and anointed King of the Franks and in 754 Pope Stephen II again anointed him and his young sons, now heirs to the great realm which already covered most of western and central Europe. Thus was the Merovingian dynasty replaced by the Carolingian dynasty, named after Pepin's father, Charles Martel.

Under the new dynasty, the Frankish kingdom spread to encompass an area including most of Western Europe. The division of that kingdom formed France and Germany; and the religious, political, and artistic evolutions originating from a centrally positioned Francia made a defining imprint on the whole of Western Europe.

Personal traits

Date and place of birth

Charlemagne is believed to have been born in 741; however, several factors have led to a reconsideration of this date. First, the year 742 was calculated from his age given at death, rather than from attestation in primary sources. Another date is given in the ''Annales Petaviani'', that of 2 April 747. In that year, 2 April was at Easter. The birth of an emperor at Eastertime is a coincidence likely to provoke comment, but there was no such comment documented in 747, leading some to suspect that the Easter birthday was a pious fiction concocted as a way of honoring the Emperor. Other commentators weighing the primary records have suggested that his birth was one year later, in 748. At present, it is impossible to be certain of the date of the birth of Charlemagne however best guesses include 1 April 747, 15 April 747, or 1 April 748, in Herstal (where his father was born, a town close to Liège in modern day Belgium). Liège is close to the region from where both the Merovingian and Carolingian families originated. He went to live in his father's villa in Jupille when he was around seven, which caused Jupille to be listed as a possible place of birth in almost every history book. Other cities have been suggested, including, Prüm, Düren, Gauting and Aachen.

Dubbed ''Charles le Magne'' "Charles the Great", he was named after his grandfather, Charles Martel. The name derives from Germanic *''karlaz'' "free man, commoner", which gave German ''Kerl'' "man, guy" and English ''churl''. His name, however, is first attested in its Latin form, "''Carolus''" or "''Karolus''."

In many European languages, the very word for "king" derives from Charles' name (''e.g.'', , , , , , , , , , , , )

Language

Charlemagne's native language was undoubtedly a form of Germanic idiom; however, the specifics as to which remain a matter of controversy. It was probably a Germanic dialect of the Ripuarian Franks, but linguists differ on its identity and chronology. Some linguists go so far as to say that he did not speak Old Frankish. Old Frankish is reconstructed from its descendant, Old Low Franconian, which would give rise to the Dutch language and to the modern dialects in the German North Rhineland, which were dubbed Ripuarian in modern times. Another important source are loanwords in Old French. Linguists know very little about Old Frankish, as it is attested mainly as phrases and words in the law codes of the main Frankish tribes (especially those of the Salian and Ripuarian Franks), which are written in Latin interspersed with Germanic elements. The Franconian language had been replaced with an Old High German form in the area comprising the contemporary Southern Rhineland, The Palatinate South Hessen and Northern parts of Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria. The present Dutch language area along with the modern Ripuarian areas in the North Rhine region preserved a form of Franconian dubbed Old Low Franconian or Old Dutch.

The area of Charlemagne's birth does not make determination of his native language easier. Most historians agree he was born around Liège, like his father, but some say he was born in or around Aachen, some away. At that time, this was an area of some linguistic diversity. Dialects around Liège (around 750) included:

Old East Low Franconian in the city, north and northwest;

the closely related Old Ripuarian Franconian to the east and in Aachen; and

Gallo-Romance (the ancestor of the Walloon dialect of Old French) in the south and southwest.

The names he gave his children may be indicators of the language he spoke, as all of his daughters received Old High German names.

Apart from his native language he also spoke Latin "as fluently as his own tongue" and understood a bit of Greek: ''Grecam vero melius intellegere quam pronuntiare poterat'', "He understood Greek better than he could pronounce it."

According to a fifteenth century Irish source, he also spoke Arabic. In the 'Gabhaltais Shearluis Mhoir' or 'Conquests of Charlemagne' from the Book of Lismore edited by Douglas Hyde, ch. 10, p. 35:

When Agiolandus heard the Saracen language from Charles he marvelled at it greatly. For when Charles was a youth he had been among the Paynims in the city which is called Toletum (Toledo) and he had learnt the language of the Saracens in that city.

Personal appearance

Although no description from Charlemagne's lifetime exists, his personal appearance is known from a good description by Einhard, author of the biography ''Vita Karoli Magni''. Einhard tells in his twenty-second chapter:

He was heavily built, sturdy, and of considerable stature, although not exceptionally so, since his height was seven times the length of his own foot. He had a round head, large and lively eyes, a slightly larger nose than usual, white but still attractive hair, a bright and cheerful expression, a short and fat neck, and he enjoyed good health, except for the fevers that affected him in the last few years of his life. Toward the end, he dragged one leg. Even then, he stubbornly did what he wanted and refused to listen to doctors, indeed he detested them, because they wanted to persuade him to stop eating roast meat, as was his wont, and to be content with boiled meat.

The physical portrait provided by Einhard is confirmed by contemporary depictions of the emperor, such as coins and his bronze statue kept in the Louvre. In 1861, Charlemagne's tomb was opened by scientists who reconstructed his skeleton and estimated it to be measured 74.9 inches (190 centimeters). A modern study based on the dimensions of his tibia estimated his height as 1.84 m. This puts him in the 99th percentile of tall people of his period, given that average male height of his time was 1.69 m. The width of the bone suggested he was gracile but not robust in body build

Charles is well known to have been fair-haired, tall, and stately, with a disproportionately thick neck. The Roman tradition of realistic personal portraiture was in complete eclipse in his time, where individual traits were submerged in iconic typecastings. Charlemagne, as an ideal ruler, ought to be portrayed in the corresponding fashion, any contemporary would have assumed. The images of enthroned Charlemagne, God's representative on Earth, bear more connections to the icons of Christ in majesty than to modern (or antique) conceptions of portraiture. Charlemagne in later imagery (as in the Dürer portrait) is often portrayed with flowing blond hair, due to a misunderstanding of Einhard, who describes Charlemagne as having ''canitie pulchra'', or "beautiful white hair", which has been rendered as blonde or fair in many translations.

Dress

Charlemagne wore the traditional, inconspicuous and distinctly non-aristocratic costume of the Frankish people, described by Einhard thus:

He used to wear the national, that is to say, the Frank dress: next to his skin a linen shirt and linen breeches, and above these a tunic fringed with silk; while hose fastened by bands covered his lower limbs, and shoes his feet, and he protected his shoulders and chest in winter by a close-fitting coat of otter or marten skins.

He wore a blue cloak and always carried a sword with him. The typical sword was of a golden or silver hilt. He wore fancy jewelled swords to banquets or ambassadorial receptions. Nevertheless:

He despised foreign costumes, however handsome, and never allowed himself to be robed in them, except twice in Rome, when he donned the Roman tunic, chlamys, and shoes; the first time at the request of Pope Adrian, the second to gratify Leo, Adrian's successor.

He could rise to the occasion when necessary. On great feast days, he wore embroidery and jewels on his clothing and shoes. He had a golden buckle for his cloak on such occasions and would appear with his great diadem, but he despised such apparel, according to Einhard, and usually dressed like the common people.

Rise to power

Early life

Charlemagne was the eldest child of Pepin the Short (714 – 24 September 768, reigned from 751) and his wife Bertrada of Laon (720 – 12 July 783), daughter of Caribert of Laon and Bertrada of Cologne. Records name only Carloman, Gisela, and a short-lived child named Pippin as his younger siblings. The semi-mythical Redburga, wife of King Egbert of Wessex, is sometimes claimed to be his sister (or sister-in-law or niece), and the legendary material makes him Roland's maternal uncle through a lady Bertha.

Much of what is known of Charlemagne's life comes from his biographer, Einhard, who wrote a ''Vita Caroli Magni'' (or ''Vita Karoli Magni''), the ''Life of Charlemagne''. Einhard says of the early life of Charles:

It would be folly, I think, to write a word concerning Charles' birth and infancy, or even his boyhood, for nothing has ever been written on the subject, and there is no one alive now who can give information on it. Accordingly, I determined to pass that by as unknown, and to proceed at once to treat of his character, his deeds, and such other facts of his life as are worth telling and setting forth, and shall first give an account of his deeds at home and abroad, then of his character and pursuits, and lastly of his administration and death, omitting nothing worth knowing or necessary to know.

On the death of Pepin, the kingdom of the Franks was divided—following tradition—between Charlemagne and Carloman. Charles took the outer parts of the kingdom, bordering on the sea, namely Neustria, western Aquitaine, and the northern parts of Austrasia, while Carloman retained the inner parts: southern Austrasia, Septimania, eastern Aquitaine, Burgundy, Provence, and Swabia, lands bordering on Italy.

Joint rule

On 9 October, immediately after the funeral of their father, both the kings withdrew from Saint Denis to be proclaimed by their nobles and consecrated by the bishops, Charlemagne in Noyon and Carloman in Soissons.

The first event of the brothers' reign was the uprising of the Aquitainians and Gascons, in 769, in that territory split between the two kings. Years before, Pippin had suppressed the revolt of Waifer, Duke of Aquitaine. Now, one Hunald (seemingly other than Hunald the duke) led the Aquitainians as far north as Angoulême. Charlemagne met Carloman, but Carloman refused to participate and returned to Burgundy. Charlemagne went to war, leading an army to Bordeaux, where he set up a fort at Fronsac. Hunald was forced to flee to the court of Duke Lupus II of Gascony. Lupus, fearing Charlemagne, turned Hunald over in exchange for peace. He was put in a monastery. Aquitaine was finally fully subdued by the Franks.

The brothers maintained lukewarm relations with the assistance of their mother Bertrada, but in 770 Charlemagne signed a treaty with Duke Tassilo III of Bavaria and married a Lombard Princess (commonly known today as Desiderata), the daughter of King Desiderius, to surround Carloman with his own allies. Though Pope Stephen III first opposed the marriage with the Lombard princess, he would soon have little to fear from a Frankish-Lombard alliance.

Less than a year after his marriage, Charlemagne repudiated Desiderata, and quickly remarried to a 13-year-old Swabian named Hildegard. The repudiated Desiderata returned to her father's court at Pavia. The Lombard's wrath was now aroused and he would gladly have allied with Carloman to defeat Charles. But before any open hostilities could be declared, Carloman died on 5 December 771, seemingly of natural causes. Carloman's widow Gerberga fled to Desiderius' court in Lombardy with her sons for protection.

Italian campaigns

Conquest of Lombardy

At the succession of Pope Adrian I in 772, he demanded the return of certain cities in the former exarchate of Ravenna as in accordance with a promise of Desiderius' succession. Desiderius instead took over certain papal cities and invaded the Pentapolis, heading for Rome. Adrian sent embassies to Charlemagne in autumn requesting he enforce the policies of his father, Pippin. Desiderius sent his own embassies denying the pope's charges. The embassies both met at Thionville and Charlemagne upheld the pope's side. Charlemagne promptly demanded what the pope had demanded and Desiderius promptly swore never to comply. Charlemagne and his uncle Bernard crossed the Alps in 773 and chased the Lombards back to Pavia, which they then besieged. Charlemagne temporarily left the siege to deal with Adelchis, son of Desiderius, who was raising an army at Verona. The young prince was chased to the Adriatic littoral and he fled to Constantinople to plead for assistance from Constantine V, who was waging war with Bulgaria.

The siege lasted until the spring of 774, when Charlemagne visited the pope in Rome. There he confirmed his father's grants of land, with some later chronicles claiming—falsely—that he also expanded them, granting Tuscany, Emilia, Venice, and Corsica. The pope granted him the title ''patrician''. He then returned to Pavia, where the Lombards were on the verge of surrendering.

In return for their lives, the Lombards surrendered and opened the gates in early summer. Desiderius was sent to the abbey of Corbie and his son Adelchis died in Constantinople a patrician. Charles, unusually, had himself crowned with the Iron Crown and made the magnates of Lombardy do homage to him at Pavia. Only Duke Arechis II of Benevento refused to submit and proclaimed independence. Charlemagne was then master of Italy as king of the Lombards. He left Italy with a garrison in Pavia and a few Frankish counts in place that very year.

There was still instability, however, in Italy. In 776, Dukes Hrodgaud of Friuli and Hildeprand of Spoleto rebelled. Charlemagne rushed back from Saxony and defeated the duke of Friuli in battle. The duke was slain. The duke of Spoleto signed a treaty. Their co-conspirator, Arechis, was not subdued, and Adelchis, their candidate in Byzantium, never left that city. Northern Italy was now faithfully his.

Southern Italy

In 787 Charlemagne directed his attention toward Benevento, where Arechis was reigning independently. Charlemagne besieged Salerno, and Arechis submitted to vassalage. However, with his death in 792, Benevento again proclaimed independence under his son Grimoald III. Grimoald was attacked by armies of Charles or his sons many times, but Charlemagne himself never returned to the Mezzogiorno, and Grimoald never was forced to surrender to Frankish suzerainty.

Charles and his children

During the first peace of any substantial length (780–782), Charles began to appoint his sons to positions of authority within the realm, in the tradition of the kings and mayors of the past. In 781, he made his two younger sons kings, having them crowned by the Pope. The elder of these two, Carloman, was made king of Italy, taking the Iron Crown which his father had first worn in 774, and in the same ceremony was renamed "Pippin." The younger of the two, Louis, became king of Aquitaine. Charlemagne ordered Pippin and Louis to be raised in the customs of their kingdoms, and he gave their regents some control of their subkingdoms, but real power was always in his hands, though he intended his sons to inherit their realms some day. Nor did he tolerate insubordination in his sons: in 792, he banished his eldest, though possibly illegitimate, son, Pippin the Hunchback, to the monastery of Prüm, because the young man had joined a rebellion against him.

Charles was determined to have his children educated, including his daughters, as he himself was not. His children were taught all the arts, and his daughters were learned in the way of being a woman. His sons took archery, horsemanship, and other outdoor activities.

The sons fought many wars on behalf of their father when they came of age. Charles was mostly preoccupied with the Bretons, whose border he shared and who insurrected on at least two occasions and were easily put down, but he was also sent against the Saxons on multiple occasions. In 805 and 806, he was sent into the Böhmerwald (modern Bohemia) to deal with the Slavs living there (Czechs). He subjected them to Frankish authority and devastated the valley of the Elbe, forcing a tribute on them. Pippin had to hold the Avar and Beneventan borders but also fought the Slavs to his north. He was uniquely poised to fight the Byzantine Empire when finally that conflict arose after Charlemagne's imperial coronation and a Venetian rebellion. Finally, Louis was in charge of the Spanish March and also went to southern Italy to fight the duke of Benevento on at least one occasion. He took Barcelona in a great siege in the year 797 (see below).

Charlemagne's attitude toward his daughters has been the subject of much discussion. He kept them at home with him and refused to allow them to contract sacramental marriages – possibly to prevent the creation of cadet branches of the family to challenge the main line, as had been the case with Tassilo of Bavaria – yet he tolerated their extramarital relationships, even rewarding their common-law husbands, and treasured the illegitimate grandchildren they produced for him. He also, apparently, refused to believe stories of their wild behavior. After his death the surviving daughters were banished from the court by their brother, the pious Louis, to take up residence in the convents they had been bequeathed by their father. At least one of them, Bertha, had a recognised relationship, if not a marriage, with Angilbert, a member of Charlemagne's court circle.

Carolingian expansion south

Expansion to Vasconia and the Pyrenees

The destructive war led by Pepin in Aquitaine, although brought to a satisfactory conclusion for the Franks, proved the Frankish power structure south of the Loire was feeble and unreliable. After the defeat and death of Waifer of Aquitaine in 768, while Aquitaine submitted again to the Carolingian dynasty, a new rebellion broke out in 769 led by Hunald II, maybe son of Waifer. He took refuge with the ally duke Lupus II of Gascony, but probably out of fear of Charlemagne's reprisal, handed him over to the new King of the Franks besides pledging loyalty to him, which seemed to confirm the peace in the Basque area south of the Garonne.

However, wary of new Basque uprisings, Charlemagne seems to have tried to diminish duke Lupus’s power by appointing a certain Seguin as count of Bordeaux (778) and other counts of Frankish background in bordering areas (Toulouse, County of Fézensac, Bordeaux), a decision that seriously undermined the authority of the duke of Gascony (Vasconia). The Basque duke in turn seems to have contributed decisively or schemed the Battle of Roncevaux Pass (referred to as “Basque treachery”). The defeat of Charlemagne's army in Roncevaux (778) confirmed him in his determination to rule directly by establishing the Kingdom of Aquitaine (son Louis the Pious proclaimed first king) based on a power base of Frankish officials, distributing lands among colonisers and allocating lands to the Church, which he took as ally.

From 781 (Pallars, Ribagorça) to 806 (Pamplona under Frankish influence) to around 809 (County of Aragon Frankish vassal), taking the County of Toulouse for a power base, Charlemagne managed to assert Frankish authority on the Pyrenees by establishing vassal counties that were to make up the Marca Hispanica and provide the necessary springboard to attack the Hispanic Muslims (expedition led by William Count of Toulouse and Louis the Pious to capture Barcelona in 801), in a way that Charlemagne had succeeded in expanding the Carolingian rule all around the Pyrenees by 812, although events in the Duchy of Vasconia (rebellion in Pamplona, count overthrown in Aragon, duke Seguin of Bordeaux deposed, uprising of the Basque lords, etc.) were to prove it ephemeral on his death.

Roncesvalles campaign

According to the Muslim historian Ibn al-Athir, the Diet of Paderborn had received the representatives of the Muslim rulers of Zaragoza, Girona, Barcelona, and Huesca. Their masters had been cornered in the Iberian peninsula by Abd ar-Rahman I, the Umayyad emir of Córdoba. These Moorish or "Saracen" rulers offered their homage to the great king of the Franks in return for military support. Seeing an opportunity to extend Christendom and his own power and believing the Saxons to be a fully conquered nation, Charlemagne agreed to go to Spain.

In 778, he led the Neustrian army across the Western Pyrenees, while the Austrasians, Lombards, and Burgundians passed over the Eastern Pyrenees. The armies met at Zaragoza and Charlemagne received the homage of the Muslim rulers, Sulayman al-Arabi and Kasmin ibn Yusuf, but the city did not fall for him. Indeed, Charlemagne was facing the toughest battle of his career where the Muslims had the upper hand and forced him to retreat. He decided to go home, since he could not trust the Basques, whom he had subdued by conquering Pamplona. He turned to leave Iberia, but as he was passing through the Pass of Roncesvalles one of the most famous events of his long reign occurred. The Basques fell on his rearguard and baggage train, utterly destroying it. The Battle of Roncevaux Pass, less a battle than a mere skirmish, left many famous dead: among which were the seneschal Eggihard, the count of the palace Anselm, and the warden of the Breton March, Roland, inspiring the subsequent creation of the Song of Roland (''La Chanson de Roland'').

Wars with the Moors

The conquest of Italy brought Charlemagne in contact with the Saracens who, at the time, controlled the Mediterranean. Pippin, his son, was much occupied with Saracens in Italy. Charlemagne conquered Corsica and Sardinia at an unknown date and in 799 the Balearic Islands. The islands were often attacked by Saracen pirates, but the counts of Genoa and Tuscany (Boniface) kept them at bay with large fleets until the end of Charlemagne's reign. Charlemagne even had contact with the caliphal court in Baghdad. In 797 (or possibly 801), the caliph of Baghdad, Harun al-Rashid, presented Charlemagne with an Asian elephant named Abul-Abbas and a clock.

In Hispania, the struggle against the Moors continued unabated throughout the latter half of his reign. His son Louis was in charge of the Spanish border. In 785, his men captured Gerona permanently and extended Frankish control into the Catalan littoral for the duration of Charlemagne's reign (and much longer, it remained nominally Frankish until the Treaty of Corbeil in 1258). The Muslim chiefs in the northeast of Islamic Spain were constantly revolting against Córdoban authority, and they often turned to the Franks for help. The Frankish border was slowly extended until 795, when Gerona, Cardona, Ausona, and Urgel were united into the new Spanish March, within the old duchy of Septimania.

In 797 Barcelona, the greatest city of the region, fell to the Franks when Zeid, its governor, rebelled against Córdoba and, failing, handed it to them. The Umayyad authority recaptured it in 799. However, Louis of Aquitaine marched the entire army of his kingdom over the Pyrenees and besieged it for two years, wintering there from 800 to 801, when it capitulated. The Franks continued to press forward against the emir. They took Tarragona in 809 and Tortosa in 811. The last conquest brought them to the mouth of the Ebro and gave them raiding access to Valencia, prompting the Emir al-Hakam I to recognize their conquests in 812.

Eastern campaigns

Saxon Wars

Charlemagne was engaged in almost constant battle throughout his reign, often at the head of his elite ''scara'' bodyguard squadrons, with his legendary sword Joyeuse in hand. After thirty years of war and eighteen battles—the Saxon Wars—he conquered Saxonia and proceeded to convert the conquered to Christianity.

The Germanic Saxons were divided into four subgroups in four regions. Nearest to Austrasia was Westphalia and furthest away was Eastphalia. In between these two kingdoms was that of Engria and north of these three, at the base of the Jutland peninsula, was Nordalbingia.

In his first campaign, Charlemagne forced the Engrians in 773 to submit and cut down an Irminsul pillar near Paderborn. The campaign was cut short by his first expedition to Italy. He returned in 775, marching through Westphalia and conquered the Saxon fort of Sigiburg. He then crossed Engria, where he defeated the Saxons again. Finally, in Eastphalia, he defeated a Saxon force, and its leader Hessi converted to Christianity. He returned through Westphalia, leaving encampments at Sigiburg and Eresburg, which had, up until then, been important Saxon bastions. All of Saxony but Nordalbingia was under his control, but Saxon resistance had not ended.

Following his campaign in Italy subjugating the dukes of Friuli and Spoleto, Charlemagne returned very rapidly to Saxony in 776, where a rebellion had destroyed his fortress at Eresburg. The Saxons were once again brought to heel, but their main leader, Widukind, managed to escape to Denmark, home of his wife. Charlemagne built a new camp at Karlstadt. In 777, he called a national diet at Paderborn to integrate Saxony fully into the Frankish kingdom. Many Saxons were baptised as Christians.

In the summer of 779, he again invaded Saxony and reconquered Eastphalia, Engria, and Westphalia. At a diet near Lippe, he divided the land into missionary districts and himself assisted in several mass baptisms (780). He then returned to Italy and, for the first time, there was no immediate Saxon revolt. Saxony was peaceful from 780 to 782.

He returned to Saxony in 782 and instituted a code of law and appointed counts, both Saxon and Frank. The laws were draconian on religious issues; for example, the ''Capitulatio de partibus Saxoniae'' prescribed death to Saxon pagans who refused to convert to Christianity. This revived a renewal of the old conflict. That year, in autumn, Widukind returned and led a new revolt. In response, at Verden in Lower Saxony, Charlemagne is recorded as having ordered the execution of 4,500 Saxon prisoners, known as the Massacre of Verden ("Verdener Blutgericht"). The killings triggered three years of renewed bloody warfare (783–785). During this war the Frisians were also finally subdued and a large part of their fleet was burned. The war ended with Widukind accepting baptism.

Thereafter, the Saxons maintained the peace for seven years, but in 792 the Westphalians again rose against their conquerors. The Eastphalians and Nordalbingians joined them in 793, but the insurrection did not catch on and was put down by 794. An Engrian rebellion followed in 796, but the presence of Charlemagne, Christian Saxons and Slavs quickly crushed it. The last insurrection of the independent-minded people occurred in 804, more than thirty years after Charlemagne's first campaign against them. This time, the most restive of them, the Nordalbingians, found themselves effectively disempowered from rebellion for the time being. According to Einhard:

The war that had lasted so many years was at length ended by their acceding to the terms offered by the King; which were renunciation of their national religious customs and the worship of devils, acceptance of the sacraments of the Christian faith and religion, and union with the Franks to form one people.

Submission of Bavaria

In 788, Charlemagne turned his attention to Bavaria. He claimed Tassilo was an unfit ruler, due to his oath-breaking. The charges were exaggerated, but Tassilo was deposed anyway and put in the monastery of Jumièges. In 794, he was made to renounce any claim to Bavaria for himself and his family (the Agilolfings) at the synod of Frankfurt. Bavaria was subdivided into Frankish counties, as had been done with Saxony.

Avars campaigns

In 788, the Avars, a pagan Asian horde which had settled down in what is today Hungary (Einhard called them Huns), invaded Friuli and Bavaria. Charlemagne was preoccupied until 790 with other things, but in that year, he marched down the Danube into their territory and ravaged it to the Raab. Then, a Lombard army under Pippin marched into the Drava valley and ravaged Pannonia. The campaigns would have continued if the Saxons had not revolted again in 792, breaking seven years of peace.

For the next two years, Charlemagne was occupied with the Slavs against the Saxons. Pippin and Duke Eric of Friuli continued, however, to assault the Avars' ring-shaped strongholds. The great Ring of the Avars, their capital fortress, was taken twice. The booty was sent to Charlemagne at his capital, Aachen, and redistributed to all his followers and even to foreign rulers, including King Offa of Mercia. Soon the Avar tuduns had thrown in the towel and travelled to Aachen to subject themselves to Charlemagne as vassals and Christians. Charlemagne accepted their surrender and sent one native chief, baptised Abraham, back to Avaria with the ancient title of khagan. Abraham kept his people in line, but in 800, the Bulgarians under Khan Krum swept the Avar state away. In the 10th century, the Magyars settled the Pannonian plain and presented a new threat to Charlemagne's descendants.

Northeast Slav expeditions

In 789, in recognition of his new pagan neighbours, the Slavs, Charlemagne marched an Austrasian-Saxon army across the Elbe into Obotrite territory. The Slavs immediately submitted under their leader Witzin. Charlemagne then accepted the surrender of the Wiltzes under Dragovit and demanded many hostages and the permission to send, unmolested, missionaries into the pagan region. The army marched to the Baltic before turning around and marching to the Rhine with much booty and no harassment. The tributary Slavs became loyal allies. In 795, when the Saxons broke the peace, the Abotrites and Wiltzes rose in arms with their new master against the Saxons. Witzin died in battle and Charlemagne avenged him by harrying the Eastphalians on the Elbe. Thrasuco, his successor, led his men to conquest over the Nordalbingians and handed their leaders over to Charlemagne, who greatly honoured him. The Abotrites remained loyal until Charles' death and fought later against the Danes.

Southeast Slav expeditions

When Charlemagne incorporated much of Central Europe, he brought the Frankish state face to face with the Avars and Slavs in the southeast. The most southeast Frankish neighbors were Croats, who settled in Pannonian Croatia and Littoral Croatian Duchy. While fighting the Avars, the Franks had called for their support. During the 790s, when Charlemagne campaigned against the Avars, he won a major victory in 796. Pannonian Croatian duke Vojnomir of Pannonian Croatia aided Charlemagne, and the Franks made themselves overlords over the Croatians of northern Dalmatia, Slavonia, and Pannonia.

The Frankish commander Eric of Friuli wanted to extend his dominion by conquering Littoral Croatian Duchy. During that time, Littoral Croatia was ruled by duke Višeslav of Croatia, who was one of the first known Croatian dukes. In the Battle of Trsat, the forces of Eric fled their positions and were totally routed by the forces of Višeslav. Eric himself was among the killed, and his death and defeat proved a great blow for the Carolingian Empire.

Charlemagne also directed his attention to the Slavs to the west of the Avar khaganate: the Carantanians and Carniolans. These people were subdued by the Lombards and Bavarii, were made tributaries, but were never fully incorporated into the Frankish state.

Imperium

Imperial diplomacy

In 799, Pope Leo III had been mistreated by the Romans, who tried to put out his eyes and tear out his tongue. Leo escaped and fled to Charlemagne at Paderborn, asking him to intervene in Rome and restore him. Charlemagne, advised by Alcuin of York, agreed to travel to Rome, doing so in November 800 and holding a council on 1 December. On 23 December Leo swore an oath of innocence. At Mass, on Christmas Day (25 December), when Charlemagne knelt at the altar to pray, the Pope crowned him ''Imperator Romanorum'' ("Emperor of the Romans") in Saint Peter's Basilica. In so doing, the Pope was effectively reviving the Western Roman Empire and nullifying the legitimacy of Empress Irene of Constantinople (Pope Leo III did not consider her a legitimate claimant to the Byzantine throne because she was a woman). Einhard says that Charlemagne was ignorant of the Pope's intent and did not want any such coronation:

[H]e at first had such an aversion that he declared that he would not have set foot in the Church the day that they [the imperial titles] were conferred, although it was a great feast-day, if he could have foreseen the design of the Pope.

Many modern scholars suggest that Charlemagne was indeed aware of the coronation; certainly he cannot have missed the bejeweled crown waiting on the altar when he came to pray. In any event, he used these circumstances to claim that he was the renewer of the Roman Empire, which had apparently fallen into degradation under the Byzantines. In his official charters, Charles preferred the style ''Karolus serenissimus Augustus a Deo coronatus magnus pacificus imperator Romanum gubernans imperium'' ("Charles, most serene Augustus crowned by God, the great, peaceful emperor ruling the Roman empire") to a more direct ''Imperator Romanorum'' ("Emperor of the Romans").

The Iconoclasm of the Isaurian Dynasty and resulting religious conflicts with the Empress Irene, sitting on the throne in Constantinople in 800, were probably the chief causes of the Pope's desire to formally acclaim Charles as Roman Emperor. He also most certainly desired to increase the influence of the papacy, honour his saviour Charlemagne, and solve the constitutional issues then most troubling to European jurists in an era when Rome was not in the hands of an emperor. Thus, Charlemagne's assumption of the imperial title was not an usurpation in the eyes of the Franks or Italians. It was, however, in Byzantium, where it was protested by Irene and her successor Nicephorus I—neither of whom had any great effect in enforcing their protests.

The Byzantines, however, still held several territories in Italy: Venice (what was left of the Exarchate of Ravenna), Reggio (in Calabria), Brindisi (in Apulia), and Naples (the ''Ducatus Neapolitanus''). These regions remained outside of Frankish hands until 804, when the Venetians, torn by infighting, transferred their allegiance to the Iron Crown of Pippin, Charles' son. The ''Pax Nicephori'' ended. Nicephorus ravaged the coasts with a fleet, and the only instance of war between the Byzantines and the Franks, as it was, began. It lasted until 810, when the pro-Byzantine party in Venice gave their city back to the Byzantine Emperor, and the two emperors of Europe made peace: Charlemagne received the Istrian peninsula and in 812 the emperor Michael I Rhangabes recognised his status as Emperor, although not necessarily as "Emperor of the Romans".

Danish attacks

After the conquest of Nordalbingia, the Frankish frontier was brought into contact with Scandinavia. The pagan Danes, "a race almost unknown to his ancestors, but destined to be only too well known to his sons" as Charles Oman described them, inhabiting the Jutland peninsula, had heard many stories from Widukind and his allies who had taken refuge with them about the dangers of the Franks and the fury which their Christian king could direct against pagan neighbours.

In 808, the king of the Danes, Godfred, built the vast Danevirke across the isthmus of Schleswig. This defence, last employed in the Danish-Prussian War of 1864, was at its beginning a long earthenwork rampart. The Danevirke protected Danish land and gave Godfred the opportunity to harass Frisia and Flanders with pirate raids. He also subdued the Frank-allied Wiltzes and fought the Abotrites.

Godfred invaded Frisia, joked of visiting Aachen, but was murdered before he could do any more, either by a Frankish assassin or by one of his own men. Godfred was succeeded by his nephew Hemming, who concluded the Treaty of Heiligen with Charlemagne in late 811.

Death

In 813, Charlemagne called Louis the Pious, king of Aquitaine, his only surviving legitimate son, to his court. There Charlemagne crowned his son with his own hands as co-emperor and sent him back to Aquitaine. He then spent the autumn hunting before returning to Aachen on 1 November. In January, he fell ill with pleurisy. In deep depression (mostly because many of his plans were not yet realized), he took to his bed on 21 January and as Einhard tells it:

He died January twenty-eighth, the seventh day from the time that he took to his bed, at nine o'clock in the morning, after partaking of the Holy Communion, in the seventy-second year of his age and the forty-seventh of his reign.

He was buried the same day as his death, in Aachen Cathedral, although the cold weather and the nature of his illness made such a hurried burial unnecessary. The earliest surviving ''planctus'', the ''Planctus de obitu Karoli'', was composed by a monk of Bobbio, which he had patronised. A later story, told by Otho of Lomello, Count of the Palace at Aachen in the time of Otto III, would claim that he and Emperor Otto had discovered Charlemagne's tomb: the emperor, they claimed, was seated upon a throne, wearing a crown and holding a sceptre, his flesh almost entirely incorrupt. In 1165, Frederick I re-opened the tomb again and placed the emperor in a sarcophagus beneath the floor of the cathedral. In 1215 Frederick II re-interred him in a casket made of gold and silver.

Charlemagne's death greatly affected many of his subjects, particularly those of the literary clique who had surrounded him at Aachen. An anonymous monk of Bobbio lamented:

From the lands where the sun rises to western shores, People are crying and wailing...the Franks, the Romans, all Christians, are stung with mourning and great worry...the young and old, glorious nobles, all lament the loss of their Caesar...the world laments the death of Charles...O Christ, you who govern the heavenly host, grant a peaceful place to Charles in your kingdom. Alas for miserable me.

He was succeeded by his surviving son, Louis, who had been crowned the previous year. His empire lasted only another generation in its entirety; its division, according to custom, between Louis's own sons after their father's death laid the foundation for the modern states of Germany and France.

Administration

As an administrator, Charlemagne stands out for his many reforms: monetary, governmental, military, cultural, and ecclesiastical. He is the main protagonist of the "Carolingian Renaissance."

Military

It has long been held that the dominance of Charlemagne's military was based on a "cavalry revolution" led by Charles Martel in 730s. However, the stirrup, which made the "shock cavalry" lance charge possible, was not introduced to the Frankish kingdom until the late eighth century. Instead, Charlemagne's success rested primarily on novel siege technologies and excellent logistics. However, large numbers of horses were used by the Frankish military during the age of Charlemagne. This was because horses provided a quick, long-distance method of transporting troops, which was critical to building and maintaining such a large empire.

Economic and monetary reforms

Charlemagne had an important role in determining the immediate economic future of Europe. Pursuing his father's reforms, Charlemagne abolished the monetary system based on the gold , and he and the Anglo-Saxon King Offa of Mercia took up the system set in place by Pippin. There were strong pragmatic reasons for this abandonment of a gold standard, notably a shortage of gold itself, which was a direct consequence of the conclusion of peace with Byzantium, which resulted in the ceding of Venice and Sicily and the loss of their trade routes to Africa and to the East. This standardisation also had the effect of economically harmonising and unifying the complex array of currencies which had been in use at the commencement of his reign, thus simplifying trade and commerce.

He established a new standard, the (from the Latin , the modern pound), which was based upon a pound of silver—a unit of both money and weight—which was worth 20 sous (from the Latin [which was primarily an accounting device and never actually minted], the modern shilling) or 240 (from the Latin , the modern penny). During this period, the and the were counting units; only the was a coin of the realm.

Charlemagne instituted principles for accounting practice by means of the Capitulare de villis of 802, which laid down strict rules for the way in which incomes and expenses were to be recorded.

The lending of money for interest was prohibited and then strengthened in 814, when Charlemagne introduced the ''Capitulary for the Jews'', a draconian prohibition on Jews engaging in money-lending.

In addition to this macro-oriented reform of the economy of his empire, Charlemagne also performed a significant number of microeconomic reforms, such as direct control of prices and levies on certain goods and commodities.

Charlemagne applied the system to much of the European continent, and Offa's standard was voluntarily adopted by much of England. After Charlemagne's death, continental coinage degraded, and most of Europe resorted to using the continued high-quality English coin until about 1100.

Education reforms

A part of Charlemagne's success as warrior and administrator can be traced to his admiration for learning. His reign and the era it ushered in are often referred to as the Carolingian Renaissance because of the flowering of scholarship, literature, art, and architecture which characterize it. Charlemagne, brought into contact with the culture and learning of other countries (especially Visigothic Spain, Anglo-Saxon England, and Lombard Italy) due to his vast conquests, greatly increased the provision of monastic schools and scriptoria (centres for book-copying) in Francia. Most of the presently surviving works of classical Latin were copied and preserved by Carolingian scholars. Indeed, the earliest manuscripts available for many ancient texts are Carolingian. It is almost certain that a text which survived to the Carolingian age survives still. The pan-European nature of Charlemagne's influence is indicated by the origins of many of the men who worked for him: Alcuin, an Anglo-Saxon from York; Theodulf, a Visigoth, probably from Septimania; Paul the Deacon, Lombard; Peter of Pisa and Paulinus of Aquileia, Italians; and Angilbert, Angilram, Einhard, and Waldo of Reichenau, Franks.

Charlemagne took a serious interest in scholarship, promoting the liberal arts at the court, ordering that his children and grandchildren be well-educated, and even studying himself (in a time when even leaders who promoted education did not take time to learn themselves) under the tutelage of Paul the Deacon, from whom he learned grammar; Alcuin, with whom he studied rhetoric, dialectic (logic), and astronomy (he was particularly interested in the movements of the stars); and Einhard, who assisted him in his studies of arithmetic. His great scholarly failure, as Einhard relates, was his inability to write: when in his old age he began attempts to learn—practicing the formation of letters in his bed during his free time on books and wax tablets he hid under his pillow—"his effort came too late in life and achieved little success", and his ability to read – which Einhard is silent about, and which no contemporary source supports—has also been called into question.

In 800, Charlemagne enlarged the hostel at the Muristan in Jerusalem and added a library to it. He certainly had not been personally in Jerusalem.

Church reforms

Writing reforms

During Charles' reign, the Roman half uncial script and its cursive version, which had given rise to various continental minuscule scripts, were combined with features from the insular scripts that were being used in Irish and English monasteries. Carolingian minuscule was created partly under the patronage of Charlemagne. Alcuin of York, who ran the palace school and scriptorium at Aachen, was probably a chief influence in this. The revolutionary character of the Carolingian reform, however, can be over-emphasised; efforts at taming the crabbed Merovingian and Germanic hands had been underway before Alcuin arrived at Aachen. The new minuscule was disseminated first from Aachen and later from the influential scriptorium at Tours, where Alcuin retired as an abbot.

Political reforms

Charlemagne engaged in many reforms of Frankish governance, but he continued also in many traditional practices, such as the division of the kingdom among sons.

Organization

The Carolingian king exercised the ''bannum'', the right to rule and command. He had supreme jurisdiction in judicial matters, made legislation, led the army, and protected both the Church and the poor. His administration was an attempt to organise the kingdom, church, and nobility around him. However, the effort was heavily dependent upon the efficiency, loyalty, and support of his subjects.

Imperial coronation

Historians have debated for centuries whether Charlemagne was aware of the Pope's intent to crown him Emperor prior to the coronation (Charlemagne declared that he would not have entered Saint Peter's had he known), but that debate has often obscured the more significant question of ''why'' the Pope granted the title and why Charlemagne chose to accept it once he did.

Roger Collins points out "That the motivation behind the acceptance of the imperial title was a romantic and antiquarian interest in reviving the Roman empire is highly unlikely." For one thing, such romance would not have appealed either to Franks or Roman Catholics at the turn of the ninth century, both of whom viewed the Classical heritage of the Roman Empire with distrust. The Franks took pride in having "fought against and thrown from their shoulders the heavy yoke of the Romans" and "from the knowledge gained in baptism, clothed in gold and precious stones the bodies of the holy martyrs whom the Romans had killed by fire, by the sword and by wild animals", as Pippin III described it in a law of 763 or 764 (Collins 151). Furthermore, the new title—carrying with it the risk that the new emperor would "make drastic changes to the traditional styles and procedures of government" or "concentrate his attentions on Italy or on Mediterranean concerns more generally"—risked alienating the Frankish leadership.

For both the Pope and Charlemagne, the Roman Empire remained a significant power in European politics at this time, and continued to hold a substantial portion of Italy, with borders not very far south of the city of Rome itself—this is the empire historiography has labelled the Byzantine Empire, for its capital was Constantinople (ancient Byzantium) and its people and rulers were Greek; it was a thoroughly Hellenic state. Indeed, Charlemagne was usurping the prerogatives of the Roman Emperor in Constantinople simply by sitting in judgement over the Pope in the first place:

For the Pope, then, there was "no living Emperor at the that time" (Norwich 379), though Henri Pirenne (''Mohammed and Charlemagne'', pg. 234n) disputes this saying that the coronation "was not in any sense explained by the fact that at this moment a woman was reigning in Constantinople." Nonetheless, the Pope took the extraordinary step of creating one. The papacy had since 727 been in conflict with Irene's predecessors in Constantinople over a number of issues, chiefly the continued Byzantine adherence to the doctrine of iconoclasm, the destruction of Christian images; while from 750, the secular power of the Byzantine Empire in central Italy had been nullified. By bestowing the Imperial crown upon Charlemagne, the Pope arrogated to himself "the right to appoint ... the Emperor of the Romans, ... establishing the imperial crown as his own personal gift but simultaneously granting himself implicit superiority over the Emperor whom he had created." And "because the Byzantines had proved so unsatisfactory from every point of view—political, military and doctrinal—he would select a westerner: the one man who by his wisdom and statesmanship and the vastness of his dominions ... stood out head and shoulders above his contemporaries."

With Charlemagne's coronation, therefore, "the Roman Empire remained, so far as either of them [Charlemagne and Leo] were concerned, one and indivisible, with Charles as its Emperor", though there can have been "little doubt that the coronation, with all that it implied, would be furiously contested in Constantinople." (Norwich, ''Byzantium: The Apogee'', pg. 3) How realistic either Charlemagne or the Pope felt it to be that the people of Constantinople would ever accept the King of the Franks as their Emperor, we cannot know; Alcuin speaks hopefully in his letters of an ''Imperium Christianum'' ("Christian Empire"), wherein, "just as the inhabitants of the [Roman Empire] had been united by a common Roman citizenship", presumably this new empire would be united by a common Christian faith (Collins 151), certainly this is the view of Pirenne when he says "Charles was the Emperor of the ''ecclesia'' as the Pope conceived it, of the Roman Church, regarded as the universal Church" (Pirenne 233). What is known, from the Byzantine chronicler Theophanes (Collins 153), is that Charlemagne's reaction to his coronation was to take the initial steps toward securing the Constantinopolitan throne by sending envoys of marriage to Irene, and that Irene reacted somewhat favorably to them. Only when the people of Constantinople reacted to Irene's failure to immediately rebuff the proposal by deposing her and replacing her with one of her ministers, Nicephorus I, did Charlemagne drop any ambitions toward the Byzantine throne and begin minimising his new Imperial title, and instead return to describing himself primarily as ''rex Francorum et Langobardum''.

The title of emperor remained in his family for years to come, however, as brothers fought over who had the supremacy in the Frankish state. The papacy itself never forgot the title nor abandoned the right to bestow it. When the family of Charles ceased to produce worthy heirs, the pope gladly crowned whichever Italian magnate could best protect him from his local enemies. This devolution led, as could have been expected, to the dormancy of the title for almost forty years (924–962). Finally, in 962, in a radically different Europe from Charlemagne's, a new Roman Emperor was crowned in Rome by a grateful pope. This emperor, Otto the Great, brought the title into the hands of the kings of Germany for almost a millennium, for it was to become the Holy Roman Empire, a true imperial successor to Charles, if not Augustus.

Divisio regnorum

In 806, Charlemagne first made provision for the traditional division of the empire on his death. For Charles the Younger he designated Austrasia and Neustria, Saxony, Burgundy, and Thuringia. To Pippin he gave Italy, Bavaria, and Swabia. Louis received Aquitaine, the Spanish March, and Provence. There was no mention of the imperial title however, which has led to the suggestion that, at that particular time, Charlemagne regarded the title as an honorary achievement which held no hereditary significance.

This division might have worked, but it was never to be tested. Pippin died in 810 and Charles in 811. Charlemagne then reconsidered the matter, and in 813, crowned his youngest son, Louis, co-emperor and co-King of the Franks, granting him a half-share of the empire and the rest upon Charlemagne's own death. The only part of the Empire which Louis was not promised was Italy, which Charlemagne specifically bestowed upon Pippin's illegitimate son Bernard.

Cultural uses

Charlemagne had an immediate afterlife. The author of the ''Visio Karoli Magni'' written around 865 uses facts gathered apparently from Einhard and his own observations on the decline of Charlemagne's family after the dissensions war (840–43) as the basis for a visionary tale of Charles' meeting with a prophetic spectre in a dream.

Charlemagne, being a model knight as one of the Nine Worthies, enjoyed an important afterlife in European culture. One of the great medieval literary cycles, the Charlemagne cycle or the ''Matter of France'', centres on the deeds of Charlemagne—the Emperor with the Flowing Beard of ''Roland'' fame—and his historical commander of the border with Brittany, Roland, and the paladins who are analogous to the knights of the Round Table or King Arthur's court. Their tales constitute the first ''chansons de geste''.

Charlemagne himself was accorded sainthood inside the Holy Roman Empire after the twelfth century. His canonisation by Antipope Paschal III, to gain the favour of Frederick Barbarossa in 1165, was never recognised by the Holy See, which annulled all of Paschal's ordinances at the Third Lateran Council in 1179. However, his beatification has been acknowledged as ''cultus confirmed'' and is celebrated on 28 January. In the Divine Comedy the spirit of Charlemagne appears to Dante in the Heaven of Mars, among the other "warriors of the faith."

Charlemagne is sometimes credited with supporting the insertion of the ''filioque'' into the Nicene Creed. The Franks had inherited a Visigothic tradition of referring to the Holy Spirit as deriving from God the Father ''and Son'' (''Filioque''), and under Charlemagne, the Franks challenged the 381 Council of Constantinople proclamation that the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father alone. Pope Leo III rejected this notion, and had the Nicene Creed carved into the doors of Old St. Peter's Basilica without the offending phrase; the Frankish insistence led to bad relations between Rome and Francia. Later, the Roman Catholic Church would adopt the phrase, leading to dispute between Rome and Constantinople. Some see this as one of many pre-cursors to the East-West Schism centuries later.

French volunteers in the Wehrmacht and later Waffen-SS during World War II were organised in a unit called ''33rd Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS Charlemagne (1st French)''. A German Waffen-SS unit used "Karl der Große" for some time in 1943, but then chose the name ''10th SS Panzer Division Frundsberg'' instead.

The city of Aachen has, since 1949, awarded an international prize (called the ''Karlspreis der Stadt Aachen'') in honour of Charlemagne. It is awarded annually to "personages of merit who have promoted the idea of western unity by their political, economic and literary endeavours." Winners of the prize include Count Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi, the founder of the pan-European movement, Alcide De Gasperi, and Winston Churchill.

In its national anthem, El Gran Carlemany, the nation of Andorra credits Charlemagne with its independence.

Charlemagne is quoted by Dr Henry Jones Sr. (played by Sean Connery) in ''Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade''. After using his umbrella to induce a flock of seagulls to smash through the glass cockpit of a pursuing German fighter plane, Henry Jones remarks, "I suddenly remembered my Charlemagne: 'Let my armies be the rocks and the trees and the birds in the sky'." Despite the quote's popularity since the movie, there is no evidence that Charlemagne actually said this.

''The Economist'', the weekly news and international affairs newspaper, features a one-page article every week entitled "Charlemagne", focusing generally on European affairs and, more usually and specifically, on the European Union and its politics. While ''Economist'' writers are all technically anonymous, the column is known to be written by David Rennie, who took the position in 2007.

There is a play named "Carelman Charitham" in the Indian art-form Chavittu Nadakam which is based on the life of Charlemagne.

Ancestry

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Family

Marriages and heirs

Charlemagne had twenty (20) children over the course of his life with eight of his ten known wives or concubines. Nonetheless, he only had four legitimate grandsons, the four sons of his third son, Louis. In addition, he had a grandson (Bernard of Italy, the only son of his third son, Pippin of Italy), who was born illegitimate but included in the line of inheritance. So, despite twenty children, the claimants to his inheritance were few. His first relationship was with Himiltrude. The nature of this relationship is variously described as concubinage, a legal marriage, or a Friedelehe. (Charlemagne put her aside when he married Desiderata.) The union with Himiltrude produced two children:

Amaudru, a daughter

*Pippin the Hunchback (ca. 769–811)

After her, his first wife was Desiderata, daughter of Desiderius, king of the Lombards; married in 770, annulled in 771.

His second wife was Hildegard (757 or 758–783), married 771, died 783. By her he had nine children:

*Charles the Younger (ca. 772–4 December 811), Duke of Maine, and crowned King of the Franks on 25 December 800

*Carloman, renamed Pippin (April 777–8 July 810), King of Italy

*Adalhaid (774), who was born whilst her parents were on campaign in Italy. She was sent back to Francia, but died before reaching Lyons

*Rotrude (or Hruodrud) (775–6 June 810)

*Louis (778–20 June 840), twin of Lothair, King of Aquitaine since 781, crowned King of the Franks/co-emperor in 813, senior Emperor from 814

Lothair (778–6 February 779/780), twin of Louis, he died in infancy

*Bertha (779–826)

*Gisela (781–808)

*Hildegarde (782–783)

His third wife was Fastrada, married 784, died 794. By her he had:

*Theodrada (b.784), abbess of Argenteuil

*Hiltrude (b.787)

His fourth wife was Luitgard, married 794, died childless.

Concubinages and illegitimate children

His first known concubine was Gersuinda. By her he had:

*Adaltrude (b.774)

His second known concubine was Madelgard. By her he had:

*Ruodhaid (775–810), abbess of Faremoutiers

His third known concubine was Amaltrud of Vienne. By her he had:

*Alpaida (b.794)

His fourth known concubine was Regina. By her he had:

*Drogo (801–855), Bishop of Metz from 823 and abbot of Luxeuil Abbey

*Hugh (802–844), archchancellor of the Empire

His fifth known concubine was Ethelind. By her he had:

*Richbod (805–844), Abbott of Saint-Riquier

*Theodoric (b. 807)

References

Footnotes

Bibliography

Riché, Pierre (1993). ''The Carolingians: A Family Who Forged Europe''. University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 0-8122-1342-4

Comprises the ''Annales regni Francorum'' and ''The History of the Sons of Louis the Pious''

Charlemagne: Biographies and general studies, from ''Encyclopædia Britannica'', full-article, latest edition.

Molina Figueras, Joan (2004), Arnau de Montrodon y la catedral de San Carlomagno: sobre la imagen y el culto al emperador carolingio en Gerona, <>, 34-1, pp. 417-454.

External links

Charlemagne's biography

''The Life of Charlemagne'' by Einhard. At Medieval Sourcebook

''Vita Karoli Magni'' by Einhard. Latin text at The Latin Library

A reconstructed portrait of Charlemagne, based on historical sources, in a contemporary style.

The Sword of Charlemagne (myArmoury.com article)

Charlemagne Picture Gallery

Charter given by Charlemagne for St. Emmeram's Abbey showing the Emperor's seal, 22.2.794 . Taken from the collections of the Lichtbildarchiv älterer Originalurkunden at Marburg University

Charlemagne

Category:814 deaths * Category:Frankish kings Category:French Roman Catholics Category:German Roman Catholics Category:Roman Catholic monarchs

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Coordinates	52°9′54″N22°16′17″N
name	Sir Christopher Lee
birth date	May 27, 1922
birth place	Belgravia, Westminster, England
nationality	British
alma mater	Wellington College
occupation	Actor, author, singer
years active	1948–present
spouse
parents	Geoffrey Trollope Lee (father)Estelle Marie Lee (mother)
website	http://www.christopherleeweb.com/ }}

Sir Christopher Frank Carandini Lee, CBE, CStJ (born 27 May 1922) He is well known for his deep, strong voice and imposing height.

Lee has performed roles in 274 films since 1948 making him the Guinness book world record holder for most film acting roles ever. He was knighted in 2009 and received the BAFTA Fellowship in 2011.

Early life

Lee was born in Belgravia, Westminster, as the son of Lieutenant-Colonel Geoffrey Trollope Lee, of the 60th King's Royal Rifle Corps, and his wife, Contessa Estelle Marie (née Carandini di Sarzano). Lee's mother was a famous Edwardian beauty who was painted by Sir John Lavery as well as by Oswald Birley and Olive Snell, and sculpted by Clare F. Sheridan. Lee's maternal great-grandfather was an Italian political refugee, and his great-grandmother was English-born Australian singer Marie Carandini.

His parents separated when he was very young, and his mother took him and his sister to Switzerland. After enrolling in Miss Fisher's Academy in Wengen, he played his first villainous role as Rumpelstiltskin. The family returned to London, where Lee attended Wagner's private school. His mother then married Harcourt "Ingle" Rose, a banker and stepcousin of Ian Fleming, author of the James Bond novels. Lee applied unsuccessfully for a scholarship to Eton although the interview was to prove portentous because of the presence of the noted ghost story author M. R. James. Lee later claimed in his autobiography that James had cut a very impressive figure; sixty years later Lee played the part of M.R. James for the BBC.

Instead, Lee attended Wellington College, where he won scholarships in classics.

Involvement in World War II

Lee volunteered to fight for the Finnish forces during the Winter War against the Soviet Union in 1939; however, he along with other British volunteers were kept away from actual fighting, although he was issued winter gear and was posted on guard duty a safe distance from the frontlines. He went on to serve in the Royal Air Force and intelligence services during World War II, including serving as an Intelligence officer with the Long Range Desert Group. He trained in South Africa as a pilot, but eyesight problems forced him to drop out. He eventually ended up in North Africa as Cipher Officer for No. 260 Squadron RAF and was with it through Sicily and Italy. Additionally, he has mentioned (including in his audio commentary on the Lord of the Rings DVD) serving in Special Operations Executive. Lee retired from the RAF after the end of the War with the rank of Flight Lieutenant.

Early career

In 1946, Lee gained a seven-year contract with the Rank Organisation after discussing his interest in acting with his mother's second cousin Nicolò Carandini, the Italian Ambassador. Carandini related to Lee that performance was in his blood, as his great-grandmother Marie Carandini had been a successful opera singer, a fact of which Lee was unaware. He made his film debut in Terence Young's Gothic romance ''Corridor of Mirrors'' in 1947.

Also in 1947, Lee made an uncredited appearance in Laurence Olivier's film version of ''Hamlet'' as a spear carrier (marking his first film with frequent co-star and close friend Peter Cushing, who played Osric). Throughout the next decade, he made nearly 30 films, playing mostly stock action characters.

Lee's first film for Hammer was ''The Curse of Frankenstein'' (1957), in which he played Frankenstein's monster, with Cushing as the Baron. A little later, Lee co-starred with Boris Karloff in the film ''Corridors of Blood'' (1958), but Lee's own appearance as Frankenstein's monster also led to his first appearance as the Transylvanian vampire in the 1958 film ''Dracula'' (known as ''Horror of Dracula'' in the US).

Stories vary as to why Lee did not feature in the 1960 sequel ''The Brides of Dracula''. Some state that Hammer was unwilling to pay Lee his current fee, but most tend to believe that he simply did not wish to be typecast. Lee did, however, return to the role in Hammer's ''Dracula: Prince of Darkness'' in 1965. Lee's performance is notable in that he has no lines, merely hissing his way through the film. Again, stories vary as to the reason for this: Lee states he refused to speak the poor dialogue he was given, but screenwriter Jimmy Sangster claims that the script did not contain any lines for the character. This film set the standard for most of the Dracula sequels in the sense that half the film's running time was spent on telling the story of Dracula's resurrection and the character's appearances were brief. Lee has gone on record to state that he was virtually "blackmailed" by Hammer into starring in the subsequent films; unable or unwilling to pay him his going rate, they would resort to reminding him of how many people he would put out of work if he did not take part.

His roles in the films ''Dracula Has Risen from the Grave'' (1968), ''Taste the Blood of Dracula'' (1969), and ''Scars of Dracula'' (1970) all gave the Count very little to do, but were all commercially successful. Although Lee may not have liked what Hammer was doing with the character, worldwide audiences embraced the films, which are now considered classics of the genre. Lee starred in two further Dracula films for Hammer in the early 1970s, both of which attempted to bring the character into the modern-day era. These were not commercially successful.

Lee's other work for Hammer included ''The Mummy'' (1959). Lee also portrayed Rasputin in ''Rasputin, the Mad Monk'' (Lee apparently met Rasputin's assassin Felix Yussupov when he was a child) and Sir Henry Baskerville (to Cushing's Sherlock Holmes) in ''The Hound of the Baskervilles'' (1959). Lee later played Holmes himself in 1962's ''Sherlock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace'', and returned to Holmes films with Billy Wilder's British-made ''The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes'' (1970), in which he plays Sherlock's decidedly smarter brother, Mycroft. Lee also played a leading role in the German film ''The Puzzle of the Red Orchid'' (1962), speaking German, which he had learned during his education in Switzerland.

He was responsible for bringing acclaimed occult author Dennis Wheatley to Hammer. The company made two films from Wheatley's novels, both starring Lee. The first, ''The Devil Rides Out'' (1967), is generally considered to be one of Hammer's crowning achievements. According to Lee, Wheatley was so pleased with it that he offered the actor the film rights to his remaining black magic novels free of charge. However, the second film, ''To the Devil a Daughter'' (1976), was fraught with production difficulties and was disowned by its author. Although financially successful, it was Hammer's last horror film and marked the end of Lee's long association with the studio that brought him fame.

Like Cushing, Lee also appeared in horror films for other companies during the 20-year period from 1957 to 1977. Other films in which Lee performed include the series of Fu Manchu films made between 1965 and 1969, in which he starred as the villain in heavy oriental make-up; ''I, Monster'' (1971), in which he played Jekyll and Hyde; ''The Creeping Flesh'' (1972); and his personal favourite, ''The Wicker Man'' (1973), in which he played Lord Summerisle. Lee was attracted to the latter role by screenwriter Anthony Shaffer and apparently gave his services for free, as the budget was so small. Lee also appeared in ''Eugenie'' (1970), unaware that it was softcore pornography, as the sex scenes were shot separately. In addition to doing films in the UK, Lee did movies in Mainland Europe: he appeared in two German films, ''Count Dracula'', where he again played the vampire count, and ''The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism''. Other films in Europe he made include ''Castle of the Living Dead'' and ''Horror Express''.

1970s to 1999

Since the mid 1970s, Lee has eschewed horror roles almost entirely. Ian Fleming, author of the James Bond spy novels and Lee's stepcousin, had offered him the role of the titular antagonist in the first official Bond film ''Dr. No''. Lee enthusiastically accepted, but the producers had already chosen Joseph Wiseman for the part. In 1974, Lee finally got to play a James Bond villain when he was cast as the deadly assassin Francisco Scaramanga in ''The Man with the Golden Gun''.

Because of his filming schedule in Bangkok, film director Ken Russell was unable to sign Lee to play The Specialist in ''Tommy'' (1975). That role was eventually given to Jack Nicholson. In an AMC documentary on ''Halloween'', John Carpenter states that he offered the role of Samuel Loomis to Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee before Donald Pleasence took the role. Years later, Lee met Carpenter and told him that the biggest regret of his career was not taking the role of Dr. Loomis.

In 1978, Lee surprised many people with his willingness to go along with a joke by appearing as guest host on NBC's ''Saturday Night Live''.

In 1978, he played ''Grand Duke Dmitri'' in the TV series ''How the West Was Won''.

In 1979, he played German officer Capt. Wolfgang von Kleinschmidt in the film ''1941'' directed by Steven Spielberg.

In 1982, Lee appeared in ''The Return of Captain Invincible''. In this film, Lee plays a fascist who plans to rid America (and afterwards, the world) of all non-whites. Lee also sings on two tracks in the film ("Name Your Poison" and "Mister Midnight"), written by Richard O'Brien (who had written ''The Rocky Horror Picture Show'' seven years previously) and Richard Hartley.

Lee made his latest appearances to date as Sherlock Holmes in 1991's ''Incident at Victoria Falls'' and 1992's ''Sherlock Holmes and the Leading Lady''.

In addition to more than a dozen feature films together for Hammer Films, Amicus Productions and other companies, Lee and Peter Cushing both appeared in ''Hamlet'' (1948) and ''Moulin Rouge'' (1952) albeit in separate scenes; and in separate installments of the ''Star Wars'' films, Cushing as Grand Moff Tarkin in the original film, Lee years later as Count Dooku. The last project which united them in person was a documentary, ''Flesh and Blood: The Hammer Heritage of Horror'' (1994), which they jointly narrated. It was the last time they saw each other as Cushing died two months later. While they frequently played off each other as mortal enemies onscreen—Lee's Count Dracula to Cushing's Professor Van Helsing—they were close friends in real life.

In 1994, Lee played the character of the Russian commandant in ''Police Academy: Mission to Moscow''.

In 1998, Lee starred in the role of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, founder of modern Pakistan, in the film ''Jinnah''. While talking about his favourite role in film at a press conference at Brussels Fantasy film festival, he declared that his role in ''Jinnah'' was by far his best performance.

Lee was at one point considered for the role of comic book villain/hero Magneto in the screen adaptation of the popular comic book series ''X-Men'', but he lost the role to Ian McKellen.

2000 to 2009

He has had many television roles, including that of Flay in the BBC television miniseries, based on Mervyn Peake's novels, ''Gormenghast'' (2000), and Stefan Wyszyński in the CBS film ''John Paul the Second'' (2005). He played Lucas de Beaumanoir, the Grand Master of the Templar Order, in the BBC/A&E; co-production of Sir Walter Scott's ''Ivanhoe'' (1997). He also played a role in the made-for-TV series La Révolution française (1989) in part 2, "Les Années Terribles", as the executioner, Sanson, who beheaded Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, Robespierre and others. Lee played Saruman in the ''The Lord of the Rings'' film trilogy. In the commentary he states he had a decades-long dream to play Gandalf but that he was now too old and his physical limitations prevented his being considered. The role of Saruman, by contrast, required no horseback riding and much less fighting. Gandalf was given to Ian McKellen and Lee played Saruman. Lee had met Tolkien once (making him the only person in ''The Lord of the Rings'' film trilogy to have done so) and makes a habit of reading the novels at least once a year. In addition, he performed for the album ''The Lord of the Rings: Songs and Poems by J. R. R. Tolkien'' in 2003. Lee's appearance in the third film was cut from the theatrical release, resulting in a frosty friendship with Peter Jackson. However, the scene was reinstated in the extended edition.

''The Lord of the Rings'' marked the beginning of a major career revival that continued in ''Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones'' (2002) and ''Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith'' (2005), in which he played Count Dooku, a name allegedly chosen to reflect his fame playing Count Dracula. His autobiography states that he did much of the swordplay himself, though a double was required for the more vigorous footwork. His good friend and frequent co-star, Peter Cushing, portrayed the equally icy Grand Moff Tarkin in ''Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope''.

Lee appeared on the cover of the 1973 Wings album ''Band on the Run'' along with other people, including chat show host Michael Parkinson, film actor James Coburn, world boxing champion John Conteh and broadcaster Clement Freud.

Lee is one of the favourite actors of Tim Burton and has become a regular in many of Burton's films, having now worked for the director four times since 1999. He had a small role as the Burgomaster in the film ''Sleepy Hollow''. In 2005, Lee then went on to voice the character of Pastor Galswells in ''Corpse Bride'' co-directed by Burton and Mike Johnston and play a small role in the Burton's reimagining of the classic Roald Dahl tale ''Charlie and the Chocolate Factory'' as Willy Wonka's strict dentist father Dr Wilbur Wonka.

In 2007, Lee collaborated with Burton on ''Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street'' playing the spirit of Sweeney Todd's victims called The Gentleman Ghost alongside Anthony Head, with both singing "The Ballad of Sweeney Todd", its reprises and the Epilogue. These songs were recorded, but eventually cut since director Tim Burton felt that the songs were too theatrical for the film. Lee's appearance was completely cut from the film, but Head still has an uncredited one-line cameo.

Lee narrated in late November 2009 the Science+Fiction Festival in Trieste, Italy. Also in 2009, Lee starred in Stephen Poliakoff's British period drama ''Glorious 39'' with Julie Christie, Bill Nighy, Romola Garai and David Tennant, Academy Award-nominated director Danis Tanović's war film ''Triage'' with Colin Farrell and Paz Vega, and also Duncan Ward's comedy ''Boogie Woogie'' alongside Amanda Seyfried, Gillian Anderson, Stellan Skarsgård and Joanna Lumley.

2010 to present

In 2010, Lee marked their fourth collaboration by voicing the Jabberwocky in Burton's adaptation of Lewis Carroll's classic book ''Alice in Wonderland'' alongside Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter and Anne Hathaway. While it only had a couple of lines, Burton said that he felt Lee to be a good match for the iconic character because he is "an iconic guy".

Lee won the "Spirit of Hammer" award in the Metal Hammer Golden Gods 2010. The award was presented by Tony Iommi.

In 2010, Lee received the Steiger Award (Germany) and, in February 2011, Lee was awarded the BAFTA Fellowship.

2011 saw Lee in ''The Resident'' alongside Hilary Swank.

Christopher Lee had entered into negotiations to reprise the role of Saruman for the prequel film ''The Hobbit''. Lee had originally said he would have liked to have shown Saruman's corruption by Sauron, but would not be comfortable flying to New Zealand at his age. Lee went on to say that if a film were made, he would love to voice Smaug, as it would mean he could record his part in England, and not have to travel.

On 11 January 2011, Lee announced on his website that he would be reprising his role. Filming of The Hobbit: There And Back Again began in February 2011. A July 2011 behind-the-scenes featurette showed Peter Jackson at the Pinewood Studios in London and Lee in make-up and costume as Saruman.

Voice work

With his classically-trained bass voice, Lee sings on the ''The Wicker Man'' soundtrack, performing Paul Giovanni's psych folk composition, "The Tinker of Rye". He also sings the closing credits song of the 1994 horror film ''Funny Man''. His most notable musical work on film, however, appears in the strange superhero comedy/rock musical ''The Return of Captain Invincible'' (1983) in which Lee performs with a song and dance number called "Name Your Poison", written by Richard O'Brien.

In the 1980s, during the height of Italo Disco, Lee provided vocals to Kathy Joe Daylor's "Little Witch".

Lee reprised his role as Saruman in the video game ''The Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth'' along with the other actors of the films.

Lee provided the off-camera voice of "U. N. Owen", the mysterious host who brings disparate characters together in Agatha Christie's ''Ten Little Indians'' (1965). The film was produced by Harry Alan Towers, for whom Lee had worked repeatedly in the 1960s. Even though he is not credited on the film, the voice is unmistakable.

Lee appears on Peter Knight and Bob Johnson's (of Steeleye Span) 1970s concept album ''The King of Elfland's Daughter''. Lee also provided the voices for the roles of DiZ (Ansem the Wise) in the video games ''Kingdom Hearts II'' and ''Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days'', but was replaced by veteran voice actor Corey Burton for ''Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories'' and ''Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep''.

He contributed his voice as Death in the animated versions of Terry Pratchett's ''Soul Music'' and ''Wyrd Sisters'' and reprised the role in the Sky1 live action adaptation ''The Colour of Magic'', taking over the role from the late Ian Richardson.

He is fluent in English, Italian, French, Spanish and German, and moderately proficient in Swedish, Russian and Greek. He was the original voice of Thor in the German dubs in the Danish 1986 animated film ''Valhalla'', and of King Haggard in both the English and German dubs of the 1982 animated adaptation of ''The Last Unicorn''.

Lee bridged two disparate genres of music by performing a heavy metal variation of the Toreador Song from the opera ''Carmen'' with the band Inner Terrestrials. Lee narrated and sang for the Danish musical group The Tolkien Ensemble, taking the role of Treebeard, King Théoden and others in the readings or singing of their respective poems or songs. Lee also appeared as a narrator for Italian symphonic fantasy power metal band Rhapsody of Fire, playing the Wizard King in the latest four albums: ''Symphony of Enchanted Lands II: The Dark Secret'', ''Triumph or Agony'', ''The Frozen Tears of Angels'' and ''From Chaos to Eternity'' as well as the EP ''The Cold Embrace Of Fear - A Dark Romantic Symphony'' which is also a part of the saga in which he performs. He narrates several tracks on the albums, as well as singing a duet with lead vocalist Fabio Lione in the single "The Magic of the Wizard's Dream" from the ''Symphony of Enchanted Lands II'' album. Lee was the voice of Lucan D'Lere in the trailers for ''Everquest II''.

Some thirty years after playing Francisco Scaramanga in ''The Man with the Golden Gun'', Lee provided the voice of Scaramanga in the video game ''GoldenEye: Rogue Agent''.

In 2005, Lee provided the voice of the Pastor Galswells in ''The Corpse Bride'' co-directed by Tim Burton and Mike Johnston. He also served as the narrator on ''The Nightmare Before Christmas'''s poem written by Tim Burton as well.

In 2007, Lee voiced the transcript of ''The Children of Húrin'', by J. R. R. Tolkien for the audiobook version of the novel.

Lee reprised his role of Count Dooku in the 2008 animated film ''Star Wars: The Clone Wars'' but did not appear in the TV series. Corey Burton takes his place for Count Dooku.

Lee has been signed by Falcon Picture Group to host the syndicated radio series "Mystery Theater", a nightly two-hour program featuring classic radio mystery shows. The program is distributed by Syndication Networks Corporation with a launch date of 2 March 2009.

In 2010, Lee collaborated again with Tim Burton, this time by voicing the Jabberwocky in Burton's adaptation of Lewis Carroll's classic book ''Alice in Wonderland''.

Lee has provided the vocals for a symphonic metal concept album called ''Charlemagne''. It was released on 15 March 2010.

Lee is working with Manowar while they are recording a new version of their first album, ''Battle Hymns''. The original voice was done by Orson Welles. The new album, ''Battle Hymns MMXI'' was released on 26 November 2010.

Honours

In 2001, Lee was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) by Queen Elizabeth II and was knighted in the Queen's Birthday Honours in 2009 by Prince Charles. Lee was named 2005's 'most marketable star in the world' in a ''USA Today'' newspaper poll, after three of the films he appeared in grossed US$640 million. In 2011 Lee was awarded the BAFTA Academy Fellowship by Tim Burton.

Personal life

The Carandinis, Lee's maternal ancestors, were given the right to bear the coat of arms of the Holy Roman Empire by the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa. Cinemareview cites: "Cardinal Consalvi was Papal Secretary of State at the time of Napoleon and is buried at the Pantheon in Rome next to the painter Raphael. His painting, by Lawrence, hangs in Windsor Castle".

Lee is a step-cousin of Ian Fleming, author of the James Bond spy novels.

He has been married to the Danish model Birgit "Gitte" Kroencke Lee since 1961. They have a daughter named Christina Erika Carandini Lee. He is also the uncle of the British actress Harriet Walter.

Lee has a longstanding personal interest in the occult, maintaining a library of over 12,000 books which is largely devoted to the topic. This is discussed in his autobiography, ''Tall, Dark and Gruesome''.

Lee is a supporter of the British Conservative Party.

In 1999, Lee confirmed he has lost an inch in height and is now (1.93 m)

Books authored

''Christopher Lee's Treasury of Terror'', Pyramid Publications, 1966

''Christopher Lee's New Chamber of Horrors'', Souvenir Press, 1974

''Christopher Lee's Archives of Terror'', Warner Books, Volume I, 1975; Volume 2, 1976

''Tall, Dark and Gruesome'' (autobiography), W. H. Allen, 1977 and 1999

''Lord of Misrule'' (autobiography, a revised and expanded edition of ''Tall, Dark and Gruesome''), Orion Publishing Group Ltd., 2004

Filmography

Albums

''The Wicker Man soundtrack'' (1973)

''Hammer Presents "Dracula" With Christopher Lee'' (EMI NTS 186 UK/Capitol ST-11340 USA, 1974)

''The Soldier's Tale'' by Stravinsky, with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra conducted by Lionel Friend (Nimbus, 1986)

''Peter and the Wolf'' by Prokofiev, with the English String Orchestra conducted by Yehudi Menuhin (Nimbus, 1989)

''Annie Get Your Gun'' (1995) JAY Records recording of Annie Get Your Gun

''The Rocky Horror Show'' (1995) JAY Records recording of The Rocky Horror Show

''Devils, Rogues & Other Villains'' (1998)

''The King and I'' (1998) JAY Records recording of The King and I

''Musicality of Lerner and Loewe'' (2002) Christopher Lee sings Wandering Star on this recording Musicality of Lerner and Loewe

''Lord of the Rings: Songs and Poems by J. R. R. Tolkien'' (2003)

''Symphony of Enchanted Lands II: The Dark Secret'' (2004)

''Triumph or Agony'' (2006)

''''Revelation'''' (2006)

''Charlemagne: By The Sword & The Cross'' (2010)

''The Frozen Tears of Angels'' (2010)

''The Cold Embrace of Fear - A Dark Romantic Symphony'' (2010)

''Battle Hymns MMXI'' (2010)

''The Resident'' (2010)

''Charlemagne: The Omens of Death'' (2011)

''From Chaos to Eternity'' (2011)

References

}}

External links

Christopher Lee at ChristopherLeeWeb.com (official website)

2006 article ''from The Spectator''

Christopher Lee on the making of legends and Jinnah

Bizarre Magazine interview

Concerning his role in ''The Lord of the Rings'' movies

Guardian Unlimited Profile

Starwars.com interview in which he mentions work with SOE

Christopher Lee interview 2007

Christopher Lee at the CinéArtistes (in French)

Christopher Lee at FEARnet

Category:1922 births Category:Living people Category:English people of Italian descent Category:Carandini family Category:Commanders of the Order of St John Category:Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Category:English film actors Category:English stage actors Category:English television actors Category:English voice actors Category:Old Summerfieldians Category:Old Wellingtonians Category:People from Belgravia Category:Royal Air Force officers Category:Royal Air Force personnel of World War II Category:Special Operations Executive personnel Category:Knights Bachelor Category:Actors awarded British knighthoods

ar:كرستوفر لي bg:Кристофър Лий ca:Christopher Lee cs:Christopher Lee cy:Christopher Lee da:Christopher Lee de:Christopher Lee et:Christopher Lee es:Christopher Lee eu:Christopher Lee fa:کریستوفر لی fo:Christopher Lee fr:Christopher Lee fy:Christopher Lee gd:Christopher Lee gl:Christopher Lee id:Christopher Lee it:Christopher Lee he:כריסטופר לי ka:კრისტოფერ ლი lt:Christopher Lee hu:Christopher Lee nl:Christopher Lee ja:クリストファー・リー no:Christopher Lee pl:Christopher Lee pt:Christopher Lee ro:Christopher Lee ru:Ли, Кристофер simple:Christopher Lee sl:Christopher Lee sr:Кристофер Ли sh:Christopher Lee fi:Christopher Lee sv:Christopher Lee tr:Christopher Lee uk:Крістофер Лі ur:کرسٹوفر لی zh:克里斯多福·李

Coordinates	52°9′54″N22°16′17″N
name	France Gall
background	solo_singer
birth name	Isabelle Geneviève Marie Anne Gall
alias	France Gall
born	October 09, 1947Paris, France
origin	Paris, France
genre	Yé-yé, pop
occupation	Singer
years active	1963–1995
label	WEA FrancePhilips France
associated acts	Michel Berger, Serge Gainsbourg
website	}}

France Gall (born Isabelle Geneviève Marie Anne Gall on 9 October 1947 in Paris, France) is a popular French yé-yé singer.

Gall was married to, and had a successful singing career in partnership with, French singer-songwriter Michel Berger.

Early years

Her father was lyricist Robert Gall, and her mother, Cécile Berthier, was the daughter of Paul Berthier, co-founder of Petits Chanteurs à la Croix de Bois. (This made her cousin to the guitarist Denys Lable and the composer Vincent Berthier de Lioncourt, as well as niece to Jacques Berthier.) She was the sole daughter in the family, with two brothers named Patrice and Claude. In spring 1963, Robert Gall encouraged his daughter to record songs and send the demos to a musical publisher, Denis Bourgeois. That July, she auditioned for Bourgeois at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris, after which Bourgeois wanted to sign her immediately. France was subsequently signed to Philips.

At the time, Bourgeois was working for the label as Artistic Director for Serge Gainsbourg and assumed this role for Gall as well. He encouraged her to record four tracks with French jazz musician, arranger and composer Alain Goraguer.

Early career

The first airplay of France's first single "Ne sois pas si bête" ("Don't Be So Stupid"), occurred on her 16th birthday. It was released in November and became a hit. Serge Gainsbourg, whose career was faltering although he had released several albums and written songs for singers including Michèle Arnaud and Juliette Gréco, was asked by Bourgeois to write songs for Gall. Gainsbourg's "N'écoute pas les idoles" ("Don't listen to the idols") became Gall's second single; it reached the top of the French charts in March 1964 and stayed there for three weeks.

At the same time, Gall made her live debut, opening for Sacha Distel in Belgium. She teamed up with Distel's business manager, Maurice Tézé, who was also a lyricist. This allowed her to create an original repertoire, unlike the majority of her contemporaries ("yéyés") who sang adaptations of Anglophone hits. However, under the influence from this team of music veterans, Gall struggled to defend her personal choice of material.

In addition to songs written by her father, Gall's success in the 1960s was built on songs written by some of the biggest names among French composers and lyricists: Gérard Bourgeois, Jean-Pierre Bourtayre, Vline Buggy Pierre Cour, Joe Dassin, Jacques Datin, Pierre Delanoë, Jean Dréjac, Alain Goraguer, Hubert Giraud, Georges Liferman, Guy Magenta, Eddy Marnay, Jean-Michel Rivat, Jean-Max Rivière, Frank Thomas, Maurice Vidalin, André Popp, Gilles Thibaut, and Jean Wiener.

Gall's songs often featured lyrics based on a stereotypical view of the teenage mind. Elaborate orchestrations by Alain Goraguer blended styles, permitting her to navigate between jazz, children's songs, and anything in between. Examples of this mixed-genre style included "Jazz à gogo" (lyrics by Robert Gall and music by Goraguer) and "Mes premières vraies vacances" (by Datin-Vidalin).

Gall and Gainsbourg's association produced many popular singles, continuing through the summer of 1964 with the hit song "Laisse tomber les filles" ("Never Mind the Girls") followed by "Christiansen" by Datin-Vidalin. Gainsbourg also secretly recorded Gall's laughter to use on ''Pauvre Lola'', a track on his 1964 album ''Gainsbourg Percussions''. Her laughter is not credited.

1965

Having previously resisted, Gall gave in to her managers at the end of 1964 and recorded a single intended for children. The song "Sacré Charlemagne," her father's lyrics set to the music of George Liferman, was a hit in 1965, selling 2 million copies.

Eurovision

Gall was then selected to represent Luxembourg for the 1965 Eurovision Song Contest. Out of the 10 songs proposed to her, she chose Gainsbourg's "Poupée de cire, poupée de son." On 20 March 1965, Gainsbourg, Gall, and Goraguer attended the finals of the song contest in Naples, where the song bring the attraction. Although Gall's delivery during the live show was not of the highest standard, the song impressed the jury and it took the Grand Prix. Success at Eurovision ensured that Gall became even more known outside Europe and she recorded "Poupée de cire, poupée de son" in French, Finnish, German, Italian, and Japanese. There appears to be no English version released by France Gall herself, although there was an English cover by the English 60s star Twinkle.

Serge Gainsbourg said about the song: "The songs young people turn to for help in their first attempts at discovering what life and love are about, are sung by people too young and inexperienced to be of much help and condemned by their celebrity to find out." At a young age, France Gall was too naïve to understand the second meaning of the lyrics and she felt she was used by Gainsbourg, most notably after the song "Les Sucettes" – literally about a girl eating lollipops but with a double meaning referring to oral sex.

Today France Gall tries to not discuss it in public and refuses to perform her winning song.

Summer tour

In the summer of 1965, France Gall toured France for several months with "Le Grand Cirque de France" ("The Great Circus of France"), a combination of radio show and live circus. Her singles continued to chart successfully, including the Gainsbourg-penned "Attends ou va-t'en" ("Wait for me, or go away") and "Nous ne sommes pas des anges" ("We are not angels"). She also had a hit with the song "Amérique" ("America") by Eddy Marnay and Guy Magenta.

Film opportunities

After a TV film directed by Jean-Christophe Averty and dedicated to the songs of Gall was distributed in the United States in 1965, Gall was sought by Walt Disney to appear as Alice in a musical film version of ''Alice in Wonderland'', after having already made '' Alice'' into a cartoon in 1951. Although Gall had insisted she did not want to become involved in film work, this was the only project which appealed to her. The project was cancelled after Disney's death in 1966.

In 1966 Gall appeared in the television film '' Viva Morandi'', made in the same psychoanalytical mould as the (1965) Federico Fellini film '' Giulietta degli Spiriti ("Juliet of the Spirits")''. Gall played "La Grâce" alongside Christine Lebail who plays "La Pureté", both singing ''Les Sucettes'' in a segment which was prominently labelled "Fantasy", in a clear reference to the song's sexual undertones.

She was approached by director Bernardo Bertolucci for the leading female role in Last Tango in Paris (1972). However, she firmly rejected this offer.

Gall once again considered appearing on screen in 1993 for a cinematographic collaboration with her best friend, the screenplay writer Telsche Boorman. Like the Disney film, this planned project was never completed due to the death of Boorman in 1996.

1966

At the beginning of 1966 Gall released '' Baby pop'', another song written by Gainsbourg, the lyrics of which Gall once described as "brutal", but whose dark undertones are not easily perceived when one hears the song as sung by the then 18 year-old girl. However, the undertones in her next hit song were not so easily missed, and caused a scandal when it was released. Gainsbourg deliberately filled the song ''Les Sucettes'' ("Lollipops") with double-meanings and strong sexual innuendo. On the surface, the lyrics tell the innocent tale of a girl named Annie who enjoys lollipops. However, it is clear that Gainsbourg intentionally created the theme as a metaphor for oral sex. Although a big hit, the song sat in stark contrast to genuinely innocent songs on the same album such as ''Je me marie en blanc'' ("White Wedding") and ''Ça me fait rire'' ("It makes me laugh").

The public furore over Les Sucettes would throw Gall’s career off-track for years, and Gall was not left unscathed by the experience. She belatedly understood that she had been used: the song was deliberately conceived with the aim of attracting publicity. All her records which followed, even expunged of the Gainsbourg signature, would be suspiciously viewed as having crass commercial motivations. She interpreted a song dedicated to John Fitzgerald Kennedy Jr., '' Bonsoir John John ''. Sullied by her association with Gainsbourg, her songs failed to chart for a long time afterwards.

Even some of her children’s songs recorded in 1966, for example, ''Les Leçons particulières'' ("private lessons"), have not been spared pernicious assumptions. It was not helpful when Jean-Christophe Averty corrosively choreographed a troupe of men on all fours to illustrate her children's song ''J'ai retrouvé mon chien'' ("I’ve found my dog") on his television program ''Les Raisins verts'' ("Green grapes").

''Bébé requin'', LSD and local decline

At the beginning of the year 1967, she sang a duet with Maurice Biraud, ''La Petite'', which evokes a young girl coveted by a friend of her father. The controversy over this performance overshadowed her release of Gainsbourg’s poetic ''Néfertiti''.

Her next single was recorded with the orchestration of English composer David Whitaker. New authors Frank Thomas and Jean-Michel Rivat were brought on board. They wrote ''Bébé requin'' (Baby Shark), a song which met with some success for Gall. This was followed by ''Teenie Weenie Boppie'', an anti-LSD song by Gainsbourg, which was a huge flop. Gainsbourg then sang an anti-capital punishment song in tandem with Gall, ''Qui se souvient de Caryl Chessman?'' ("Anyone remember Caryl Chessman?"), about the death row prisoner, but this song never saw the light of day. Her next record ''C'est toi que je veux'', again with Whitaker, also failed to make an impact.

German career

Although struggling in her home country, Gall regularly recorded in Germany from 1966 to 1972, in particular with the composer and orchestrator Werner Müller. She had a successful German career with songs by Horst Buchholz and Giorgio Moroder: ''Love, l'amour und liebe'' (1967), ''Hippie, hippie'' (1968), ''Ich liebe dich, so wie du bist'' (I love you the way you are) (1969) and ''Mein Herz kann man nicht kaufen'' (My heart is not for sale) (1970). Some of her other German hits included: ''Haifischbaby (Bébé requin) '', ''Die schönste Musik, die es gibt'' (The most beautiful music there is/Music To Watch Girls By), '' Was will ein Boy'' (What does a boy want?) (1967), ''Ja, ich sing'' (Yes, I sing), ''A Banda (Zwei Apfelsinen im Haar)'' (Two oranges in my hair), '' Der Computer Nr. 3 '' (1968), ''Ein bisschen Goethe, ein bisschen Bonaparte'' (A little Goethe, a little Bonaparte), ''I like Mozart'' (1969), ''Dann schon eher der Piano player'' (Then rather the piano player) (1970), ''Komm mit mir nach Bahia, Miguel'' (Come with me to Bahia, Miguel) (1972).

Post-Gainsbourg career

New label, new beginnings

Gall had several other releases in France in 1968, none of which aroused any great interest. At the end of 1968, on reaching the age of 21, Gall separated from Denis Bourgeois and stretched her wings upon the expiration of her contract with Philips.

She moved to a new record label, "La Compagnie", born from the association of artists Hugues Aufray, Nicole Croisille and Michel Colombier. At "La Compagnie", Gall made a number of recordings, but she never succeeded in finding a coherent style with Norbert Saada as Artistic Director. She went her own way in 1969 with two adaptations: one Italian and the other British: ''L'Orage / La Pioggia)'' ("The Storm") which she sang with Gigliola Cinquetti at the 1969 San Remo Music Festival, and ''Les Années folles ("Gentlemen Please")'', created by Barbara Ruskin. Her songs ''Des gens bien élevés'', ''La Manille et la révolution'', '' Zozoï'' and '' Éléphants'' were largely ignored. Moreover, "La Compagnie" went bankrupt.

The early seventies continued to be a barren period for Gall. Although she was the first artist to be recorded in France for Atlantic Records in 1971, her singles ''C'est cela l'amour'' (1971) and ''Chasse neige'' (1971), faltered in the charts. In 1972, Gall, for the last time, recorded songs by Gainsbourg, ''Frankenstein'' and ''Les Petits ballons'', but these also failed to chart. The results of her collaboration with Jean-Michel Rivat as artistic director, ''La Quatrieme chose'' (1972, suspiciously similar to Bread's "Everything I Own") and ''Par plaisir'' or ''Plus haut que moi'' (1973) did not meet with commercial success. While officially done with Gainsbourg, an old flame and producer from her Gainsbourg days, invited France Gall on television to sing a medley of old songs from their time together, which in included "Poupee de cire, Poupee de son". From the 1970s onwards, Gall started regularly visiting Senegal, which she loved. She bought her hideaway there on the island of N'Gor, close to Dakar in 1990.

Michel Berger

France Gall was seduced by Michel Berger’s music when she heard his song '' Attends-moi'' ("Wait for Me") one day in 1973. During a later radio broadcast, she asked him for his opinion on songs which her then producer wanted her to record. Although he was disconcerted by the quality of the songs, there would be no question of collaboration.

Only 6 months later, in 1974, after she sang vocals on the song ''Mon fils rira du rock'n'roll'' on Berger's new album, Gall's publisher asked him, at her behest, to write for her. Gall had already made her mind up that ''"It will be him or else it will be nobody"'' (documentary France 3 ''France Gall by France Gall''). Thus, in 1974, ''La Déclaration d'amour'' was to be the first in a long line of hits which marked a turning point in Gall’s career.

Meanwhile, the two artists, whose affinities became more than musical, married on 22 June 1976. France Gall shared years of work and family life with Michel Berger. The couple had two children.

Musicals

In 1978, pushed by Berger, she once again trod the boards of the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées where she had auditioned 15 years earlier, starring in a show entitled "''Made in France''". The most novel aspect of this show was that, except for the Brazilian drag act Les Étoiles, the members of the orchestra, choir and the dance troupe were exclusively female. In this show, France sang ''Maria vai com as outras'' the original, Brazilian (Portuguese) version of ''Plus haut que moi''.

In 1979, Gall took part in a new show which remains memorable for many. Composed by Michel Berger and written by the Québécois author Luc Plamondon, the rock opera ''Starmania'' enjoyed a success not usual for musicals in France. The show played for one month at Palais des congrès de Paris.

In 1982, Gall rehearsed in the ''Palais des Sports'' of Paris to present ''Tout pour la musique'', an innovative spectacle marked by its use of electronic music. The songs ''Résiste'' and ''Il jouait du piano debout'' ("He played the piano standing") quickly became French pop standards.

1980s and humanitarian projects

In 1985, France Gall joined Chanteurs Sans Frontières, on the initiative of Valerie Lagrange. She also worked for ''S.O.S Ethiopie'' for the benefit of Ethiopia under the aegis of Renaud.

At the same time, she gave a successful series of concerts lasting three weeks at the new venue Zénith in Paris, where she performed new songs like '' Débranche'' ("Loosen-up"), ''Hong-Kong Star'', and gave solid acoustic performances of ''Plus haut'', ''Diego libre dans sa tête'' and ''Cézanne peint''.

In 1985 and 1986, Gall worked with Berger, Richard Berry, Daniel Balavoine and Lionel Rotcage for the benefit of ''Action Écoles'', an organization of schoolboy volunteers which collects essential food products in France for African countries where famine and drought prevail. On 14 January 1986, during a trip to Africa, Balavoine tragically perished in a helicopter crash. In 1987, the song ''Évidemment'', written by Berger and sung by Gall, was a moving homage to their lost friend. The song appeared on the album ''Babacar''.

Gall topped the pop charts in many countries in 1987 and 1988 with another song from the ''Babacar'' album, ''Ella, elle l'a'' ("Ella, she's got it"), a Berger tribute to Ella Fitzgerald.

Following the release of ''Babacar'', Gall launched a new show produced by Berger. Opening at Le Zénith, the successful production toured throughout Europe, and gave rise to the live album ''Le Tour de France '88''.

The 1990s

Gall took a break from singing in the early 1990s and did not record any more for several years to come. She did, however, make an album called ''Double Jeu'' with Berger.

Following the release of ''Double Jeu'', Gall and Berger announced a series of concerts in various Parisian venues, such as La Cigale and Bercy. This project was nearly cancelled by Berger's death from a heart attack on 2 August 1992.

Although Gall was strongly affected by Berger's death, she wanted to complete the project they had planned. However, she decided to commit to the performances at the Bercy and promoted the songs that she and Berger created together. However, Gall was diagnosed with breast cancer in April 1993, which was successfully treated. She finally performed at the Bercy in September. All the songs she performed were written by Berger from ''Double Jeu'', and from their discographies.

A year later, she went back on stage and performed in a new show in the Pleyel in Paris featuring new musicians. The repertoire featured songs written exclusively by Berger though Gall included her own versions of songs originally performed by others.

In 1996, Gall asked Jean-Luc Godard to produce the video clip of her song "''Plus haut''", taken from her album "''France''". Godard initially refused Gall's offer but later agreed, and directed a dreamy, picturesque video entitled "''Plus Oh!''" near his residence in Rolle (Switzerland). It was given its first and only airing on 20 April 1996 on the French television channel M6. It was only shown once, due to copyright issues.

After a year in Los Angeles, she released her eighth studio album, ''France'' in 1996. The album featured Gall's own interpretations of some of Michel Berger's songs. In 1996, Gall finally decided to appear as a headline artist at the legendary venue for French artists, the Paris Olympia. In 1997, she announced her retirement and recorded an unplugged show for French television showcasing songs from her final album.

In December 1997, Pauline, Gall's elder daughter with Michel Berger, died of complications of cystic fibrosis. Her illness was never made public.

Since the death of her daughter Gall has made only occasional public appearances. As a farewell to her career, a documentary movie was shot in 2001, ''France Gall par France Gall'', directed by Eric Guéret. Nine million people tuned in to watch the documentary when it aired on French television that year. She also staged and appeared in the 2007 France 2 documentary "Tous pour la musique" marking the fifteenth anniversary of Michel Berger's death.

Today she is a patron for French charity Coeurs de Femmes – a group helping homeless women.

Discography

Singles

October 1963 – "Ne sois pas si bête", adaptation by Pierre Delanoë of "Stand a little closer", original words and music by Jack Wolf and Maurice "Bugs" Bower

1964 – "N'écoute pas les idoles", words and music by Gainsbourg

1964 – "Jazz à gogo", words by Robert Gall music by Alain Goraguer

1964 – "Laisse tomber les filles", words and music by Gainsbourg

1964 – "Sacré Charlemagne", words by Robert Gall and music by Georges Liferman

1965 – "Poupée de cire, poupée de son", words and music by Gainsbourg

1965 – "Attends ou va-t'en", words and music by Gainsbourg

1965 – "Nous ne sommes pas des anges", words and music by Gainsbourg

1966 – "Baby pop", words and music by Gainsbourg

1966 – "Les Sucettes", words and music by Gainsbourg

1967 – "Néfertiti", words and music by Gainsbourg

1967 – "Bébé requin", words by Jean-Michel Rivat and Frank Thomas, music by Joe Dassin

1967 – "Toi que je veux", words by Jean-Michel Rivat and Frank Thomas, music by Joe Dassin

1968 – "Le Temps du tempo", words by Robert Gall and music by Alain Goraguer

1968 – "Y'a du soleil à vendre", words by Robert Gall and music by Hubert Giraud

1968 – "24 / 36", words by Jean-Michel Rivat and Frank Thomas, music by Joe Dassin

1969 – "Homme tout petit", words by Jean-Michel Rivat and Frank Thomas, music by Jean-Pierre Bourtayre

1969 – "Les Années folles", adaptation by Boris Bergman of the British song "Gentlemen Please", original words and music by Barbara Ruskin

1969 – "Baci, baci, baci", adaptation by Eddy Marnay from Italian lyrics by Sergio Bardotti and Claudio Tallino and music by Franco and Giorgio Bracardi

1970 – "Zozoï", words by Robert Gall and music by Nelson Angelo

1970 – "Les Éléphants", words by Jean Schmitt and music by Jean Géral

1971 – "C'est cela l'amour", words by Jacques Lanzmann and music by Paul-Jean Borowsky

1971 – "Chasse neige", words by Étienne Roda-Gil and music by Julien Clerc

1972 – "Frankenstein", words and music by Gainsbourg

1972 – "5 minutes d'amour", words by Jean-Michel Rivat and Frank Thomas, music by Roland Vincent

1973 – "Plus haut que moi", adaptation by Yves Dessca and Jean-Michel Rivat of "Maria vai com as outras" by Toquinho and Vinicius de Moraes

1973 – "Par Plaisir", words by Yves Dessca and Jean-Michel Rivat, music by Roland Vincent

May 1974 – "La Déclaration d'amour", words and music by Berger

October 1974 – "Mais, aime la", words and music by Berger

1975 – "Comment lui dire", words and music by Berger

April 1976 – "Ce soir je ne dors pas"

June 1976 – " Ça balance pas mal à Paris" (duet with Michel Berger), words and music by Berger

May 1977 – "Musique", words and music by Berger

October 1977 – "Si, maman si"

January 1978 – "Le meilleur de soi-même"

March 1978 – "Viens je t'emmène", words and music by Berger

January 1979 – "Besoin d'amour", words by Luc Plamondon and music by Berger

June 1980 – "Il jouait du piano debout", words and music by Berger

October 1980 – "Bébé, comme la vie", words and music by Berger

October 1980 – "Donner pour donner" (duet with Elton John), words by Michel Berger and Bernie Taupin, music by Michel Berger – Archives INA : Reportage Antenne 2, 1981

1981 – "Tout pour la musique", words and music by Berger

1981 – "Résiste", words and music by Berger

May 1981 – "Amor También", words and music by Berger

6 April 1984 – "Débranche", words and music by Berger

17 September 1984 – "Hong Kong Star", words and music by Berger – Archives INA : Extrait de "Hong Kong Star", Antenne 2, 1984 FR #6

4 February 1984 – "Calypso", words and music by Berger

20 May 1984 – "Cézanne peint", words and music by Berger

3 April 1987 – "Babacar", words and music by Berger FR #11 GER #14

24 August 1987 – "Ella, elle l'a", words and music by Berger FR #2 GER #1 NL #38

7 March 1988 – "Évidemment", words and music by Berger

12 September 1988 – "Papillon de nuit", words and music by Berger

20 March 1989 – "La chanson d'Azima"

29 May 1992 – "Laissez passez les rêves", words and music by Berger, duet with Michel Berger

12 October 1992 – "Superficiel et léger"

15 January 1993 – "Les élans du coeur"

6 May 1993 – "Mademoiselle Chang" (live)

5 November 1993 – "Si, maman si" (live)

December 1993 – "Il jouait du piano debout" (live)

2 February 1994 – "La négresse blonde" (live)

15 March 1994 – "Paradis Blanc" (live)

14 November 1994 – "Les princes des villes"

15 March 1996 – "Plus haut"

5 November 1996 – "Privée d'amour"

25 October 1996 – "Message personnel"

14 February 1997 – "Résiste" (remix)

15 May 1997 – "Attends ou va-t'en" (live)

2004 – "Zozoï" – Reissue of 1970 single

20 August 2004 – "La seule chose qui compte"

Albums

''Les Sucettes'' (1965)

''Baby Pop'' (1966)

''1968'' (1967)

''France Gall'' (6 January 1976)

''Dancing disco'' (27 April 1977)

''France Gall Live'' (live album, 9 November 1978)

''Starmania'' (various artists) (16 October 1978)

''Paris, France'' (19 May 1980)

''Tout pour la musique'' (10 December 1981)

''Palais des Sports'' (live album, 4 November 1982)

''Débranche'' (2 April 1984)

''France Gall au Zénith'' (live album, 4 February 1985)

''Babacar'' (19 February 1987)

''Le Tour de France 88'' (live album, 7 November 1988)

''Double jeu'' (with Michel Berger, 12 June 1992)

''Simple je (Débranchée à Bercy 93)'' (live album, 29 October 1993)

''Simple je (Rebranchée à Bercy 93)'' (live album, 28 January 1994)

''Pleyel (music album)'' (live album, concert recorded in 1994, published in December 2005)

''France'' (29 March 1996)

''Concert public (live, Olympia 1996) & Concert privé (Concert acoustique TV M6 1997)'' (24 April 1997)

''Best of France Gall'' (compilation, 15 June 2004)

''Évidemment'' (compilation, 7 October 2004)

Audio sample

References

External links

Clips from INA archives

Official website managed by WEA Music (offline)

France Gall biography on RFI

A Tribute to Gainsbourg: France Gall

French forum of France Gall & Michel Berger

Category:1947 births Category:Living people Category:Musicians from Paris Category:French child singers Category:French female singers Category:French-language singers Category:German-language singers Category:Eurovision Song Contest winners Category:Luxembourgian Eurovision Song Contest entrants Category:Eurovision Song Contest entrants of 1965

ca:France Gall cs:France Gall da:France Gall de:France Gall el:Φρανς Γκαλ es:France Gall eo:France Gall fr:France Gall ko:프랑스 갈 it:France Gall he:פראנס גל lt:France Gall hu:France Gall nl:France Gall ja:フランス・ギャル no:France Gall pl:France Gall pt:France Gall ro:France Gall ru:Галль, Франс sl:France Gall sr:Frans Gal sh:France Gall fi:France Gall sv:France Gall tr:France Gall

Charlemagne Palestine (born Charles Martin or Chaim Moshe Tzadik Palestine August 15, 1945, or 1947, in Brooklyn, New York) is an American minimalist composer, performer, and visual artist. Palestine studied at New York University, Columbia University, Mannes College of Music, and the California Institute of the Arts.

A contemporary of Philip Glass, Terry Riley, Phill Niblock, and Steve Reich, Palestine wrote intense, ritualistic music in the 1970s, intended by the composer to rub against Western audiences’ expectations of what is beautiful and meaningful in music. A composer-performer originally trained to be a cantor, he always performed his own works as soloist. His earliest works were compositions for carillon and electronic drones, and he is perhaps best known for his intensely performed piano works. He also performs as a vocalist: in ''Karenina'' he sings in the countertenor register and in other works he sings long tones with gradually shifting vowels and overtones while moving through the performance space or performing repeated actions such as throwing himself onto his hands.

Palestine's ''Strumming Music'' (1974) remains his best-known work. It features over 45 minutes of Palestine forcefully playing two notes in rapid alternation that slowly expand into clusters. He performed this on a nine-foot Bösendorfer grand piano with the sustain pedal depressed for the entire length of the work. As the music swells (and the piano gradually detunes), the overtones build and the listener can hear a variety of timbres rarely produced by the piano. A recording of ''Strumming Music'' was also Palestine's second vinyl album in the 1970s, reissued on CD in 1991. Since then, several additional recordings (featuring Palestine on piano, organ, harmonium, and voice) from the 1970s—including new recordings of more recent works such as ''Schlingen-Blängen''—have become available.

Palestine's performance style is ritualistic: he generally surrounds himself (and his piano) with stuffed animals, smokes large numbers of kretek (Indonesian clove cigarettes), and drinks cognac.

Music critic and scholar Kyle Gann named Palestine composer of the month in June 2005.

Selected Discography: Solo Works

''Karenina''. 2 CDs. Solo performance with Indian harmonium and falsetto voice, rec. March 1997 in Paris. London: World Serpent Distribution.

''Schlingen-Blängen''. Solo performance for organ. US: New World Records.

''Four Manifestations on Six Elements''. Solo pieces for piano and for electronics. Belgium: Barooni Records.

''Godbear''. Solo pieces for piano. Belgium: Barooni Records.

''Strumming Music''. Solo piece for piano. Felmay, San Germano, Italy, 1995; reissue of New Tone recording nt6742

''Three Compositions for Machines''. Staalplaat, 1997.

''Schlongo!!!daLUVdrone''. Organ of Corti, 2000.

''Jamaica Heinekens in Brooklyn''. Piece for found sound and electronic drones. Belgium: Barooni Records.

''Alloy''. Alga Marghen, 2000.

''Continuous Sound Forms''. Alga Marghen, 2000.

''Charlemagne at Sonnabend''. 2 CDs. CP, 2001.

''Music for Big Ears''. Staalplaat, 2001.

''In Mid-Air''. Alga Marghen, 2003.

''Old Souls Wearing New Clothes''. VPRO, 2003.

''A Sweet Quasimodo between Black Vampire Butterflies: For Maybeck''. Cold Blue, 2007.

''The Apocalypse Will Blossom''. Yesmissolga, 2008.

''Voice Studies''. LP only. Alga Marghen, 2008.

''From Etudes to Cataclysms''. 2 CDs. Sub Rosa, 2008.

Selected Discography: Collaborations

Pan Sonic and Charlemagne Palestine. ''Mort aux vaches''. Staalplaat, 2000.

Charlemagne Palestine, David Coulter and Jean Marie Mathoul. ''Maximin''. Young God Records, 2002.

Charlemagne Palestine, David Coulter , Michael Gira and Jean Marie Mathoul. ''Gantse Mishpuchach / Music in Three Parts''. Fringes Recordings, 2004.

Charlemagne Palestine and Tony Conrad. ''An Aural Symbiotic Mystery''. Sub Rosa, 2006.

Charlemagne Palestine, Terry Jennings, Tony Conrad, Robert Feldman, Rhys Chatham. ''Sharing a Sonority''. Alga Marghen, 2008.

Charlemagne Palestine and Christoph Heemann. ''Saiten in Flammen''. Streamline, 2009.

Footnotes

References

Johnson, Tom (1989). ''The Voice of New Music: New York City 1972–1982: A Collection of Articles Originally Published by the Village Voice.'' Eindhoven, Netherlands: Het Apollohuis. ISBN 90-71638-09-X. Available for free download at:

Palestine, Charlemagne (2004). ''Sacred Bordello''. Book with CD. Milan: Alga Marghen.

Voegelin, Salome. ''Listening to Noise and Silence: Towards a Philosphy of Sound Art''. London: Continuum. 2010. Chapter 2 ''Noise'', pp. 50-52.

External links

Charlemagne Palestine official Web site

Interview in ESTWeb

"Matter—Viewpoint: Do you still identify yourself as an American composer? —Charlemagne Palestine", from ''NewMusicBox'', November 1, 2002

Charlemagne Palestine: Searching for the Golden Sound, interview by Marcus Boon

2002 Interview with Daniel Varela

Kyle Gann on Music After Fact

Conversation between Charlemagne Palestine and André Éric Létourneau (In French) - Web site of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

Charlemagne Palestine in the Video Data Bank

See also

Minimalist music

Noise music

Drone

Category:1945 births Category:Living people Category:20th-century classical composers Category:American composers Category:21st-century classical composers Category:Postmodern composers Category:Jewish classical musicians Category:San Francisco Art Institute faculty

fr:Charlemagne Palestine nl:Charlemagne Palestine

Coordinates	52°9′54″N22°16′17″N
name	Larry Carlton
background	solo_singer
birth name	Larry Eugene Carlton
alias	Mr. 335
born	March 02, 1948Torrance, California,United States
instrument	Vocals, guitar
genre	Jazz, Smooth jazz, jazz fusion, pop, rock
occupation	Musician, songwriter, producer
label	Warner Bros. Records, MCA Master Series, Star Licks Productions
associated acts	Fourplay, Steely Dan
Website	Larry Carlton Homepage
notable instruments	Gibson ES-335 }}

Larry Carlton (born March 2, 1948, Torrance, California) is an American jazz, smooth jazz, jazz fusion, pop, and rock guitarist and singer. He has divided his recording time between solo recordings and session appearances with various well-known bands. Over his career, Carlton has won four Grammy Awards for his performances and compositions, including performing on the theme song for the hit television series, ''Hill Street Blues'' (1981).

Biography

Carlton started learning to play guitar when he was six years old, studying under Slim Edwards near his Torrance home. Taking an interest in jazz while at high school, his playing style was influenced by Joe Pass, Wes Montgomery, Barney Kessel, and B.B. King. Saxophonist John Coltrane has also made a notable impression on Carlton, and Carlton's live albums have featured cuts from Miles Davis's ''Kind of Blue''.

Music career

During the 1970s and early 1980s, Carlton was a session musician in Los Angeles, making up to five hundred recordings a year, including albums by Steely Dan, Joni Mitchell, Billy Joel, Michael Jackson, Quincy Jones, The Four Tops, Christopher Cross, Barbra Streisand, the Partridge Family, and Charly García's ''Clics Modernos''. His guitar work on Steely Dan's "Kid Charlemagne" from their 1976 LP ''The Royal Scam'' has been listed as the third best guitar solo on record by ''Rolling Stone Magazine''. From 1971 to 1976 he played with the jazz-rock group The Crusaders. In 1977 he signed with Warner Bros. Records for a solo career. In 1979 he played guitar on Michael Jackson's ''Off the Wall''. Although still relatively unknown outside his fan-base, Carlton produced six albums from 1978 to 1984, during which his adaptation of Santo Farina's "Sleepwalk" climbed the pop and adult contemporary charts and his 1983 LP ''Friends'' garnered a Grammy nomination. In 1979, Carlton appeared on the grammy award winning, self titled debut album by Christopher Cross. Guitar great Eric Johnson also played on that same album.

His solo career took a twist in 1985 when he signed with MCA Master Series for an acoustic jazz album. The result was ''Alone / But Never Alone'', which included a rendition of "The Lord's Prayer". During this time Carlton worked with musicians from around the world, including Japanese guitarist Hideshi Takatani. From 1985 to 1990 Carlton did various solo projects including the 1986 live ''Last Nite''. He won another Grammy for his cover of the McDonald/Abrams song "Minute by Minute," from the successful LP ''Discovery''.

In 1988, while working on his electric guitar LP ''On Solid Ground'', which was released in 1989, Carlton was the victim of a random act of violence, shot in the throat outside Room 335, his private studio in Southern California. The bullet shattered his vocal cord and caused significant nerve trauma. Carlton managed to recover quickly and completed ''On Solid Ground'' by the end of the year. He continued his work with the electric guitar in 1991 when he started to record a blues album, but decided to delay the project to meet demand for a more commercially-oriented jazz offering, which resulted in ''Kid Gloves''. ''Renegade Gentleman'' was finally released in 1993, featuring Nashville, Tennessee harmonica player Terry McMillan on several tracks.

From 1994 to 1997 Carlton participated in various tours (notably with Toto guitarist Steve Lukather) and released an album (''Larry & Lee''). In 1997, Carlton took Lee Ritenour's place in Fourplay.

In 2000, Carlton furthered his solo career with ''Fingerprints''. His career received another boost the following year when his live performance with Lukather, ''No Substitutions: Live in Osaka'', garnered his third Grammy. Carlton's more recent work included ''Deep Into It'', ''Sapphire Blue'', and ''Firewire''.

At the beginning of 2007 Carlton released two CDs. A live recording together with blues guitarist Robben Ford, ''Live in Tokyo'', and ''The Jazz King'' album. The ''Jazz King'' record is the result of a composition Carlton wrote for H. M. King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand. ''The Jazz King'' project was initiated to celebrate the 60th anniversary of King Bhumibol's accession to the throne as well as his 80th birthday in 2007. Carlton was commissioned to write this composition by the Royal Project Foundation and Rotary Club of Bangkok. These compositions were released on CD only in Thailand, the net proceeds of the CD will be used to support the indigenous hill-tribe children of Thailand. Carlton's compositions for this Jazz King project resulted in a concert held on January 28, 2007 at BEC-Tero Hall, Suan Lum Night Bazaar, Bangkok.

In July, August and September 2009, Carlton joined Steely Dan as guest guitarist for six dates in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.

In June 2010 Carlton released ''Take Your Pick'', an album made with Tak Matsumoto. This album won the 2011 Grammy for "Best Pop Instrumental Album". Carlton's 4th Grammy win.

In February 2011 Carlton released "Plays The Sound Of Philadelphia".

Gear and Equipment

Larry, also known as "Mr. 335," is best known for his 1968 Gibson ES-335. He has worked along side Gibson to produce a replica under the name the "Gibson Custom Larry Carlton ES-335." Larry has also worked with Valley Arts guitars to produce two signature models in the mid-eighties to early-nineties.

Personal life

Carlton has been married to contemporary Christian music artist Michele Pillar since 1987. He is also the father of bass player Travis Carlton and uncle of the singer-songwriter Vanessa Carlton.

Discography

Albums

''With A Little Help'' 1968 Uni

''Singing / Playing'' 1973 Blue Thumb

''Larry Carlton'' 1978 Warner Bros. Records

''Mr. 335 Live in Japan'' 1979 Warner Bros. Records (Japan)

''Strikes Twice'' 1980 Warner Bros. Records

''Sleepwalk'' 1981 Warner Bros. Records

''Eight Times Up'' 1983 Warner Bros. Records

''Friends'' 1983 MCA

''Last Nite'' 1986 MCA

''Alone / But Never Alone'' 1986 MCA

''Discovery'' 1986 MCA

''On Solid Ground'' 1989 MCA

''Collection'' 1990 GRP

''Renegade Gentleman'' 1991 GRP

''Kid Gloves'' 1992 GRP

''Larry & Lee'' 1995 GRP

''Christmas at My House'' 1995 MCA

''The Gift'' 1996 GRP

''Collection Vol.2'' 1997 GRP

''Fingerprints'' 2000 Warner Bros. Records

''No Substitutions: Live in Osaka'' 2001 Favored Nations

''Deep Into It'' 2001 Warner Bros. Records

''Sapphire Blue'' 2003 JVC Music

''The Very Best of Larry Carlton'' 2005 GRP

''Fire Wire'' 2006 RCA Victor

''Larry Carlton with Robben Ford Live in Tokyo'' 2007 335 Records

''Take Your Pick'' (with Tak Matsumoto) 2010

''Larry Carlton Plays The Sound Of Philadelphia'' 2011 335 Records

Film soundtracks

''Against All Odds'' 1984 Virgin Records (with Michel Colombier)

Videos

''Larry Carlton Live'' 1987

''Star Licks Larry Carlton'' 1989

''Star Licks Larry Carlton Vol.2'' 1992

''Larry Carlton Live At Montreal International Jazz Festival'' 1997

DVDs

Ohne Filter 2002 inakustik

Live at Montreal JazzFestival 2002 Eagle

Carlton Lukather Band - ''The Paris Concert'' 2005 inakustik

Carlton, Ford + Autour Du Blues - ''The Paris Concert'' 2008 inakustik

Carlton & The Sapphire Blues Band - ''The Paris Concert'' 2008 inakustik

Carlton Trio - ''The Paris Concert'' 2009 inakustik

Appeared in Eric Clapton's ''Crossroads Guitar Festival'', 2004

See also

Katy Lied

The Royal Scam

References

External links

Larry Carlton Homepage

Larry Carlton Guitar Tabs

Larry Carlton

Live performance images

Category:American blues musicians Category:American jazz guitarists Category:Jazz fusion guitarists Category:Crossover jazz guitarists Category:Smooth jazz guitarists Category:American session musicians Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Steely Dan members Category:People from Torrance, California Category:1948 births Category:Living people Category:GRP Records artists Category:American jazz educators

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