General Notes

Name Prefix:<NPFX> Emperor
Also Known As:<_AKA> Emperor of the Holy Roman /Empire/
Ancestral File Number:<AFN> 9GCC-89
Early years
Charles was born probably in 742, the elder son of Pippin III, also called Pippin the Short. Pippin and his older brother, Carloman, had just jointly assumed the government of the Frankish kingdom as major domus, or “mayor of the palace.” The dynasty, later called Carolingian after Charlemagne, had originated in the Meuse-Moselle region on the borders of modern France, Germany, Belgium, and The Netherlands. In the course of a few generations, it had, as mayors of the palace to the Merovingians, gained control of the entire Frankish kingdom. Charlemagne's grandfather, Charles Martel, reconstituted a realm that had been on the point of breaking up, and, without infringing on the royal prerogatives of the otherwise powerless Merovingians, he had in effect bequeathed the empire to his sons, Pippin and Carloman, like a family inheritance.
Charles grew to manhood while his father was engaged in acquiring sole sovereignty and the kingship. On Carloman's retirement to a monastery, Pippin eliminated the latter's sons from the government. Having thus prepared the way, he had himself proclaimed king in 751, after dethroning the Merovingians. An oracular response by Pope Zacharias furnished the ecclesiastical approbation for thus shunting aside the former reigning house, which had been held sacred. Zacharias's successor, Stephen II, arrived in the Frankish kingdom during the winter of 753–754, in order to seek help against the Lombards who were attacking Rome. As the reigning monarch's oldest son, Charles, then about 12 years of age, traveled ahead to welcome the pope, who anointed him king, along with his father and his brother Carloman, thus sanctioning the new dynasty. The political alliance between the Franks and the pope against the Lombards was affirmed on the same occasion. When his father subdued Aquitaine (France south of the Loire) in a series of yearly campaigns beginning in 760, reasserting the integrity of the Frankish kingdom all the way to the Pyrenees, Charles repeatedly accompanied the army.
These youthful experiences probably contributed to the formation of Charles's character and to the formulation of his aims. He shared with his father an unbending will to power, a readiness to fight resolutely against external enemies and to increase his domains, and the determination to rule by himself even if it meant usurping the rights of close relatives. Charles early acknowledged the close connection between temporal power and the church; he had a high regard for the church and the king's duty to spread the Christian faith and, while asserting royal suzerainty over the church, considered himself accountable to God for the Christians entrusted to him.

King of the Franks
In accordance with old Frankish custom, the kingdom was divided on Pippin's death in 768 between his two sons. It was not long, however, before a strong rivalry sprang up between the brothers: with his mother's support, Charles concluded, with the Lombard king Desiderius, whose daughter he married, and with his cousin Duke Tassilo of Bavaria, alliances directed against Carloman.
On Carloman's sudden death in 771, Charles was able to make himself sole ruler of the kingdom, unopposed by his young nephews, whose rights he ignored. When Carloman's widow with her children and a few remaining supporters had fled to the Lombard court, and King Desiderius, breaking his alliance with Charles, put pressure on the pope to anoint Carloman's sons as Frankish kings, Charles was forced to come to the aid of Pope Adrian I. He marched on the Lombard capital, Pavia, and after its fall made himself king of the Lombards. His brother's sons, who had fallen into his hands, disappeared. While the siege of Pavia was still in progress, Charles journeyed to Rome, where he celebrated Easter 774 with the pope and reiterated, in St. Peter's Basil