Charlemagne (Charles the Great) c. 742-814 was King of the Franks, conqueror of Lombard Italy, and on Christmas day 800, was crowned by Pope Leo III as the first Holy Roman Emperor. The author tells us that he "was a man of commanding presence, more than six feet high, with large and lustrous eyes, a rather long nose, a bright and cheerful countenance, and a fine head of hair." Charles was a just ruler, a lover of learning and of women (he married five times). He was a strong supporter of the Church and of the Pope, whose divisive territorial rule in Italy he helped to establish. In this engaging, short biography, the historian Thomas Hodgkin shows how he emerged from his father's Frankish Kingdom on the Rhine to conquer and to govern fierce tribes and to revive for the first time since Rome's fall, the title of Emperor of the West - Summary by Pamela Nagami
