Medieval society: Charlemagne

Through his foreign conquests and internal reforms, Charlemagne is a defining figure of both Western Europe and the Middle Ages. Crowned king of the Franks in 768, he expanded their kingdoms into an empire that incorporated much of western and central Europe, recreating a single Christian imperium in the heartlands of the old Western Roman empire for the first time since the decline and fall of that polity in the late fifth century AD. In this magisterial new study, Hywel Williams explores every facet of the rule and legacy of one of the most remarkable rulers in European history.