A surprise crown on Christmas Day

By 800, Charlemagne ruled most of Western Europe: modern France, Germany, the Low Countries, Switzerland, Austria and northern Italy. A year earlier, Pope Leo III had been attacked by enemies in Rome and fled to him for protection.

Charlemagne came to Rome to restore order. On Christmas Day, as he rose from prayer at St Peter’s Basilica, the pope placed a crown on his head and the crowd hailed him as Emperor of the Romans. No one in the West had held the title for more than three hundred years.

His biographer Einhard claimed Charlemagne was annoyed, saying he would never have entered the church that day if he had known what the pope planned. Historians still argue whether that was real modesty or careful politics.

Either way, the coronation created a new idea: a Western emperor crowned by the pope. It led to the Holy Roman Empire, which lasted in some form until 1806. Charlemagne struggled to write, but he founded schools and libraries, and he is often called the Father of Europe.