Charlemagne is often claimed as the greatest ruler in Europe before Napoleon. In her study, Rosamond McKitterick re-examines Charlemagne the ruler and his reputation. She analyses the narrative representations of Charlemagne produced after his death, and thereafter focuses on the evidence from Charlemagne's lifetime concerning the creation of the Carolingian dynasty and the growth of the kingdom, the court and the royal household, communications and identities in the Frankish realm in the context of government, and Charlemagne's religious and cultural strategies. Throughout, McKitterick emphasizes the retrospective nature of these accounts and the implications, often occluding, for elucidating the person in his own time and place.
The book opens with a detailed examination of the image and career of Charlemagne as portrayed in the biographical and narrative depictions of contemporaries. She refers to and gives her criticisms of Einhard’s Vita Karoli^7 who is known as the main historical …show more content…
Rather, a close examination of the documents and their manuscript traditions suggests periods of movement and residence, and a division between the ruler and the court, which might conduct royal business from several fixed places. The Carolingian empire construction of a network of regional centres of power appears to offer an instance of contrasts from the decentralized post roman world.^137 Charlemagne himself seems to have traveled surprisingly little outside the heart of his realm in the Rhine-Moselle region, with the exception of his visits to Rome, of which must have required a sophisticated network of communications and officials to disseminate the royal will^215. This set up much of the empires to come such as the british empires colonial expansion using governors to disseminate the royal
The book opens with a detailed examination of the image and career of Charlemagne as portrayed in the biographical and narrative depictions of contemporaries. She refers to and gives her criticisms of Einhard’s Vita Karoli^7 who is known as the main historical …show more content…
Rather, a close examination of the documents and their manuscript traditions suggests periods of movement and residence, and a division between the ruler and the court, which might conduct royal business from several fixed places. The Carolingian empire construction of a network of regional centres of power appears to offer an instance of contrasts from the decentralized post roman world.^137 Charlemagne himself seems to have traveled surprisingly little outside the heart of his realm in the Rhine-Moselle region, with the exception of his visits to Rome, of which must have required a sophisticated network of communications and officials to disseminate the royal will^215. This set up much of the empires to come such as the british empires colonial expansion using governors to disseminate the royal