Carolingian Empire

{{Infobox country | native_name = Universum Regnum, Romanorum sive Francorum Imperium, Imperium Christianum (Latin) | conventional_long_name = Carolingian Empire | image_flag = | flag_type = | era = [[Middle Ages] ] | event_start = Coronation of Charlemagne | date_start = 25 December | year_start = 800 | event_end = Deposition of Charles the Fat | date_end = 17 November | year_end = 887 | event1 = Division after the Treaty of Verdun | date_event1 = 10 August 843 | p1 = Francia | p2 = Avar Khaganate | p3 = Kingdom of the Lombards | p4 = Saxons | p5 = Merovingian dynasty | s1 = West Francia | s2 = Middle Francia | s3 = East Francia | flag_s4 = Banner of the Holy Roman Emperor with haloes (1430-1806).svg | s4 = Holy Roman Empire | image_map = Francia 814.svg

| image_map_caption = The Carolingian Empire at its greatest extent in 814

| capital = Metz,^[1] Aachen | official_languages = Medieval Latin | common_languages = Romance
Germanic
Slavic
Basque
Breton | religion = Chalcedonian Christianity
(under the jurisdiction of the Church of Rome)(official) | government_type = Monarchy | currency = Denarius | title_leader = Emperor | leader1 = Charlemagne (first) | year_leader1 = 800–814 | leader2 = Charles the Fat (last) | year_leader2 = 881–887 | stat_area1 = 1200000 | ref_area1 = ^[2] | stat_pop1 = 10,000,000–20,000,000 | ref_pop1 = ^[2] }}

The Carolingian Empire (800–887) was a Frankish-dominated empire in Western and Central Europe during the Early Middle Ages. It was ruled by the Carolingian dynasty, which had ruled as kings of the Franks since 751 and as kings of the Lombards in Italy from 774. In 800, Pope Leo III crowned the Frankish king Charlemagne as Roman emperor in return for political protection, disregarding the universalist claims of the weakened Byzantine Empire. The Carolingian Empire is sometimes considered the first phase in the history of the Holy Roman Empire.^[3]

After a civil war from 840 to 843 following the death of Emperor Louis the Pious, the empire was divided into autonomous kingdoms, with one king still recognised as emperor, but with little authority outside his own kingdom. The unity of the empire and the hereditary right of the Carolingians continued to be acknowledged. In 884, Charles the Fat reunited all the Carolingian kingdoms for the last time, but he was deposed by the Frankish nobility in 887 and died in 888 and the empire immediately fractured. With the only remaining legitimate male of the dynasty a child, the nobility elected regional kings from outside the dynasty or, in the case of the eastern kingdom, an illegitimate Carolingian. The illegitimate line continued to rule in the east until 911, while in the western kingdom the legitimate Carolingian dynasty was restored in 898 and ruled until 987 with an interruption from 922 to 936.

The population of the empire was roughly between 10 and 20 million people.^[2] Its heartland was Francia, the land between the Loire and the Rhine, where Aachen, which Charlemagne chose as his primary residence, was located. In the south it crossed the Pyrenees and bordered the Emirate of Córdoba and, after 824, the Kingdom of Pamplona; to the north it bordered the kingdom of the Danes; to the west it had a short land border with Brittany, which was later reduced to a tributary; and to the east it had a long border with the Slavs and the Avars, who were eventually defeated and their land incorporated into the empire. In southern Italy, the Carolingians' claims to authority were disputed by the Byzantines and the vestiges of the Lombard kingdom in the Principality of Benevento. In its day, it was known by various Latin names; the term "Carolingian Empire" arose later.