Charlemagne and Europe

The paper begins by asking what Europe has meant to medieval historians in recent times, focusing on some answers given in the 1990s and around the year 2000, and reflecting on the different ways Charlemagne is being commemorated in different parts of Europe now, 1,200 years after his death. Charlemagne is then examined through evidence from his own time, as a ruler of a recognisably European empire, and, in the light of recent research and new approaches, His record as a political figure is reconsidered. A brief survey of his posthumous reputation as man and myth in the middle ages, and after, leads into a closer look at the roles assigned to him in post-war rhetoric. Finally the question of whether Charlemagne has, or might have, anything to offer Europeans today is examined.