Charlemagne Prayers
Added : Tue 28 Jul 2020 PM | Updated : Sun 23 Apr 2023 PM
Charlemagne, from the Latin Carolus Magnus, or Charles I, known as "the Great", born at an unknown date (probably during the year 742, or even 747 or 748, perhaps on 2 April), died on 28 January 814 at Aachen, was a Frankish king and emperor. He belonged to the Carolingian dynasty. Son of Pepin the Short, he was king of the Franks from 768, became king of the Lombards by conquest in 774 and was crowned emperor in Rome by Pope Leo III on 24 or 25 December 800, raising a dignity that had disappeared in the West since the deposition, three centuries earlier, of Romulus Augustus in 476.
As a warrior king, he significantly expanded his kingdom through a series of military campaigns, particularly against the pagan Saxons, whose submission was difficult and violent (772-804), but also against the Lombards in Italy and the Muslims of al-Andalus. A reforming sovereign, concerned with religious unification and culture, he protected the arts and letters and was at the origin of the "Carolingian renaissance". His immediate political work, the Empire, did not survive him for long, however. Following the Germanic custom of succession, Charlemagne planned the division of the Empire between his three sons in 806. After many ups and downs, the Empire was not finally divided between three of his grandsons until 843, at the time of the Treaty of Verdun.
The feudal fragmentation of the following centuries, then the formation of rival nation-states in Europe, condemned to impotence those who explicitly attempted to restore the Western Empire, in particular the sovereigns of the Holy Roman Empire, from Otto I in 962 to Charles V in the 16th century, and even Napoleon I, who was haunted by the example of the most eminent of the Carolingians.
The figure of Charlemagne was the subject of political issues in Europe, particularly between the eleventh and nineteenth centuries, between the Germanic nation, which considered its "Holy Roman Empire" to be the legitimate successor of the Carolingian emperor, and the French nation, which made him a central element of the dynastic continuity of the Capetians. Charlemagne is sometimes considered the 'Father of Europe' for having brought together a significant part of Western Europe and for having laid down principles of government which the great European states have inherited.
The two main ninth-century texts that depict the real Charlemagne, Eginhard's Vita Caroli and the Gesta Karoli Magni attributed to Notker the Beggar, a monk of St. Gallen, also halo him with legends and myths that were taken up in the following centuries: "There is the Charlemagne of vassalage and feudal society, the Charlemagne of the Crusade and Reconquest, the Charlemagne who invented the Crown of France or the Imperial Crown, the Charlemagne who is poorly canonised but held to be a true saint of the Church, the Charlemagne of the good schoolchildren.
Charlemagne is, by toleration of Pope Benedict XIV, a Catholic Blessed celebrated locally on 28 January. In fact, in 1165, Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa obtained the canonisation of Charlemagne by Antipope Paschal III. Many dioceses in the north of France then included Charlemagne in their calendars and in 1661 the University of Paris chose him as its patron saint. His relics are still venerated today in Aachen Cathedral. However, the Catholic Church has removed from its calendar "the emperor who converted the Saxons by the sword rather than by the peaceful preaching of the Gospel".
There are prayers that are reputed to be extremely effective (especially the famous Oraison de Saint Charlemagne against sudden death, drowning, poisoning, epilepsy, lightning, enemies, etc., favourable to pregnant women, etc., which has glowing testimonies for those who have already used it) attributed to Charlemagne.
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