Editing Holy Roman Empire (section)

==== Carolingian Empire ====
{{Main|Carolingian Empire}}
[[File:Francia 814.svg|thumb|A map of the Carolingian Empire within Europe, {{Circa|814 AD}}]]

As [[Western Roman Empire|Roman]] power in [[Gaul]] declined during the 5th century, local Germanic tribes assumed control.{{Sfn|Innes|2000|pp=167–170}} In the late 5th and early 6th centuries, the [[Merovingian dynasty|Merovingians]], under [[Clovis I]] and his successors, consolidated [[Franks|Frankish]] tribes and extended hegemony over others to gain control of northern Gaul and the middle [[Rhine]] river valley region.{{Sfn|Bryce|1890|pp=35}}{{Sfn|Davies|1996|pp=232, 234}} By the middle of the 8th century, the Merovingians were reduced to figureheads, and the [[Carolingian dynasty|Carolingians]], led by [[Charles Martel]], became the {{lang|la|de facto}} rulers.{{Sfn|Bryce|1890|pp=35–38}} In 751, Martel's son [[Pepin the Short|Pepin]] became King of the Franks, and later gained the sanction of the Pope.{{Sfn|McKitterick|2018|pp=48–50}}<ref name=EB.Pippin/> The Carolingians would maintain a close alliance with the Papacy.{{Sfn|Bryce|1890|pp=38–42}}

In 768, Pepin's son Charlemagne became King of the Franks and began an extensive expansion of the realm. He eventually incorporated the territories of present-day France, Germany, northern Italy, the Low Countries and beyond, linking the Frankish kingdom with Papal lands.{{Sfn|Johnson|1996|p=22}}{{Sfn|Kohn|2006|pp=113–114}}

Although antagonism about the expense of [[Byzantine Papacy|Byzantine domination]] had long persisted within Italy, a political rupture was set in motion in earnest in 726 by the [[Byzantine iconoclasm|iconoclasm]] of Emperor [[Leo III the Isaurian]], in what [[Pope Gregory II]] saw as the latest in a series of imperial heresies.{{Sfn|Duffy|1997|pp= 62–63}} In 797, the Eastern Roman Emperor [[Constantine VI]] was removed from the throne by his mother, Empress [[Irene of Athens|Irene]], who declared herself sole ruler. As the Latin Church only regarded a male Roman emperor as the head of [[Christendom]], Pope Leo III sought a new candidate for the dignity, excluding consultation with the [[patriarch of Constantinople]].<ref name="auto2">Bryce, pp. 44, 50–52</ref>{{Sfn|McKitterick|2018|p=70}}

Charlemagne's good service to the Church in his defense of Papal possessions against the [[Lombards]] made him the ideal candidate. On Christmas Day of 800, Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne emperor, restoring the title in the West for the first time in over three centuries.<ref name="auto2"/>{{Sfn|McKitterick|2018|p=70}} This can be seen as symbolic of the papacy turning away from the declining [[Byzantine Empire]] toward the new power of [[Carolingian]] [[Francia]]. Charlemagne adopted the formula {{lang|la|[[Renovatio imperii Romanorum]]}} ("renewal of the Roman Empire"). In 802, Irene was overthrown and exiled by [[Nikephoros I]] and henceforth there were two Roman emperors.

After Charlemagne died in 814, the imperial crown passed to his son, [[Louis the Pious]]. Upon Louis' death in 840, it passed to his son [[Lothair I|Lothair]], who had been his co-ruler. By this point the territory of Charlemagne was divided into several territories (''cf''. [[Treaty of Verdun]], [[Treaty of Prüm]], [[Treaty of Meerssen]] and [[Treaty of Ribemont]]), and over the course of the later 9th century the title of emperor was disputed by the Carolingian rulers of the Western Frankish Kingdom or [[West Francia]] and the Eastern Frankish Kingdom or [[East Francia]], with first the western king ([[Charles the Bald]]) and then the eastern ([[Charles the Fat]]), who briefly reunited the Empire, attaining the prize.{{Sfn|Collins|2014|p=131}} In the 9th century, Charlemagne and his successors promoted the intellectual revival, known as the [[Carolingian Renaissance]]. Some, like Mortimer Chambers,<ref>{{Cite book|last=Chambers|first=Mortimer|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2AJaAAAAYAAJ|title=The Western Experience|date=1974|publisher=Knopf|isbn=978-0-3943-1806-6|page=204|language=en|access-date=6 February 2022}}</ref> opine that the Carolingian Renaissance made possible the subsequent renaissances (even though by the early 10th century, the revival already diminished).<ref>{{Cite book|last=Witt|first=Ronald G.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=F8KXnDTwsZYC&pg=PA27|title=The Two Latin Cultures and the Foundation of Renaissance Humanism in Medieval Italy|date=2012|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-5217-6474-2|page=27|language=en|access-date=6 February 2022}}</ref>

After the death of Charles the Fat in 888, the Carolingian Empire broke apart, and was never restored. According to [[Regino of Prüm]], the parts of the realm "spewed forth kinglets", and each part elected a kinglet "from its own bowels".{{Sfn|Collins|2014|p=131}} The last such emperor was [[Berengar I of Italy]], who died in 924.