Charlemagne’s Imperial Title: From the Perspective of Evidence Science

Abstract

On Christmas day 800, Charlemagne was elevated at Rome to the imperial throne. Various textbooks have taken the historical event for granted as a liturgical celebration through which Charlemagne updated his honour from a king to an emperor. Nevertheless, Charlemagne was called an Imperator Romanorum while abandoning his former title Patricius Romanorum at the coronation, which transformed him from a Roman governor to a Roman Emperor. As an Imperator of the Romans Charlemagne took the place of the emperor at Constantinople to rule the western parts of the Roman Empire, which mainly included the provinces in Italy and their islands. Once Charlemagne became an emperor, however, In order to avoid a collision between his role as Emperor ruling a particular territory and as a ruler of various territories, he had to adjust the imperial title to the reality that he ruled a grander territory beyond Italian provinces. The process from ‘Emperor of the Romans’ (Rex or Imperator Romanorum), via ‘Emperor governing the Roman empire’ (Imperator Romanum gubernans imperium) to ‘Emperor’(Imperator), may be called a generalization of the imperial title of Charlemagne.

Appendix

(Table 1).

Table 1 Imperial titles and titulatures