Historian Edward Gibbons said: "Europe dates a new era from Charlemagne's restoration of the Western Empire. Now, leading biographer Derek Wilson has written a major life of the man who was the bridge between the ancient world and the world of the emerging and powerful Europe.

This Frankish chieftain was born in 742, son of Pepin the Short. Charlemagne, while repeating the military exploits of Julius Caesar, possessed a mind ignorant of classical culture. He ruled with the sagacity of a Marcus Aurelius, but the general who could order the summary dispatch of 4,500 was equally reminiscent of Caligula.

Even so, his activities were not confined to warfare. He introduced jury courts, revised the legal system, introduced new coinage, reformed weights and measures, and furthered missionary enterprises and monastic reform. He even began a German grammar and promised religious instruction in the
vernacular.

Charlemagne lives on as dramatically in legend, particularly in the Chanson de Bland, and his quarter century of imperial splendour is a truly incredible adventure story.