In what year did Charlemagne die?

Charlemagne died in 814, on 28 January, at Aachen.

By the final years of his reign, Charlemagne had ruled the Franks for more than four decades and had been crowned emperor in Rome in 800. His empire stretched across much of western and central Europe, but succession planning had become urgent after several of his sons and other close relatives died between 810 and 811.

In 813, Charlemagne designated his surviving son, Louis the Pious, as his successor and crowned him co-emperor at Aachen. Charlemagne then became ill during the winter. His biographer Einhard and other medieval accounts describe a short final illness, commonly identified as pleurisy, before his death on 28 January 814.

Charlemagne was buried in the Palatine Chapel at Aachen, the imperial residence he had developed into a major political and religious center. Louis the Pious inherited the empire. The dates 800 and 810 can cause confusion: 800 was the year of Charlemagne’s imperial coronation, while 810 was the year his son Pepin of Italy died.