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Was Charlemagne A Good Leader

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Was Charlemagne A Good Leader
Charlemagne reportedly killed 4500 Pagan Saxons in one day for not converting to Christianity. Should History remember such a ruthless individual as a “good leader”?

Charlemagne was a ruthless person, but history will still remember him as a good leader. He united much of Europe under his rule, he improved many things like education, converted many people to Christianity, and he was a great military leader. It is because of these reasons that Charlemagne will be remembered by history as a good leader.
One of Charlemagne’s reasons for being called a good leader is that he was a great military leader. Charlemagne conquered the Saxons, he helped the Pope when the Lombard’s tried to regain their land, and this is what led him to becoming the new Roman Emperor, much to the dismay of the Byzantine Empire. He also invaded the Muslims in Spain. He conquered a lot of these territories, and this shows how Charlemagne must’ve been a smart, good, and strategic military leader, it is because of these reasons that Charlemagne was a good leader.
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A quality of a good leader is to be able to improve your empire and also be able to sustain it. Charlemagne noticed how the Franks were not as educated as other civilizations, so he set up a school in his palace, with the help of Alcuin, the greatest scholar in Europe. His students learned Latin, music, maths, and literature. When improving infrastructure, he made many things like Rome, he built forums, baths, theatres, and aqueducts. He also modeled his capital city, Aachen, on Rome. He converted his people to Christianity by adding many churches throughout the empire, but he also converted people with force, by “shortening them by a head”[1], which was really just beheading someone; it is with this method that he converted many people he

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