Yale professor Paul Freedman traces the Carolingian dynasty from its origins to its high point under Charlemagne, part of his HIST 210 course on the Early Middle Ages. He explains how the Carolingians displaced the weakened Merovingians by building legitimacy on three grounds: military leadership, Christian rule, and the inheritance of Rome. Charles Martel's victory over Muslim forces at Poitiers in 733, Pepin the Short's alliance with a papacy in need of protection, and finally Charlemagne's coronation as emperor by Pope Leo III in Rome in 800 form the narrative spine. Freedman notes that Charlemagne's empire, centered in northern Europe rather than the Mediterranean, was no simple copy of Rome, and closes by arguing that Charlemagne is best understood as the founder of Europe as a political and cultural idea. Chapter markers divide the lecture into introduction, Merovingian decline, Carolingian legitimacy, and the two generations culminating in Charlemagne.