Charlemagne was crowned emperor.
Carolingian Empire . In 800 , the Frankish king Charlemagne was crowned emperor in Rome by Pope Leo III in an effort to revive the Roman Empire in the west during a vacancy in the throne of the eastern Roman Empire . Charlemagne ( [ ˈʃɑːrlᵻmeɪn ] ) or Charles the Great ( 2 April 742/747/74828 January 814 ) , numbered Charles I , was the King of the Franks from 768 , King of the Lombards from 774 and Emperor of the Romans from 800 . He was the first recognised emperor in western Europe since the fall of the Western Roman Empire three centuries earlier .