Charlemagne (742-814 AD) was King of the Franks from 768-814 and Emperor of the Romans from 800-14. He expanded the Frankish kingdom into an empire. His rule is also associated with the Carolingian Renaissance, a revival of art, religion, and culture through the medium of the Catholic Church. Through his foreign conquests and internal reforms, Charlemagne helped define both Western Europe and the European Middle Ages. He had eighteen children over the course of his life with eight of his ten known wives or concubines. In 1814 he fell ill with pleurisy and died at the age of 72. Alcuin of York (735 - May 19, 804) was an English scholar, ecclesiastic, poet and teacher. At the invitation of Charlemagne, he became a leading scholar and teacher at the Carolingian court, where he remained a figure in the 780s-90s. He wrote many theological and dogmatic treatises, as well as a few grammatical works and a number of poems. He was made Abbot of Tours in 796, where he remained until his death. He is considered among the most important architects of the Carolingian Renaissance. Illustration from Vies Des Savants Illustrates, Savants Du Moyen-Age by Louis Figuier, 1883.