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Final years and death

The Carolingian dynasty experienced a number of losses in 810 and 811, when Charlemagne's sister Gisela, his daughter Rotrude, and his sons Pepin the Hunchback, Pepin of Italy, and Charles the Younger died. The deaths of Charles and Pepin of Italy left Charlemagne's earlier plans for succession in disarray. He declared Pepin of Italy's son Bernard ruler of Italy and made his own only surviving son, Louis, heir to the rest of the empire. Charlemagne also made a new will detailing the disposal of his property at his death, with bequests to the church, his children, and his grandchildren. Einhard (possibly relying on tropes from Suetonius's The Twelve Caesars) says that Charlemagne viewed the deaths of his family members, his fall from a horse, astronomical phenomena, and the collapse of part of the palace in his last years as signs of his impending death. Charlemagne continued to govern with energy during his final year, ordering bishops to assemble in five ecclesiastical councils. These culminated in a large assembly at Aachen, where Charlemagne crowned Louis as his co-emperor and Bernard as king in a ceremony on 11 September 813.

Charlemagne became ill in the autumn of 813 and spent his last months praying, fasting, and studying the gospels. He developed pleurisy, and was bedridden for seven days before dying on the morning of 28 January 814. Thegan, a biographer of Louis, records the emperor's last words as "Into your hands, Lord, I commend my spirit" (quoting from Luke 23:46). Charlemagne's body was prepared and buried in the chapel at Aachen by his daughters and palace officials that day. Louis arrived at Aachen thirty days after his father's death, making a formal adventus and taking charge of the palace and the empire. Charlemagne's remains were exhumed by Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa in 1165, and reinterred in a new casket by Frederick II in 1215.