January 28, AD 814

Charlemagne

Charlemagne dies and is buried at Aachen

He tried to treat his final fever by refusing food entirely and taking only the occasional drink.

28 January 814, at Aachen

Charlemagne died at Aachen on 28 January 814, the seventh day after taking to his bed with fever and pain in his side. Einhard puts the death at about nine in the morning, after he had received communion.

Einhard describes the fever beginning around 22 January and calls the side pain pleurisy — his contemporary description, not a diagnosis recoverable from the evidence.

Buried before the day ended

The body was washed and prepared according to custom, carried to his own church at Aachen, and buried there the same day.

Einhard does not say it was embalmed. The precise original position and form of the grave inside the church remain uncertain.

A succession already settled

Louis, whom Charlemagne had elevated as co-emperor in 813, succeeded as sole ruler — no fresh election, no contested deathbed scene, no division of the realm.

Even Charlemagne's age is unsettled. Einhard's narrative places him in his seventy-second year, while the tomb inscription Einhard himself quotes gives seventy.

Sources

Researched 23 Aug 2026 3 sources 2 audit passes

How this was checked

Researched from the web into a fact sheet, rewritten from that sheet, then audited against it by a different model. How the pipeline works →

What the sources leave uncertain

The death date and place are securely attested.
Charlemagne’s actual birth year and age remain disputed. Einhard’s narrative places him in his seventy-second year, while the inscription Einhard quotes says seventy.
The exact underlying disease cannot be recovered. Fever and side pain are reported; “pleurisy” is Einhard’s diagnostic term.
The precise original position and form of Charlemagne’s grave within the Aachen church remain uncertain.