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     He is the son of Albert Nelson Chapman and Jean MacLeod.

     He is the son of Theodore Stillman Chapman and Sarah Landon.

     She is the daughter of Albert Nelson Chapman and Jean MacLeod.

     He married Julia Eliza Wadsworth, daughter of Joseph Wadsworth and Lydia Harris, on 26 September 1844.

     He is the son of Theodore Stillman Chapman and Sarah Landon.

     He is the son of Theodore Chapman and Julia Eliza Wadsworth. He married Sarah Landon.

     He is the son of Theodore Stillman Chapman and Sarah Landon.

     She married Bruce Hugh Nichols, son of Harold William Nichols and Josephine Lillian Graham, in July 1962 at Fort Edward, New York.²

     He married Sarah Anna Turner, daughter of George Samuel Turner and Martha Lavina Rathbun, circa 1950 at Rodeo, California. He died on 16 March 1965 at Rodeo, Contra Costa Co., California.¹

     He married an unknown person.

     He was born on 2 April 747. He was the son of Pepin III, The Short and Princess Berta. He married Unknown daughter of Desiderius, daughter of Desiderius, in 770. He married Princess Hildegarde of Savoy, daughter of Count Geroud of Swabia, in 771. He died on 28 January 813/14 at age 66. He was buried at The Cathedral, Aachen, Germany.
     

King of France, 768-814, crowned Holy Roman Emperor, 25 Dec 800

By 640, the Merovingian dynasty established by Clovis, rapidly declined. Finances were out of control, the land was continually divided, and political control was turned over to local administrative officials, the Mayors of the Palace. By the end of the 7th century, the Mayors had been established on hereditary lines. These hereditary mayors were the ancestors of Charles the Great or Charlemagne (in Latin, Carolus Magnus). The Carolingians inherited land that retained some of the attributes of Roman administration, specifically laws and systems of taxation.

The Frankish Mayors of the Palace represented a new aristocracy -- the class of warriors. This class attained its wealth solely from land. Frankish culture was not urban and as a result in the early Middle Ages we see a general decline of urban life not to be revived into well after the 12th century. It has been said that it was during the reign of CHARLEMAGNE (742-814) that the transition from classical to early medieval civilization was completed. He came to the throne of the Frankish kingdom in 771 and ruled until 814. His reign spans more than 40 years and it was during this time that a new civilization -- a European civilization -- came into existence. If anything characterizes Charlemagne's rule it was stability. His reign was based on harmony which developed between three elements: the Roman past, the Germanic way of life, and Christianity. Charlemagne devoted his entire reign to blending these three elements into one kingdom and by doing this, he secured a foundation upon which European society would develop.

Frankish society was entirely rural and was composed of three classes or orders: (1) the peasants - those who work, (2) the nobility - those who fight, and, (3) the clergy - those who pray. In general, life was brutal and harsh for the early medieval peasant. Even in the wealthiest parts of Europe, the story is one of poverty and hardship. Their diet was poor and many peasants died undernourished. Most were illiterate although a few were devout Christians. The majority could not understand Latin, the language of the Church. The nobility were better off. Their diet, although they had more food, was still not very nutritional. They lived in larger houses than the peasants but their castles were often just as cold as the peasant's small hut. Furthermore, most of nobility were illiterate and crude. They spent most of their time fighting. Their religious beliefs were, for the most part, similar to those of the peasants. At the upper level were the clergy. They were the most educated and perhaps the only people to truly understand Christianity since they were the only people who had access to the Bible. It was the clergy who held a monopoly on knowledge, religious beliefs and religious practice.

When Charlemagne took the throne in 771, he immediately implemented two policies. The first policy was one of expansion. Charlemagne's goal was to unite all Germanic people into one kingdom. The second policy was religious in that Charlemagne wanted to convert all of the Frankish kingdom, and those lands he conquered, to Christianity. As a result, Charlemagne's reign was marked by almost continual warfare.

Because Charlemagne's armies were always fighting, he began to give his warriors land so they could support and equip themselves. With this in mind, Charlemagne was able to secure an army of warriors who were deeply devoted and loyal to him. By the year 800, the Frankish kingdom included all of modern France, Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, almost all of Germany and large areas of Italy and Spain. It seemed clear that Charlemagne was yet another Constantine, perhaps even another Augustus Caesar.

Toward the end of the year 800, Pope Leo III asked Charlemagne to come to Rome. On Christmas Day Charlemagne attended mass at St. Peters. When he finished his prayers, Pope Leo prostrated himself before Charlemagne and then placed a crown upon his head. Pope Leo then said "life and victory to Charles Augustus, crowned by God, the great and peaceful emperor of the Romans." This was an extremely important act. Charlemagne became the first emperor in the west since the last Roman emperor was deposed in 476. Charlemagne's biographer, Einhard (c.770-840), has recorded that Charlemagne was not very much interested in Pope Leo's offering. Had Charlemagne known what was to happen on that Christmas day, he never would have attended the mass. The bottom line is this -- Charlemagne had no intention of being absorbed into the Roman Church. From the point of view of Pope Leo, the coronation of Charlemagne signified the Pope's claim to dispense the imperial crown. It was Leo's desire to assert papal supremacy over a unified Christiandom and he did this by coronating Charlemagne. By gaining the imperial title, Charlemagne received no new lands. He never intended to make Rome the center of his empire. In fact, from Christmas Day 800 to his death in 814, Charlemagne never returned to Rome. Instead, Charlemagne returned to France as emperor and began a most effective system of rule. He divided his kingdom into several hundred counties or administrative units. Along the borders of the kingdom, Charlemagne appointed military governors. To insure that this system worked effectively, Charlemagne sent out messengers (missi domini), one from the church and one lay person, to check on local affairs and report directly to him. Charlemagne also traveled freely throughout his kingdom in order to make direct contact with his people. This was in accordance with the German tradition of maintaining loyalty. He could also supervise his always troublesome nobility and maintain the loyalty of his subjects. There was no fixed capital but Charlemagne spent most of his time at Aachen.

In terms of commerce, Charlemagne standardized the minting of coins based on the silver standard. This also actively encouraged trade, especially in the North Sea. The Franks manufactured swords, pottery and glassware in northern France which they exported to England, Scandinavia and the Lowlands. He also initiated trade between the Franks and the Muslims and made commercial pacts with the merchants of Venice who traded with both Byzantium and Islam.

The most durable and significant of all Charlemagne's efforts was the revival of learning in his kingdom. This was especially so among the clergy, many of whom were barely literate. On the whole, the monks were not much better educated. Even those monks who spent their days copying manuscripts could barely read or understand them. The manuscripts from the 7th and 8th centuries were confusing. They were all written in uppercase letters and without punctuation. There were many errors made in copying and handwriting was poor. There were, however, a few educated monks as well as the beginnings of a few great libraries. But Charlemagne could not find one good copy of the Bible, nor a complete text of the Benedictine Rule. He had to send to Rome for them. Above all, Charlemagne wanted unity in the Frankish Church, a Church wholly under his supervision. Charlemagne, although illiterate as a youth, was devoted to new ideas and to learning. He studied Latin, Greek, rhetoric, logic and astronomy. He wanted to meet an educated man -- he was very lucky. He was in northern Italy when he met the Anglo-Saxon scholar, Alcuin.

Alcuin (c.735-804) lived in York where there was a library which contained a vast collection of manuscripts. Charlemagne persuaded Alcuin to come to Aachen in order to design a curriculum for the palace school. Alcuin devised a course of study that was intended to train the clergy and the monks. Here we find the origins of the seven liberal arts: the trivium comprised grammar (how to write), rhetoric (how to speak) and logic (how to think) while the quadrivium was made up of the mathematical arts, geometry, arithmetic, astronomy and music. All of this meant a classical and literary education. Students read Homer, Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Juvenal, Plato and Cicero.

By the 9th century, most monasteries had writing rooms or scriptoria. It was here that manuscripts were copied. The texts were studied with care. It was no longer merely a matter of copying texts. It was now first necessary to correct any mistakes which had been made over years of copying. Copying was indeed difficult: lighting was poor, the monk's hands were cramped by cold weather and there was no standard scholarly language. What Charlemagne did was institute a standard writing style. Remember, previous texts were all uppercase, without punctuation and there was no separation between words. The letters of the new script, called the Carolingian minuscule, were written in upper and lower case, with punctuation and words were separated. It should be obvious that this new script was much easier to read, in fact, it is the script we use today. Charlemagne also standardized medieval Latin. After all, much had changed in the Latin language over the past 1000 years. New words, phrases, and idioms had appeared over the centuries in these now had to be incorporated into the language. So what Charlemagne did was take account of all these changes and include them in a new scholarly language which we know as medieval Latin.

One of the most important consequences of the Carolingian Renaissance was that Charlemagne encouraged the spread of uniform religious practices as well as a uniform culture. Charlemagne set out to construct a respublica Christiana, a Christian republic. Despite the fact that Charlemagne unified his empire, elevated education, standardized coins, handwriting and even scholarly Latin, his Empire declined in strength within a generation or two following his death in the year 814. His was a hard act to follow. His rule was so brilliant, so superior, that those emperors who came after him seemed inferior. We've seen this before with Alexander the Great, Augustus Caesar, Constantine, Justinian and Mohammed.

Although the Frankish kingdom went into decline, the death of Charlemagne was only one cause of the decline. We must consider the renewed invasions from barbarian tribes. The Muslims invaded Sicily in 827 and 895, invasions which disrupted trade between the Franks and Italy. The Vikings came from Denmark, Sweden and Norway and invaded the Empire in the 8th and 9th centuries. The Danes attacked England, and northern Gaul. The Swedes attacked areas in central and eastern Europe and Norwegians attacked England, Scotland and Ireland and by the 10th century, had found their way to Greenland. The third group of invaders were the Magyars who came from modern-day Hungary. Their raids were so terrible that European peasants would burn their fields and destroy their villages rather than give them over. All these invasions came to an end by the 10th and 11th centuries for the simple reason that these tribes were converted to Christianity. And it would be the complex institution known as feudalism which would offer Europeans protection from these invasions, based as it was on security, protection and mutual obligations.²

     He was born on 13 June 828 at Frankfurt-am-Main. He was the son of Louis I, The Fair and Judith of Bavaria. He married Ermintrude, daughter of Odo- Count of Orleans (?) and Engeltrude. He died on 6 October 877 at near Mt. Cenis in the Alps at age 49.

     He was born on 17 November 879. He was the son of King Louis II, The Stammerer and Adelaide. He married Edgiva, daughter of King Edward The Elder and Eadgifu, in 919.¹ He died in 929.

     He was born on 29 May 1630. He was the son of Charles I, King of England and Henrietta Marie of France. He married Barbara Villiers. He died on 6 February 1684/85 at age 54.

     He was born on 19 November 1600. He was the son of James (?) I, Stuart, King of England and (?) Anne of Denmark. He married Henrietta Marie of France. He died on 30 January 1648/49 at Whitehall Palace, London, at age 48.

     He married Louise, daughter of King Frederick V, of Denmark and Louisa Hanover.

     He was the son of King Louis IV, d'Outremer, King of France and Gerberga of Saxony.¹ He married Adelaide.¹

     She was born in 1835.¹ She married Rev. Conley Blankenship.¹ She died in 1899.¹

     She is the daughter of Richard Charlton and Anne Mainwaring.¹ She married Randall Grosvenor.¹

     He is the son of Robert Charlton and Mary Corbet.¹ He married Anne Mainwaring.¹

     He is the son of Thomas de Knightley de Charlton and Elizabeth Francis.¹ He married Mary Corbet.¹

     She was born on 3 October 1914 at Coweta, Oklahoma.¹ She married Lloyd Espey Robinson, son of Lawrence Espey Robinson and Edith Althea Johnson.¹ She died on 17 July 1972 at Stillwell, Oklahoma, at age 57.¹

     She married Harold A. Rathbun, son of Charles C. Rathbun and Bessie Burton.

     He married Ann Sperry, daughter of Daniel Sperry and Abigail Ives.

     He married Hazel Cook, daughter of John Cook and Pricie Margaret Hunt.¹

     He is the son of Ed Cheney and Hazel Cook.¹

     He married Eleanor Holand, daughter of Thomas Holand 2nd Earl of Kent and Alice FitzAlan.¹

     She is the daughter of Edward Cherleton 4th Baron Cherleton of Powis and Eleanor Holand.¹ She married John Tiptoft 1st Baron Tiptoft.¹