flourish.

In the East the Byzantine Empire lasted until A.D. 1453. In the West,
however, the last Roman Emperor had been deposed by Odoacer in 476.
Italy had fallen into the hands of the East Goths and Lombards
successively. The Visigoths had established their dominion in Spain, and
the Franks and Burgundians in Gaul.

A new empire rose from the latter quarter. Charles the Great, with his
powerful hand, extended the Frankish Empire far beyond the boundaries of
Gaul. By the subjugation of the Saxons he became lord of the country
between the Rhine and the Elbe; he obtained the sovereignty in Italy by
the conquest of the Lombards, and finally sought to restore the Western
Roman Empire. He was crowned Emperor in Rome in the year 800. His
successors clung to this claim; but the Frankish Empire soon fell to
pieces. In its partition the western half formed what afterwards became
France, and the East Frankish part of the Empire became the later
Germany. While the Germans in the West Frankish Empire, in Italy and
Spain, had abandoned their speech and customs, and had gradually
amalgamated with the Romans, the inhabitants of the East Frankish
Empire, especially the Saxons and their neighbouring tribes, maintained
their Germanic characteristics, language, and customs. A powerful
German [A] kingdom arose which renewed the claims of Charles the Great to
the Western Roman Empire. Otto the Great was the first _German_ King who
took this momentous step. It involved him and his successors in a
quarrel with the Bishops of Rome, who wished to be not only Heads of the
Church, but lords of Italy, and did not hesitate to falsify archives in
order to prove their pretended title to that country.

[Footnote A: German (Deutsch=diutisk) signifies originally "popular,"