Big Daddy of Europe?

It was one of his own poets who described Charlemagne as ‘father of Europe’, over 1,200 years ago. Pres- umably that is why the publishers call him father of a continent, although in this case the continent was more notional than geographical. About a third of the land-mass bowed down to the big man by the time he died in 814, but even after 46 years of generally successful self-assertion there were still four other European empires going strong (the Byzantine, Bulgar, Chazar and Cordovan), not to mention the kingdoms of the British Isles and Nordic world. Another of those poets called him ‘lighthouse of Europe’, which will seem more accurate to those who think he showed the way to the EU, a confederacy based on states which occupy the Rome-Rennes-Hamburg triangle where his rule was most effective.

They are quite wrong, because the two organisations are so different as to be in direct opposition to each other.