The first Holy Roman Emperor is generally considered to be a man named Charlemagne, or Charles I (also called Charles the Great). Charlemagne was born to Pepin the Short, who was the king of a Western European Germanic people called the Franks. After Pepin died in the year 768 C.E., Charlemagne became the Frankish King. The Franks had converted to Christianity about a century earlier, and Charlemagne, seeing himself as the protector of the Church, began a series of military campaigns against non-Christian groups in Europe at the time. This included the Muslim Moors in Spain and the pagan Saxons in what is today Germany. In gratitude, Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne Emperor of the Romans in the year 800 C.E., making Charlemagne the most powerful secular ruler in Europe, and uniting much of Western Europe under his rule. This was the first time this much of Europe had been unified under a single government since the fall of the Roman Empire. However, this unification did not persist after Charlemagne's death. The rule of his son, Louis I, saw the empire break apart into Civil War. It wasn't until over a century later that the Holy Roman Empire was revived, when the Germanic King Otto I was crowned Holy Roman Emperor in 962 C.E. by Pope John XIIGF