I've been thinking about Carolus Magnus as That Guy. Though the research is daunting, as I don't know Carolingian hardly at all. My classes mostly went straight to Britain and stayed there until the Renaissance, so I have a bunch of guys named Aethelred in this period. And I never could get into them.

Nor formulate any real ideas about the period. Why, in your opinion, does the Carolingian Renaissane not "take"? Why doesn't this stick? Why don't we go straight from 800 to 1300?

No, I didn't know about Theophanu! That's really interesting. I'll have to look for her.