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Why did Pope Stephen IV crown Louis I again in 816?
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Louis I
Louis the Pious as a Christian Roman Emperor, portrait from De laudibus sanctae crucis by Rabanus Maurus.
In 816, Pope Stephen IV anointed and crowned Louis I as Holy Roman emperor to solidify the alliance between the papacy and the Frankish rulers.1
While Louis had previously been crowned by his father, Charlemagne, in 813 at Aachen without papal involvement, the 816 ceremony in Reims served a different purpose. By performing the coronation and anointing, the papacy established itself as the agency responsible for creating emperors, a role that became one of its most treasured prerogatives. This act reinforced the papacy's influence and its ecumenical pretensions, contrasting with the earlier Frankish-led coronation that had deliberately excluded the pope.123