With regard to Charlemagne, France and Germany have been a community of memory, but their paths were quite different. This divergence mainly originated from the fact that unlike the French Charlemagne represented as rex Francorum, the German counterpart epitomized multiple and universal imperium, such as Imperium Francorum, Imperium Romanorum, and Imperium Christianum. The figure of Charlemagne in France that became increasingly cohesive with the growing royal authority, contributed to strengthening the dynastic legitimacy and subjects’ unity. In Germany, by contrast, the same figure captured by the imperial ideology rather than functioning as a symbol of internal unity, came to collide with the claims on the part of Papacy and of the French monarchy, and consequently lost its initial power. However, in contrast to such decline in the imperial dimension, by the late Middle Ages the memories of the Emperor grew exuberant in local or regional level, especially such as the religious communities, cities and principalities. This tendency apparently represented the realities of the Empire in which centrifugal forces surpassed centripetal ones.
In the last analysis, Charlemagne appeared as the images of the Empire and the Kingdom themselves he served. While in France he, in the heart of royal religion, served as a halo of royal authority, in Germany he was considered to be an avatar of imperial idea on the one hand, and a patron of various local or regional interests on the other. In other words, while memories of Charlemagne indicated centripetal tendency in France, they tended to diverge in the neighboring Empire.