10 Euro Carolus Magnus

Charlemagne's canonization by the antipope Paschal III in 1165 — a politically motivated act engineered by Frederick Barbarossa to legitimize his own rule — is the theological hook on which this coin's premise hangs, since the Catholic Church has never formally recognized that canonization. The 1996 issue commemorates the 1200th anniversary of his death, though the exact date of 814 AD places that anniversary squarely in 2014, making the choice of 1996 difficult to reconcile without additional documentation on the issuing authority's stated rationale.