After 962, the Kings of Italy were always also Kings of Germany, and Italy thus became a constituent kingdom of the Holy Roman Empire, along with Germany and (after 1032) Burgundy. The German king would be crowned by the Archbishop of Milan with the Iron Crown of Lombardy in Pavia as a prelude to the visit to Rome to be crowned Emperor by the Pope. In 774, the Lombards were defeated by the Franks under Charlemagne and their king, Desiderius, deposed. Charlemagne took up the Lombard title, rex Langobardorum, meaning “king of the Lombards,” which was used interchangeably with rex Italiae. The old kingdom of Italy survived within the Frankish Empire as a separate entity until 962, when the Holy Roman Emperor Otto I himself took the title. All subsequent emperors used the title and most wer...more >>e crowned at some time in the ancient Lombard capital of Pavia before their imperial coronation in Rome.