[Charlemagne and Pope Adrian I]
[Painted By Antoine Vérard c. 1493, Source: Wikimedia Commons]
See, he found as he added to his empire that clear communication was key to maintaining his control. The thing was, since the fragmentation of the Roman Empire 400 years prior and the migration of new groups of people with new languages into Europe, people on one side of his territories probably didn’t speak the quite the same versions of Latin and they certainly didn’t all write things the same way. Some of the manuscripts produced were really hard to read simply because it was difficult to make out the letters.
[Merovingian script from an 8th century Evangelary, Source: Wikimedia Commons]
The script spread across Europe and was popular for a long time before being superseded by Gothic scripts. It was revived by the humanists in the Renaissance (they mistook it for a Classical Roman script rather than a medieval one) and spread from their works into typeface with the invention of the printing press. The modern font Times New Roman is partially based on this script.