/his/ - Charlemagne lived like THAT?!

Same energy

"emperors really live in houses like this and don’t see any issue"

That is actually extremely lavish for those times' standards, during times where the middle class would have to, at best, live in densely popular insulae-type housing with several families living in them, all sharing space and resources, like a really cramped apartment of sorts. Compared to that, this house on the image is like a set of mansions across many yards that definitely belongs to a wealthy governing figure.