610

The Saxon Wars

[631-775

The ecclesiastical motive was specially strong in the Saxon wars. And the Saxons resisted ecclesiastical subjection as much as political. They struggled with their utmost strength against the Franks for their political freedom and for the imaginary blessings of their national religion.

The Franks had fought against the Saxons even in the sixth century. Chlotar I is said to have laid upon them a tribute of 500 cows, from which Dagobert freed them in 631. In the eighth century, profiting by the weakness of the royal authority, they repeatedly ravaged Frankish territory. The Mayors of the Palace, Charles Martel and his sons, were the first to fight successfully against them. They brought the tribes on the Frankish border into some kind of subjection, and under Pepin the payment of the old annual tribute of 500 cows was regularly demanded. But Christian teaching found no soil. The two Hewalds had paid with their lives for their first attempt to convert their kinsmen. The mission of Willehad was fruitless. The noble work of Utrecht and its school of missions failed in the case of the Saxons.

At the beginning of the reign of Charles the Saxons were in the same state as they are said to have been at the beginning of our era - small independent political communities, which only combined temporarily in time of war. The three greater sub-tribes, the Westphalians, the Engers, and the Eastphalians, were not regular political units. The pure morals of the uncorrupted natural peoples still prevailed, but also all the brutality and cruelty of barbarism. The unconditional reverence for the gods and the blind obedience due to supposed utterances of the Divine Will exercised a fatalistic and fanatical influence.

Whether Charles had from the first intended the complete conquest of the whole Saxon territory, or whether he was led to it by the force of circumstances, cannot be determined. It is certain that from 775 he aimed at the unconditional surrender of the Saxons.

The first campaign was decided on at the Assembly of the Empire at Worms in the summer of 772. In the territory of the Engers Charles, advancing from the south, took the Eresburg, marched northwards, destroyed the Irminsul, a tall column of wood erected on the Holy Heath which was honoured as the symbolic bearer of the Universe (universalis columna quasi sustinens omnia), and finally reached the Weser, where the Engers professed their submission and gave hostages as guarantees of peace. During Charles' absence in Italy in 774 the Saxons made an incursion into Hesse and destroyed Fritzlar, but were quickly driven back. Charles on his return planned radical measures. According to the Annales Einhardi, as they are called, he resolved to fight and ravage the faithless Saxons till they accepted Christianity or were utterly destroyed. The Frankish army in 775 marched from the West through the Westphalian country, took the fortress of Sigiburg,

775-782]

Conquest of the Saxons

611

and advanced as far as Brunisberg on the Weser. The three Saxon tribes seemed to be entirely conquered, and an unsuccessful rising in 776 only completed the work of conquest. The Eresburg and the Sigiburg were made strong centres of the Frankish power. Carlsburg on the Lippe was built, the people were compelled to accept Christianity, and their hostages were trained for Christian propaganda.

From that time Saxony was looked upon as part of the Frankish kingdom, and Charles no longer treated the people as enemies but as rebels. The Westphalian Widukind, the head of the national resistance, had fled to Denmark. In the summer of 777 the annual Assembly was held at Paderborn in the land of the Engers, and the first foundation was laid for the lasting nurture and maintenance of the Christian life, the land being divided into missionary districts and entrusted to the neighbouring bishoprics and great monasteries. Though in the time of the great Spanish campaign in 778, the Saxons made another plundering expedition to the Rhine and as far as Ehrenbreitstein, a detachment of the army that had returned from Spain quickly drove back the rebels, and in the summer campaign of 779 Charles reached the Weser and subdued the three tribes. In the summer of 780 an Assembly was held at Lippspringe at the source of the Lippe, an advance was made to the Elbe, and again a new important permanent ecclesiastical arrangement was made. Two years later the Frankish Assembly was again held at Lippspringe. All the Saxons appeared, say the Frankish Annals, only the chief rebel, Widukind, remained away. Charles now went a step further Saxon nobles were made Frankish counts and the land joined politically to his empire. And at that time apparently those regulations were made which were intended to prevent any rising and to ensure the full acceptance of Christianity under threat of the severest punishment - the Capitulatio de partibus Saxoniae.

Any who broke into, robbed, or set fire to a church was to be punished with death. Any who from contempt of Christianity ate meat in Lent, any who killed a bishop, priest, or deacon, any who according to heathen custom burnt men as wizards or ate men, any who after heathen rites burned the dead, any who offered human sacrifices, or even any who omitted to be baptised and remained heathen, were to be put to death. Many other ordinances for the maintenance of Christianity and the political authority of the Frankish power were made, and also for the material foundation of Christian churches (surrender of the ownership of land and tithes). Even if there was a mitigation of this unusually severe legislation in the ordinance that the death penalty was to be remitted for those who had fled to a priest and after confession were ready to do penance, yet the law must have been found harsh, and the final Frankish ordinances of the year 782 must have incited to the utmost resistance those who looked on the conquest as only temporary.

612

Continued Saxon Wars

[782-787

When Charles had left the Saxons and had sent a Frankish army to the east in order that with a Saxon levy it might fight against the Sorbs, a general rising broke out under the leadership of Widukind, and when the Frankish army marched against the rebels, it was defeated on the Süntel Hill on the right bank of the Weser. Thereupon Charles himself immediately hastened to Saxony. His appearance gave the upper hand to the party among the Saxons friendly to the Franks and to the Christians. Widukind fled, and the chiefs obeyed the order to deliver up those who had taken part in the rising. Charles however held a strict inquiry, and had 4500 Saxons beheaded on one day at Verden on the Aller a cruel deed for which we have sufficient historical attestation, though it has been wrongly disputed by some modern authorities.

But Charles had deceived himself as to the effect of these punishments. A general rising of the Saxon people was the result. The campaign of 783, which procured Charles the two victories at Detmold and on the Hase and brought him to the Elbe, was only a passing success. The Frisians also rose. The year 784 was taken up with the warlike undertakings of Charles and his son of the same name. The king remained with his army in Saxony through the winter also in order to undertake raids from the Eresburg, the head-quarters of himself and of his family, and to quell every attempt at a new rising. In the early summer of 785 he marched northwards to Paderborn, held the Frankish Assembly there, and then pressed on into the Bardengau on the left bank of the lower Elbe. All resistance was broken. Friendly overtures were made to Widukind and the other Saxon nobles who had hitherto fought stubbornly against the Franks. At Christmas 785 Widukind with his men appeared at Attigny, was baptised, and allowed to depart as a loyal subject, loaded with rich presents.

The event was looked upon as an important success. A special embassy announced to the Pope the victory of the Christian cause, and by Papal ordinance thanksgivings were offered all over Christendom to celebrate the fortunate ending of the thirteen years' war. But Widukind, the great hero, the most mighty personality in the older Saxon history, lived on in the memory of his people and became the subject of numerous legends. History tells us nothing of his later life, but legend has much to say. The most powerful Saxon families sought to honour him as their ancestor, and the Church and ecclesiastic literature made use of him. His bones worked miracles, his day was celebrated in later centuries, and he was even honoured as a saint.

Years

The year 785 was an epoch in the history of the Saxon wars. of peaceful Christianisation followed. And a beginning was made with the episcopal organisation that was still wanting. The Northumbrian Willehad, who had been long working successfully among the Frisians and Saxons as a missionary, was consecrated Bishop of Worms (17 July

787-804]

Final Conquest of the Saxons

613

787), and the northern districts between the Elbe, the Weser, and Ems were given to him as his diocese. In Bremen he built St Peter's church, which was consecrated (1 Nov. 789) as the see of the first Saxon bishopric. The bishoprics of Verden and Minden must likewise have been founded then or soon afterwards.

The terrible Saxon wars of the first period of Charles' reign had their sequence. In the summer of 792 the Saxon people rose once more against God, the king, and the Christians. This was a national heathen reaction. Perhaps the heavy taxation of which the Church was the cause aroused the wrath of the lower elements of the population. If the easy yoke and the light burden of Christ had been preached to the obstinate Saxons with the same persistence as tithes and hard penances for light sins were exacted, they would not perhaps have shunned baptism - so wrote Alcuin at the time, not without irony. The Saxons sought to enter into alliance with the surrounding heathen, and they turned to the distant Avars. A new period of the struggle began, and at the same time a period of further violent measures to master this obstinate people. In the year 795 Charles for the first time had crowds of hostages sent to Francia. The third part of the population was forcibly deported, reports one group of sources, and the number of exiles is given as 7070. In the years 797, 798, 799 similar measures were taken and at the same time Franks were settled on Saxon soil. In 804 in particular, whole districts of Northern Saxony and Nordalbingia were robbed of their population, i.e. the Saxons were dragged away with wives and children. It is certain that no small portion of the Saxon race was at that time removed from its native soil - traces of them are still to be found in later centuries in Frankish and Alemannic regions.

At last the war, which with interruptions had lasted thirty-two years, could be regarded as ended, and the wide German territory as far as the Elbe and further was incorporated permanently into the Frankish Empire. Charles carried out his purpose of either subduing or destroying the Saxons, with wonderful persistence, but at the same time with brutal severity. The Saxons are certainly not to be regarded as stubborn heathens who resisted the blessings of Christian civilisation, but are to be admired as a people of strong purpose defending their national characteristics. But the unavoidable demands of the world's progress could not be resisted. The future belonged, not to the small German states which remained politically isolated: the Saxons had to fall a sacrifice to the great central development which was at that time the ruling factor in the political shaping of the West.

The extension of Frankish rule over Saxony was followed by connexions with the Danes and the Northern Slavs. The court of the Danish king Sigfried was for a long time the centre of Saxon resistance to Charles' Christian propaganda, and it was there that Widukind had

614

The Danes

[782-812

always taken refuge. But in 782 the heathen king had sent a friendly embassy to the Franks, though without any wish to make concessions to Christianity. Later also friendly relations are mentioned. In 807 a Danish chieftain submitted. But in 808 King Göttrik marched against the Obodrites who were in alliance with Charles, and when the younger Charles tried to interfere to punish and to help, though he was only able to lay waste districts on the right bank of the Elbe, King Göttrik had a strong wall of defence built, it is supposed from the Treene to the Schlei. In the following year, however, after the failure of attempts at a treaty, Charles caused the fortress of Itzehoe to be built.

In 810 the Danish power seemed to be making a dangerous effort. A Danish fleet of two hundred ships ravaged the Frisian coasts and islands, tribute was laid upon the subjects of the Empire, and King Göttrik, who had remained at home, boasted that he would defeat Charles in open battle and make his entry into Aachen. Charles hastened eastwards with a strong force and took up his head-quarters at Verden, but he had no need to interfere, for Göttrik was assassinated by a follower, and his nephew and successor Hemming quickly made peace. In 811 twelve deputies from the Danes and as many from the Franks met on the Eider, and solemnly swore to keep the agreements that had been made.

Of the Slavs of the north-east, the Obodrites on the lower Elbe, who were nearest to the Franks, always stood on good terms with Charles, while the Wiltzi on the Baltic always remained hostile, and the Sorbs between the Elbe and the Saale were variable. There is evidence of friendly relations with the Obodrites after 780. They probably by that time recognised Charles' suzerainty, but were disinclined to Christianity. They repeatedly took part in the Frankish campaigns, and in 810 Charles appointed their chieftain. In 782 the Sorbs made an unimportant attack on Thuringian territory, in 806 they were defeated by the younger Charles and compelled to submit. But the subsequent building of two fortresses on the right bank of the Elbe, at Magdeburg and at Halle on the Saale, shews that there was no incorporation of the territory of the Sorbs into the Empire. Still less is that the case with the Wiltzi. In 789 Charles undertook a great campaign of conquest. He crossed the Elbe and advanced ravaging as far as the Peene, and the chief Dragowit and the other leaders of the people even took an oath of fidelity, but we can find no trace of permanent subjection or toll, such as Einhard records.

Again there were struggles afterwards. In 806 fortresses were erected against them, and even the submission of 812 was only nominal and transitory. The proper boundary of the Empire on the east, apart from the district of the Nordalbingians, was the Elbe, more to the south the Saale, then the Böhmerwald. For even the land of the Chekhs may not be reckoned as part of the Empire. The passage of Frankish armies