Saxon Wars

Saxon Wars
	; Frankish expansion from 481 to 814
Date	772–804
Location	Saxony, Polabian Slav territories, Frisia, Austrasia
Result	Frankish victory Conversion of the Saxons to Christianity;
Territorial; changes	Frankish annexation of Saxony ; Nordalbingia given to the Obotrite Confederacy;
Belligerents
Carolingian Empire ; Obotrite Confederacy ;	Saxons ; Frisians ;
Commanders and leaders
Charlemagne ; Chamberlain Adalgisile † ; Constable Geilo † ; Count Palatine Worad † ; Count Theodoric † ;	Widukind
Casualties and losses
Unknown	4,500 executed in 782; 2,800–4,000 killed in 798; 7,070 deported in 795; 1,600 deported in 798; 10,000 deported in 804;

Last updated November 26, 2024

The Saxon Wars were the campaigns and insurrections of the thirty-three years from 772, when Charlemagne first entered Saxony with the intent to conquer, to 804, when the last rebellion of tribesmen was defeated. In all, 18 campaigns were fought, primarily in what is now northern Germany. They resulted in the incorporation of Saxony into the Frankish realm and their forcible conversion from Germanic paganism to Christianity.^[1]

The Saxons were divided into four subgroups in four regions. Nearest to the ancient Frankish kingdom of Austrasia was Westphalia, and farthest was Eastphalia. In between the two kingdoms was that of Engria (or Engern), and north of the three, at the base of the Jutland peninsula, was Nordalbingia. Despite repeated setbacks, the Saxons resisted steadfastly, returning to raid Charlemagne's domains as soon as he turned his attention elsewhere. Their main leader, Widukind, was a resilient and resourceful opponent, but eventually was defeated and baptized (in 785).

First phase

In mid-January 772, the sacking and burning of the church of Deventer by a Saxon expedition was the casus belli for the first war waged by Charlemagne against the Saxons. It began with a Frankish invasion of Saxon territory and the subjugation of the Engrians and destruction of their sacred symbol Irminsul near Paderborn in 772 or 773 at Eresburg. Irminsul may have been a hollow tree trunk, presumably representing the pillar supporting the skies — similar to the Nordic tree Yggdrasil and apparently a common belief among the Germanic peoples. Charlemagne's campaign led all the way to the Weser River and destroyed several major Saxon strongholds. After negotiating with some Saxon nobles and obtaining hostages, Charlemagne turned his attention to his war against the Lombards in northern Italy; but Saxon free tenants, led by Widukind, continued to resist and raided Frankish lands in the Rhine region. Armed confrontations continued unabated for years.

Charlemagne's second campaign came in the year 775. Then he marched through Westphalia, conquering the fort of Sigiburg, and crossed Engria, where he defeated the Saxons again. Finally, in Eastphalia, he defeated them, and their leader Hessi converted to Christianity. He returned through Westphalia, leaving encampments at Sigiburg and Eresburg. All of Saxony except Nordalbingia was under his control, but the recalcitrant Saxons would not submit for long.

After warring in Italy, he returned very rapidly to Saxony (making it to Lippe before the Saxons knew he left Italy) for the third time in 776, when a rebellion destroyed his fortress at Eresburg. The Saxons were once again brought to heel, though Widukind fled to the Danes. Charlemagne built a new camp at Karlstadt. In 777, he called a national diet at Paderborn to integrate Saxony fully into the Frankish kingdom. Many Saxons were baptised. The Carmen de conversione Saxonum celebrates this event.

The chief purpose of the diet was to bring Saxony closer to Christianity. Missionaries, mainly Anglo-Saxons from England, were recruited to carry out this task. Charlemagne issued a number of decrees designed to break Saxon resistance and to inflict capital punishment on anyone observing heathen practices or disrespecting the king's peace. His severe and uncompromising position, which earned him the title "butcher of Saxons", caused his close adviser Alcuin of York, later abbot of Marmoutier Abbey, Tours, to urge leniency, as God's word should be spread not by the sword but by persuasion; but the wars continued.

In summer 779, Charlemagne again went into Saxony and conquered Eastphalia, Engria, and Westphalia. At a diet near Lippspringe, he divided the land into missionary districts and Frankish countships. He himself assisted in several mass baptisms (780). He then returned to Italy, and there was no Saxon revolt. From 780 to 782, the land had peace.

Middle phase

Charlemagne returned in 782 to Saxony and instituted a code of law, the Lex Frisionum, and appointed counts, both Saxon and Frank. The laws were severe on religious issues, namely the native paganism of the Saxons. This stirred a renewal of the old conflict. That year, in autumn, Widukind returned and led a revolt that resulted in many assaults on the church. The Saxons invaded the area of the Chatti, a Germanic tribe already converted by Saint Boniface and firmly in Charlemagne's empire. Widukind won over a Frankish army at the Battle of Süntel while Charles was campaigning against the Sorbs. It was in response to this setback that Charlemagne, at the Blood court of Verden, ordered the beheading of 4,500 Saxons who had rebelled. Upon this Blutgericht , some historians have stated the massacre did not happen, or that it was actually a battle, but according to Alessandro Barbero, none of these claims are credible.^[2] The action led to two straight years of constant warfare (783–785), with Charlemagne wintering in central Saxony, at Minden. Gradually, the Franks gained the upper hand. The turning point came in 785, when Widukind had himself baptized and swore fealty to Charlemagne. It was with the conclusion of this war that Charlemagne could have claimed to have conquered Saxony, and the land had peace for the next seven years, though revolts continued sporadically until 804.

Final phase

In 792, the Westphalians rose up against their masters in response to forcible recruitment for wars against the Avars. The Eastphalians and Nordalbingians joined them in 793, but the insurrection did not catch on as previous ones and was completely put down by 794.

An Engrian rebellion followed closely in 796, but Charlemagne's personal presence and the presence of loyal Christian Saxons and Slavs immediately crushed it. In the battle of Bornhöved in 798, the Obotrite allies of Charlemagne under Thrasco defeated the Nordalbingian Saxons, killing 2,800–4,000 of them. The last insurrection of the Engrian people occurred in 804, more than thirty years after Charlemagne's first campaign against them. This time, the most unruly tribe of them all, the Nordalbingians, found themselves effectively disempowered to rebel. Charlemagne deported 10,000 of them to Neustria and gave their now vacant lands to the loyal king of the Obotrites. Einhard, Charlemagne's biographer, said on the closing of the conflict:

The war that had lasted so many years was at length ended by their acceding to the terms offered by the King; which were renunciation of their national religious customs and the worship of devils, acceptance of the sacraments of the Christian faith and religion, and union with the Franks to form one people.

Towards the end of the wars, Charlemagne had begun to place more emphasis on reconciliation. In 797, he eased the special laws, and in 802, Saxon common law was codified as the Lex Saxonum . This was accompanied by the establishment of ecclesiastic structures (including bishoprics in Paderborn, Münster, Bremen, Minden, Verden and Osnabrück) that secured the conversion of the Saxon people. The last Saxon uprising was the Stellinga , which occurred between 841 and 845.

Religious nature

Alluding to the Saxons, the contemporary poet of the Paderborn Epic praises terror as a means of conversion: "What the contrary mind and perverse soul refuse to do with persuasion, / Let them leap to accomplish when compelled by fear."^[3]

One of Charlemagne's famed capitularies outlined part of the religious intent of his interactions with the Saxons. In 785, he issued the Capitulatio de partibus Saxoniae which asserted, "If any one of the race of the Saxons hereafter concealed among them shall have wished to hide himself unbaptized, and shall have scorned to come to baptism and shall have wished to remain a pagan, let him be punished by death."^[4]

However, Alcuin took issue with the emperor's policy of forcing pagans to be baptised on pain of death, arguing, "Faith is a free act of the will, not a forced act. We must appeal to the conscience, not compel it by violence. You can force people to be baptised, but you cannot force them to believe." His arguments seem to have prevailed – Charlemagne abolished the death penalty for paganism in 797.^[5]

Related Research Articles

The Saxons, sometimes called the Old Saxons, were the Germanic people of "Old" Saxony which became a Carolingian "stem duchy" in 804, in what is now northern Germany.

The 780s decade ran from January 1, 780, to December 31, 789.

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Year 785 (DCCLXXXV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar. The article denomination 785 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years. It is still used today in this manner.

Widukind, also known as Wittekind and Wittikund, was a leader of the Saxons and the chief opponent of the Frankish king Charlemagne during the Saxon Wars from 777 to 785. Charlemagne ultimately prevailed, organized Saxony as a Frankish province, massacred thousands of Saxon nobles, and ordered conversions of the pagan Saxons to Christianity. In later times, Widukind became a symbol of Saxon independence and a figure of legend. He is also venerated as a blessed in the Catholic Church.

The Duchy of Saxony was originally the area settled by the Saxons in the late Early Middle Ages, when they were subdued by Charlemagne during the Saxon Wars from 772 AD and incorporated into the Carolingian Empire (Francia) by 804. Upon the 843 Treaty of Verdun, Saxony was one of the five German stem duchies of East Francia; Duke Henry the Fowler was elected German king in 919.

The Massacre of Verden was an event during the Saxon Wars where the Frankish king Charlemagne ordered the death of 4,500 Saxons in October 782. Charlemagne claimed suzerainty over Saxony and in 772 destroyed the Irminsul, an important object in Saxon paganism, during his intermittent thirty-year campaign to Christianize the Saxons. The massacre occurred in Verden in what is now Lower Saxony, Germany. The event is attested in contemporary Frankish sources, including the Royal Frankish Annals.

An Irminsul was a sacred, pillar-like object attested as playing an important role in the Germanic paganism of the Saxons. Medieval sources describe how an Irminsul was destroyed by Charlemagne during the Saxon Wars. A church was erected on its place in 783 and blessed by Pope Leo III. Sacred trees and sacred groves were widely venerated by the Germanic peoples, and the oldest chronicle describing an Irminsul refers to it as a tree trunk erected in the open air.

Eastphalia is a historical region in northern Germany, encompassing the eastern Gaue (shires) of the historic stem duchy of Saxony, roughly confined by the River Leine in the west and the Elbe and Saale in the east. The territory corresponds with modern southeastern Lower Saxony, western Saxony-Anhalt, and northern Thuringia. Together with Westphalia, Angria, and Nordalbingia, it was one of the four main Saxon administrative regions.

Old Saxony was the homeland of the Saxons during the Early Middle Ages. It corresponds roughly to the modern German states of Lower Saxony, eastern part of modern North Rhine-Westphalia state (Westphalia), Nordalbingia and western Saxony-Anhalt (Eastphalia), which all lie in northwestern Germany. It had four provinces: Nordalbingia, Eastphalia, Westphalia and Angria, these provinces, in turn, were divided into smaller territories, the gaue, which are equivalent to modern Districts of Germany (Kreise), and were equivalent to the English shires.

The Eresburg is the largest, well-known (Old) Saxon refuge castle (Volksburg) and was located in the area of the present German village of Obermarsberg in the borough of Marsberg in the county of Hochsauerlandkreis. It was a hill castle built on the plateau of a low table hill, known as the Eresberg, at a height of 130–150 metres above the Diemel, a tributary of the Weser, in the extreme south of the Saxon Gau of Engern on the border with the Duchy of Franconia.

Angria or Angaria is a historical region in the present-day German states of Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia. The chronicler Widukind of Corvey in his Res gestae saxonicae sive annalium libri tres denoted it as the central region of the medieval Duchy of Saxony lying along the middle reaches of the Weser river between Westphalia and Eastphalia. Its name was derived from the Germanic Angrivarii tribe which had joined the Saxon tribal confederation, and it was centered on the town of Minden, see of a bishopric since 803.

Obermarsberg is one of seventeen quarters in the municipality of Marsberg, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is situated on the site of an Old Saxon hillfort and refuge castle, the Eresburg, on a hill 130m above the Diemel river, a tributary of the River Weser.

Sigfred was an eighth century Danish king who is known to have reigned from before 777 to after 798. Fragments of his reign can be traced via Frankish sources.

Nordalbingia was one of the four administrative regions of the medieval Duchy of Saxony, the others being Angria, Eastphalia, and Westphalia. The region's name is based on the Latin name Alba for the Elbe River and refers to an area predominantly located north of the Lower Elbe, roughly corresponding with the present-day Holstein region. Situated in what is now Northern Germany, this is the earliest known dominion of the Saxons.

References

↑ Jennifer R. Davis (2015), Charlemagne's Practice of Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), p. 179. The Royal Frankish Annals record battles in the years 772–780, 782–785, 793–799, 802 and 804.
↑ Barbero, Alessandro (2004). Charlemagne: father of a continent. University of California Press. p. 46. ISBN 978-0-520-23943-2.
↑ Mary Garrison, "The Emergence of Carolingian Latin Literature and the Court of Charlemagne (780–814)," Carolingian Culture: Emulation and Innovation, ed. Rosamond McKitterick (Cambridge, 1994), 133.: Quod mens laeva vetat suadendo animusque sinister, / Hoc saltim cupiant implere timore coacti.
↑ Munro, Dana Carleton (Trans.) (2004). Selections from the Laws of Charles the Great. ISBN 978-1-4179-6511-3
↑ Needham, N. R. (2000). 2,000 Years of Christ's Power. Vol. Part Two: The Middle Ages. Grace Publications Trust. ISBN 978-0-946462-56-8.

Sources

Reuter, Timothy. Germany in the Early Middle Ages 800–1056. New York: Longman, 1991.
Oman, Charles. The Dark Ages 476–918. London, 1914.
Einhard, translated by Samuel Epes Turner. The Life of Charlemagne. New York, 1880.
McGrath, Freddie. The Longevity of the Saxon Wars. at Leeds University
König, Daniel G.. Charlemagne's Jihad Revisited. Debating the Islamic Contribution to an Epochal Change in the History of Christianization, in: Medieval Worlds 3 (2016), p. 3-40.

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[1] Jennifer R. Davis (2015), Charlemagne's Practice of Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), p. 179. The Royal Frankish Annals record battles in the years 772–780, 782–785, 793–799, 802 and 804.

[2] Barbero, Alessandro (2004). Charlemagne: father of a continent. University of California Press. p. 46. ISBN 978-0-520-23943-2.

[3] Mary Garrison, "The Emergence of Carolingian Latin Literature and the Court of Charlemagne (780–814)," Carolingian Culture: Emulation and Innovation, ed. Rosamond McKitterick (Cambridge, 1994), 133.: Quod mens laeva vetat suadendo animusque sinister, / Hoc saltim cupiant implere timore coacti.

[4] Munro, Dana Carleton (Trans.) (2004). Selections from the Laws of Charles the Great. ISBN 978-1-4179-6511-3

[5] Needham, N. R. (2000). 2,000 Years of Christ's Power. Vol. Part Two: The Middle Ages. Grace Publications Trust. ISBN 978-0-946462-56-8.

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