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Fastrada, Wife of Charlemagne

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Fastrada was the third wife of Charles the Great. She married Charles in 783, was queen for eleven years, had two daughters, and died at 794, when she was in her mid-twenties. Besides that briefest of bios, things get hazy. But let’s see what we can do.

Charles lived in an age when a king could be expected to have several intimate relationships with women, some of whom were wives, and others concubines. The children of wives could inherit titles and lands, while the children of concubines faced more challenges.1.See, for example, Grifo, son of Charles Martel’s last concubine. That did not end well. Wives were taken for political reasons, while concubines (perhaps) had a more personal connection.

Fastrada was a wife taken to cement a political relationship. Pierre Riche notes that of Charles’ four wives, “Desiderata was to have sealed an alliance with the Lombard kingdom; Hildegard, the mother of eight royal children, came from Swabia; Fastrada was the daughter of a count in eastern Francia; and Liutgard, the fourth and last wife, stemmed from a Alemannian family.”2.Riche, The Carolingians, p. 135. The Revised Royal Annals mention that Fastrada was “the daughter of count Radolf.”3.Revised Royal Annals, in King, year 783, p. 118.

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Footnotes

Footnotes
↑1 See, for example, Grifo, son of Charles Martel’s last concubine. That did not end well.
↑2 Riche, The Carolingians, p. 135.
↑3 Revised Royal Annals, in King, year 783, p. 118.

Saxon Wars 3: The war is over! Right?

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At the close of 782 Charles had been waging war in Saxony for almost a decade. The king had been following a pattern of invasion, conquest, law-giving, and the establishment of Frankish governmental and religious institutions in order to pacify the Saxons, and then integrate them into the Frankish kingdom. No measure was too extreme, including the execution of 4500 rebels in a single day. But the Germans were not done yet.

Charles went through a lot of personal turmoil in 783. His wife Hildegard died, and then his mother Bertrada.1.Royal Annals, year 783, King, p. 82. Even though Charles already had children, including, as we shall see, a son (a post on Charles’ family life is on my list), he immediately married a girl named Fastrada. But the king’s concerns that year were not only domestic, as he “undertook an expedition to Saxony, since the Saxons were in rebellion again…” According to the Revised Annals, this latest revolt “enraged” him. His rage must have been great, for this expedition was one which he led in person, a rare event.

Although this war dragged on for a very long time, he himself joined battle with the enemy no more than twice, in a single month with only a few intervening days, once near the mountain that is called Osning in a place called Detmold and again on the River Haase. In these two battles the enemy were so crushed and conquered that subsequently they did not dare to provoke the king or to resist his approach unless they were protected by some fortification.2.Einhard, Life of Charlemagne, in Noble, ch. 8, p. 29.

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Footnotes

Footnotes
↑1 Royal Annals, year 783, King, p. 82.
↑2 Einhard, Life of Charlemagne, in Noble, ch. 8, p. 29.

Saxon Wars 2: Charles, lawgiver and butcher

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We can’t know Charles’ state of mind as he made his way home after the Spanish debacle in 778, but you can be sure he was not happy. What would have been a long and difficult journey home was made so much worse by the massacre in the Pyrenees. He must have been angry, frustrated, and saddened as the miles passed by and the weeks elapsed. At some point in the late summer, but definitely not before September1.The Roncevalles ambush occurred on August 15, he had made it as far as Auxerre, which is almost 500 miles from Roncevalles. It was at Auxerre, as he was “demobilising the rest of the troops,”2.Revised Royal Annals, year 778, King, p. 114. that the king received word that the Saxons were again in revolt.

This would not have been surprising. As we’ve seen, Franks and Saxons had been fighting for generations, and while the Franks usually held the upper hand in battle, the Frankish armies withdrew to Francia after combat. That gave the Saxons the opportunity to regroup, foment rebellion, and launch counterattacks. Prior to the Spanish expedition, however, King Charles had determined to complete the conquest and conversion of the Saxon people, and so he could not let this latest insurrection go unpunished, no matter how late in the year, or tired the army.

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Footnotes

Footnotes
↑1 The Roncevalles ambush occurred on August 15
↑2 Revised Royal Annals, year 778, King, p. 114.

The Saxon Wars I: let’s do this

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 No war taken up by the Frankish people was ever longer, harder, or more dreadful…1.Einhard, Life of Charlemagne, ch. 7, p.20

Beginning in 772, Charlemagne waged war against the Saxons for more than thirty years. It was, as his biographer notes, the longest and most vicious of all the wars he undertook. After literally centuries of cross-border skirmishing, of which Charlemagne’s father and grandfather were frequent participants, he decided to finish the job once and for all. Why did he turn his eye to the Saxons? There were plenty of other opportunities, including Spain, Brittany, or southern Italy.

If Carolingian naval power were only a little more robust he could have looked north to Britain, but that’s a tale for a novelist.2.Bachrach, Early Carolingian Warfare, pp. 249-254. Charles Martel launched small fleets at Frisia, and Charlemagne fought along the Rhine, but neither ever attempted a military channel crossing. Commerce between Britain and the mainland was extensive, however, so the knowledge existed.

Prof. Bernard Bachrach, who has studied Carolingian grand strategy in detail, believes that Charlemagne was motivated by both religion and imperial ambition as he planned the Saxon conquest. If he could conquer the regions of the former Roman Empire, then (hopefully) the pope would anoint him as a new emperor of the west. His claim would be further buttressed and enhanced by an extensive (and, as it turned out, ruthless) campaign of Saxon Christianization.3.Personal correspondence with Prof. Bachrach, February 4, 2018.

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Footnotes

Footnotes
↑1 Einhard, Life of Charlemagne, ch. 7, p.20
↑2 Bachrach, Early Carolingian Warfare, pp. 249-254. Charles Martel launched small fleets at Frisia, and Charlemagne fought along the Rhine, but neither ever attempted a military channel crossing. Commerce between Britain and the mainland was extensive, however, so the knowledge existed.
↑3 Personal correspondence with Prof. Bachrach, February 4, 2018.

The Saxon Wars: prologue

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In the last post we looked at Saxon society, insofar as a non-written culture can be explored. In this post I’ll examine relations between Saxons and Franks. For reasons both cultural and geographic, there was always friction between the two peoples, and the historical record is filled with skirmishes. But don’t forget that war is always more interesting than peace, and stories about goodwill between Saxon and Frank weren’t recorded. Nonetheless it does become apparent that there was no love lost across the Rhine.

The Liber Historiae Francorum (the anonymous Book of the Franks) recounts a Saxon “rebellion” in 555, and the Merovingian King Chlotar’s subsequent expedition to levy Frankish punishment. What is not clear is what the Saxons were rebelling against. About fifteen years later “King Chilperic went with his brother with an army against the Saxons…” Around the year 623 the Saxon Bertoald and King Dagobert I of Austrasia fought to a standstill, until Dagobert’s father arrived with another army which tipped the scales. The king then “devastated the entire land of the Saxons and killed their people. He did not leave alive there any man who stood taller than his sword which is called a long sword.”1.Liber Historiae Francorum, trans. Bachrach, pp. 69, 78, 97-99.

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Footnotes

Footnotes
↑1 Liber Historiae Francorum, trans. Bachrach, pp. 69, 78, 97-99.