Saxons

Widukind, Saxon thorn

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Widukind is one of those odd characters from history whose historical personae is much larger than his own achievements probably merited. Regular readers may remember mentions of him here and here, when he led various rebellions against the Franks during their decades-long conquest and Christianization of the Saxon people. He was a fearsomely effective military leader, as we shall see, and must have been a powerful force in Saxon society. In the end, however, even he submitted to Charlemagne, and then faded from view. More than a thousand years later, in a bizarre twist of fate, he became a hero to the nascent Nazi regime. A tangled path indeed.

Widukind first appears in history in 777, at the fateful spring assembly at Paderborn that launched King Charles on his path to Roncevalles. “All the Franks gathered there and, from every part of Saxony whatsover, the Saxons too, with the exception of Widukind, who, with a few others, was in rebellion and took refuge in Nordmannia with his companions.”1.Royal Annals, year 777, King, p. 79. “For they all came to him with the exception of Widukind, one of the primores of the Westphalians, who, conscious of his numerous crimes, had fled to Sigfred, king of the Danes.”2.Revised Royal Annals, year 777, King, p. 113.

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Footnotes

Footnotes
↑1 Royal Annals, year 777, King, p. 79.
↑2 Revised Royal Annals, year 777, King, p. 113.

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.

Frankish travelogue: Saxony

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“The appearance of the country differs considerably in different parts; but in general it is covered either by bristling forests or by foul swamps.”1.Tacitus, Germania, bk. 5, p.104

Thus did the late first century Roman historian and ethnographer Tacitus describe the country of what we (and he, for that matter) call Germany. The part of Germany called Saxony occupied the northeast portion of the country, east of the Rhine, south of the North Sea, to the southern hills. One of the tribes that occupied this area became known as Saxons, around the time of the fall of the Western Roman Empire. We know the Saxons as one of the three tribes who began crossing that sea and invading Britain, along with the Angles and the Jutes, those the Venerable Bede called “the three most formidable races of Germany.”2.Bede, Ecclesiastical History, bk. I, ch. 15, p. 63.

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Footnotes

Footnotes
↑1 Tacitus, Germania, bk. 5, p.104
↑2 Bede, Ecclesiastical History, bk. I, ch. 15, p. 63.

Frankish travelogue – Frisia, under the Lamb

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While spiritual battles raged in Frisia, secular affairs were no less intense. King Radbod and Pippin came to some kind of a peace agreement, and Radbod’s daughter Theudesinda married Pippin’s son Grimoald in 711. The new in-laws, however, did not make peace in their hearts. When Pippin fell deathly ill early in 714, “his son Grimoald hastened to visit him and, as he proceeded to prayer in the basilica of St Lambert the Martyr, and as he persisted a long while lying face down in his prayer, he was run through with a sword by a most evil man named Rantgar and he died.”1.Late Merovingian France, Annals of Metz, p.364. Other sources tell us that Rantgar was a Frisian.

Upon Pippin’s death later that year civil war broke out in Francia, and the Neustrian nobility made common cause with Radbod against Pippin’s Austrasian family. Radbod battled and defeated Pippin’s son Charles Martel, but that was Charles’ last defeat in the civil war (and, for that matter, in his life), and Radbod’s plan to recover his lost territory was destroyed. After that most of Frisia was considered a province or county of Francia, but it cannot be said that everything was peaceful.

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Footnotes

Footnotes
↑1 Late Merovingian France, Annals of Metz, p.364.

God wants us to kill Saxons

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The hand of God appears with remarkable frequency in the Royal Frankish Annals. In battle after battle the annalist notes that a battle was won “by the hand of God,” or “by God’s help.” (Oddly, these invocations don’t begin until Charlemagne assumes the throne. Didn’t God smile upon his father Pepin?). But the Saxon wars seem to have inspired God with particularly manifest miracles of aid.

The streams had all dried up during the hot summer in 772, when Charlemagne destroyed the Irminsul. But the job of destruction was not yet completed. What to do?

And there was a great drought, so that no water was to be had in the above-said place where the Irminsul stood. And while the aforesaid glorious king wanted to stay there for two or three days in order to destroy the sanctuary completely, but his men had no water, suddenly, by the bounty of divine grace, there poured forth along a particular watercourse – this was at midday, while the whole army was resting; no one knew what was happening – such an abundance of water that the whole army had sufficient.1.RFA, 772.

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Footnotes

Footnotes
↑1 RFA, 772.