Conquest of Saxon Tribes
‘The final conquest of the Saxons’, says Eginhard, a scholar who lived at Charlemagne’s court and wrote his life, ‘would have been accomplished sooner but for their treachery. It is hard to tell how often they broke faith, surrendering to the King and accepting his terms, and then breaking out into wild rebellion once more.’ Eginhard continues that Charlemagne’s method was never to allow a revolt to remain unpunished but to set out at once with an army and exact vengeance. On one of these campaigns he succeeded in reaching the forest where the sacred trunk Irminsul was kept and set fire to it and destroyed it; but the Saxons, though disheartened for the moment, soon rallied under the banner of a famous chief called Witikind. We know little of the latter except his undaunted courage that made him refuse for many years to submit to a foe so much stronger that he must obviously gain the final victory.
Charlemagne, exasperated by repeated opposition, used every means to forward his aim. Sometimes he would bribe separate chieftains to betray their side; but often he would employ methods of deliberate cruelty in order to strike terror into his foes. Four thousand five hundred Saxons who had started a rebellion were once cut off and captured by the Franks. They pleaded that Witikind, who had escaped into Denmark, had prompted them to act against their better judgement. ‘If Witikind is not here you must pay the penalty in his stead,’ returned the King relentlessly, and the whole number were put to the sword.
At different times he transplanted hundreds of Saxon households into the heart of France, and in the place of ‘this great multitude’, as the chronicle describes them, he established Frankish garrisons. He also sent missionaries to build churches in the conquered territories and compelled the inhabitants to become Christians.
Often the bishops and priests thus sent would have to fly before a sudden raid of heathen Saxons hiding in the neighbouring forests and marshes; and, lacking the courage of St. Boniface, a few would hesitate to return when the danger was suppressed. ‘What ought I to do?’ cried one of the most timid, appealing to Charlemagne. ‘In Christ’s name go back to thy diocese,’ was the stern answer.
While the King expected the same obedience and devotion from church officials as from the captains in his army, he took care that they should not lack his support in the work he had set them to do.
‘If any man among the Saxons, being not yet baptized, shall hide himself and refuse to come to baptism, let him die the death.’
‘If any man despise the Lenten fast for contempt of Christianity, let him die the death.’
‘Let all men, whether nobles, free, or serfs, give to the Churches and the priests the tenth part of their substance and labour.’
These ‘capitularies’, or laws, show that Charlemagne was still half a barbarian at heart and matched pagan savagery with a severity more ruthless because it was more calculating. In the end Witikind himself, in spite of his courage, was forced to surrender and accept baptism, and gradually the whole of Saxony fell under the Frankish yoke.
The Duchy of Bavaria, that had been Christian for many years, did not offer nearly so stubborn a resistance; and after he had reduced both it and Saxony to submission, Charlemagne was ruler not merely in name but in reality of an Empire that included France, the modern Holland and Belgium, Germany, and the greater part of Italy. Some of the conquests he had made were to fall away, but Germany that had suffered most at his hands emerged in the end the greatest achievement of his foreign wars.
He swept away the black deceitful night
And taught our race to know the only light,