There seemed to be a fear at this time lest the popular Saxon leader, Witikind, who had failed to appear at the assembly, might organize a pagan revival, and so head a successful revolt against the Franks. This fear was realized, for the drastic character of the new religious legislation only provoked the opposition it was designed to meet. Witikind soon returned to his people and quickly organized a revolt. The character of the struggle showed itself in attacks on the Christian missionaries, and in the destruction of the newly erected churches, the places selected for bishoprics and abbeys suffering most. This insurrection was for a time successful, and a Frankish army, through the divided counsels of those who were leading it, was defeated and forced to retreat. But the personal appearance of Charles on the field was enough to turn the tide and was followed by the defeat of the Saxons and by pacification according to the familiar terms.

The question was what to do with those who had taken up arms. It was decided to put to death all who had united with the heathen against the Christians. This merciless penalty was applied in its fullest rigor. Those who were taken captive in the revolt numbered in all four thousand; and of these, five hundred were beheaded at Verden, a savage act of retaliation which disgraces the memory of Charles, and which even the crudeness of the times cannot excuse. Besides, it did not accomplish its purpose, for it only embittered those who were related by kin or by friendship to the massacred Saxons. The revolt against the Franks hitherto had never been universal, but now the whole people rose en masse with sudden determination. Yet even with this temper they were not hardy enough to take the offensive; so, while they were preparing to resist, Charles, by a quick movement, surprised them, and divided their army by his unexpected onslaught. But the first battle, though unfavorable to the Saxons, was not decisive. The second ended in a complete victory for the Franks, who took many prisoners and much booty. The backbone of Saxon resistance was now broken, and Charles with his army marched through the whole territory as far as the Elbe.

In all these Saxon campaigns, three victories stand out above the rest, dividing the monotonous levels of revolt, conquest, and pacification. The first, at Brunisberg, opened a way into Saxon territory for the Frankish army; the second, at Bocholt, brought about the suppression of a partial insurrectionary movement; the third, on the Hase, settled the fate of paganism in Germany. But the state of the Saxon country required constant watching, and we find Charles taking up his station at Eresburg in 784-85, ready to repress any incipient movement of revolt.

At Paderborn the Frankish assembly was attended by the Saxons, and this meeting was signalized by further extreme measures to protect the Church. The defenders of their independence met with all the more harshness because they were sturdily loyal to a primitive ancestral faith. Charles saw in them only worshipers of evil spirits,—men who are charged in the capitularies with the practice of offering human sacrifices and with eating human flesh. In his ruthless dealings with the Saxons, Charles was the champion of a higher civilization fighting against a lower, but one must at least question the legitimacy of his policy, specifically because it claimed Christian aims and professed Christian sanction. But we know it seemed righteous in Charles’ own eyes, and his satisfaction was increased when he received, after the long military campaigns were over, the Saxon Witikind, and his companion in arms, Abbio, as voluntary converts to the Christian faith. With his baptism (785) Witikind drops into obscurity, and we only hear that his descendants became known for their loyalty to the new religion.

From 785 to 792 the Saxons did not stir; they sent regularly their assigned contingents to the army of the Franks, and they took no part in the Bavarian troubles. However, at the beginning of the expedition against the Avars in 793, there was a fresh revolt, marked, as the previous ones had been, by the destruction of churches, the massacre of priests, and the return of the people to idolatry. From 794 to 799 the Franks under Charles were busy each year in enforcing Frankish rule in Saxon lands by a specially thorough military occupation of the country.

Further drastic measures of pacification were required, for whenever Charles returned West to his own domains, he took with him a large contingent of the conquered people, men, women, and children. Lands were given them, and so the natural racial traits of Saxon unity were destroyed and their fidelity to paganism broken. It is estimated that a third of the population was removed, and the extent of this enforced emigration may be judged from the fact that in 804 ten thousand men were deported from two districts of Saxony and their land given over to some of Charles’ Slavic allies who had rendered efficient services to him during these wars against their hereditary enemies. The Saxons gave up the fight only when their strength was broken, and when the last adherents of paganism yielded to superior force. Only then was the country from the Elbe to the Atlantic under the sway of a single sovereign, and united by the profession of the same faith. The conquered land was effectively occupied, and the loyalty of the inhabitants to Charles’ empire was secured by the establishment of three richly endowed bishoprics, Bremen, Münster, and Paderborn, under whose supervision the work begun by the Frankish armies was completed.

IV
OTHER MILITARY ACHIEVEMENTS

The struggle with the Saxons lasted thirty years in all, and its completion brings us almost to the end of Charles’ reign. In order to close our survey of the military operations by which the integrity of the Carolingian Empire was preserved, or its frontiers enlarged, it is necessary to take up the narrative of various warlike expeditions and operations which demanded the ruler’s attention while the Saxons were making their heroic struggle to cast off the Frankish yoke.

Hardly two years after the destruction of the Lombard monarchy, there was such unrest in the small Duchy of Friuli, which was ruled over by Hrodgaud, that a punitive expedition was needed to restore order. Apparently Hrodgaud was intriguing with other Lombard leaders to procure the restoration of the exiled son of Desiderius and so to reëstablish Lombard independence. The project failed. Hrodgaud’s allies among his own people withdrew support. Adalghis, the “pretender,” did not leave Constantinople to head the revolt, consequently the Duke of Friuli was obliged single-handed to meet the avenging Frankish army. The revolted cities were soon captured; Hrodgaud himself appears to have lost his life on the battlefield, and after this short campaign, which took place in the early months of 776, Charles crossed the Alps in June to take up again the conquest of the Saxon lands.

This Lombard revolt, although it was an incident, and involved only a small territory, was followed by stringent measures of repression. Paul the Deacon, the Lombard historian, tells of the treatment of his brother, who, it seems, took part in this insurrection. “My brother languishes a captive in your land, broken-hearted, in nakedness and want. His unhappy wife, with grieving lips, begs for bread from street to street. Four children must she support in this humiliating manner, whom she is scarce able to cover even with rags.”