The Historians' History of the World 07

Every independent power that still dared to assert itself in the former kingdom of the Merovingians was subdued. In Aquitania a hereditary dukedom still existed, which Pepin had attacked but not conquered; Charles put an end to it. The Bretons had resisted the authority of the Frankish kings for centuries; after a long struggle their resistance was broken. Bavaria still existed as an independent dukedom under the Agilolfinger Tassilo, and even in Pepin’s time there had been a dangerous uprising; Tassilo was humbled, and, although he retained his power for some time longer, he owed it only to the personal friendship of Charles and to the intervention of the pope. He finally had to give up and retire to a monastery.

It was a vital question for the new royal house, which had founded its power above all on those parts of the kingdom that had remained German, to put an end to the freedom of the Saxon race. At war with the Frankish kings for centuries and often defeated in bloody battles, the Saxons had nevertheless arisen after every defeat, and in recent years had even gradually extended their dominion in the southwest further towards the land of the Franks. Every uprising against the Frankish royal power found a ready support in them, the last free German race. In the last years of his life Pepin had been incessantly at war with this people; Charles received the war as an inheritance from his father and was determined to bring it to an end at any price in order to assure royalty and the Christian religion among all Germans for all time. In the conquest of the last free heathen German race he saw the great work of his life.

[768-772 A.D.]

For half a millennium the internal relations of the Saxons, who had remained in their ancient seats, had undergone no essential change. The ancient popular liberty had maintained itself here against the monarchy, the ancient religion against Christianity, and the customs of the forefathers had been faithfully preserved; the Saxons of that time were still the genuine sons of the Cherusci whom Hermann had led against the Romans. The land was divided into a limited group of districts or counties (Gaue

), which were governed as in former times by princes (Gaufürsten), chosen by the communities to administer justice and lead the army. There was no common head for the entire people, but there was a great annual national assembly, at Marklo on the Weser, to which delegates from the three free estates of the people came from all the districts. Here common affairs were discussed, war and peace decided upon, and leaders (Herzöge

) chosen when the army was to be led against an enemy of the land. The free men of the nation were divided into three ranks, the nobles (Edliuge), who were powerful but not very numerous, the freemen, and the serfs, a numerous class of dependent men who held no property but enjoyed liberty of person. Geographically the Saxons were divided into the Westfalen (Westphalians), on the Sieg, Ruhr, and Lippe and both sides of the Ems; the Enger on both shores of the Weser, as far as the Leine and the Ostfalen (Eastphalians), in the territory extending as far as the Elbe. A further division was formed by the Nordalbinger or “north people” who still remained in possession of the right side of the lower Elbe as far as the Eider, i.e.

, of those regions in which the Saxon name had first been heard.

It was a great martial and valiant people of unimpaired natural vigour, full of a wild spirit of liberty and of barbaric cunning, against whom Charles now turned his arms. It was also, to be sure, a people without firm unity and strong cohesion and therefore not hard to defeat in separate combats. But all separate victories contributed little to the final decision of the war; district after district must be subdued, one community after another separately annihilated. The war that Charles waged against the Saxons was the same war in which the Romans had once been defeated; it was waged against the same tribes and in the same regions, and it was again a question of subjugating Germanic freedom to the authority of an individual and joining it to a great empire. At the same time the war was now also a fight for the Christian faith. Charles marched to battle with the relics of the saints; missionaries accompanied the march of his warriors.

[772-777 A.D.]