Wittekind The Saxon Patriot

As Germany, in its wars with the Romans, found its hero in the great

Arminius, or Hermann; and as England, in its contest with the Normans,

found a heroic defender in the valiant Hereward; so Saxony, in its

struggle with Charlemagne, gave origin to a great soul, the indomitable

patriot Wittekind, who kept the war afoot years after the Saxons would

have yielded to their mighty foe, and, like Hereward, only gave up the

s ruggle when hope itself was at an end.



The career of the defender of Saxony bears some analogy to that of the

last patriot of Saxon England. As in the case of Hereward, his origin is

uncertain, and the story of his life overlaid with legend. He is said to

have been the son of Wernekind, a powerful Westphalian chief,

brother-in-law of Siegfried, a king of the Danes; yet this is by no

means certain, and his ancestry must remain in doubt. He came suddenly

into the war with the great Frank conqueror, and played in it a

strikingly prominent part, to sink again out of sight at its end.



The attempt of Charlemagne to conquer Saxony began in 772. Religion was

its pretext, ambition its real cause. Missionaries had been sent to the

Saxons during their great national festival at Marclo. They came back

with no converts to report. As the Saxons had refused to be converted by

words, fire and sword were next tried as assumed instruments for

spreading the doctrines of Christ, but really as effective means for

extending the dominion of the monarch of the Franks.



In his first campaign in Saxony, Charlemagne marched victoriously as far

as the Weser, where he destroyed the celebrated Irminsul, a famous

object of Saxon devotion, perhaps an image of a god, perhaps a statue of

Hermann that had become invested with divinity. The next year, Charles

being absent in Italy, the Saxons broke into insurrection, under the

leadership of Wittekind, who now first appears in history. With him was

associated another patriot, Alboin, Duke of Eastphalia.



Charles returned in the succeeding year, and again swept in conquering

force through the country. But a new insurrection called him once more

to Italy, and no sooner had he gone than the eloquent Wittekind was

among his countrymen, entreating them to rise in defence of their

liberties. A general levy took place, every able man crowded to the

ranks, and whole forests were felled to form abatis of defence against a

marching enemy.



Again Charles came at the head of his army of veterans, and again the

poorly-trained Saxon levies were driven in defeat from his front. He now

established a camp in the heart of the country, and had a royal

residence built at Paderborn, where he held a diet of the great vassals

of the crown and received envoys from foreign lands. Hither came

delegates from the humbled Saxons, promising peace and submission, and

pledging themselves by oaths and hostages to be true subjects of Charles

the Great. But Wittekind came not. He had taken refuge at the court of

Siegfried, the pagan king of the Danes, where he waited an opportunity

to strike a new blow for liberty.



Not content with their pledges and promises, the conqueror sought to win

over his new subjects by converting them to Christianity in the

wholesale way in which this work was then usually performed. The Saxons

were baptized in large numbers, the proselyting method pursued being, as

we are told, that all prisoners of war must be baptized, while of the

others all who were reasonable would be baptized, and the inveterately

unreasonable might be bribed to be baptized. Doubtless, as a historian

remarks, the Saxons found baptism a cool, cleanly, and agreeable

ceremony, while their immersion in the water had little effect in

washing out their old ideas and washing in new ones.



The exigencies of war in his vast empire now called Charlemagne to

Spain, where the Arabs had become troublesome and needed chastisement.

Not far had he marched away when Wittekind was again in Saxony, passing

from tribe to tribe through the forests of the land, and with fiery

eloquence calling upon his countrymen to rise against the invaders and

regain the freedom of which they had been deprived. Heedless of their

conversion, disregarding their oaths of allegiance, filled with the

free spirit which had so long inspired them, the chiefs and people

listened with approval to his burning words, seized their arms, and flew

again to war. The priests were expelled from the country, the churches

they had built demolished, the castles erected by the Frank monarch

taken and destroyed, and the country was laid waste up to the walls of

Cologne, its Christian inhabitants being exterminated.



But unyielding as Wittekind was, his great antagonist was equally

resolute and persistent. When he had finished his work with the Arabs,

he returned to Saxony with his whole army, fought a battle in 779 in the

dry bed of the Eder, and in 780 defeated Wittekind and his followers in

two great battles, completely disorganizing and discouraging the Saxon

bands, and again bringing the whole country under his control. This

accomplished, he stationed himself in their country, built numerous

fortresses upon the Elbe, and spent the summer of 780 in missionary

work, gaining a multitude of converts among the seemingly subdued

barbarians. The better to make them content with his rule he treated

them with great kindness and affability, and sent among them

missionaries of their own race, being the hostages whom he had taken in

previous years, and who had been educated in monasteries. All went well,

the Saxons were to all appearance in a state of peaceful satisfaction,

and Charles felicitated himself that he had finally added Saxony to his

empire.



He deceived himself sadly. He did not know the spirit of the free-born

Saxons, or the unyielding perseverance of their patriotic leader. In the

silent depths of their forests, and in the name of their ancient gods,

they vowed destruction to the invading Franks, and branded as traitors

all those who professed Christianity except as a stratagem to deceive

their powerful enemy. Entertaining no suspicion of the true state of

affairs, Charlemagne at length left the country, which he fancied to be

fully pacified and its people content. With complete confidence in his

new subjects, he commissioned his generals, Geil and Adalgis, to march

upon the Slavonians beyond the Elbe, who were threatening France with a

new barbarian invasion.



They soon learned that there was other work to do. In a brief time the

irrepressible Wittekind was in the field again, with a new levy of

Saxons at his back, and the tranquillity of the land, established at

such pains, was once more in peril. Theoderic, one of Charlemagne's

principal generals, hastily marched towards them with what men he could

raise, and on his way met the army sent to repel the Slavonians. They

approached the Saxon host where it lay encamped on the Weser, behind the

Sundel mountain, and laid plans to attack it on both sides at once. But

jealousy ruined these plans, as it has many other well-laid schemes. The

leaders of the Slavonian contingent, eager to rob Theoderic of glory,

marched in haste on the Saxons, attacked them in their camp, and were so

completely defeated and overthrown that but a moity of their army

escaped from the field. The appearance of these fugitives in the camp of

Theoderic was the first he knew of the treachery of his fellow generals

and their signal punishment.



The story of this dreadful event was in all haste borne to Charlemagne.

His army had been destroyed almost as completely as that of Varus on a

former occasion, and in nearly the same country. The distressing tidings

filled his soul with rage and a bitter thirst for revenge. He had done

his utmost to win over the Saxons by lenity and kindness, but this

course now seemed to him useless, if not worse than useless. He

determined to adopt opposite measures and try the effect of cruelty and

severe retribution. Calling together his forces until he had a great

army under his command, he marched into Saxony torch and sword in hand,

and swept the country with fire and steel. All who would not embrace

Christianity were pitilessly exterminated. Thousands were driven into

the rivers to be baptized or drowned. Carnage, desolation, and

destruction marked the path of the conqueror. Never had a country been

more frightfully devastated by the hand of war.



All who were concerned in the rebellion were seized, so far as Charles

could lay hands on them. When questioned, they lay all the blame on

Wittekind. He was the culprit, they but his instruments. But Wittekind

had vanished, the protesting chiefs and people were in the conqueror's

hands, and, bent on making an awful example, he had no less than four

thousand five hundred of them beheaded in one day. It was a frightful

act of vengeance, which has ever since remained an ineradicable blot on

the memory of the great king.






Its effect was what might have been anticipated. Instead of filling the

Saxons with terror, it inspired them with revengeful fury. They rose as

one man, Wittekind and Alboin at their head, and attacked the French

with a fury such as they had never before displayed. The remorseless

cruelty with which they had been treated was repaid in the blood of the

invaders, and in the many petty combats that took place the hardy and

infuriated barbarians proved invincible against their opponents. Even in

a pitched battle, fought at Detmold, in which Wittekind led the Saxons

against the superior forces of Charlemagne, they held their own against

all his strength and generalship, and the victory remained undecided.

But they were again brought to battle upon the Hase, and now the

superior skill and more numerous army of the great conqueror prevailed.

The Saxons were defeated with great slaughter, and the French advanced

as far as the Elbe. The war continued during the succeeding year, by the

end of which the Saxons had become so reduced in strength that further

efforts at resistance would have been madness.



The cruelty which Charlemagne had displayed, and which had proved so

signally useless, was now replaced by a mildness much more in conformity

with his general character; and the Saxons, exhausted with their

struggles, and attracted by the gentleness with which he treated them,

showed a general disposition to submit. But Wittekind and his

fellow-chieftain Alboin were still at large, and the astute conqueror

well knew that there was no security in his new conquest unless they

could be brought over. He accordingly opened negotiations with them,

requesting a personal conference, and pledging his royal word that they

should be dealt with in all faith and honesty. The Saxon chiefs,

however, were not inclined to put themselves in the power of a king

against whom they had so long and desperately fought without stronger

pledge than his bare word. They demanded hostages. Charlemagne, who

fully appreciated the value of their friendship and submission, freely

acceded to their terms, sent hostages, and was gratified by having the

indomitable chiefs enter his palace at Paderborn.



Wittekind was well aware that his mission as a Saxon leader was at an

end. The country was subdued, its warriors slain, terrorized, or won

over, and his single hand could not keep up the war with France. He,

therefore, swore fealty to Charlemagne, freely consented to become a

Christian, and was, with his companion, baptized at Attigny in France.

The emperor stood his sponsor in baptism, received him out of the font,

loaded him with royal gifts, and sent him back with the title of Duke of

Saxony, which he held as a vassal of France. Henceforward he seems to

have observed good faith to Charlemagne, for his name now vanishes from

history, silence in this case being a pledge of honor and peacefulness.



But if history here lays him down, legend takes him up, and yields us a

number of stories concerning him not one of which has any evidence to

sustain it, but which are curious enough to be worth repeating. It gives

us, for instance, a far more romantic account of his conversion than

that above told. This relates that, in the Easter season of 785,--the

year of his conversion,--Wittekind stole into the French camp in the

garb of a minstrel or a mendicant, and, while cautiously traversing it,

bent on spying out its weaknesses, was attracted to a large tent within

which Charlemagne was attending the service of the mass. Led by an

irresistible impulse, the pagan entered the tent, and stood gazing in

spellbound wonder at the ceremony, marvelling what the strange and

impressive performance meant. As the priest elevated the host, the

chief, with astounded eyes, beheld in it the image of a child, of

dazzling and unearthly beauty. He could not conceal his surprise from

those around him, some of whom recognized in the seeming beggar the

great Saxon leader, and took him to the emperor. Wittekind told

Charlemagne of his vision, begged to be made a Christian, and brought

over many of his countrymen to the fold of the true church by the

shining example of his conversion.



Legend goes on to tell us that he became a Christian of such hot zeal

as to exact a bloody atonement from the Frisians for their murder of

Boniface and his fellow-priests a generation before. It further tells us

that he founded a church at Enger, in Westphalia, was murdered by

Gerold, Duke of Swabia, and was buried in the church he had founded, and

in which his tomb was long shown. In truth, the people came to honor him

as a saint, and though there is no record of his canonization, a saint's

day, January 7, is given him, and we are told of miracles performed at

his tomb.



So much for the dealings of Christian legend with this somewhat

unsaintly personage. Secular legend, for it is probably little more, has

contented itself with tracing his posterity, several families of Germany

deriving their descent from him, while he is held to have been the

ancestor of the imperial house of the Othos. Some French genealogists go

so far as to trace the descent of Hugh Capet to this hero of the Saxon

woods. In truth, he has been made to some extent the Roland or the

Arthur of Saxony, though fancy has not gone so far in his case as in

that of the French paladin and the Welsh hero of knight-errantry, for,

though he and his predecessor Hermann became favorite characters in

German ballad and legend, the romance heroes of that land continued to

be the mythical Siegfried and his partly fabulous, partly historical

companions of the epical song of the Nibelung.