Abstract
Charles’s Saxon wars were the most protracted and most bitterly fought of the numerous campaigns of his reign. Beginning in 772 they continued, with various interruptions, until the year 804, with repercussions still being felt thereafter. The conflict with the Saxons in this period involved features such as forcible mass-conversion and large-scale deportation, together with the massacre of prisoners, that were not normal components of Frankish warfare. But even quite liberal German historians in this century have been prepared to applaud the outcome as ‘one of the foundations of medieval and modern Germany’.1 To understand the length and ferocity of these wars, it is worth looking back over earlier Frankish-Saxon relations, and forming some idea of the nature of Saxon society in this period.
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Notes
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© 1998 Roger Collins
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Collins, R. (1998). The Saxon Wars, 772–85. In: Charlemagne. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-26924-2_3
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