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 SAXONY

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SAXONY

conflict with the Franks living on the Rhine. The Frankish king Clo\'is (4S1-5U) united the various Frankish tribes, conquered Roman Gaul, and -n-ith his people accepted Christianity. The new Frankish kingdom was able to brmg all German tribes except the Saxons under its authority and to make them Christian. For more than a hundred j'ears there was almost uninterrupted warfare between Frank and Saxon. Many Anglo-Saxon Christian missionaries sought to con'\-ert the Saxons, some were killed, some driven away; the names of only a few of these men have been preserved, as St. Suitbert, St. Egnert, the saint called Brother Ewald, St. Lebuin, etc. St. Boniface also preached without success among the Saxons. The Saxons were finally brought under Frankish supremacy bj' the great Frankish ruler, Charlemagne, after a bloody struggle that lasted thirty years (772-804). Charlemagne was also able to win them to Christianity, the Saxons being the last German tribe that still held persistently to belief in the Germanic gods. At different times the Saxon wars of Charlemagne have been called "religious wars" and the assertion, which cannot be proved, has been made that Pope Adrian had called upon Charle- magne to convert the Saxons by force. Charle- magne's campaigns were intended mainly to punish the Saxons for their annual marauding expeditions to the Rhine, in which they burned churches and monas- teries, killed the priests, and sacrificed their prisoners of war to the gods. The earliest date at which it can be proved that Charlemagne had the conquest of the Saxon districts in view is 776. It is evident that if peace was to be permanent the overthrow of the Sax- ons must be accompanied by their conversion to Christianity. The necessity for this was based also on the nature of the Frankish kingdom in which poli- tics and religion were never separated. At the same time it is true that various measures taken by Charle- magne, as the execution of 4500 Saxons at Verden in 782 and the hard laws issued to the subjugated, were shortsighted and cruel. The Church, however, cannot be made responsible in any case for this policy of Charlemagne's which it never approved. Although the opposition in the Saxon territories to Christian teaching had been obstinate only a few decades before, the Saxons grew accustomed to the new life. The Christian conception of life sank deep into the hearts of the people, and in little more than a hundred years the Saxons were the messengers and defenders of a Christian, German civilization among the Slavonic tribes. The work of converting Saxony was given to St. Sturmi, who was on terms of friendship with Charlemagne, and the monks of the monastery of Fulda founded by Sturmi. Among the successful mLssionaries of the Faith were also St. Willihad, the first Bishop of Bremen, and his Anglo-Saxon com- panions. After St. Sturmi's death (779) the country of the Saxons was divided into missionary districts, and each of these placed under a Frankish bishop. Parishes were established within the old judicial dis- tricts. With the generous aid of Charlemagne and hia nobles large numbers of churches and monasteries were founded, and as .soon as peace and quiet had been re-established in the different districts, permanent dioceses were founded.

The Medieval Duchy of Saxony. — When the Frank- ish kingdom was divided by the Treaty of Verdun (84.'} j the territory east of the Rhine became the East Frankish Kingdom, from which the present Germany has developed. A strong central authority was lack- ing during the reigns of the weak East Frankish kings of the Carlovingian dynasty. Each German tribe was forced to rely upon itself for defence against the incur- sions of the Normans from the north and of the Slavs from the east, consequently the tribes once more chose dukes as rulers. The first Saxon duke was Otto the Illustrious (880-912) of the Liudolfinger line

(descendants of Liudolf ) ; Otto was able to extend his power over Thuringia. Otto's son Henry was elected King of Germany (919-936); Henry is justly called the real founder of the German Empire. His son Otto I (936-973) was the first German king to receive from the pope the imperial Roman crown (962). Otto I was followed as king and emperor by his son Otto II (973-983), who was succeeded by his son Otto III (983-1002) ; both the kings last mentioned vainly endeavoured to establish German authority in Itaty. The line of Saxon emperors expired with Henry II (1002-1024), who was canonized in 1146. Henry I had been both King of Germany and Duke of Saxony at the same time. Mainly for the sake of his ducal possessions he had carried on a long and diffi- cult struggle with the Slavs on the eastern boundary of his country. The Emperor Otto I was also for the greater part of his reign Duke of Saxony. Otto I brought the Slavonic territory on the right bank of the Elbe and Saale under German supremacy and Christian civilization. He divided the region he had acquired into several margravates, the most impor- tant being: the North Mark, out of which in the course of time the present Kingdom of Prussia developed, and the Mark of Meissen, from which has sprung the present Kingdom of Saxony. Each mark was di- vided into districts, not only for military and political purposes but also for ecclesiastical: the central point of each district was a fortified castle. The first churches built near these castles were plain buiklings of wood or rubble-stone.

Otto I laid the basis of the organization of the Church in this territory, that had been won for the German race and Christianity, by making the chief fortified places which he established in the different marks the sees of dioceses. The Ottonian emperors also aided much in bringing to Christianity the great Slavonic people, the Poles, who lived on the right bank of the Oder, as for a time the Polish country was under German suzerainty. Unfortunately the prom- ising beginnings of Christian civilization among the Slavs were largely destroyed by the violence of the Slavonic rebellions in the years 980 and 1060. In 960 Otto I had transferred the ducal authority over Sax- ony to a Count Hermann, who had distinguished him- self in the struggle with the Slavs, and the ducal title became hereditary in Count Hermann's family. This oki Duchy of Saxony, as it is called in distinc- tion from the Duchy of Saxe-Wittenberg, became the centre of the opposition of the German princes to the imperial power during the era of the Franconian or Salian emperors. With the death of Duke Magnus in 1106 the Saxon ducal family, frequently called the Billung line, became extinct. The Emperor Henry V (1106-2.')) gave the Duchy of Saxony in fief to Count I^othair of Supplinburg, who in 112,5 became King of Germany, and at his death (1137) transferred the Duchy of Saxony to his son-in-law, Duke Henry the Proud, of the princely family of the Guelphs. The hundred years of war waged by the family of Guelph with the Hohenstaufen emperors is famous in history. The son of Henry the Proud (d. 1139) was Henry the Lion (d. 119.5), who extended Cerman authority and Christianity into the prcsi'ut Mecklenburg and Pom- erania, and re-establishe(l Christianity in the terri- tories devastated by the; Slavonic revolts. Henry the Lion refused to aid the Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa in his campaign against the cities of I^ombardy in 1176, con.sequently in 1180 the bann of the empire was proclaimed against Henry at Wurz- burg, and 1181 the old Duchy of Saxony was cut up at the Diet of Gelnhausen into many small portions. The greater share of its western portion was given, as the Duchy of Westphalia, to the Archbishop of Cologne. The Saxon bishops who had before this pos-sessed sovereign authority in their territories, though under the suzerainty of the Duke of Saxony,