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Die Sachsengeschichte
Die Spannung zwischen sachsischer Stammesgeschichte und Biographie der Ottonen, zwischen kleinteiligen territorialen Interessen des Stammesadels und der Faszination des Kaistertums macht den Reiz von Widukinds Sachsengeschichte aus, deren Erkenntniswert fur die Ideen und Verfassungsgeschichte des werdenden deutschen Reiches nicht hoch genug eingeschatzt werden kann.
- GenresHistoryNonfiction
264 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 973
About the author
Widukind von Corvey
6 booksWidukind of Corvey (circa 925 to after 973 AD) was a Benedictine Monk of the abbey of Corvey (North Rhine-Westphalia) and writer.
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December 15, 2019Widukind of Corvey's History of the Saxons was dedicated to Mathilde, daughter of Otto I, and largely is taken up with the events of her Father's reign over much of modern Germany in the tenth century, with a brief account of Henry I, her Grandfather, and some edited highlights from the history of the Saxons.
History is maybe to strong a word for it. Widukind was a well read monk of Corvey. He was familiar with Homer and Virgil, Bede, certainly a Roman historian (or two) and had a healthy taste for tall tales, telling us for instance that he heard as a youth that the Greeks themselves believe that the Saxons stem from wandering Macedonian soldiers left leaderless after the death of Alexander the Great.
Not that this is unusual. When considering their own origins, it can appear as though everybody in the middle ages came from somewhere else. The Franks were descendants of the Trojans, the Scots where descended from an Egyptian princess called Scotta, and the British were descended from Brutus - and since both begin with the same letter this plainly must be true.
Widukind then tells two stories that show the ancients Saxons in a bad light - which seems a curious way for an apparently proud Saxon to begin a history of their own people - the tricking and slaughter of their neighbours and the betrayal of the Britons who hired the Saxons to help them fight the Picts and the Scots (the latter story taken from Bede).
There are various curiosities in his text. Following his Latin model Otto I and Heinrich I are not just described as Imperator but also as pater patriae. Saxon and German soldiers are mustered in Legions...though who knows what Widukind meant by this, perhaps his point is simply the obvious one that the various 'barbarians' they fight including the Hungarians, various Slavic tribes from modern day Brandenburg and the Danes don't muster in legions since they are barbarians unlike the Saxons who obviously are Romano-Macedonians, who speak a Saxon variant of German.
The coronation of Otto I as Emperor by Pope John XII is passed over, but then Otto did shortly after depose him on account of his sinful behaviour unbecoming of a priest (more on that in Liudprand of Cremona), but there is a full account of Otto I's coronation at Aachen as King.
Unlike Bede, Widukind is happy to mention pre-Christian pagan practises, for example raising up a victory alter, but he uses the names of Roman gods. However, when through a mixture of persuasion and violence Charlemagne wins the conversion of the Saxons to Christianity they become in his words like one people with the Franks.
But Widukind is happy to recall his namesake, the last pagan ruler of the Saxons. Christianity is clearly better in Widukind's opinion, but that perhaps is no reason not to pay respect to the pre-Christian ancestors either.
Ancestry and inheritance are key themes. Queen Edith, Otto I's first proper wife is praised 'no less on account of her piety than her descent from a royal house' one might expect a monk to turn a blind eye to the pagan ancestor and praise the piety above the bloodline . Actually Edith's ancestry must have struck a deep cord in Widukind since she died (presumably) before he started work on his book - the Mathilde to whom it was dedicated was a child of Otto I's second marriage. Edith was a half sister of King Aethelstan of Wessex. The Anglo-Saxon kings seem to have been effectively polygamous (although Christian) and as a result Aethelstan had plenty of half-sisters. When he received the request to provide a bride he sent two of them over to Germany, whether with the intention that Otto I should choose one, or marry both is unclear. The graves of both Queen Edith and Otto I are in the Cathedral that Otto I had built in Madgeburg.
Inheritance, and perhaps this picks up on Friedrich Prinz's implicit point in Kelten Römer Und Germanen about the influence of the pattern of Merovingian politics, was a major problem. Specifically how to structure, share or divide the inheritance of political status and power within a family or between the foremost families. The question of how an inheritance should be divided between the sons of a deceased son and their uncles was decided by a judicial duel. Which was a rare example of containing within a micro-scale the warfare and revolts that regularly convulsed the realm between Otto I and his brother and after the latter was foisted on to the Bavarians as their Duke between Otto I and his son by Queen Edith, a quarrel which is only resolved with the son's death in Italy. But lucky by that time Otto I had already married again and had succeeded in fathering a new family.
The crucial battle on the Lech in which the Hungarians were defeated is given a rich, long but not terribly helpful description. Otto I carried the Holy Lance into battle, a weapon which was found again in Antioch buried in a church during the First Crusade. Some of course may find the existence of holy relics in duplicate unlikely but I recall from Black Lamb and Grey Falcon an anecdote of Rebecca West's that there was a Saint whose relics included a torso, two heads and five hands in neighbouring towns. All of these were brought before the then Pope who declared that they were all genuine, this multiplication of limbs being simply a humdrum manifestation of the power of the Saint. On reflection this could well be one of our Protestant stories, but since I seem to be stuck imitating Widukind's structural style I'll leave it in. Anyway, according to Widukind, Otto I had the Holy Lance and gave a one page speech to his assembled legions before turning the tide of battle and defeating the Hungarians.
The description of the deaths of Otto I's mother, naturally a study in piety, and shortly after of Otto I himself at Memleben the dynasty had a little monastery there, are quite fine. Otto I, suddenly taking a turn for the worse, his men sit him on a stool, but seeing how his head droops, call immediately for the last rites to be administered. Widukind's history ends with the burial of Otto I, but with the assurance of the continuation of the line and of Saxon history in the person of Mathilde's brother, Otto II.
Widukind's history is an awkward creation. Mostly it is an account of Otto I and his rule, however Widukind doesn't follow Einhard (and so indirectly Suetonius) who would have been his obvious choice of models. However while it does expand beyond recording the deeds of Otto I to take in the dealing of some other Saxon leaders and the fighting particularly with neighbouring Slavs, it doesn't rise to the promise of the title and provide a history of the deeds of the Saxons as a whole. Widukind can't help but distract himself from his narrative with an irrelevant but interesting story of how Harold Bluetooth and his Danes were converted to Christianity by a Holy Man called Poppa who held a glowing hot bar of iron in his hands but suffered no burns thus convincing the hitherto obdurate Danes of the power of the true faith. Widukind has further nice and Saxon relevant asides for example when camels are given to Otto I in an act of medieval panda diplomacy Widukind mentions that it was the first time that camels were ever seen in Saxony. More intriguingly he mentions in passing that a letter of Otto I was read out aloud to a gathering of the nobles and common people at Werla (a huge royal site) suggesting some custom of public assemblies. But this work isn't a survey of Saxons either but rather some chimera between a chronicle and a biography.
History is maybe to strong a word for it. Widukind was a well read monk of Corvey. He was familiar with Homer and Virgil, Bede, certainly a Roman historian (or two) and had a healthy taste for tall tales, telling us for instance that he heard as a youth that the Greeks themselves believe that the Saxons stem from wandering Macedonian soldiers left leaderless after the death of Alexander the Great.
Not that this is unusual. When considering their own origins, it can appear as though everybody in the middle ages came from somewhere else. The Franks were descendants of the Trojans, the Scots where descended from an Egyptian princess called Scotta, and the British were descended from Brutus - and since both begin with the same letter this plainly must be true.
Widukind then tells two stories that show the ancients Saxons in a bad light - which seems a curious way for an apparently proud Saxon to begin a history of their own people - the tricking and slaughter of their neighbours and the betrayal of the Britons who hired the Saxons to help them fight the Picts and the Scots (the latter story taken from Bede).
There are various curiosities in his text. Following his Latin model Otto I and Heinrich I are not just described as Imperator but also as pater patriae. Saxon and German soldiers are mustered in Legions...though who knows what Widukind meant by this, perhaps his point is simply the obvious one that the various 'barbarians' they fight including the Hungarians, various Slavic tribes from modern day Brandenburg and the Danes don't muster in legions since they are barbarians unlike the Saxons who obviously are Romano-Macedonians, who speak a Saxon variant of German.
The coronation of Otto I as Emperor by Pope John XII is passed over, but then Otto did shortly after depose him on account of his sinful behaviour unbecoming of a priest (more on that in Liudprand of Cremona), but there is a full account of Otto I's coronation at Aachen as King.
Unlike Bede, Widukind is happy to mention pre-Christian pagan practises, for example raising up a victory alter, but he uses the names of Roman gods. However, when through a mixture of persuasion and violence Charlemagne wins the conversion of the Saxons to Christianity they become in his words like one people with the Franks.
But Widukind is happy to recall his namesake, the last pagan ruler of the Saxons. Christianity is clearly better in Widukind's opinion, but that perhaps is no reason not to pay respect to the pre-Christian ancestors either.
Ancestry and inheritance are key themes. Queen Edith, Otto I's first proper wife is praised 'no less on account of her piety than her descent from a royal house' one might expect a monk to turn a blind eye to the pagan ancestor and praise the piety above the bloodline . Actually Edith's ancestry must have struck a deep cord in Widukind since she died (presumably) before he started work on his book - the Mathilde to whom it was dedicated was a child of Otto I's second marriage. Edith was a half sister of King Aethelstan of Wessex. The Anglo-Saxon kings seem to have been effectively polygamous (although Christian) and as a result Aethelstan had plenty of half-sisters. When he received the request to provide a bride he sent two of them over to Germany, whether with the intention that Otto I should choose one, or marry both is unclear. The graves of both Queen Edith and Otto I are in the Cathedral that Otto I had built in Madgeburg.
Inheritance, and perhaps this picks up on Friedrich Prinz's implicit point in Kelten Römer Und Germanen about the influence of the pattern of Merovingian politics, was a major problem. Specifically how to structure, share or divide the inheritance of political status and power within a family or between the foremost families. The question of how an inheritance should be divided between the sons of a deceased son and their uncles was decided by a judicial duel. Which was a rare example of containing within a micro-scale the warfare and revolts that regularly convulsed the realm between Otto I and his brother and after the latter was foisted on to the Bavarians as their Duke between Otto I and his son by Queen Edith, a quarrel which is only resolved with the son's death in Italy. But lucky by that time Otto I had already married again and had succeeded in fathering a new family.
The crucial battle on the Lech in which the Hungarians were defeated is given a rich, long but not terribly helpful description. Otto I carried the Holy Lance into battle, a weapon which was found again in Antioch buried in a church during the First Crusade. Some of course may find the existence of holy relics in duplicate unlikely but I recall from Black Lamb and Grey Falcon an anecdote of Rebecca West's that there was a Saint whose relics included a torso, two heads and five hands in neighbouring towns. All of these were brought before the then Pope who declared that they were all genuine, this multiplication of limbs being simply a humdrum manifestation of the power of the Saint. On reflection this could well be one of our Protestant stories, but since I seem to be stuck imitating Widukind's structural style I'll leave it in. Anyway, according to Widukind, Otto I had the Holy Lance and gave a one page speech to his assembled legions before turning the tide of battle and defeating the Hungarians.
The description of the deaths of Otto I's mother, naturally a study in piety, and shortly after of Otto I himself at Memleben the dynasty had a little monastery there, are quite fine. Otto I, suddenly taking a turn for the worse, his men sit him on a stool, but seeing how his head droops, call immediately for the last rites to be administered. Widukind's history ends with the burial of Otto I, but with the assurance of the continuation of the line and of Saxon history in the person of Mathilde's brother, Otto II.
Widukind's history is an awkward creation. Mostly it is an account of Otto I and his rule, however Widukind doesn't follow Einhard (and so indirectly Suetonius) who would have been his obvious choice of models. However while it does expand beyond recording the deeds of Otto I to take in the dealing of some other Saxon leaders and the fighting particularly with neighbouring Slavs, it doesn't rise to the promise of the title and provide a history of the deeds of the Saxons as a whole. Widukind can't help but distract himself from his narrative with an irrelevant but interesting story of how Harold Bluetooth and his Danes were converted to Christianity by a Holy Man called Poppa who held a glowing hot bar of iron in his hands but suffered no burns thus convincing the hitherto obdurate Danes of the power of the true faith. Widukind has further nice and Saxon relevant asides for example when camels are given to Otto I in an act of medieval panda diplomacy Widukind mentions that it was the first time that camels were ever seen in Saxony. More intriguingly he mentions in passing that a letter of Otto I was read out aloud to a gathering of the nobles and common people at Werla (a huge royal site) suggesting some custom of public assemblies. But this work isn't a survey of Saxons either but rather some chimera between a chronicle and a biography.
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