Saxon Wars - Religious Nature of The War

Religious Nature of The War

Alluding to the Saxons, the contemporary poet of the Paderborn Epic praises terror as a means of conversion: "What the contrary mind and perverse soul refuse to do with persuasion, / Let them leap to accomplish when compelled by fear."

One of Charlemagne's famed capitularies outlines part of the religious intent of his interactions with the Saxons. In 785 AD he issues the Capitulatio de partibus Saxoniae which asserted that "If any one of the race of the Saxons hereafter concealed among them shall have wished to hide himself unbaptized, and shall have scorned to come to baptism and shall have wished to remain a pagan, let him be punished by death."

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