Saxon Wars - Final Phase

Final Phase

In 792, the Westphalians rose up against their masters in response to forcible recruitment for wars against the Avars. The Eastphalians and Nordalbingians joined them in 793, but the insurrection did not catch on as previous ones and was completely put down by 794.

An Engrian rebellion followed closely in 796, but Charlemagne's personal presence and the presence of loyal Christian Saxons and Slavs immediately crushed it. The last insurrection of the Engrian people occurred in 804, more than thirty years after Charlemagne's first campaign against them. This time, the most unruly tribe of them all, the Nordalbingians, found themselves effectively disempowered to rebel. Charlemagne deported 10,000 of them to Neustria and gave their now vacant lands to the loyal king of the Abotrites. It is constructive now to quote Einhard, Charlemagne's biographer, on the closing of such a grand conflict:

The war that had lasted so many years was at length ended by their acceding to the terms offered by the King; which were renunciation of their national religious customs and the worship of devils, acceptance of the sacraments of the Christian faith and religion, and union with the Franks to form one people.

Towards the end of the wars, Charlemagne had begun to place more emphasis on reconciliation. In 797, he eased the special laws, and in 802, Saxon common law was codified as the Lex Saxonum. This was accompanied by the establishment of ecclesiastic structures (including bishoprics in Paderborn, Münster, Bremen, Minden, Verden and Osnabrück) that secured the conversion of the Saxon people. The last Saxon uprising was the Stellinga, which occurred between 841 and 845.