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Wittekind
Widukind, also known as Wittekind, was a leader of the Saxons and the chief opponent of the Frankish king Charlemagne during the Saxon Wars from 777 to 785. Charlemagne ultimately prevailed, organized Saxony as a Frankish province, massacred thousands of Saxon nobles, and ordered conversions of the pagan Saxons to Christianity. In later times, Widukind became a symbol of Saxon independence and a figure of legend. Life Very little is known about Widukind's life. His name literally translates as "child of the forest". In the chronicles he is accompanied by Abbi who may have been a close relative. However, it is uncertain how they were related because all sources about him stem from his enemies, the Franks, who painted a negative picture representing him as an "insurgent" and a "traitor". While Widukind was considered the leader of the Saxon resistance by the Franks, his exact role in the military campaigns is unknown. According to the ''Royal Frankish Annals'', the Franks campaig ...
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Charlemagne
Charlemagne ( , ) or Charles the Great ( la, Carolus Magnus; german: Karl der Große; 2 April 747 – 28 January 814), a member of the Carolingian dynasty, was King of the Franks from 768, King of the Lombards from 774, and the first Holy Roman Emperor, Emperor of the Romans from 800. Charlemagne succeeded in uniting the majority of Western Europe, western and central Europe and was the first recognized emperor to rule from western Europe after the fall of the Western Roman Empire around three centuries earlier. The expanded Frankish state that Charlemagne founded was the Carolingian Empire. He was Canonization, canonized by Antipope Paschal III—an act later treated as invalid—and he is now regarded by some as Beatification, beatified (which is a step on the path to sainthood) in the Catholic Church. Charlemagne was the eldest son of Pepin the Short and Bertrada of Laon. He was born before their Marriage in the Catholic Church, canonical marriage. He became king of the ...
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Abbi (Saxon)
Albion (or Abbion shortened to Abbio or Abbi, also Alboin) was a Germanic leader of the Saxons in the time of Charlemagne. (exact dates remain unknown) Albbi is considered one of the two principal Saxon chiefs along with Widukind. He was the leader of the Eastphalians while the latter ruled the Westphalian Saxons. Both opposed the aggressive eastern expansion of the Carolingian Empire. They mustered an army and fought Charlemagne in two major battles, at Osnabrück and Detmold. After these conflicts the Saxons were recorded to have taken 4,000 prisoners. In 785, after being defeated in the Saxon wars, fleeing across the Elbe, Albion was baptized together with Widukind, possibly in Attigny, with Charlemagne as his godfather. He was possibly married to Giesela (or Hasela), a daughter or sister to Widukind, and therefore closely related to him. Albion was said to be the ancestor of the House of Ascania The House of Ascania (german: Askanier) was a dynasty of German rulers. It ...
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Massacre Of Verden
The Massacre of Verden was an event during the Saxon Wars where the Frankish king Charlemagne ordered the death of 4,500 Saxons in October 782. Charlemagne claimed suzerainty over Saxony and in 772 destroyed the Irminsul, an important object in Saxon paganism, during his intermittent thirty-year campaign to Christianize the Saxons. The massacre occurred in Verden in what is now Lower Saxony, Germany. The event is attested in contemporary Frankish sources, including the ''Royal Frankish Annals''. Beginning in the 1870s, some scholars have attempted to exonerate Charlemagne of the massacre by way of a proposed manuscript error but these attempts have since been generally rejected. While the figure of 4,500 victims has generally been accepted, some scholars regard it as an exaggeration. Sources An entry for the year 782 in the first version of the ''Royal Frankish Annals'' (''Annales Regni Francorum'') records a Saxon rebellion, followed by a Saxon victory in the battle of the Sü ...
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Immedingians
The Immedingians (German: ''Immedinger'') were a noble family of medieval Saxony, descended from the Saxon leader Widukind. The most notable member was Saint Matilda (d. 968), queen consort of King Henry I of Germany. History They were important benefactors of the church in tenth century Saxony with members including the Saint Emma of Lesum and her brother Bishop Meinwerk of Paderborn. Matilda's grandmother Matilda I was abbess at Herford Abbey. About 940 one Count Immad of the Immedinger dynasty established a convent of nuns at Ringelheim in Eastphalia. Queen Matilda herself upon the death of her husband in 936 donated Quedlinburg Abbey, where she is also buried. According to the '' Res gestae saxonicae'' by the chronicler Widukind of Corvey, Matilda's father, the Westphalian count Dietrich, was a descendant of ''dux'' Widukind. A sister of her married Count Wichmann the Elder from the House of Billung The House of Billung was a dynasty of Saxon noblemen in the 9th through ...
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Westphalia
Westphalia (; german: Westfalen ; nds, Westfalen ) is a region of northwestern Germany and one of the three historic parts of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It has an area of and 7.9 million inhabitants. The territory of the region is almost identical with the historic Province of Westphalia, which was a part of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1815 to 1918 and the Free State of Prussia from 1918 to 1946. In 1946, Westphalia merged with North Rhine, another former part of Prussia, to form the newly created state of North Rhine-Westphalia. In 1947, the state with its two historic parts was joined by a third one: Lippe, a former principality and free state. The seventeen districts and nine independent cities of Westphalia and the single district of Lippe are members of the Westphalia-Lippe Regional Association (''Landschaftsverband Westfalen-Lippe''). Previous to the formation of Westphalia as a province of Prussia and later state part of North Rhine-Westphalia, the ...
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Deventer
Deventer (; Sallands: ) is a city and municipality in the Salland historical region of the province of Overijssel, Netherlands. In 2020, Deventer had a population of 100,913. The city is largely situated on the east bank of the river IJssel, but it also has a small part of its territory on the west bank. In 2005 the municipality of Bathmen (with a population of about 5,000 people) was merged with Deventer as part of a national effort to reduce bureaucracy in the country. Deventer is one of the oldest cities in the Netherlands. The place is already mentioned in 9th-century sources of the Diocese of Utrecht. In a charter from 877 AD mentions seven hooves in ''Daventre portu'' (the Deventer harbor). In 952 AD, Deventer is mentioned as a city in a gift certificate from King Otto I. After the place had acquired more and more rights and privileges over time, it received the municipal lands from Emperor Henry V in 1123. This is considered by historians to be the moment of Deventer o ...
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Angria
Angria or Angaria (german: Engern, ) is a historical region in the present-day German states of Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia. The chronicler Widukind of Corvey in his ''Res gestae saxonicae sive annalium libri tres'' denoted it as the central region of the medieval Duchy of Saxony lying along the middle reaches of the Weser river between Westphalia and Eastphalia. Its name was derived from the Germanic Angrivarii tribe which had joined the Saxon tribal confederation, and it was centered on the town of Minden, see of a bishopric since 803. The Angrivarii lands were conquered by Charlemagne during the Saxon Wars; according to the ''Royal Frankish Annals'', the Angrian commanders concluded a separate peace agreement with the Carolingian Empire near Bückeburg in 775. In 1180, the Emperor Frederick I deposed the duke of Saxony, Henry the Lion, and divided the duchy into two parts through the so-called Gelnhausen Charter. The Duchy of Westphalia was granted to the Arc ...
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Fritzlar
Fritzlar () is a small town (pop. 15,000) in the Schwalm-Eder district in northern Hesse, Germany, north of Frankfurt, with a storied history. The town has a medieval center ringed by a wall with numerous watch towers. Thirty-eight meters (125 ft) high, the "Grey Tower" ("Grauer Turm") is the highest remaining urban defense tower in Germany. The city hall, first documented in 1109, with a stone relief of St. Martin, the town's patron saint, is the oldest in Germany still in use for its original purpose. The Gothic church of the old Franciscan monastery is today the Protestant parish church, and the monastery's other buildings have been converted into a modern hospital. Many houses in the town center, notably around the market square, date from the 15th to 17th centuries and have been carefully maintained or restored. The town is dominated by the imposing Romanesque-Gothic Church of St. Peter from the 12th-14th centuries. In 1974, the town hosted the 14th ''Hessentag'' sta ...
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March (territory)
In medieval Europe, a march or mark was, in broad terms, any kind of borderland, as opposed to a national "heartland". More specifically, a march was a border between realms or a neutral buffer zone under joint control of two states in which different laws might apply. In both of these senses, marches served a political purpose, such as providing warning of military incursions or regulating cross-border trade. Marches gave rise to titles such as marquess (masculine) or marchioness (feminine) in England, ''marqués'' (masculine) and ''marquesa'' (feminine) in Spanish-speaker countries, as well as in the Catalan and Galician regions, ''marquês'' (masculine) and ''marquesa'' (feminine) in Portuguese-speaker countries, ''markesa'' (both masculine and feminine) in Euskadi, ''marquis'' (masculine) or ''marquise'' (feminine) in France and Scotland, margrave (german: Markgraf, lit=march count; masculine) or margravine (, feminine) in Germany, and corresponding titles in other Europe ...
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Duchy Of Saxony
The Duchy of Saxony ( nds, Hartogdom Sassen, german: Herzogtum Sachsen) was originally the area settled by the Saxons in the late Early Middle Ages, when they were subdued by Charlemagne during the Saxon Wars from 772 and incorporated into the Carolingian Empire (Francia) by 804. Upon the 843 Treaty of Verdun, Saxony was one of the five German stem duchies of East Francia; Duke Henry the Fowler was elected German king in 919. Upon the deposition of the Welf duke Henry the Lion in 1180, the ducal title fell to the House of Ascania, while numerous territories split from Saxony, such as the Principality of Anhalt in 1218 and the Welf Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg in 1235. In 1296 the remaining lands were divided between the Ascanian dukes of Saxe-Lauenburg and Saxe-Wittenberg, the latter obtaining the title of Electors of Saxony by the Golden Bull of 1356. Geography The Saxon stem duchy covered the greater part of present-day Northern Germany, including the modern German states ...
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Paderborn
Paderborn (; Westphalian: ''Patterbuorn'', also ''Paterboärn'') is a city in eastern North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, capital of the Paderborn district. The name of the city derives from the river Pader and ''Born'', an old German term for the source of a river. The river Pader originates in more than 200 springs near Paderborn Cathedral, where St. Liborius is buried. Paderborn ranks 55th on the List of cities in Germany by population. History Paderborn was founded as a bishopric by Charlemagne in 795, although its official history began in 777 when Charlemagne built a castle near the Pader springs.Ed. Heribert Zelder, Tourist Information Services, ''Welcome to Paderborn'', Stadt Paderborn: Paderborn, Germany, 2009. In 799 Pope Leo III fled his enemies in Rome and reached Paderborn, where he met Charlemagne, and stayed there for three months. It was during this time that it was decided that Charlemagne would be crowned emperor. Charlemagne reinstated Leo in Rome in 800 ...
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Sigfred
Sigfred was an eighth century Danish king who is known to have reigned from before 777 to after 798. Fragments of his reign can be traced via Frankish sources. Assistance to Widukind King Sigfred is first mentioned in 777 when the Saxon chief Widukind, leader of the resistance against Charlemagne, fled Saxony in the face of the Frankish onslaught. Widukind found refuge with Sigfred, but the Frankish annals do not say in detail what kind of assistance the Danish king may have provided. At any rate, Charlemagne made no attempt to subordinate or threaten the Danes during his Saxon campaigns. German chronicles, to better espouse the family tree of Widukind’s heirs, stated that he was married to Sigfred's daughter Geva. Frankish diplomacy In the summer of 782, Charlemagne led his armed forces to the sources of the Lippe River, staying there for some time. On this occasion he received envoys from Sigfred, although the details of the negotiations are not disclosed. Shortly after, ...
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