Saxon Identities, AD 150–900 Studies in Early Medieval History Series editor: Ian Wood Concise books on current areas of debate in late antiquity/early medieval studies, covering history, archaeology, cultural and social studies, and the interfaces between them. Dark Age Liguria: Regional Identity and Local Power, c. 400–1020, Ross Balzaretti Inventing Byzantine Iconoclasm, Leslie Brubaker Pagan Goddesses in the Early Germanic World: Eostra, Hreda and the Cult of Matrons, Philip A. Shaw Reading the Bible in the Middle Ages, edited by Jinty Nelson and Damien Kempf Vikings in the South, Ann Christys Saxon Identities, AD 150–900 Robert Flierman Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc LONDON • OXFORD • NEW YORK • NEW DELHI • SYDNEY Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square 1385 Broadway London New York WC1B 3DP NY 10018 UK USA www.bloomsbury.com BLOOMSBURY and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published 2017 © Robert Flierman, 2017 Robert Flierman has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury or the author. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN: HB: 978-1-3500-1945-4 ePDF: 978-1-3500-1947-8 ePub: 978-1-3500-1946-1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. Series: Studies in Early Medieval History Cover image © Grandes Chroniques de France (1375–1380), Bibliothèque nationale de France Typeset by Integra Software Services Pvt. Ltd. For Janneke Contents Maps viii Preface ix Note on Annotation and Translation xii Abbreviations xiii 1 Introduction 1 2 The Most Ferocious of Enemies: Saxons from a Roman Perspective 23 3 Rebels, Allies and Neighbours: Saxons from a Merovingian Perspective 53 4 Gens Perfida or Populus Christianus? The Saxons and the Saxon Wars in Carolingian Historiography 89 5 From Defeat to Salvation: Remembering the Saxon Wars in Carolingian Saxony 119 Conclusion 163 Notes 171 Bibliography 235 Index 265 Maps 3.1 The Merovingian World, c. 600 55 4.1 The Carolingian Empire in 814 91 5.1 Carolingian Saxony, c. 860 131 Preface This book’s origins go back to the years 2010–2013, when I participated in the joint research project Cultural Memory and the Resources of the Past (CMRP), funded by the European Science Foundation. The project brought together a group of junior and senior medievalists from Cambridge, Vienna, Leeds and Utrecht, who set out to study how societies in the post-Roman West approached the past and used it with an eye to identity-formation. My own research focused on Charlemagne’s wars of expansion and the ideological challenges posed by the foundation of a multi-ethnic empire. This, at least, was my initial aim, for while studying the subtle and less-than-subtle means through which Charlemagne and his successors shaped former enemies into loyal subjects, I came to focus more and more on one group in particular, who appeared to me by far the most intriguing of the peoples brought under Carolingian dominion: the Continental Saxons. Various factors contributed to this fascination. Of course, there were the dramatic circumstances encompassing the Saxons’ incorporation into Charlemagne’s empire: a protracted and exceedingly violent war of conquest accompanied by an unprecedented campaign of forced conversion. This part of Saxon history is well known and probably constitutes the most conspicuous blemish on Charlemagne’s modern reputation as pater Europae, Father of Europe. But I soon found out that the events of the Saxon Wars were only part of the Saxon story. I was struck even more by the intense and highly polemical manner in which people reported on the Saxons in this period, and indeed, had reported on them since late antiquity. The Saxons themselves left no textual evidence prior to the ninth century AD, but they generated a lot of talk among their Roman and Frankish neighbours, mostly hostile, rarely truthful and informed, it seemed, by deep-seated biases and unspoken agendas. It thus became my aim to explore what prompted such talk about Saxons and how it developed over time, from the first reference to Saxons in the second century AD up till Saxony’s integration into the Carolingian Empire seven centuries later. The resulting study cannot properly be called a history of the Saxons, for its main focus is not on the Saxons themselves but on those writing about them. It is an exploration of how ancient and early medieval authors thought about Saxons; who they hoped, feared or imagined the Saxons to be; and how