104 FOUKTH PERIOD. A. D. 590-1049.
But the Saxons were not entirely defeated till 804, when 10,000 families were driven from house and home and scattered in other provinces. Bloody laws prohibited the relapse into heathenism. The spirit of national independence was defeated, but not entirely crushed, and broke out seven centuries afterwards in another form against the Babylonian tyranny of Rome under the lead of the Saxon monk, Martin Luther.
The war of Charlemagne against the Saxons was the first omi nous example of a bloody crusade for the overthrow of heathenism and the extension of the church. It was a radical departure from the apostolic method, and diametrically opposed to the spirit of the gospel. This was felt even in that age by the more enlight ened divines. Alcuin, who represents the English school of mis sionaries, and who expresses in his letters great respect and admiration for Charlemagne, modestly protested, though without effect, against this wholesale conversion by force, and asked him rather to make peace with the " abominable " people of the Sax ons. He properly held that the heathen should first be instructed before they are required to be baptized and to pay tithes ; that water-baptism without faith was of no use ; that baptism implies three visible things, namely, the priest, the body, and the water, and three invisible things, namely, the Spirit, the soul, and faith ; that the Holy Spirit regenerates the soul by faith ; that faith is a free act which cannot be enforced ; that instruction, persuasion, love and self-denial are the only proper means for converting the heathen.1
bedroht; jede Verletzung eines christlichen Priesters wurde, wie der Aufruhr gegen den Koniy und der Ungehorsam gegen seine Befehle, zu einem todeswurdigen Verbrechen gestempelt"
1 Neander III. 152 sqq. (Germ. ed. ; Torrey's transl. III. 76). It seems to me, from looking over Alcuin' s numerous epistles to the emperor, he might have used his influence much more freely with his pupil. Merivale says (p. 131) : "Alcuin of York, exerted his influence upon those Northern missions from the centre of France, in which he had planted himself. The purity and simplicity of the English school of teachers contrasted favorably with the worldly character of the Frankish priesthood, and Charlemagne himself was impressed with the importance of intrusting the establishment of the Church throughout his North-
2 27. THE CONVERSION OF THE SAXONS. 105
Charlemagne relaxed somewhat the severity of his laws or capitularies after the year 707. lie founded eight bishoprics among the Saxons : Osnabriick, Miinster, Minden, Paderborn, Vcrden, Bremen, Ilildeshcim, and llalberstadt. From these bishoprics and the parochial churches grouped around them, and from monasteries such as Fulda, proceeded those higher and nobler influences which acted on the mind and heart.
The first monument df real Christianity among the Saxons is the " Heliand " (Holland, /. c., Healer, Saviour) or a harmony of the Gospels. It is a religious epos strongly resembling the older work of the Anglo-Saxon Caedmoii 011 the Passion and Resurrection. From this it no doubt derived its inspiration. For since Bonifacius there was a lively intercourse between the church of England and the church in Germany, and the language of the two countries was at that time essentially the same. In both works Christ appears as the youthful hero of the human race, the divine conqueror of the world and the devil, and the Christians as his faithful knights and warriors. The Heliand was composed in the ninth century by one or more poets whose language points to Westphalia as their home. The doctrine is free from the worship of saints, the glorification of Peter, and from ascetic excesses, but mixed somewhat with mythological
ern conquests to these foreigners rather than to his own subjects. ITe appointed the Anglo-Saxon Willibrord to preside over the district of Estphalia, and Liudger, a Friesian by birth, but an Englishman by his training at York, to organize the church in Westphalia ; while he left to the earlier foundation of Fulda, which had also received its first Christian traditions from the English Boniface and his pupil Sturm, the charge of Engern or Angaria. From the teaching of these strangers there sprang up a crop of Saxon priests and missionaries ; from among the youths of noble family whom the conqueror had carried off from their homes as hostages, many were selected to be trained in the monasteries for the life of monks and preachers. Eventually the Abbey of Corbie, near Ami ens, was foundedl)y one of the Saxon converts, and became a.n important centre of Christian teaching. From hence sprang the daughter-foundation of the New Corbie, or Corby, on the banks of the Weser, in the diocese of Paderborn. This abbey received its charter from Louis le Debonnaire in 823, and became no less important an institution for the propagation of the faith in the north of Ger many, than Fulda still continued to be in the centre, and St. Gall in the South."