The war of Charlemagne against the Saxons was the first ominous 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 enlightened divines. Alcuin, who represents the English school of
missionaries, 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 Saxons. 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.^126
Charlemagne relaxed somewhat the severity of his laws or capitularies after the year 797.
He founded eight bishoprics among the Saxons: Osnabrück, Münster, Minden, Paderborn, Verden,
Bremen, Hildesheim, and Halberstadt. 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 of real Christianity among the Saxons is the "Heliand" (Heiland, i.e.,
Healer, Saviour) or a harmony of the Gospels. It is a religious epos strongly resembling the older
work of the Anglo-Saxon Caedmon on 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 reminiscences. Vilmar calls it the only real
Christian epos, and a wonderful creation of the German genius.^127
(^126) Neander III. 152 sqq. (Germ, ed.; Torrey’s trnsl. 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 favoably with the worldly, character of the Frankish priesthood, and
Charlemagne himelf was impressed with the importance of intrusting the establishment of the Church throughout his Northern
conquests to these foreigners rather than to his own subjects. He 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 Amiens, was founded by one of the Saxon converts, and became an 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 Germany, than Fulda still continued to be in the centre, and St. Gall in the South."
(^127) See Ed. Sievers, Heliand, Halle, 1878.