LL-L 'History' 2006.07.11 (10) [E/German]

Wed Jul 12 05:21:02 UTC 2006

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L O W L A N D S - L * 11 July 2006 * Volume 10
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From: Luc Hellinckx <luc.hellinckx at gmail.com>
Subject: LL-L 'History'

  Beste Ron,

You wrote:
> You were more right than I.  It was 4500 Saxon heads.
>
> <quote>
> North of the Alps Charlemagne extends his territory eastwards to include Bavaria,
> but his main efforts within Germany are directed against the Saxons.
>    The Saxons, restless Germanic tribesmen, have long plagued the settled
> Frankish territories by raiding from their forest sanctuaries. Charlemagne the
> emperor is harmed by their depredations; Charlemagne the Christian is outraged by
> their pagan practices. From 772 he wages ferocious war against them, beginning
> with the destruction of one of their great shrines and its sacred central feature
> - the Irminsul or 'pillar of the world', a massive wooden column believed to
> support the universe.
>    It takes Charlemagne thirty years to subdue the Saxons; not until 804 are they
> finally transformed into settled Christians within his empire. It has been a
> brutal process. Charlemagne's method is military conquest followed by forced
> conversion and the planting of missionary outposts, usually in the form of
> bishoprics. In his book of rules, the official punishment for refusing to be
> baptized is death.
>    The chronicles record that on one day some 4500 reluctant Saxons are executed
> for not worshipping the right god.

Wikipedia questions this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Verdict_of_Verden

Moreover, concerning the "Sachsenhain", there appears to be a connection with
Nazi-propaganda: http://www.idgr.de/texte/rechtsextremismus/ideologie/sachsenhain.php

>>From this webpage:

>Mehrere Stelltafeln dokumentieren inzwischen die Entstehung des Sachsenhains.
Auf der Homepage der Stadt Verden heiÃŸt es nun: "Der Sachsenhain wird noch immer
mit der Hinrichtung von >4.500 Sachsen durch Karl den GroÃŸen im Jahr 782 in
Verbindung gebracht. TatsÃ¤chlich handelt es sich jedoch nicht um einen Ort
sÃ¤chsischer Geschichte. Vielmehr dokumentiert der Sachsenhain >mit den im Jahre
1935 entlang des Rundweges aufgestellten 4.500 Findlingen den Versuch der
Nationalsozialisten, die Geschichte propagandistisch umzudeuten."

On a sidenote: Charlemagne may have been one of the few rulers of his day who
could read. Most of the other kings were illiterate.

Kind greetings,

Luc Hellinckx

----------

From: Arthur Jones <arthurobin2002 at yahoo.com>
Subject: LL-L 'Anniversary' 2006.11.07 [E] {OFr}

Lieve Laglanners,

Ben J. Bloomgren schreev,

>I've also heard that he [de Grote Karel, Charlemange --pun intended-- Arthur's
note] routinely spoke a Frankish- in proto-French..."

Well, yes, but he ran a bilingual household. Perhaps the best evidence of the two
languages he spoke --Old Frankish (lingua teudisca) and Old French (lingua romana)
were handed down to us from a document, an oath, entered into by two of his
grandsons, Ludwig The German and Charles the Bald, against his third grandson,
Lothair, at Strassburg in the year 841 c.e.

Like Ben, these gentlemen were also fervent Christians. Unlike Ben, to the best
of our knowledge, these gentlemen were also responsible for the needless deaths
of thousands upon thousands of humans. But they did it in the name of holiness.
And for the sake of the Holy Roman Empire.

This is the Strassburg Oath in the Frankish Germanic spoken by them:

"In Godes minna ind in thes christianes folches ind unser bedhero gealtnissi, fon
thesemo dage frammordes, so fram so mir Got gewizci indi madh furgibit, so haldih
tesan minan bruodher, soso man mit rehtu sinan bruodher scal, in thiu, thaz er
mig sosoma duo; indi mit Ludheren in nohheiniu thing ne gegango, the minan willen
imo ce scadhen werhen."

Then, the subjects of those two kings took this oath, first in lingua romana,
then in lingua teudisca:

"Oba Karl then eid then, er sineno bruodher Ludhuwige gesuor, geleistit, indi
Ludhuwig min herro then er imo gesuor, forbrihchit, obih ina es irwenden ne mag,
noh ih no thero nohhein then ih es irwended mag, widhar Karle imo ce follusti ne
wirdhic."

(From Milton Viorst, The Great Documents of Western Civilization, Barnes & Noble
1965, ISBN 1-56619-559-4, at pp. 29-32).

Met vriendelijke groeten,

Arthur

Arthur A. Jones, Arthur.jones at yahoo.com

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