Spiritual Progress in Carolingian Saxony: A Case from Ninth-Century Corvey

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In view of the centrality of the evangelical impulse in the New Testament, it is not surprising that the of the Church, and even the as mission should arise as a topic of discussion among Christians. (1) But during the twentieth century and especially since 1945, the history of the expansion of the Church has attracted the interest of academic historians both inside and outside the Church, and a substantial literature on the history of Christian missions has emerged. Whether the story is presented in optimistic tones as the growth of the Church from Antiquity to the present, or as a more complex process of expansion and resistance at various times in the past, history has become an exceptionally productive field of inquiry. (2) While much attention has been focused on Christianity in Asia, Asia, and the New World in the modern age, the period before 1500 has not been ignored. The early medieval West presents exceptional opportunities to examine some of the diverse forms that Christianization can take. (3) Between the fall of the western provinces of the Roman Empire in the fifth century and the emergence of Frankish hegemony under the Carolinians in the eighth, evangelical monks and priests could count on very little in the way of logistic or political support from a central authority. Missionaries were faced with the task of translating the concerns of a universal faith into the language and thought world of gentile cultures with no written tradition of their own, and in the midst of social conditions quite different from those of the late antique Mediterranean. The circumstances of each varied according to the historical and cultural background of the people being evangelized. As a result early medieval Christianization in western and northern Europe had an episodic character, and recent studies have highlighted the differences between St. Augustine's rudes and the rustici of Gregory of Tours, and between Martin of Braga's simple people and the Germanic pagans whom Boniface encountered. (4) Among these early medieval episodes, the subjugation and forced conversion of Saxony in the later eighth and early ninth century has been a subject of enduring interest, in part because the affair seems to epitomize the chief strengths and the weaknesses of the order forged by the Carolinians. Contemporaries we aware of the remarkable character of recent events in Saxony. Writing sometime between 817 and 825/826, Einhard described Charlemagne's wars as thirty-three years of sporadic fighting, broken agreements, and sharp reprisals. (5) His depiction of the Saxons is not flattering: naturally ferocious and given to demon worship, they violated divine and human law at will. Their treacherous instability contrasts with Charlemagne's magnanimity and constancy of purpose in the Face of changing fortune. (6) The Franks eventually succeeded on the battlefield and then subdued the Saxons through a regime of martial law and a policy of selective deportation and resettlement. (7) Lasting peace came only in 804 and on condition that the Saxons give up the worship of demons, relinquish their ancestral ceremonies, and accept the sacraments of the Christian faith. Only then, united with the Franks, we the Saxons to become one people with them. (8) The Vita Karoli was well known at Carolinian and Ottonian Corvey, the Benedictine house located near Hoxter northeast of Paderborn on the Weser and established during the reign of Louis the Pious. (9) Authors of the house often borrowed from the Vita Karoli, paying special attention to the passages concerning Charlemagne's actions in Saxony. (10) Einhard's remark about religion as a bond uniting the two peoples may have interested the monks of Corvey because the how and why of Frankish-Saxon unity were linked to their conception of themselves as members of the Church and as subjects of a Frankish and later Saxon political hegemony. They readily accepted the broad concept of a Christian populus as descriptive of the new unity of faith and common orientation of the two peoples. …