# @itsaihistory on Instagram

- **Type:** Video
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/DZinEa0p2Tw
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/66611272-itsaihistory-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/3e1401fcb9.jpg
- **Posted:** 2026-06-13T21:16:10.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** Parker Gordon (@itsaihistory) — https://gondola.cc/itsaihistory

## Caption

📜 772–804 | Charlemagne in Saxony

What you’re seeing:
Charlemagne’s thirty-year war to conquer and convert the pagan Saxons of what is now northern Germany, the longest and hardest war of his reign.

Who are these people?
The Franks and Saxons were both West Germanic peoples, but by the 700s they lived in different worlds. The Franks ruled a Romanized Christian kingdom with kings, bishops, written law, and imperial ambitions. The Saxons were a loose confederation of northern Germanic communities with no single king, still tied to pagan gods, sacred groves, local nobles, and warrior traditions.

Why did this happen?
The war began in 772 when the Franks destroyed the Irminsul, the Saxon sacred pillar. The Saxons surrendered, gave hostages, accepted baptism, then rose again year after year. In the early 780s, resistance centered around Widukind, the best-known Saxon leader, though he was not king of all the Saxons. He submitted and was baptized in 785, a major symbolic victory for Charlemagne, but the war continued.

Frankish law eventually made refusal of baptism and certain pagan practices punishable by death. Einhard says Charlemagne personally fought only two pitched battles in the war, both in 783, at Detmold and the river Hase.

Outcome and how we know:
By 804, Charlemagne removed Saxons from around the Elbe and scattered them across his empire. The old faiths were renounced, Christianity was imposed, and Saxony was absorbed into the Frankish world. Based on Einhard’s Vita Karoli Magni and the Royal Frankish Annals.

Notes:
The spoken Old Frankish line is a reconstruction, not a real quote.

🎥 All visuals are original AI-assisted recreations by itsaihistory for educational and documentary purposes.

#itsaihistory #history #europe #france #reels

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