A Source Book for Mediæval History: Selected Documents illustrating the History of Europe in the Middle AgeThatcher, Oliver J. (Oliver Joseph)
History
A Source Book for Mediæval History: Selected Documents illustrating the History of Europe in the Middle Age
Thatcher, Oliver J. (Oliver Joseph)
Europe -- History -- 476-1492 -- Sources; Middle Ages -- Sources
12. This rebellion having been put down, the king next made an attack
upon a tribe of the Slavs, whom we call the Wiltzi, in their own tongue,
Welatabi.... The cause of this war was the attacks which the Welatabi
were making upon the Abodriti, who were formerly allies of the Franks,
and their refusal to desist from these attacks at the command of the
king. There is a great gulf [Baltic Sea] extending east from the western
ocean [Atlantic], whose length is unknown, but whose width nowhere
exceeds one hundred miles, and is in many places narrower. Many tribes
dwell along its shores: on the northern shore and in the islands, the
Danes and the Swedes, whom we call Northmen; on the southern shore, the
Slavs and the Aisti, and other tribes, among whom are these Welatabi.
These latter were defeated in a single campaign and have never dared to
revolt again.
13. The greatest of all the wars of Karl except the Saxon war, was that
against the Avars and the Huns.... The king himself led one expedition
against them into Pannonia, where they dwelt, but intrusted the later
ones to his son Pippin and to the dukes and counts of the neighboring
regions. The war lasted for eight years, and the bloody character of it
is shown by the fact that to-day Pannonia is uninhabited and the site of
the Khan's palace is a desert, containing no trace of former human
habitation. The whole nobility of the Huns was destroyed in the course
of this war, and all the treasure of the Avars carried away by the
Franks.{47} ...
14. ... His last war was waged against the Danes or Northmen. Beginning
with small piratical raids, they had grown so bold that they attacked
the shores of Gaul and Germany with large fleets, and their king,
Godfrid, planned the conquest of Germany itself. He already claimed the
Frisians and Saxons as his subjects, and had subjected the Abodriti and
made them tributary. He even boasted that he would shortly proceed to
Aachen and attack Karl himself. And indeed there was real danger that he
might undertake this, but he was slain by one of his own followers and
the danger passed.
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