The Saxons within Carolingian Christendom: post-conquest identity in the <i>translationes</i> of Vitus, Pusinna and Liborius
Eric Shuler
The Franks incorporated Saxony into the Carolingian empire through a long, brutal struggle coupled with forced conversion. When Saxons themselves began to write few decades afterwards, they had make sense of this history and their role identity in contemporary world. In contrast portrayal writers such as Einhard Rudolf, three ninth-century Saxon accounts relic translations — those Vitus, Pusinna Liborius reinterpreted claim place for distinct group equal within populus Christianus under monarchs. As key part literary strategies, these authors attempted salvage from story defeat Christianisation an account God's sovereignty, native agency virtue (especially fidelity) foundational element identity. These texts prefigure debates about post-conquest which would underlay later better-known Ottonian triumphal self-conceptions. Moreover, concerns led them remarkable hagiographical innovations grappling paganism, conversion, miracles, social class faith.
Journal of Medieval History