Frankish Annals

We present here and will be updating over the next few weeks the Carolingian chronicles and annals as they refer to Slavs.  We have so far included:

• Fredegar Chronicle (FC)
• The base Frankish Annals (CA) (Scholz/Rogers edition)
• Revised Frankish Annals (RCA) (same)
• Nithard’s Histories (NH) (same)
• Annals of Fulda (AF) (Reuter edition)
• Annals of Fulda group 3 manuscripts (AF3) (same)
• Annals of Saint-Bertin (ASB) (Nelson edition)
• The Prior Annals of Metz (AMP) (Fouracre/Gerberding edition plus other additions)
• Annals of Xanten (AX) (written in the court of Louis the Pious by Gerward the librarian?)
• Annals of Lobbes (AL) (written in Liege?)
• Annals of Moselle (AM)
• Annals of Lorsch (ALO)
• Lorsch Chronicle (LC)
• The Major Annals of the Niederaltaich Abbey (AAM)
• The Chronicle of Moissac (CM)
• Greatest Salzburg Annals (GSA)
• Petau Annals (PA)
• Saint Nazarius Annals (SNA)
• Saint Amand Annals (SAA)
• Wolffenbuettel Annals (WA)
• Alemannic Annals (AA)

We plan to add other annals.  For now, we start with the Fredegar Chronicle and leave off in 898.  But we will add to these and expand the time frame as well.  Note that we kept the translators’ preferences as to names so that, e.g., Karlmann also appears as Carloman, etc.

Note that we do not include Einhard’s chronicle which is found elsewhere on this site.

What comes out of this is a giant organized extortion and murder campaign conducted by the Frankish Empire against the Slavs (but first against the Saxons including with Slav help!).  Most of these Slavs are, unbeknownst to them, today living in Germany as “Germans”.  It may be that they were “Germans” in the time of Caesar and now they are “Germans” again.  Whatever they are now and whatever they were in Caesars time, these people, in the 700s-800s, were Slavs.

(Incidentally, we have no idea what language the Germanic tribes of Caesar’s or Tacitus’ time used – we are told “German” but, if you ask anyone, “how do you know that”, you get blank stares.  Why? Because they do not know how to respond and the reason is that not a single shred of evidence exists that the so-called Germanic tribes – other than the Goths, Vandals, Lombards and Franks – spoke a Germanic language.  But wasn’t Arminius a Germanic tribesman par excellence?  The -us is a Latin ending that followed many Germanic names ending in a consonant.  The -in ending is believed to be – at least in that part of Europe – a Slavic ending.  But wasn’t he Hermann?  No, he was Armin.  And names of the sort existed later in Central Europe’s Slavic dukedoms, e.g., Prince Barnim.  Unless we think that Armenia is also a German country?  Armenia/Germania, hmmm… looks similar, and we are all Indo-Europeans, so why not?  That’s the same logic as making Armin into a Hermann.)

623

FC: In the fortieth year [of the rule of Chlothar?/Theuderich?], a certain Samo of the nation of the Franks from Sennonago [Sens in France? Soignies in Belgium?] together with a group of merchants went to trade with the Slavs who are called Wends.  The Slavs had at that point already risen up against the Avars that were known as Huns and their King Khagan.  Already in the olden days were the Wends used by the Huns as the so-called befulci [besulci?] so that when the Huns took the field against a nation, they themselves would stand in muster in front of their camp but the Wends would fight.  If the Wends won, the Huns would come forth to claim the booty; but if the Wends lost, they would regroup/gather new forces with the Huns’ help/protection.  They were called besulci by the Huns because they walked before the Huns and had to endure a double battle in any combat.  [this may refer to the “motivational” influence of the Avars behind the Wends back]

FC: Each year, the Huns came to the Slavs, to spend the winter with them; then they took the wives and daughters of the Slavs and slept with them, and among the other mistreatments [already mentioned] the Slavs were also forced to pay levies to the Huns.  But the sons of the Huns, who were [then] raised with the wives and daughters of these Wends could not finally endure this oppression anymore and refused obedience to the Huns and began, as already mentioned, a rebellion.  When now the Wendish army went against the Huns, the [aforementioned] merchant Samo accompanied the same.  And so the Samo’s bravery proved itself in wonderful ways and a huge mass of Huns fell to the sword of the Wends.  Since these recognized Samo’s bravery they elected/raised him [to be] their king and he ruled happily thirty-five years long.  Many battles did the Wends fight under his rule and each time thanks to him did they remain victors.  Samo had twelve Wendish wives with whom he raised twenty-two sons and twenty-five daughters.

628

FC: [speaking of Dagobert in the seventh year of his reign] … And so great was the fear that he aroused among all the people that they all in humility submitted to his rule and even peoples, who lived on the border to the Avars and the Slavs willingly requested that he come to [rule over] them and he hoped confidently that the Avars and the Slavs and the other peoples all the way to the borders [of the Byzantine Kingdom] to rule…

630

FC: In this year, merchants trading in Samo’s kingdom were killed and their property robbed by the Slavs that went by the name Wends.  This was the reason behind the falling out between Dagobert and the King of the Slavs Samo.  Dagobert sent an emissary Sycharius to Samo with the demand, to intervene, on account of the murder and theft committed by his [subjects/ people] on the Frankish merchants, as justice would demand it.  Because Samo did not even want to see Sycharius and would not let [Sycharius] before him, therefore, [Sycharius] put on Slavic garb and appeared before Samo and proclaimed to [Samo] all that he was supposed to proclaim. [i.e., he made the above-described demands for justice to be dispensed by Samo]  But Samo did not, for such are the pagan and haughty ways of bad people, recompense/undo what his [subjects/people] had done, and only committed himself to conduct judicial proceedings to resolve these and similar disputes between the two sides.  To that Sycharius replied in unfortunate words/threats, as is the manner of boisterous emissaries, which words/threats he was not empowered [by Dagobert] to use, that Samo and his entire people were  subjects of Dagobert’s.  Hurt [by these words] the King replied: “The country that we possess and we ourselves are Dagobert’s but only if he wants to keep friendship with us.”  To which Sycharius said: “It is not possible, that Christians, servants of God, should be friends with dogs.”  And then Samo replied: “If you are servants of God and we are God’s dogs then it is permitted us when you continually act against His will that we bite you.”  And with these words they threw Sycharius out.

FC: When Dagobert found out about this he raised a great army out of all Austrasia [northern France – province of the Merovingian Empire] against Samo and the Wends and sent it to take the field divided in three parts.  At the same time, the Langobards raided [a/the] Slavic country to support Dagobert.  The Slavs prepared themselves to resist but the Alemanic army under Duke Crodobert  on a victory over them [Slavs] in the place where it breached their territory, and so too the Langobards won a victory; and both, Alemans and Langobards led away with them a huge multitude of prisoners.  But as the Austrasians headed towards Wogastisburg, where the main force of the Wendish forces was, there came to a three-day long battle, in which the greater part of Dagobert’s army fell to the sword, and leaving all their tents and all their belongings behind they went fleeing home.  Since that time, the Wends raided Thuringia and other Frankish provinces.  Yes, even Dervanus, the duke of the Sorbs, a people of the Slavic tribes, who until then to the Frankish Kingdom belonged, went over to Samo.  And by the way the Wends did not win their victory over the Franks thanks to their bravery but rather on the account of bad faith of the Austrasiers since they hated Dagobert for having constantly exploited them.

FC: In the same year there arose a great discord in Pannonia in the Kingdom of the Avars that are called Huns.  There was a quarrel between an Avar and a Bulgar over the succession to the throne.  Both collected huge armies and fought with one another.  Finally, the Bulgars lost.  Nine thousand of them with wives and children were driven then out of Pannonia and turned now to Dagobert to give them permanent places to live within the country of the Franks.  Dagobert bade them for the time being to spend the winter by the Bavarians until he had time to take counsel with the Franks what should happen with them next.  Once they have settled in the houses of the Bavarians, he issued, after the council of the Franks, an order to the Bavarians that they should in one night, each in his own house, kill these Bulgars together with their women and children.  And that order was immediately carried out by the Bavarians so that only Alciocus with 700 men, women children survived from the Bulgars and saved themselves by escaping to the territory of the Wends where he with his people lived for many years with Wallucus, the duke of the Wends.

631

FC: In the tenth year of the rule of Dagobert it was reported to him that an army of Wends raided Thuringia.  He left, therefore, with his forces from Metz and crossed the Ardennes towards Mainz in order to cross the Rhein there.  In addition to dukes and counts he also had the choicest cohort of brave men from Neustrien and Burgundy.  There appeared now emissaries of the Saxons in front of Dagobert asked him to exempt them form the taxes that they [noarmally] paid to the [Frankish] state.  In exchange for that they promised with great zeal and success to defend [against the Wends] and the Franksih country on the Wendish border to protect.  Dagobert fulfilled this request, after a/the council of the Neustrasier and the Saxon emissaries gave their promise, in accordance with their custom by hitting [their] weapons, for the entire Saxon nation.  Though, the promise was not successful, the taxes that they used to pay remained unpaid in accordance with Dagobert’s order.  Chlotar the Old had required them to pay annual taxes of 500 cows which taxes Dagobert now exempted them from.

632

FC: The eleventh year of the reign of Dagobert.  Since the Wends on the orders of Samo continued their wild raids and would often come raiding out of their own country into the Frankish Kingdom and devastated Thuringia and other provinces, therefore, did Dagobert come to the town Metz and made, after a determination of the clergy and the nobles of his country, his son Sigebert into King of Auster and gave him the town Metz as his seat.  And to the Bishop of Koln Chunibert and to Duke Adigisel he left the affairs in Sigebert’s Kingdom and palace.  He also left a sufficient treasury for his son and granted him all that his high honor required.  All these nominations he reaffirmed with specially prepared certificates.  From that time was the Frankish Kingdom through the zeal of the Austrasier sufficiently protected.

633

FC: Radulf, the son of Chamar, whom Dagobert made Duke of Thuringia, fought many times against the Wends, defeated them and expelled them.  This made him arrogant and he took every opportunity to act in a hostile manner towards Duke Adalgisel and already then was preparing to rebel against King Sigebert.  He acted according to the proverb: ‘He who loves war, always looks for/thinks of conflict.

640

FC: [In this year Radulf came to open rebellion.  Sigebert crossed the Rhine to attack him and initially won but then suffered a great loss at a battle at Radulf’s wood-protected camp that stood overlooking the river Unstrut.  Thereafter, Sigebert was allowed to withdraw and go home.  And, thereupon…] Radulf full of overconfidence/arrogance called himself King of Thuringia, became friends with the Wends and had a peaceful relationship with the other neighboring peoples.  Officially, he recognized Sigebert’s as his sovereign but in practice he opposed stingily/at every turn his rulership.

692

AMP: [Pippin or Pepin of Herstal, grandson of Arnulf of Metz and father of Charles Martel], then girded in strength, with divine help as his companion, governed the kingdom of the Franks internally with justice and peace and externally with most prudent policies and the unconquerable protection of arms, with the Lord helping.  Delegations, however, of the nations living round about, that is, the Greeks, Romans, Lombards, Huns, Slavs and Saracens, lured in to him.  And the fame of his victory and triumphs so went out among all peoples that, deservedly on account of his virtue and prudence, all the nations round about sought his friendship with great gifts and rewards.  And, receiving them kindly, he rewarded them with even greater gifts and sent them home.  And he, with no less speed, sending his own legates through the various regions at the right moment for the well-being of his realm, obtained peace and friendship from the surrounding peoples with the greatest goodwill.

748

AMP: In the same year, Pepin gathered his armies in the town of Duria [Dueren].  He [also] held a synod there to build the church and to improve the condition of the poor, the widows and the orphans and to pass justice.  Grippo [Grifo], however, who had been held in the custody of brotherly affection, filled with tyrannical pride fled with many a noble, and passing over the Rhine [?], came to Saxony.  And many young Frankish nobles followed [him].  Pepin gathered his armies and entered Thuringia and Saxony and arrived with a firm hand at the ends of the Saxons who are called North Swebians [Suevians].  There he met the dukes of the Slavs, a rough people who came united/with one mind to help him against the Saxons, all valiant warriors [who could fight] as if they were one hundred thousand.  Saxons who are called North Swebians [Suevians] were broken, subjugated and brought under his [Pepin’s] control.  Many were baptized by priests and converted to the Christian faith.  At this time he [Pepin] took the castle called Hocseburgh [Hoohseoburg, Hohseoburg, Ocsioburg] and the Franks caught the treacherous Theodoric the Saxon [duke of Saxony] for the third time now [previously, Pepin and Carloman defeated Theodoric in 743 and again in 744].  From there he reached the river which is called the Obacra [German Ocker, Slavic Okra] and set up camp on the same river.  he Saxons with Grifo were camped on the other [right] side [of the river] and they and the Franks were set waiting.  But at night, those who thought they were not [least?] able to defend [?] fled the camp.  And Pepin, went with his army destroyed their towns and villages and for forty days he ravaged almost all Saxony and  thereafter he returned as victor to his own lands.

AAM: The Franks defeat the Slavs at Weitahaburg.

772

GSA: Hadrian was made pope.  Charles into Saxony; he captured Eresburg and destroyed their Irminsul.  Tassilo overcame the Carantanians.

780

CA: The Lord King Charles, on his way to straighten out the affairs of Saxony, advanced as far as the castle of Eresburg, and from Eresburg to the source of the River Lippe, where he held the assembly,  From there he continued to the Elbe, and on this campaign all the people in the Bardengau and many of the Nordliuidi were baptized at Ohrum on the other side of the River Oker [Okra].  He reached the place where the Ohre flows into the Elbe.  There the noble king settled all matters pertaining to Saxons and Slavs and then returned to Francia.

AL [same ALO]:  King Charles once again went to Saxony… and the people of the Wends and/or Frisians and Northern Peoples believed [i.e., were converted].

PA: In this year the most illustrious king Charles came again with an army of Franks into Saxony, as far as the river Elbe; and he brought all that land under his powerful arm.  In this year too the Saxons, abandoning idols, worshipped the true God and believed in His works, and also at this time they built churches; and many thousands of pagan Wends came to the lord king.  But his gains were made with God’s help.

AM: The Lord king Charles went into Saxony again with an array and advanced as far as the great river Elbe; and all the Saxons surrendered themselves to him and he received hostages from them all, freemen as well as liti.  And he divided the land up between bishops, priests and abbots, that they might baptize and preach there; and also a great multitude of pagan Wends and Frisians turned to him.  Returning from there he departed into Italy, leaving his sons Pippin and Charles in Worms.

782

CA: As soon as he returned, the Saxons persuaded by Widukind, promptly rebelled as usual.  Before the Lord King Charles knew about this, he sent his emissaries Adalgis, Gailo and Worad to lead an army of Franks and Saxons against the Slavs.  When the emissaries heard en route that the Saxons had revolved, they hurled themselves not he Saxon host as soon as they caught up with it, and from then on diid not carry out their commission from the Lord King Charles.  They made war on the Saxons and fought valiantly.  The Franks slew many of the Saxons and had the victory.  But two of the emissaries, Adalgis and Gailo, died in battle in the Suentel Mountains.

[RCA: Forsaking the campaign against the Slavs, they rushed with the East Frankish host to the place where they had heard the Saxons were assembling…]

789

CA: From Aachen a campaign was launched with the help of God into the land of the Slavs who are called Wilzi.

[RCA: The Wilzi have always been hostile to the Franks and used to hate and harass their neighbors who were either subject to the Franks or allied with them and provoke them into war.  Thinking he should not bear their arrogance any longer, the king decided to make war on them.]

CA: On the advice of Franks and Saxons he crossed the Rhine at Cologne, advanced through Saxony, reach the River Elbe, and had to bridges constructed, on one of which he built fortifications of wood and earth at both ends.  From there he advanced further and by the gift of God subjected the Slavs to his authority.  Both Franks and Saxons were in this army.  In addition, the Frisians joined him by ship, on the River Havel, along with some other Franks.  He also had with him the Slavs called Sorbs and the Obodrites, whose chieftain was Witzan.

[RCA: Entering the country of the Wilzi he ordered everything to be laid waste with fire and sword.  But that tribe, although warlike and confident in numbers, was not able to withstand the attack of the royal army for very long.  Therefore, as soon as he came to the city of Dragawit, who stands above the other kinglets of the Wilzi in age and lineage Dragawit at once with all his people came forth from the city, gave the hostages he was ordered to provide, and promised by oath to keep faith with the king and the Franks.  The other magnates and chieftains of the Slavs followed suit and submitted to the authority of the king.]

CA: After receiving hostages and numerous oaths he returned, guided by the Lord, to Francia.  He celebrated Christmas and Easter, too, at Worms.

AAM: Charles conquers [subegit] the Wiltzi.

ALO: Then king Charles, going through Saxony again, reached the Slavs who are called Wiltzites.  And the kings of that country, together with their king, Dragowit, came to meet him; they begged for peace and surrendered all those lands to the dominion of Charles, king of the Franks.  Hostages were given; and once these had been handed over to him the king returned to Francia.

AMP: …But the king of these Slavs, whose name was Dragowit, came to him and returned the kingship to him and the Franks, asserting that he and long before obtained that same power authority from the unconquered prince Charles…

SNA: But king Charles, together with the Franks and other peoples, went on campaign into the land of the Wiltzites, conquered that land and captured their king, whose name was Dragowit.  And he entrusted that land to the aforementioned king again and returned with peace to Francia.

SAA: Charles fought against the Wiltzites in Wendonia; and his son Charles received a dominion beyond the Seine; and the coldness at this time was worse than any other.

AM: In this year, in the summer, king Charles, after passing through Saxony, went against the Wends, a most pagan people; he overcame a great multitude of them without any serious fighting and then returned home with peace.

792

WA: King Charles resided at Regensburg, and Saxons and Slavs and Frisians in part rebelled.  And he again sent Pippin and Louis with an army into Benevento.  Pippin’s most wicked pot was revealed, and those who gave him counsel were condemned to death.

795

CA: In this year the king came to Kostheim, a suburb of the city of Mainz, and there he held his assembly.    When he heard that the Saxons had, as usual, broken their promise to accept Christianity and keep faith with the king, he entered Saxony with an army and reached the Elbe at Luene.  At that time, Witzin, the king of the Obodrites, was slain there by the Saxons.

AM: In this year the aforementioned king remained at the said villa of Aachen, after celebrating the Lord’s birthday there, quietly and without interruption until July.  But them in the autumn, he again proceeded to Saxony; he ranged through that land almost to the Elbe and brought away with him no small number of nobles and non-nobles from that people.  Then he returned to Aachen and stayed there quietly until the end of the year.  And operations had been carried out successfully, without any battle, except that a king of the Slavs who has been coming to his assistance was ambushed and killed by the Saxons.

ALO: The lord king, however, residing at Bardowick, took such a multitude of hostages from them [the Saxons] as had bebe ever been taken from them in his times or in his father’s or in those of the kings of the Franks.  And then all [Saxons] came to him except for those whom we have already mentioned above and those who lived across the Elbe,; these still came not at all, for they had killed a vassal of the lord king, Witzan, king of the Abodrites, and therefore did not believe that they could be received into his grace…

AA: King Charles again Saxony with a great army; he devastated the land and conquer them and took away from there 707 hostages, returning with peace.  The Vandals were conquered.  And the tudun, a dux from Pannonia, came to king Charles at Aachen and gave himself and the country which he he;d; and he and all who came with him were baptized, and he returned with peace and honour to his homeland.

796

AA: King Charles, in Saxony with a great army of Franks, devastated the land and returned home with a great booty.  And Pippin, king of the Lombards, advanced into the land of the Vandals with those same Lombards and with Bavaraians; and those Vandals came to meet him and handed over their native land and the rule over them to king Pippin and the Franks.*

* note: elsewhere (e.g., in the WA, SAA, Saint Maximin Annals) the references are to Pippin’s campaigns against the “Huns.”

797

AA: King Charles, in Saxony with a great army of Franks, devastated the land and returned with peace into Francia, to Aachen.  And again with an army into Saxony, with all his household, and he resided there all winter.  Pippin with the Bavarians and certain of the Lombards against the Slavs; he devastated the land and returned with peace to his father, the lord king Charles.  Louis in Spain with a great army; and he returned home without war.  Eric, with certain Franks and Lombards, joined battle with the Vandals, was victorious and secured the dominion of the lord king Charles in that land.

WA: King Charles into Saxony again, with great ships, by water and by land, over which they were dragged.  He used these as a castellum and chastised the Saxons beyond measure.  And he sent Pippin with an army into Wendonia, and another host into Hunnia, and Louis into Spain.  And from there he came to Aachen; and again into Saxony, were he wintered.

798

CA: The Nordliudi were defeated in battle whernen they engaged Thrasco, duke of the Obodrites, and our envoy Eburis. the very time of Easter the Nordliudi who live beyond the Elbe

[RCA: But the Saxons from the far side of the Elbe were carried away with the ir own insolence because they had been able to kill the king’s envoys with impunity.  They took up arms and set out against the Obodrites.  The Obodrites have always aided the Franks, ever since the Frans accepted them as their allies.]

AAM: The Vandals [Slavs?] gave their country to King Pippin [Wandali sham partial Pippino refi dant].

ALO: King Charles was in Saxony this year, and spent the winter there at New Herstelle, where he also celebrated Easter.  As we have heard, the king himself named the place thus because it was by the army that the dwellings in which they lived were built.  And that summer he came to Bardowick with his army; and the people there all delivered themselves into his hands, and he took from there the leading men whom he wanted and as many hostages as he desired.  Meanwhile, our Slavs who are called Abodrites joined together with the lord king’s miss against the Saxons living north of the Elbe.  They ravaged and burned their land, and the Saxons there gathered themselves into a single force.  A great battle took place between the two sides, and although the Abodrites were pagans, yet the faith of the Christians and of the lord king aided them, and they had the victory over the Saxons, 2901 of whim fell before them in that conflict.  These Slavs came to the lord king in the Nordthueringergau; and the lord king rewarded them in wondrous fashion, as they deserved.  Then the lord king returned to Francia, taking with him such of those Saxons as he wished and allowing such as he wished to go free.  And he arrived at the palace of Aachen and passed the winter there.

AA: The Vandals broke faith, and certain of the Saxons.

799

CA : The Lord King set out for Saxony, crossed the Rhine at Lippeham, and stopped at Paderborn where he pitched camp.  After splitting up his army he sent his son Charles with one part into the Bardengau to negotiate with the Slavs and to receive the Saxons coming from the Nordliudi…

ALO: King Charles was in Saxony this year, and spent the winter there in New Herstelle, where he also celebrated Easter.  As we have heard, the king himself named the place thus because it was by the army that the dwellings in which they lived were built.  And that summer he came to Bardowick with his army; and the people there all delivered themselves into his hands, and  het ooh from there the leading men whom he wanted and as many hostages as he desired.  Meanwhile, our Slavs who are called Abodrites joined together with the lord king’s miss against the Saxons living north of the Elbe.  They ravaged and burned their land, and the Saxons there gathered themselves into a single force.  A great battle took place between the two sides, and although the Abodrites were pagans, yet the faith of the Christians and of the lord king aided them, and they had the victory over the Saxons, 2901 of whom fell before them in that conflict.  These Slavs came to the lord king in the Nordthueringergau; and the lord king rewarded them in wondrous fashion, as they deserved.  Then the lord king returned to Francia, taking with him such of those Saxons as he wished and allowing such as he wished to go free. And he arrived at the palace of Aachen and passed the winter there.

803

AMP: …When the troops did return [from Pannonia] he [Charles] went to join them at Regensburg where the tudun, a prince of the Pannonians, who had come with them, delivered himself into the emperor’s hands.  Many Slavs and Huns were also present at this assembly and subjected themselves with all they possessed to the dominion of the emperor.

804

CA: The emperor spent the winter at Aachen.  But in the summer he led an army into Saxony and deported all the Saxons living beyond the Elbe and in Wihmoudi with wives and children into Francia and gave the districts beyond the Elbe and gave the districts beyond the Elbe to the Obodrites.

AX:  The Emperor Charles, went to Saxony and he exiled all Saxons who lived at the other side of the Elbe and in the land of the Wends.

CM: In the summer the emperor Charles mobilized a great army of Franks and proceeded to Saxony; and he went across the Aller to the place called Hollenstedt, where there came to him the king of the Abodrites, whose name was Thrasco, bringing him many gifts.  And the emperor sent his scare from there into Wihmodia, both into Ostogau and into Rosogau, to take the people there away, out of their homeland; and he also removed the Saxons beyond the Elbe from their homes; and he dispersed them within his kingdom where he saw fit.  And afterwards the emperor returned to Francia with great joy and came to Aachen, the imperial capital; and there he wintered and celebrated Easter.

AMP: The emperor set out from Aachen and came to the palace called Nijmegen, where he stayed during the spring and celebrated Easter, among other divine festivals.  Returning to the palace called Aachen at the beginning of the summer, he ordered the army to set out for Saxony.  The Rhine was crossed at the city of Cologne, and he held the general assembly of the Franks at the source of the Lippe.  Then he began the expedition, marching through Saxony and establishing camp at the place called Hollenstedt.  The princes of the Slavs named Abodrites were also present at this camp, and after their affairs had been examined and settled in accordance with his judgement he appointed a king for them, Thrasco.  From there he sent his forces out through various parts of Saxony and with God’s help, and by the wisest of arrangements, cleared the land completely of those who were disloyal, both those beyond the Elbe and those who dwelt in Wihmodia and turned the Saxon people away from the path of truth by frequent evil deeds; he had them guided out of Saxony, with wives and children by different routes and dispersed them throughout Gaul and other regions of his empire.  His army came to no harm at all…”

805

CA: Not long after the capcan, a prince of the Huns, approached the emperor because of the predicament of his people and asked him to give them a place to settle between Szombathely and Petronell.  The Huns could not stay in their previous dwelling places on account of the attacks of the Slavs…

CA: In the same year he sent the army under his son Charles into the country of the Slavs who are called Bohemians.  Charles ravaged their native land from one end to the other and killed their chief Lecho.

AAM: The young Charles devastated the Bohemians.

AMP: …In the same yearn when the emperor was at the palace situated  at Aachen, he sent his army with his son Charles into the territory of the Slavs called Bohemians, ordering it to penetrate that region by three routes.  He commanded the section of the army with his son, king Charles, to move through the eastern part of Francia and Germany, so that it might fall upon the aforementioned Slavs after crossing the Hyrcanian forest.  A second section he sent through Saxony, so that, together with the Saxons and innumerable Slavs, it might burst upon them from another direction after crossing the aforesaid forest from the north.  And he ordered the armed force of all Bavaria to invade the same region from a third direction.  Coming from all sides to the Bohemian plain, all the princes of the different peoples arrived in king Charles’s presence.  These countless hosts pitched camp at no great distance from each other.  After receiving the order from king Charles and their princes who were with hi, the whole army invaded that region.  But the Slavs, taking themselves ago the forest and inaccessible places, showed no aspirations at all for combat.  For forty days the region was wasted and burned, however… And when fodder for the horses and provisions for the troops had both been exhausted, the army withdrew home… But the emperor, spending that summer in the chase and other pleasures, travelled through the forest of the Vosges to arrive at the place called Champ.  He stayed there for some time and joyfully received his beloved son, king Charles, back from the campaign…

CM: The emperor Charles sent his son, king Charles, with a great army against the Bohemian Wends,* and a second army with Audulf and Werinar, that is to say, with Bavarians; and he dispatched a third, with Saxons, through the Werinofeld and Demelcion [the territory of the Daleminzi].  And they fought there against their king, named Semela, and defeated him; and he gave his two sons as hostages for his fidelity.  And then they went on across the Erzgebirge.  And the three armies all came to the river called the Ohre and from there went to Canburg; and they besieged this and ravaged the region around, on this side of the Elbe and across the Elebe. And afterwards king Charles returned victorious to his father in Francia.  But a fourth army proceeded with ships on the Elbe, came to Magdeburg, devastated the region of Genewana there [Werinofeld?] and then returned home.

* The words used are Cichu-Windones.

806

CA: After a few days he came from Nijmegen to Aachen and sent his son Charles with an army into the country of the Slavs who are called Sorbs and live on the River Elbe.  On this campaign Miliduoch, duke of the Slavs, was killed.  The army constructed two castles, one on the bank of the River Saale, the other one on the Elbe.  When the Slavs had been pacified, Charles returned with the army and came to the emperor at Seiles on the Meuse.

CA: A body of troops from Bavaria, Alamannia, and Burgundy was also sent into the country of Bohemia, as in the previous year.  After laying waste to much of the land the army returned without serious losses.

CM: The emperor Charles celebrated Easter at Nijmegen and sent his son, king Charles, through Thuringia to the place called Waladala [Waldau], where he held a great assembly.  And from there he sent his scare across the Elbe, while he himself moved his army across the Saale against the Werinofeld.  And Miliduoch, a proud king who reigned among the Sorbs, was killed at this time.  And afterwards Charles returned to the Elbe and devastated the regions there, destroying their civitates.  And their other kings came to him, promised that they would serve the pious lord emperor and handed over hostages in accordance with his wishes.  And king Charles ordered them to build two civitates, one on the northern side of the Elbe, over against Magdeburg, the other on the eastern side of the Saale, at he place called Halle.  Then he returned to his father in Francia.  The deacon Albinus was renowned in Francia in these days.

808

CA: The winter was extremely mild and unhealthy at that time.  When spring came the emperor went to Nijmegen.  After spending Lent and celebrating Holy Easter there, he returned again to Aachen.

CA: Since he was informed that Godofrid, the king of the Danes, which his army had crossed over into the land of the Obodrites, he sent his son Charles with a strong host of the Franks Saxons to the Elbe, with orders to resist the mad king if he should attempt to atacj the borders of Saxony.  Godofrid set up quarters on the shore for some days and attacked and took a number of Slavic castles in hand to hand combat.  Then he withdrew, suffering severe casualties.  He expelled Thrasco, duke of the Obodrites, who did not trust the loyalty of his countrymen, hanged on the gallows Godelaib, another duke, whom he had caught by treachery, and made two-thirds of the Obodrites tributary.  But he lost the best and most battle-tested soldiers.  With them he lost Reginold, his brother’s son, who was killed at the siege of a town along with a great number of Danish nobles.  But Charles, the son of the Emperor, built a bridge across the Elbe, and moved the army under his command as fast as he could across the river against the Linones and Smeldingi.  These tribes had also defected to Godofrid.  Charles laid waste their fields far and wide and after crossing the river again returned to Saxony with his army unimpaired.

CA: On this expedition Godofrid had as his allies the Slavs called Wilzi, who joined his forces voluntarily because of their ancient conflicts with the Obodrites.  When Godofrid returned home, they also went home with the booty which they had been able to captured from the Obodrites.  But Godofrid before his return destroyed a trading place on the seashore in Danish called Reric, which, because of the taxes it paid, was of great advantage to his kingdom.  Transferring the merchants from Reric he weighed anchor and came with his whole army to the harbor of Schleswig.  There he remained for a few days and decided to fortify the border of his kingdom against Saxony with a rampart, so that a protective bulwark would stretch from the eastern bay, called Ostarsalt as far as the western sea, along the entire north bank of the River Eider and broken by a single gate through which wagons and horsemen would be able to leaven and enter.   After dividing the work among the leaders of his troops he returned home.

CM: The emperor sent his son, king Charles, through Saxony across the Elbe, agains the Slavs called Linones, and he laded waste the greatest part of their territory; but some of our men were killed there also.  And Godfred, king of the Northmen, came against the Slavs called Abodrites and devastated a great part of their territory and destroyed some civitates.  His nephew Reginold, who was the first man in the kingdom after him, was killed there, and many of the people of the Northmen fell there.

LC: And Charles, son of the emperor Charles, proceeded across the river Elbe with an army of Franks against the Wends.  But his crossing at this time was not attended by success and a very large number of Franks were killed.

809

CA: In the meantime Godofrid, king of the Danes, sent word by some merchants that he had heard of the emperor’s wrath against him because he had led an army against the Obodrites the year before and revenged himself for injuries done to him.  Godofrid added that he would like to purge himself of the charges made against him and that the Obodrites had broken the peace first.  He also requested that a meeting between his counts and the emperor’s should take place beyond the Elbe near the borders of his kingdom.  There they could establish what both parties had done and determine what redresses were to be made.  This the e,per or did not reuse.  A conference was held with Danish nobles beyond the Elbe at Badenfliot.  Both sides brought up and elaborated on a number of matters and then departed, leaving the entire question unsettled.  But Thrasco, duke of the Obodrites, first surrendered his son as a hostage to Godofrid as Godofrid demanded, and then gathered an army of his people.  Supported by the Saxons, he attacked the neighboring Wilzi and laid waste their fields with fire and sword.  Returning home with immense booty and with even more help rom the Saxons, he conquered the largest city of the Smeldingi.  By these successes he forced all who had defected from him to join him again…

CA: In the meantime Thrasco, duke of the Obodrites, was treacherously killed by Godofrid’s men at the trading place of Reric.

CM: The pious emperor Charles stayed at the palace of Aachen and that summer sent his scare to the frontier-regions.  And some Saxons went across the Elbe and with our Wends destroyed a civets called Smeldingconnoburg [location?].  A great cattle-plague arrived from the east this year and moved right the way across to the west.  And the emperor Charles celebrated Easter at the palace of Aachen.

810

CA: But while the emperor had his quarters in the place mentioned, news of various matters was brought to him.  It was reported that the fleet which ravaged Frisia had returned home and King Godofrid had been murdered by one of his retainers; that the castle of Hohbuoki on the Elbe, with Odo, the emperor’s envoy, and a garrison of East Saxons had been captured by the Wilzi…

CM: In the summer the emperor Charles went across the Rhine with his son, king Charles, and through Saxony to the place called Verden.  And Pippin, king of the Lombards, son of the emperor Charles, died that summer; and the most pious Charles appointed Bernard, Pippin’s son, king over Italy in his father’s place.  And Godfred, king of the Northmen, laid a plot and sent one of his vassals, as if in peace, to kill Thrasco, king of the Abodrites, by treachery; and this he did.  And he secretlysent pirates with ships to Frisia who inflicted great injury on the Christian people there.  And later that same Godfred was killed but one of his vassals and lost his kingdom with his life.  And the emperor Charles sent his scarae to the frontier-regions, to wherever they were needed, and ordered the building of a civets across the Elbe in the place called Essesveldobourg [Itzehoe] and commissioned homines to garrison it.  Then he returned into Francia, to Aachen, the imperial capital.

SAA: The emperor Charles went into Saxony with an army of Franks and held assembly there in Verden; and the Wends came there, and he gave them a king.

811

CA: After peace had been made with Hemming and the general assembly held at Aachen according to custom, the emperor sent into three parts of his kingdom an equal number of armies.  One went beyond the Elbe against the Linones, which ravaged their territory and restored the castle of Hohbuoki on the Elbe destroyed by the Wilzi in the preceding year.  The second went into Pannonia to end the disputes among Huns and Slavs  The third was dispatched again tithe Bretons to punish their treachery.  They all returned home unharmed after carrying out their orders successfully…

CA: Envoys had also arrived at Aachen from Pannonia and waited for him, namely the canizauci, prince of the Avars, and the tudun and other nobles and leaders of the Slavs who live along the Danube.  They had been ordered to come before the prince by the commanders of the troops dispatched into Pannonia.

CM: The emperor Charles sent an army of Franks and a host of Saxons across the Elbe against the Slavs called Linones and Bethenzi.  And they laid their territories waste and once more built a castellum in the place called Abochi [Höhbeck].  There was also a great slaughter of the Norhtmen, and Anulo fell there.  In the same year there died king Charles, son of the great emperor Charles.

812

CA: A campaign was carried out against the Wilzi, and hostages were received from them.

CM: The emperor Charles sent three scare against the Slavs called Wiltzites.  One of his armies came among them by way of the Abodrites’ lands and two came to join it in that frontier-region.  But the Wiltzites gave promises, offered hostages and vowed to yield themselves to the emperor Charles; and so the army then returned home…

Charlemagne dies in 814.  Louis becomes the Frankish emperor.  

815

CA: The emperor [Louis] commanded that Saxons and Obodrites should prepare for his campaign, and twice in that winter the attempt was made to cross the Elbe.  But since the weather suddenly turned warm and made the ice on the river melt, the campaign was held up.  Finally, when the winter was over, about the middle of May, the proper time to begin the march arrived.  Then all Saxon counts and all troops of the Obodrites, under orders to bring hep to Heriold, marched with the imperial emissary Baldrich across the river Eider into the land of the Norsemen called Silendi.  From Silendi they went on andm Finally, on the seventh day, pitched camp on the coast at… There they halted for three days.  But the sons of Godefrid, who had raised against them a large army and a fleet of two hundred ships, remained on an island three miles off the shore and did not dare engaged them.  Therefore, after everywhere laying waste the neighboring districts and receiving hostages from the people, they returned to the emperor in Saxony, who at that time was holding the general assembly of his people at Paderborn.  There all nobles and envoys of East Slavs came to him.  But before he arrived, while he was still at home, the emperor was informed that some Roman nobles had conspired to murder Pope Leo in the very city of Rome.  Since the pontiff had been informed in advance, all the ringleaders were butchered on his order.  The emperor was annoyed with these events.  He settled the affairs of the Slavs and of Heriold, and, leaving Heriold behind in Saxony, returned to his palace in Frankfurt.

816

CA: When the winter was over Saxons and East Franks were ordered to campaign against the Slavonic Sorbs who refused obedience.  They carried out their orders energetically and without much effort suppressed the insolence of the rebels.  As soon as a city had been captured, rebellious elements of the population promised submission and calmed down.

CA: While staying there [Compiegne] he received the envoys of the Obodrites and the envoys from Spain of Abd ar-Rahman, son of King Abul Was, who had been sent to him.  After remaining at Compiegne for more than twenty days he proceeded to Aachen to spend the winter there.

817

CA: When the emperor arrived at Aachen, he received an envoy of Emperor Leo by the name of Nicephorus, who had been sent from Constantinople because of the Dalmatian question.  Since Cadolah, who was in charge of that frontier, was not present but was believed to be arriving shortly, Nicephorus was ordered to wait for him.  After Cadolah’s arrival, negotiations took place between him and the emperor’s envoy about the complaints which Nicephorus submitted.  Since the matter concerned a great number of Romans and Slavs and apparently could not be settled if all parties were not present, a decision was postponed until then.  For this purpose Albgar, nephew of Unroch, was sent to Dalmatia with Cadolah and the imperial envoy.

CA: …[When the emperor] was heading for the Vosges to go hunting, he was met by the envoys of Emperor Leo.  He received them in the palace of Ingelheim near the city of Mainz.  Finding that their message was no different from the one which Nicephorus, envoy of the same emperor, had recently brought, he speedily dismissed them and continued toward his destination.  When news of the revolt of the Obodrites and of Sclaomir arrived, he ordered through his envoy that counts be stationed for the defense on the River Elbe to rotect the borders assigned to them.  The cause of the revolt was that Sclaomir was to share with Ceadrag, son of Thrasco, the royal power over the Obodrites which Slaomir had held alone after the death of Thrasco.  This matter exasperated Sclaomir so much that he solemnly declared that he would never again cross the Elbe and come to the palace.  He at once sent an embassy across the sea, made friends with the sons of Godefrid, and coaxed them to send an army into Saxony beyond the Elbe.  Their fleet came up the Elbe as far as the castle of Esesfeld and ravaged the entire bank of the River Stoer.  Gluomi, commander of the Norse border, led his foot soldiers overland with the Obodrites to the same castle  But since our people offered them violent resistance, they gave up the siege of the castle and departed.  In the meantime, the emperor returned to Aachen from his hunting trip in the Vosges.

818

CA: On July 8 there was an eclipse of the sun.  The emperor returned to Aachen by way of Rouen, Amiens, and Cambrai to spend the winter there.  When he came to Herstal, he met the envoys of duke Sigo of the Beneventans, who brought gifts and justified the duke with regard to the murder of Duke Grimoald, his predecessor.  The envoys of other peoples were also there, that is, of the Obodrites, of Borna, duke of the Guduscani, and of the Timociani, who had recently revolted against the Bulgars and come over to our side; also of Ljudovit, duke of lower Pannonia, a schemer and agitator, who tree to accuse Count Cadolah, commander of the March of the Friuli, of brutality and arrogance.  When these had been heard and dismissed, the emperor went to Aachen to spend the winter there.

819

CA: Sclaomir, king of the Obodrites, was taken to Aachen by the commanders of the Saxon border and the emperor’s envoys in command of the army of Saxons and East Franks.  This army had been sent beyond the Elbe in the same year to take revenge for Sclaomir’s treachery.  The nobles of his people, who had been told to appear at the same time, charged him with many crimes  When Sclaomir was unable to refute the charges by a reasonable defense, he was condemned to exile and his kingdom given to Ceadrag, son of Thrasco….

CA: Another assembly was held at the palace of Ingelheim in July, and because of Ljudovits revolt, an army was sent from Italy into Pannonia.  This army got nowhere and returned with nothing to show for its efforts.  Carried away by his own insolence, Ljudovit sent envoys to the emperor, acting as if he wanted peace.  He proposed several conditions to be met before he would do as he was told.  When the emperor did not accept these conditions and proposed others through his envoys, Ljudovit decided to continue in his treacherous course and sent envoys around to the neighboring tribes, trying to incite them to war.  The Timociani had broken with the Bulgars and wished to come over to the emperor’s side, submitting to his authority.  But Ljudovit blocked this move and with specious reasoning led them on to drop their plan and join his perfidious revolt.

CA: When the army returned from Pannonia, Cadolah, duke of Friuli, died of fever in this march. Baldrich succeeded him.  When he entered Carinthia, which was under his command, he came upon Ljudovit’s host.  With a handful of men, he attacked it on the march along the river Drave, destroyed a good many of the enemy, routed his host, and drove it out of that province.  With a large body of men, Borna, the duke of Dalmatia, came upon Ljudovit, who had been advancing against him. on the River Kulpa.  At the first encounter the Guduscani deserted Borna, but he escaped under the cover of his bodyguard.  In this battle Ljudovit’s father-in-law, Dragomosus, perished.  He had deserted his son-in-law and joined Borna when his rebellion began.  After the Guduscani returned home, they were again conquered by Borna.  But Ljudovit seized the opportunity and with a strong force invade Dalmatia in December, ravaging the whole land with fire and sword.  When Borna saw that he was no match for Ljudovit, he stored all he could in his castles, and attacked Ljudovit’s army with crack troops.  Hampering him now in the rear and now on the flank, he wore him down day and night and would not let him stay unpunished in his [Borna’s] province [of Dalmatia].  In the end he forced Ljudovit to retreat from his territory after suffering heavy losses.  Three thousand men of Ljudovit’s army were killed, more than three hundred horses captured, and baggage and all sorts of spoils seized.  Borna took care to inform the emperor through his envoys how this was done.

820

CA: In January an assembly was held in Aachen.  The matter of Ljudovit’s rebellion came up and the decision was made to dispatch three armies from three directions at once in order to lay waste Ljudovit’s territory and curb his pretensions.  Through envois and then in person, Borna offered his opinion on war should be done…

CA: When the winter was over and grass could provide fodder for the horses, the three armies were sent against Ljudovit.  One of them came from Italy by way of Noric Alps; the second through the province of Carinthia; the third by Bavaria and Upper Pannonia.  The two which moved on the right and left went slowly, since one was hindered in the Alps by enemy forces, while the other was slowed down by the length of the route and by the River Drave, which had to be crossed.  But the one in the center, which entered by way of Carinthia, although meeting resistance in three places, luckily overcame in each time, crossed the Drave, and arrived at its destination more rapidly.  Ljudovit undertook nothing against this force but lay low with his men behind the bulwark of a castle that he had built on a steep mountain.  He reportedly said nothing about war or peaces, either in person or through his envoys.  But when the armies had united, they ravaged almost the whole land with fire and sword and then returned home without suffering any serious losses.  But the army which marched through Upper Pannonia suffered a misfortune when crossing the Drave.  From the unhealthy land and water, it was severely stricken with dysentery, to which a considerable part of it succumbed.  These three armies had been recruited in Saxony, East Francia, and Alamannia, as well as Bavaria and Italy.  After their return home the people in Carniola, who live along the River Save and border almost on Friuli, surrendered to Baldrich, and so did those of the Carinthians who had defected from us to Ljudovit.

821

CA: In February an assembly was held at Aachen and war against Ljudovit was planned.  Provisions were made for three armies to take turns during the next summer and ravage the fields of the traitors.  A similar decision was made about the Spanish March and the commanders of this border were ordered to carry it out…

CA: In the meantime,  Borna, duke of Dalmatia and Liburnia, died, and his nephew Ladslas was appointed his successor on the bidding of the people and with the emperor’s approval.  News also arrived of the death of Leo, emperor of Constantinople, who had been assassinated in his palace…

CA: Fortunatus, patriarch of Grado, was accused before the emperor by the priest Tiberius of encouraging Ljudovit to persist inn his treacherous revolt and of helping him construct castles by supplying craftsmen and builders.  On this account Fortunatus was ordered to appear at the palace.  At first he set out for Istria, as if he intended to comply with the order.  From there he secretly returned to the city of Grado and then, while no one but his fellow conspirators suspected anything, seized the opportunity to sail secretly away.  Arriving at the city of Zara in Dalmatia, he told the commander of this province why he had fled.  The latter immediately placed him on board a ship and sent him to Constantinople.

CA: In the middle of October a general assembly was held at the villa of Thionville with many Franks present…  The counts who had already returned from Pannonia were also present at this assembly.  They had laid waste the entire territory of the renegades clinging to Ljudovit and then returned home since nobody met them with troops in battle…

CA: Everything was quiet on the Danish front in this year, and Heriold was received as partner in the rule by the sons of Godofrid.  This is believed to have caused the peaceful relations among them at this time.  But since Ceadrag, prince of the Obodrites, was charged with treachery and with having entered into an alliance with the sons of Godofrid, his rival Sclaomir was sent back to his homeland.  When Sclaomir came to Saxony, he fell ill and died after receiving the sacrament of baptism.

822

CA: An army was sent from Italy into Pannonia to finish the war against Ljudovit.  On its arrival Ljudovit withdrew from the city of Sisak and fled to the Serbs, a people that is said to hold a large part of Dalmatia.  After treacherously murdering the only one of their dukes who had received him, he took over his city.  Yet he still sent his envoys to the emperor, promising that he was willing to appear before him.

CA: In the meantime the Saxons, on the emperor’s order, built a castle at Delbende on the other side of the Elbe, drove out the Slavs who had previously held the place, and put a garrison of Saxons in the castle for the defense against the invasions of the Slavs…

CA: At Frankfurt [where the emperor was spending the winter] he convoked a general assembly, and with the magnates whom he had ordered to appear there he took care, as usual, of all that pertained to the welfare of the eastern parts of his kingdom.  At this assembly he received embassies and presents from all the East [!?] Slavs, that is, Obodrites, Sorbs, Wilzi, Bohemians, Moravians, and the Praedenecenti, and from the Avars living in Pannonia.  Embassies from Nordmannia were also at this assembly, from Heriold as well as from the sons of Godofrid.  After he had heard and dismissed all of these, he spent the winter at the same place.  For this purpose new buildings had been constructed according to his orders.

823

CA: An assembly was held at the same place in May, at which not only the nobles of Francia were ordered to appear but those from East Francia, Saxony, Bavaria, Alamannia and neighboring Burgundy, and from the Rhineland.  Two brothers, kings of the Wilzi, named Milegast and Cealadrag, who quarreled with each other over their kingdom, appeared before the emperor at this assembly, among the other embassies of barbarians which had either been ordered to come or had come of their own accord.  The two were sons of Liub, king of the Wilzi, who had shared the kingdom with his brothers, but as the eldest held supremacy over the whole kingdom.  When he died in battle against the eastern Obodrites, the people of the Wilzi made his son Milegast king, since he was the eldest.  Milegast was an unworthy ruler of the kingdom which had been committed to him according to popular custom.  He was deposed and the kingship was conferred on his younger brother.  Because of this matter both appeared before the emperor.  When the emperor had heard them and realized that the will of the people was more in favor of the younger brother’s holding office, he decided that Cealadrag should keep the office conferred on him by the people.  He nevertheless gave gifts to both of them and sent them back to their homeland after they had taken oaths to keep the agreement.

CA: During the assembly at Frankfurt, Ceadrag, prince of the Obodrites, was accused in the emperor’s presence of infidelity to the Franks and of having failed to appear before the emperor for a long time.  Envoys were sent to him on that account.  With these envoys Ceadrag sent back some nobles of his people to the emperor.  Through them he promised to appear before the emperor next winter…

CA: At the same assembly it was agreed that the next assembly should be held in November at the palace of Compiegne.  After the meeting, when the nobles had been dismissed and the emperor was on the point of leaving, he was informed that Ljudovit had perished.  When Ljudovit, after leaving the Serbs, went to Liudemuhsl, uncle of Duke Borna, and sayer with him for a while, he was murdered by Liudemuhsl’s treachery…

CA: Ceadrag, prince of the Obodrite, lived up to his promises and came to Compiegne with several nobles of his people.  He gave an acceptable explanation for his failure over so many years to present himself to the emperor.  Although he appeared culpable in several respects, he not only remained scot-free because of the merits of his ancestors but was permitted to return to his kingdom, after being presented with gifts.

824

CA: After arriving at Aachen and celebrating Christmas there, he was informed that the envoys of the king of the Bulgars were in Bavaria.  He contacted them and made them wait there until the right moment.  The emperor also received the envoys of the Obodrites who are commonly called Praedenecenti and live in Dacia on the Danube as neighbors of the Bulgars, of whose arrival he had been informed.  When they complained about vicious aggression by the Bulgars and asked for help against them, he told them to go home and to return when the envoys of the Bulgars were to be received.

826

CA: When the envoys of the Bulgars reported to their king what they had accomplished, he sent his first ambassador again with letters to the emperor and requested that the borders be determined without further delay, or, if this was not acceptable to the emperor, that each should guard his frontiers without a peace treaty.  The emperor delayed his answer because of the rumour that the king of the Bulgars had either been driven out or murdered by one of his nobles.  He ordered the ambassador to wait and dispatched Bertrich, count of the palace, to Count Baldrich and Gerold, the guards of the Avar border, in the province of Carinthia, in order to sift out the truth of the rumor.  When Bertrich came bacl and reported nothing certain one way or the other the emperor received the envoy but made him return without a letter.

CA: … [T]he emperor left Aachen in the middle of May and arrived at Ingelheim about June 1.  He held an assembly there that was heavily attended, receiving and dismissing embassies from various countries… and from the lands of the Slavs were some nobles of the Obodrites who spoke against their duke, Ceadrag.  Besides all these, Tunglo, one of the magnates of the Sorbs, was accused of having refused obedience.  These two were informed that the emperor would punish them in accordance with their treachery if they failed to come to his assembly in the middle of October…

CA: …he [the emperor] came to Ingelheim and held the general assembly of his people as had been planned.  At this assembly he also received Ceadrag, duke of the Obodrites, and Tunglo , who had both been charged with treachery.  He permitted Tunglo to return home after securing Tunglo’s son as a hostage.  But Ceadrag he kept with him, although he sent the rest of the Obodrites away.  He dispatched envoys to the Obodrites and told them to inquire whether the people wanted Ceadrag, to be their ruler.  The emperor himself went to Aachen, where he had decided to spend the winter.  The envoys sent to the Obodrites returned and informed him that the opinion of this people about their king blew hot and cold abut that the better and nobler people agreed he should come back.  The emperor, therefore, had him restored to his kingdom, after receiving the hostages he had demanded.

827

CA: The Bulgars sent an army on ships up the Drave and harassed the Slavs living in Pannonia with fire and sword.  They expelled the Slavic chieftains and appointed Bulgar governors instead.

831

ASB: Many embassies came to him from the Slavs an were duly heard, dealt with and given leave to depart.

832

ASB: Everything had been settled, and messengers sent out everywhere to make the necessary arrangements, when it suddenly came to the ears of the most righteous Emperor that Louis with all the Bavarians, free and unfree, together with as many Slavs as he could draw to his cause, was planning to attack Alemannia, which had already, some while ago, been given to his brother Charles by his father, to lay waste and plunder it, and annex it to his own kingdom and get all the people of that kingdom [of Alemannia] to promise loyalty to him, and when all those things had been perpetrate, he was going to attack Francia with that same army and invade and conquer as much as his father’s kingdom as he possibly could.  The Lord Emperor, as soon as he had found out all this, immediately changed his plans, and ordered all the West and East Franks and the Saxons too to assemble at Mainz to meet him on 18 April…  When Louis learned that his father had crossed the Rhine with such a large force of faithful men, his boldness was undermined and he lost all hope of gaining the power he had so unjustly sought.  He wasted no time but retreated hastily with his men to Bavaria along the same route by which they had come, and many of those with him went over again to the Lord Emperor.  Hearing of Louis’s sudden retreat, the Lord Emperor advanced to the place from which Louis had withdrawn, and found much devastation there.

838

ASB: [The Emperor] then went to Attigny where he received Charles on his return from the west.  Here too came the envoys from Horic to report that because of his loyalty to the Emperor he had captured and ordered to belied the majority of those pirates who had lately attacked our territory.  Horic also requested that the Frsians and the Obodrites be given over to him.  The request seemed to the Emperor so thoroughly inappropriate that he utterly scorned and ignored it.  In fact some time before, while the Emperor was applying himself to his hunting at Ver, Counts Adalgar and Egilo, who had previously been sent against the Obodrites and the Wilzes after they had renounced their allegiance, returned bringing hostages with them and reporting that those people would from now on be submissive to the Emperor.

839

NH 1, 8: [about July] At this very time Louis, as usual, came out of Bavaria and invaded Alamannia, accompanied by a number of Thuringians and Saxons whom he had stirred up.  This event called the emperor from Acquitaine, and he left Charles with his mother at Poitiers, celebrated holy Easter at Aachen, and then continued his march to Thuringia.  After his son Louis [the German] had been driven back the emperor forced him to buy his way through the land of the Slavs and to flee to Bavaria.  When this conflict was settled the emperor convoked an assembly at the city of Worms, for July 1 [839?/840?], to which he summoned his son Lothair from Italy to talk about Louis with himself and other trusted men.

ASB: There also came envoys from the Greeks sent by the Emperor Theophilus. They were Theodosius, metropolitan bishop of Chalcedon, and Theophanus the Spartharius and they brought gifts worthy for an emperor, and a letter. The Emperor received them with due ceremony on 18 May at Ingelheim. The purpose of their mission was to confirm the treaty of peace and perpetual friendship and love between the two emperors and their subjects. They also brought congratulations and exultation in the Lord on the victories that our Emperor had gained with Heaven’s help in his wars against foreign peoples. Theophilus in friendly fashion urged the Emperor and his subjects to offer up thanks to God for all these victories. He also sent with the envoys some men who said they – meaning their whole people [gens] – were called the Rus and had been sent to him by their king whose name was the Khagan for the sake of friendship, so they claimed. Theophilus requested in his letter that the Emperor in his goodness might grant them safe conducts to travel through his empire and any help or practical assistance they needed to return home, for the route by which they had reached Constantinople had taken them through primitive tribes that were very fierce and savage and Theophilus did not wish them to return that way in case some disaster befell them. When the Emperor investigated more closely the reason for their coming here, he discovered that they belonged to the people of the Swedes. He suspected that they had really been sent as spies to this kingdom of ours rather than as seekers of our friendship, so he decided to keep them with him until he could find out for certain whether or not they had come in good faith. He lost no time in sending a letter to Theophilus through the same envoys to tell him all this, and to add that he had received them willingly for the sake of his friendship for Theophilus and that if they were found to be genuine, he would supply them with means to return to their own fatherland without any risk of danger and send them home with every assistance, but if not, he would send them with envoys of ours back to Theophilus for him to deal with as he might think fit.

ASB: The Emperor’s troops were therefore arranged as follows… and some were sent to advance along with the Saxons against the incursions of the Danes and Slavs who were getting restive again.  The Emperor himself stayed inn the fortress [castrum] of Kreuznach and exerted himself vigorously in hunting…

ASB: Two expeditions were mounted: a Saxon one against the attacks of true Sorbs and Wilzs who had recently left several villae of the Saxon March in flames; and a combined Austrasian-THuringian one against the rebellious Obodrites and the people called the Linones.  Meanwhile the Emperor himself took a pleasant form of exercise hunting in the Ardennes…

ASB: Meanwhile the Saxons fought a battle at Kesigesburg against those Sorbs who are called the Colodici and thanks to heavenly help won the victory.  The Sorbian king Czimislav was killed and Kesigesburg and eleven forts [castella] were captured.  Another king was hurriedly made amidst all these upheavals. and oaths were taken from him and hostages too, and much of their land was confiscated.

840

AF: After Easter the emperor, having gathered an army, pursued his son through Thuringia as far as the frontiers of the barbarians, drove him out of the kingdom, and compelled him to make his way back through the lands of the Slavs to Bavaria with great difficulty.

842

NH 4, 2: [about April] Louis thus feared that Norsemen and Slavs might unite with the Saxons who called themselves Stellinga, because they are neighbors, and that they might invade the kingdom to revenge themselves and root out the Christian religion in the area.  It was especially for this reason, as we noted above, that he went to … and at the same time did all he could to avert other hazards to his kingdom lest this most horrible disaster befall the Holy Church of GOd.  When he had seen to this matter they went to Verdun, Louis by Thionville and Charles by Reims, to consult on what should be done next.

844

AF: Louis crushed the Abodrites in battle, who had been preparing to defect from his allegiance; as their king Goztomuizli had been killed, he had the land and people which God had brought under his yoke ruled by duces.

ASB: Louis king of the Germans attacked he people and lands of the Slavs.  Taking some prisoner and slaying others he subdued, by force or favor, nearly all the petty kings of those regions.

AX: At the same time Louis advanced with his army against the Wends.  And one of their kings, Gestimus [Gostimysl] by name, died there.  The rest came to him [Louis] swearing their loyalty.

AAM: Lothar went to Slavia with East Franks and killed their king Gestimul, subjugating the others.

845

AF: The Northmen ravaged Charles’s kingdom, came by boat up the Seine as far as Paris and, having received a great sun of money both from him and from the inhabitants of the region, departed in peace.  In Frisia they also fought three battles.  In the first they were indeed defeated, but in the remaining two they were victorious and killed a great number of men.  They also destroyed a castle in Saxony, called Hamburg, and returned, not without punishment.

AF: In the autumn he held a general assembly in Saxony at Paderborn, where he received ambassadors from his brothers and from the Northmen, Slavs and Bulgars; he heard them and allowed them to depart.

ASB: Horic, king of the Northmen, sent 600 ships up the Elbe in Germany against Louis.  The Saxons opposed them, and when battle was joined, by the help of our Lord Jesus Christ, emerged victorious.  The Northmen went away from there, and attacked and captured a certain civets of the Slavs [see reference to Hamburg above].

846

AF: After this he [Louis] spoke with Lothar, wishing to reconcile him to Charles.  When he was unable to do this, he set off around the middle of August, with an army against the Moravian Slavs, who were planning to defect.  There he arranged and settled matters as he wished, and set Rastiz, a nephew of Moimar, as a dix over them.  From there he returned through the lands of the Bohemians with great difficulty and serious loss to his army.

ASB: Louis king of the Germans set out against the Slavs, but went back again seriously worried as much but the disputes among his own men as by any enemy victory.

AX: In the same year Louis went from Saxony against the Wends across the Elbe.  Himself, with great risk, he went against the Bohemians whom we call Boi-Wends [Beuwinitha/Heuuuinitha?].

AAM: Louis the son conquered Pannonia and on his return trip devastated Bohemia.

847

ASB: The army of Louis, king of the Germans, fought the Slavs with such success that Louis recovered what he had lost to them the previous year.

848

AF: Around the middle of August he [Louis] sent an expedition under his son Louis against the Bohemians, who were planning rebellion, and crushed them, forcing them to send ambassadors to sue for peace and to give hostages.  Around October 1 he held a general assembly at Mainz, where he received, heard and dismissed ambassadors from his brothers and from the Northmen and Slavs.

ASB: The Slavs launched a violent attack on Louis’s realm, but he overcame them in Christ’s name.

849

AF: The Bohemians in their usual fashion denied their loyalty and planned to rebel against the Franks.  Ernest, the dux of those parts and chief among the king’s friends, was sent with not a few counts and abbots and a large army to crush these treacherous moves.  The heather, however, promised through legates sent to Thachulf that they would give hostages for their peace and safety and would do as they were commanded.  They trusted him above all others as one who was knowledgeable in the laws and customs of the Slavic people, for he was dux of the Sorbian March; but he had already been severely wounded in the expedition.  For on the previous day, as the army broke through an enemy fortification with great force and the enemy resisted, many on both sides were wounded without respect of persons.  He was struck by an arrow in his left knee.  However, he spoke with the legates who had been sent to him, sitting on a horse as if in good health, so that they might not discover his weakness.  When he sent messengers to some of the leading Franks to report the terms offered by the legates, some of them were angry with him, because they thought he wanted to be set above the others and to take over the supreme command.  With a hurried onslaught, without consulting the others, they renewed the attack on an enemy seeking peace, and immediately learnt what the power and boldness of the quarrelsome can do without the fear of God.  For the enemy were victorious and pursued them with slaughter to their camps, and removed the arms of the dead undisturbed before their eyes, frightening them so much that they thought they were absolutely without hope of escape.  They were forced by this to give hostages to those from whom they had scorned to receive them, so that they might return unharmed straight down the main road to their home country.  So that there might be still more confusion for the pround and for those over-confident in their own strength, it happened in the same year after a short time in the villa of Hoechst in the territory of Mainz that an evil spirit announced through the mouth of a possessed man that  he had been in charge of the Bohemian war and his allies had been the spirit of pride and discord through whose treacherous machinations the Franks had fled from the Bohemians.

ASB: Louis king of the Germans was ill, but sent his army against the Slavs.  This army was defeated in a disgraceful fashion: they found out as they fell or fled what a grave disadvantage their commander’s absence had meant for them.

AX: The sick King Louis’ army/host journeyed from Bavaria into Bohemia but of them were killed and the rest, much humiliated, returned to their native country.

851

AF: The Sorbs violated the Frankish border with frequent attacks and incendiary raids.

ASB: King Louis ravaged nearly all the Slavs and subjected them to his control.

852

AF: After he [King Louis the German] had confirmed by his approval the canons of the synod, and had heard and dismissed the embassies of the Bulgars and Slavs, he returned to Bavaria.

853

ASB: The Wends plotted against Louis with their usual perfidy…

ASB:… The Bulgars allied themselves with the Slavs, and lured, so it is said, by our bribes, they moved sharply against King Louis of Germany.  But God took a hand in the fight and they were defeated.

[all this is in the context of the wars between Louis and Charles – some have suggested that the latter encouraged Louis’ various enemies]

855

AF: King Louis took an army against the Moravians and their dux, Rastiz, who was rebelling against him, with little success.  He returned without victory, preferring to leave for the time being an enemy defended by strong fortifications, as it was said, rather than risk heavy losses to his own soldiers.  However, his army plundered and burnt a great part of the province, and annihilated a not inconsiderable enemy force which attempted to storm the royal camp, but not without retaliation; after the king’s return Rastiz and his men followed them and devastated the places near to the border across the Danube.

AAM: King Louis [Ludovicus] went agains Razid king of the Moravians [Razidum regem Marahensium].

856

AF: In August King Louis collected an army, proceeded through the lands of the Sorbs, whose duces joined him, and conquered the Daleminzi in battle.  He took hostages and made them pay tribute.  From there he returned through t he lands of the Bohemians, and received the surrender of several of their duces.  In this expedition Counts Bardo and Erpf and many others were slain.

ASB: Louis king of the Germans was troubled by frequent Slav revolts.

857

AF: Hruodolt, count of the palace, and Ernest son of the dux Ernest, were sent with their men against the Bohemians and occupied the city of the dux Wiztrach, which had been rebellious for many years, first driving out Sclavitag, son of Wiztrach, who ruled unlawfully there at that time.  After he had fled to Rastiz, his brother, whom he had driven out of the country and who had taken refuge with Zistibor the Sorb, came in loyalty to the king and was made dux in the place of his brother.

858

AF: Louis, seeing himself deceived, returned to Frankfurt, and, after he had discussed and dealt with many things of importance for the kingdom with his men, decided that three armies should be sent to different frontiers of his kingdom.  The first, under Carloman his eldest son, he sent against the Moravian Slavs and Rastiz; a second under Louis, his younger son, against the Abodrites and Linones; the third was sent under Thachulf against the Sorbs who refused to obey his commands.  This was done that he might more easily order the affairs of his kingdom, once the external threats to it had been surpressed.

859

AF: Meanwhile it was reported to him that the Sorbian march in the east was troubled, because the Sorbs, having treacherously killed their dux Zistibor, his most faithful man, were planning to rebel.  On this news he returned to his own kingdom with what speed he could to crush the rebellion.

AAM: Louis the son went agains the Abodrites.

861

AF: Carloman, the kings eldest son, also planned a change in government: he drove out the duces to whom the Carinthians and the Pannionian march had been entrusted, and put the administration of the border under his own men.  This angered the king, who suspected a rebellion, not a little.

ASB: Karlmann, son of Louis king of Germany, made an alliance with Rastiz, petty king of the Wends, and defected from his father.  With Rastiz’ help he usurped a considerable part of his father’s realm, as far as the River Inn.  Louis deprived Karlmann’s father-in-law Ernest of his honores and expelled Ernest’s nephews from his realm.  They went to Charles, along with Adalard, uncle of Queen Ermentrude and also their kinsman, whom Lothar was attacking at the instigation of his uncle Louis.  Charles received them warmly and comforted them with honores.    Moreover, nearly all those who had recently defected from Charles to Louis now returned to Charles: they were rewarded by him with high favour and honores.

862

AF: In the same year the king led an army against the Abodrites and compelled their dux Tabomuizli, who had rebelled, to be obedient and to give his son and others as hostages.

ASB: Louis king of Germany summoned his nephew Lothar to Mainz and asked him to join with him in a campaign agains the Wends called [Obodrites] and their chief.  Lothar at first promised to come but later failed to make good his promise.  But Louis, leaving his son Charles at home because he had lately got married to the daughter of Count Erchangar, took with him his son Louis and attacked the Wends.  Having lost some of his leading men, he had no success at all, so he took hostages and returned to his palace at Frankfurt on the Main.  The Danes plundered and laid waste a great part of his kingdom with fire and sword.  Also enemies called Hungarians, hitherto unknown to those peoples, ravaged his realm…

ASB: … Louis made for Bavaria, either to reconcile, or to resist his son Karlmann who had rebelled against his father with the aid of Rastiz petty king of the Wends.

AX: King Louis held the first counsel at Worms and then after that one in Mainz, where there came to him Lothar and they planned a military campaign against the Slavs which afterwards they conducted.

863

AF: Meanwhile the king had collated an army, ostensibly to subdue Rastiz, the dux of the Moravian Slavs, with the help of the Bulgarians who were said to be coming from the east.  In fact he moved against the Carinthians to overcome his son [Carloman].

864

AF: King Louis crossed the Danube in the month of August with a great army and besieged Rastiz in a certain city, which in the language of that people is called Dowina.  Rastiz did not dare to meet the armies of the king in battle, and saw that there was nowhere to which he could flee; of necessity he was forced to give hostages, as many and as high-ranking as the king ordered.  Moreover, he swore an oath with all his leading men that he would keep fealty to the king for the rest of his life, although he did not observe the oath at all.

ASB: Louis king of Germany marched with an army to meet the Khan of the Bulgars named [], who had promised that he was willing to become a Christian.  Louis planned, if things seemed to go well, to go on afterwards to the Wendish march to settle some matters there.

865

ASB: Louis king of the Germans welcomed home the army he had sent against the Wends and which had had a successful campaign.

866

ASB: Louis king of Germany moved his army against tome of his people in the Wendish march who were plotting rebellion.  He forestalled this quickly, suppressed those responsible without fighting a battle, and told the army, which had not yet been fully mobilised, to stay at home.

ASB: Louis, son of King Louis of Germany, started a rebellion against his father.  He was egged on by Werinhar and others, whom his father had deprived of their honores because of their disloyalty.  Young Louis also roused Rastiz the Wend to come plundering right up to Bavaria, so that while his father and his faithful men were fully engaged in that region, he himself might be freer to continue with what he had begun.  But Karlmann, to whom his father had granted that march, took energetic measures to push Rastiz back within his own borders.  The elder Louis, with the wisdom born of long experience in such situations, marched rapidly to the palace at Frankfurt where after an exchange of oaths he summoned young Louis to come to him and they exchanged promises on oath to wait till 28 October.  The elder Louis therefore went back with all the speed he could muster to strengthen his march against Rastiz, intending to return to meet his brother Charles and his nephew Lothar near Metz on the eighth day before Martinmas [3 November].  Charles let his men know that he was going to Metz prepared for war, with as large an army as he could raise just then; it was composed mostly of the bishops’ contingents.

867

ASB: Louis king of Germany sent his son Louis to campaign with the Saxons and Thuringians against the Obodrites.  He ordered the rest of the people in his realm to stand in readiness so that, as soon as he might give the command, being already prepared they would be able to attack rapidly.

869

AF: The Slavs known as the Bohemians made frequent raids across the Bavarian border, setting fire to some villae and carrying women off captive.  King Louis sent the commanders on the border against them, until he himself should find a suitable time to avenge in arms on the rebels the injuries done to his people.  Carloman fought twice with the armies of Rastiz and was victorious, taking not a little plunder, as he informed his father by letter.  The Sorbs and Siusli joined with the Bohemians and the other peoples of the region and crossed the old Thuringian border; they laid many places waste and killed some who rashly came together to attack them.

AF: Gundahar, Carloman’s vassal, who had often been a traitor to King Louis and his sons through perjuries and wicked conspiracies, and had left his own lord and gone over to Rastiz, was killed like Catiline while taking up arms against his fatherland.  He is said to have said to those over whom he had been set by Rastiz, as Carloman’s duces were hurrying up to the battle: ‘fight bravely and defend your country, for I shall not be of any use to you in this battle.  Saint Emmeram and the other saints on whose relics I swore to keep faith to King Louis and his sons are holding my spear and sword and press down on my arms and hold me tight as if bound with ropes all over, so that I cannot even raise my hand to my mouth.’  AS the unhappy man said these words, our men fell on him and killed him, and thus the Lord dealt out a fitting reward for his treachery.  When this was reported to the king he ordered all to give thanks together to God for the end of their dead enemy and the bells of all the churches in Regensburg to be rung…

AF: In August King Louis gathered his troops and divided the army into three parts.  The first he sent under his namesake [Louis the Younger] with the Thuringians and Saxons to crush the presumption of the Sorbs.  He ordered the Bavarians to assist Carloman, who wished to fight against Zwentibald, the nephew of Rastiz.  He himself kept the Franks and Alemans with him to fight against Rastiz.  When it was already time to set out he fell ill, and was compelled to leave the leaderships of the army to Charles his youngest son and commend the outcome to God.  Charles, when he came with the army with which he had been entrusted to Rastiz’ huge fortification, quite unlike any built in olden times, with God’s help burnt with fire all the walled fortifications of the region, seized and carried off the treasures which had been hidden in the woods or buried in the fields, and killed or put to flight all who came against him.  Carloman also laid waste the territory of Zwentibald, Rastiz’ nephew, with fire and war.  When the whole region had been laid waster the brothers Charles and Carloman came together and congratulated each other the victories bestowed by heaven.  Meanwhile Louis their brother came against the Sorbs, and afar he had killed a few forced the rest to turn and run.  Many of them were kille, and the Bohemians, whom the Sorbs had brought to fight for pay, were partly killed, partly forced to return to their homes with dishonor, and the remainder surrendered.

ASB: It was just then that Charles learned from a reliable messenger the news of Lothar’s death.  He moved from Senlis to Attigny and there received envoys sent by certain bishops and also certain leading men of the kingdom of the late King Lothar.  They asked Charles to stay where he was ant to enter the kingdom that had been Lothar’s until his brother King Louis of Germany had returned from his campaign against the Wends.  He had been threatened by them often during this year and the previous year, and though his men had fought against them, they had achieved virtually no success, but had in fact suffered very heavy losses…

ASB:  Louis son of Louis king of Germany waged war along with the Saxons against he Wends who live near the Saxons.  With great slaughter of men on both sides, he somehow managed to win, and got home successfully.

AX: At that time (as the prophet says: because of the transgressions of the land many are its princes), four kings ruled in the kingdom of Charles the Great: Louis the son of King Louis in the East and among the Slavs. the Bavarians, in Alemannia and Coria, Thuringia, Saxony, Suevia [northern] and eastern Francia with the district of Worms and Namnetis [Speier district?], for he was wiser and more just than the others…

870

AF: Zwentibald, Rastiz’ nephew, took thought for his own interests, and commended himself and the kingdom he held to Carloman.  Rastiz was furious at this and laid ambushes in secret for his nephew; he plotted to strangle him at a banquet when he was not suspecting any attack.  But by the grace of God he was freed from the peril of death.  For before those who were to kill him had entered the house, he was warned by one who knew of the plot, and set out as if to go hawking, and so evaded the ambush laid for him.  Rastiz saw that his plot was revealed and followed after his nephew with soldiers to capture him.  But by the judgement of God he was caught in the snare he had set, for he was captured by his nephew, bound and brought to Carloman, who had him kept in prison until he could be brought to the king’s presence.  Carloman now entered Rastiz’s kingdom without resistance and received the surrender of all its cities and castles.  He set the kingdom in order and put his men in charge and then returned home, enriched with the royal treasure…

AF: [King Louis] held a meeting with his men [in Bavaria].  He ordered Rastiz to be brought before him bound with a heavy chain.  Rastiz was condemned, by the judgement of the Franks and Bavarians and Slavs who had come there from various places to bring gifts to the king, to death; but the king only ordered his eyes to be put out.

ASB: From [Compiegne] [Charles] moved in May to Attigny, where he received twelve envoys from his brother Louis.  They came to discuss the division of Lothar’s realm.  They were arrogant and elated both because of Louis’s good health and because of his good fortune in having captured, by a mixture of deceit and victory in battle, the Wend Rastiz who had been his bitter enemy for such a long time and whom he now held imprisoned…

ASB: After speedily dismissing these envoys, Louis sent them on to his brother Charles, while he himself, when he had recovered somewhat, quickly went to Regensburg.  Rastiz, chief of the Wends, had been betrayed through a trick by his own nephew, captured by Karlmann and held in prison for some time.  Louis, after a death sentence had been passed, now ordered him to be blinded and put into a monastery.  Then he told his sons Louis and Charles to come to him.

AX: Rastiz, king of Moravia was captured by Karlomann and was sent to his father in France where he was deprived of light [blinded].

871

AF: Zwentibald, Rastiz’s newphew, was accused of breach of fidelity to Carloman and was imprisoned.  The Moravian Slavs, thinking that their dux was dead, set a certain priest and relative of the dux, Sclagamar, over themselves as prince; they threatened to kill him if he did not take up the office of dux.  Of necessity he agreed, and set out to make war on Engelschalk and William, Carloman’s commanders, and drive them from the cities they had occupied.  They fought back with equal force and after killing many of his army forced him to flee.  King Louis came to the villa of Tribur…

AF: Meanwhile Zwentibald, after no one had been able to prove the crimes of which he had been accused, was released by Carloman and returned to his own realm laden with kingly gifts, leading with him an army of Carloman’s, with which he was to drive out Sclagamar, for so much he had falsely promised to Carloman, should Carloman allow him to return to his own country.  But just as humiliation falls on those who are careless and trust too much in themselves, so it befell that army, for Zwentibald left the others to pitch camp and entered the old city of Rastiz.  Immediately he denied his fidelity and forgot his oath, in Slavic fashion, and turned his thought and his powers not to driving out Sclagamar but to revenging the injury which Carlomanad den him.  Then he attacked in great force the Bavarians’ camp – they suspected no evil and were not keeping a sharp watch.  He took many alive prisoners, and killed the rest, except for a few who had prudently left the camp beforehand.  All the Bavarians’ joy at their many previous victories was tuned into grief and weeping.  On the new of the slaughter of his army, Carloman was aghast, and forced by necessity he ordered all the hostages in his kingdom to be collected together and returned to Zwentibald [dead]; he received scarcely one man from there except for a man called Radbod who returned half-dead…

AF: The king then held a meeting with his men in October in Frankfurt.  From there he set out for Bavaria and sent yards of those parts, namely Bishop Arn [of Wuerzburg] and Count Ruodolt and others with them, to guard his borders against the Bohemians, who were planning an invasion.  The enemy had encircled a certain place with a very strong wall and made the entrance to it very narrow, as a trap for the Germans who guarded the frontier, because if any of them should chance to come that way they would be shut in the narrow path unable to turn aside, and could be killed.  The Moravian Slavs were celebrating a wedding and bringing back the daughter of a Bohemian dux; when the leaders already mentioned, that is Arn and th ethers with him, learnt of this, they immediately followed the army in arms.  The enemy, fleeing, came to the wall which has been described, of which they were ignorant.  Because of the narrowness of the place they were forced to leave behind their horses and armor and scarcely escaped with their skins.  Our men came on behind and found 644 horses, saddled and harnessed, and the same number of shields, which those who fled had thrown away.  They collected these without resistance and returned joyfully to their camp.

ASB: Louis made for Regesburg, because he had suffered extremely heavy losses at the hands of the nephew of Rastiz who had succeeded him in the Wendish chieftaincy.  Wendish attacks had been so severe that Louis had lost his markiones with a large force of his men, and also suffered disastrous losses of territory he had gained in the years preceding.  Charles for his part went by way of Lestinnes towards his villa of Orville where he planned to hunt.

872

AF: In May [king Louis] sent the Thuringians and Saxons against the Moravian Slavs; but because they did not have their king with them and would not be at peace with each other, they therefore fled before the enemy and returned in disgrace, having lost many of their number.  It is said that some counts fleeing from the expedition were beaten by women-folk of the region and clubbed from their horses to the ground.  Troops were sent anew from Francia to Carloman to help him agains the above-mentioned Slavs; others were sent against the Bohemians.  With Gods’ help these put to flight five of their duces, by name: Zwentislan, Witislan, Heriman, Spoitimar, Moyslan, with a great force attempting to rebel.  Some they killed, others they drowned in the river Vltava, and those who could escape fled into the cities.  Then they laid waste a not inconsiderable part of that province, and returned home unharmed.  Archbishop Liutbert [of Mainz] was the leader in that expedition.  Those who were sent to assist Carloman, however, Bishop Arn [of Wuerzburg] and Sigihart, abbot of the monastery of Fulda, although they fought bravely and pushed the enemy hard, retuned with great difficulty after losing many of their men.  But while Carloman spread fire and slaughter among the Moravians, Zwentibald sent a large army in secret against the Bavarians who had been left to guard the ships ohm the bank of the Danube, and overran them; some he killed, others he drowned in the river, others again he led away captive.  No one escaped from there except for Embricho, bishop of Regensburg, with a few men.

ASB: There [Servais] Adalard came to him on behalf of his brother Louis: Charles was requested to come to speak with his brother Louis near Maastricht, when Louis had returned to Aachen from Regensburg after sending an army with his son Karlmann against the Wends…

ASB: Louis king of Germany summoned to him the sons Louis and Charles and to induce them to be reconciled with Karlmann he caused oaths to be sworn to them insincerely.  But no less insincerely did those sons and their men give solemn oaths to Louis.  Their father’s real wish was that those sons should join their brother Karlmann in a campaign against the Wends, but he could no get them to agree.  Still, he sent along with Karlmann as large an army as he could muster, while he himself, as mentioned earlier, went to speak with [Empress] Engelberga at Trento.

AX: Again the Kingdom of the Moravians slipped out of Karlomann’s hands by reason of the same Slavs.  And a great part of Karlomann’s army fell… Again a huge army gathered from all parts of France against the Moravians.  And it drove the enemy forcefully back to its cities.  And there it sustained great damage over a period of time.  Karlomann frequently ravaged the country [of the Moravians].

873

AF: A certain man from Alemannia, Bertram by name, who had been captured by the Moravian Slavs the previous year, came to the king, having been released by Zwentibald, and expounded the terms of the embassy which has been laid on him by the dux, as he had previously promised an oath that he would do…

AF: Count Thachulf, dux of the Sorbian march, died in August.

ASB: King Louis of Germany was making arrangements to hold an assembly at Metz, when he got word that if he did not send hep very quickly indeed to his son Karlmann on the Wendish frontier, he would never see him again.  Immediately Louis turned around and made for Regensburg…  Louis reached Regensburg, and through his envoys he won over as opportunities arose the various groups of Wends who were organized under different chiefs.  He received the envoys who has been sent to deceive him by those people called the Bohemian: then he flung them into prison.

874

AF:  The Sorbs and the Siusli and their neighbours rebelled on the death of Thachulf.  Archbishop Liutbert [of Mainz] and Ratolf, Thachulf’s successor, crossed the River Saale in January and by pillaging and burning crushed their insolence without battle and reduced them to their former servility…

AF: [King Louis] returned [from a meeting with Louis II of Pope John VIII in Verona] and spoke with Carloman and Louis his sons in the villa of Forchheim and there he received the ambassadors of Zwentibald who sought peace and promised fidelity.  The head of the embassy was John, a priest of Venice, who even confirmed whatever he said with an oath so that the king might have all doubt removed and believe what he said, namely that Zwentibald would remain faithful to the king all the days of his life and would pay the tribute ordained by the king annually, if he were only allowed to live peacefully and rule quietly.  The king also heard the messengers of the Bohemians and gave them leave to depart, and after this he took himself to Bavaria.

ASB: Louis son of the late King Louis left Andernach and by way of Sinzig went back to Aachen where he stayed for three days.  Then he went to meet his brother Charles [the Fat] at Koblenz. After holding talks together, Charles, a sick man, went off in the direction of Metz and from there into Alemannia, while Louis made his way across the Rhone.  Their brother Karlmann came neither to them nor to his uncle Charles as he had asked him to do: Karlmann was fully engaged in fighting the Wends.

877

AF: Carloman came into Italy with a great army of Bavarians and various Slav peoples, and prepared to fight against Charles.  When Charles learnt this, he took to flight immediately, as was his won’t; for all the days of his life, whenever it was necessary to resist his opponents, he either fled openly or else secretly deserted his own soldiers.  On this same flight he caught dysentery and perished in great misery.

880

AF: The king [Louis] returned from Gaul to Francia and celebrated Easter [April 3] at Frankfurt.  The Slavs called Daleminzi, the Bohemians, and the Sorbs and the other tribes in the neighborhood, when they heard of the slaughter of the Saxons by the Northmen, came together and threatened to invade the lands of the Thuringians, and attacked the Slavs around the Saale faithful to the Thuringians with plunder and burning.  Count Poppo, dux of the Sorbian march, came against them with the Thuringians, and with God’s help so defeated them that not one out of a great multitude remained.

882

AF3: [The king] remained in Germany [and did not go to Bavaria], and held an assembly at Worms before Christmas.  Here he received all kinds of embassies from the Moravians and other peoples, and after hearing them and settling affairs returned to Alemannia.

884

AF3: Pannonia suffered great losses; how this came about we shall now proceed to explain.  Two brothers, William and Engelschalk, had been given the frontier of the kingdom of the Bavarians by the king, that is Louis the Elder, to hold against the Moravians, and they are said to have fought hard in defense of the fatherland.  At length, when they had ended their lives, still in action, their office was not given to their sons, but rather to Arbo, by the concession of the lord king, succeeded to the county.  The sons of the said men, and their relatives, took this badly,  and said that one of two things would happen: either Count Arbo, if he did not give up their ancestors’ country, or they themselves should die at the edge of the sword.  Arbo was frightened at the news of this, and entered into a friendship with Zwentibald, dux of the Moravian people, and when the agreement had been completed he did not shrink from giving his son as a hostage. The said sons won over to their side some of the leading men of the Bavarian people and gathered together their relatives and troops came to them from all sides, so that they had a strong army.  They expelled with dishonor the count installed by the king, and usurped the county for their own use. This was done after the death of Louis and of his children Carloman and Louis, whose successor, their younger brother, holds the kingdom.  He gave Arbo the county back as he had held it before, but as the consequence of this was that Pannonia suffered great loss, we have inserted four small verses on how it happened into our text for the delectation of the reader, as follows: ‘Jesus says that no kingdom can remain firm, when divided in itself; and no discord can be stable, from this come betrayal and fear to you, most beautiful land, from this comes trouble for Pannonia, once happy.’

AF3: For in the same year as those sons robbed the aforementioned count, that is Arbo, of the honors which had been bestowed on him by the king, Zwentibald, dux of the Moravians, a man with a mind full of trickery and cunning, remembering how much his people had suffered from the ancestors of those sons when they were in charge of the Bavarian march, and also the friendship and the oath which he had sworn to Arbo, set out to avenge this injury, and succeeded in doing so.  For on the north side of the Danube they captured Werinhar, the middle of the three sons of Engelschalk, and Count Wezzilo who was their relative, and cut off their right hands, their tongues, and – horrible to relate – their genitals, so that no a trace of them could be seen.  Some of their men returned without either their right or their left hand.  The army destroyed everything with fire at the dux‘s orders; moreover, they sent scouts across the Danube and everywhere that they could find the lands or the property of the said sons they burnt them forthwith.  The trouble resulting from the actions of the aforesaid children lasted for about a year.  When they realized that they could not expect anything good from the king, because od the crimes which they had committed against Arbo, they withdrew, and decided to become the men of Arnulf, the son of King Carloman, who then held Pannonia.  When the dux Zwentibald heard this, he sent messengers to him and said to him: ‘You are supporting my enemies; if you do not dismiss them you cannot continue in peace with me.’ And on another occasion he accused him as follows: ‘Your men have conspired treacherously with the Bulgarians against my life and also against my kingdom’, for the Bulgarians had in the previous year devastated his kingdom, ‘I demand that you swear an oath to me that this is not true’; to which Arnulf replied that he would never do either of these things.  On this the dux collected troops from all the Slav lands in a short time and invaded Pannonia with a large army, killing cruelly and inhumanly like a wolf, and destroying and consuming with fire and sword a great part of it, so that not unjustly this verse was composed on the disaster: ‘This is at once the complaint of the land and its miserable death.‘

AF3: And when all this had been done as a result of the actions of the sons already mentioned within the space of a year the dux returned unharmed with his army to his own lands.  But in the same year that we set down these things the dux again gathered a multitude and brought a hostile army into Pannonia, so that if anything remained from the year before he could now swallow it up completely in his wolfs mouth.  For he brought such a multitude on that expedition that in one place his army was seen to pass from the rising to the setting of the sun.  He remained with an army of this size in Arnulf’s kingdom for twelve days, plundering; then, just as he wished, returned safely, and afterwards also sent some of his army across the Danube.  Hearing this the sons of William and Engelschalk who were the oldest, namely Megingoz and Pabo, took some of the Pannonians with them and went rashly against them.  But it was not profitable to have begun the battle, for the Moravians had the victory.  Megingoz and Pabo, seeking flight, were drowned in the River Raab; but Count Berchtold’s brother, with many others, were captured by the Slavs.  Let those who scorn the truth now pay attention, judge and compare; and those whom the original plan and actions pleased, let them also be pleased at the evils which followed.  They despised the peace, which in being preserved preserved Pannonia, but which being broken led to Pannonia’s being laid waste from the Raab eastwards within the space of two and a half years.  Male and female slaves with their children were killed, may of the leading men were captured, killed, or – what is more disgraceful – had their hand or tongue or genitals cut off and were sent back.  Without doubt this all happened either through the mercy or through the anger of God.  But we say that God’s anger is a just punishment which without count, as we are convinced, only falls when it is justified.

AF3: The emperor set out through Bavaria to the east, and coming to the River Tullnbach, had a meeting at Mons Comianus [Kaumberg at Tulln].  To this there came among others the dux Zwentibald with his nobles and became by joining of hands, as is the custom, the emperor’s vassal.  He swore fidelity to him with an oath that as long as Charles should live he would never come into his kingdom with a hostile army.  Then the dux Brazlavo came, who at that time held the kingdom between the Drava and Sava, and was accepted as a vassal; and the king proceeded through Carinthia into Italy, and he celebrated Christmas in prosperity at Pavia.

AF: The emperor had a meeting with Zwentibald on the Bavarian-Slav border.  From there he set off for Italy and there he was reconciled to Wido and the others whom he had offended the previous year.

885

AF3: Peace was confirmed in the east between Arnulf and Zwentibald by oaths in the presence of the Bavarian nobles.

AAM: Bishop Wolfheri was killed with many others by the Slavs.

887

AF: [As] the emperor was staying in the villa of Tribur, waiting for the arrival of his men from all sides, Arnulf came on him with a strong army of Bavarians and Slavs, and was a great trouble to him.  For all the leading men of the Franks who had conspired against the emperor came to him, and he received them into his allegiance.

888

AF3?: King Arnulf received at Regensburg the leading men of the Bavarians, the eastern Franks, the Saxons, the Thuringians, the Alemans and a great part of the Slavs, and celebrated Christmas and Easter [April 7] there with honor.

889

AF3?: At the end of May the king held a general assembly in the villa which is called Forchheim.  There there was a discussion about the state of the kingdom, and it was agreed that the leading men of the Franks should confirm by oath, like the Bavarians, that they would not withdraw from the rulership and government of his sons, thats is of Zwentibald and Ratold, who had been born to him by concubines.  This some of the Franks refused to do for a time, but at length they satisfied the king’s will and did not refuse to give their right hands on it, but with the reservation that this should only hold good if he did not have an heir by his lawful wife.  There came there also ambassadors from the nations all around, that is to say from the Northmen in the north and from the Slavs, asking for peace, whom the king heard and gave leave to depart without delay.  Then it was agreed that an army should go against the Abodrites; but before that it pleased the king to hold an assembly at the royal curtis of Frankfurt with the Franks.  Then, as had already been arranged, he went against the Abodrites with a great army, but little was accomplished there, however, and the king gave the army leave to depart and returned to Frankfurt in great haste.  From there he travelled slowly through Alemannia and celebrated Christmas in state in Bavaria at the town of Regensburg.

890

AF3?:  In mid-Lent [March 22] the king set out for Pannonia and held a general assembly with the dux Zwentibald in the place which is called Omuntesperch in the common tongue.  There among other things the said dux, at the request of the pope, asked the king urgently that he should visit the church of St Peter in the town of Rome, and should deign to rescue the Italian kingdom from the evildoing of Christians and the threats of pagans and hold it for his own use to control it.  But the king, because of many problems which had arisen within his own kingdom, had to refuse what was asked, although unwillingly.

891

AF3?: The king sent his ambassadors to the Moravians to renew peace.

892

AF3?: The king returned in triumph from Francia to Alemannia, and celebrated Christmas in state at the royal curtis of Ulm.  From there he set out to the east, hoping to meet the dux Zwentibald; but the latter in his usual fashion refused to come to the king and betrayed his fidelity and all the things which he had promised before.  The king was enratgeeed as this, and held a meeting in Hengistfeld with the dux Brazlavo, and tried to arrange there among other things a time and place to invade the lands of the Moravians; for it was agreed that three armies should invade that kingdom.  And so the king, taking with him Franks, Bavarians and Alemans, came to Moravia in the month of July, and there spent four weeks with a great army – the Hungarians also came to him there with an army – going about laying waste the whole of the land with fire.

AF3?: He also sent his men with gifts from there in the month of September to the Bulgarians and their king, Lodomir, to renew the former peace and to ask that they should not sell salt to the Moravians.  The ambassadors, not being able to travel by land because of the ambushes laid by the dux Zwentibald, went from the kingdom of Brazlavo by the River Odra as far as Kulpa, and then by ship along the River Sava into Bulgaria.  There they were received with honor by the king, and returned with gifts by the same route by which they had come, arriving back in the month of May.

893

AF3?: Engelschalk, a man of youthful boldness, who had been in exile among the Moravians for a time after carrying off the king’s daughter by a concubine, returned bnot long after into the king’s grace, and was made margrave int he east.  There he acted over-boldly against the leading men of Bavaria in the affairs which were committed to his charge, and by their judgment he was blinded at the town of Regensburg as he carelessly made to enter the king’s palace, without being brought before the king.  Following this William, his uncle’s son, who sent messengers to the dux Zwentibald, was convicted of high treason, and beheaded.  His brother,m who was hiding in exile among the Moravians, was killed by a treacherous plot of the dud’s, along with many others,  The king therefore broke off his joinery and again invaded the kingdom of the dux Zwentibald with an army and, after laying waste a great part of the land returned with great difficulty because of the ambushes that were laid, to Bavaria to the queen at the curtis of Oetting.  A son was born to him by her not long afterwards whom Hattom archbishop of Mainz, and Adalbero, bishop of Augsburg, anointed with the holt spring of baptism and named Louis [the Child], after his grandfather.

894

AF3?: Zwentibald, the dux of the Moravians and the source of all treachery, who had disturbed all the lands around him with tricks and cunning and circled around thirsting for human blood, made an unhappy need, exhorting his men at the last that they should not be lovers of peace but rather continue in enmity with their neighbors.

AF3?:  The Avars, who are called Hungarians, penetrated across the Danube at this time, and did many terrible things.  They killed men and old women outright, and carried off the young women alone with them like cattle to satisfy their lusts, and reduced the whole of Pannonia to a desert.

AF3?: In the autumn peace was made between the Bavarians and the Moravians.

895

AF3?:  Ambassadors of the Abodrites came to the royal curtis of Salz bringing gifts with them, hoping to make peace with the king.  When the king heard them, he immediately agreed to their requests and allowed them to depart.

AF3?:  The Avars [Hungarians] invaded the lands of the Bulgars and were driven off by them, and a great part of their army was killed.

AF3?:  In the middle of July a general assembly was held at the town of Regensburg.  There came there from Sclavania all the duces of the Bohemians, whom the dux Zwentibald had long kept by force from the alliance and control of the Bavarian people.  The leading ones were Spitignevo and Witizla, and they came to the king and were honorably received by him, and, as is the custom, surrendered themselves to the king’s power by joining hands, and were reconciled.

896

AF3?: As the fighting [between the Bulgars, Byzantines and the Hungarians] mounted up in these regions, the emperor commended Pannonia with the town of the marshes to his dux Brazlavo, for that time, to guard it.

897

AF3?: Caesar celebrated Christmas at the royal curtis of Oetting.  There came to him there ambassadors of the Moravians,m who asked that, to strengthen the peace, exiles from their country should not be received.  As soon as the king heard them, he absolved them, and gave them leave to depart without delay.

AF3?: After holding a general assembly at the curtis of Tribur, the king went to the monastery of Fulda to pray.  After he had done this he came to the curtis of Salz and there ambassadors of the Sorbs came to him with gifts, whom he absolved and gave leave to depart when he had heard them.  After these things had been done it came about that the duces of the Bohemian people came to Emperor Arnulf, who at that time was staying in the city of Regensburg, offering him royal gifts and begin for his help against their enemies, that is the Moravians, by whom they had often been terribly oppressed, as they themselves testified.  The king and emperor received these duces in friendship, swelled their breasts with words of consolation and allowed them to return joyfully to their own country, loaded with gifts.  He stayed the whole of the autumn of that year in places near to the northern banks of the Danube and Regen, in the intention of being ready with his faithful men should it be necessary to give help to the above-mentioned people.

898

AF3?: But afterwards in the year of the incarnation of the Lord 898 there was a terrible dissension and feud which arose between two brothers of the Moravian people, Moimir and Zwentopulk, and their followers, so that if either had been able to pursue and capture the other with his men he would have put him to death.  Then the king and emperor, downing about these things, sent his leading Bavarians, that is the margraves Liutpold and Count Arbo together with other faithful men, to the party which looked to him as their hope and refuge to be an aid to their liberation and protection.  And they, as far as they could, laid low their enemies with fire and sword, and plundered and slaughtered them.  The calumniator, betrayer, and origin of this dissension and breach of the peace turned out to be Count Arbo, at the instigation of his son Isanrich.  For this reason he lost his prefecture for a time, but received it back again not long afterwards.  After this a certain man, Erambert by ams, who had once been a prince among the other leading men of the Bavarian people, and afterwards had been a rebel agains that eking and his people, was taken captive by Priznolav, a certain dux of the Slavs, who was known to be faithful to the emperor, and was brought by the strong Count Liutpold bound with a chain and other fetters before the king at Ranshofen at the Christmas at the end of the present year.

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