I shed the blood of 4000 Saxon men

If Charlemagne existed today, he'd be considered ISIS tier.

But he doesn't exist today and me pronouncing moral judgement on his actions is pointless. Personally I'd have preferred it if he hadn't done such massive damage to Germanic polytheism, but that's because I'm disappointed to see such a huge decline in religious diversity.

Weren't the Saxons rebelling in part due to him outlawing their religious practices? That sounds like a pretty legitimate reason to rebel.

Of course Charlemagne was brutal, but every great Roman Emperor has been brutal and many did worse things.

We don't even know if it really were 4000 Saxons 2bh. The number might be a vast exaggeration for all we know.

>ISIS-Tier
Absolutely this. He didn't just wage war on the saxons to stop them from raiding, he did so to annihilate their culture, customs, religion and all other traditions that he and other christards at the time did not like.

Fuck him, and fuck christendom too.

Did Suleman?

>Did he do the right thing Veeky Forums or was he ISIS-tier?
Neither, moral standards were different back then.
He had his justifications, though I think I remember reading a priest or something objecting to it, so it shows it wasn't 'normal' back then.
Every ruler has some stain on his reputation though, and Charlemagne did a lot of good for Europe.

Suleiman was one of the many Roman Emperors notorious for their conquests. Of course he was brutal at times, but he knew when the situation called to be brutal or not.

Like Napoleon had to do centuries later, Charlemagne had to do a gritty service for the good of posterity.

>their culture, customs, religion and all other traditions

No turk shit is roman plz np

Fuck the saxons, they were wodin scrubs their tree got shrekt kek

Yeah, but what potential for peace that would have normally existed didn't because DUDE FORCED CONVERSION LMAO. He basically said "fuck you, your ancestors, your livelihood and everything else you believe in" and the scandis responded with "talk shit get hit motherfucker" and started sacking Christians for fun and profit.

All of Christiendom's neighbors that could sacked Christians. Christians did the same whenever they could. Any reasons the Norse wouldn't have done?

No, of course not. But like I said, the potential for peace was dramatically reduced.

>considering that his actions led directly to the viking era
How?
You really think Scandinavians of that time gave a fuck what happened outside of Scandinavia?

>Vikings are a backlash to Christian oppression

Nice meme snow nigger.

How do you figure?

>Germanic polytheism

If you look up books from the 19th century about superstition in gemany you get the impression it was only christianised after unification and mass industrialisation.

People kept house-gnomes and gave them little offerings such as milk and small breads, in the rhineland rural people knelt down before elderberry bushes, apologised for the harvest and said a prayer for the "woman in the bushes", peasants did not harvest the last garb because the field-demon such as the "wheat-wolf/pig" lifed in it and made a figure out of it to carry into the barn so it could return to the fields next year.

Interesting stuff.

There was quite a lot of Saxon refugees coming there and they kinda had to since they they traded with them.

I wonder if we're insensitive to genocide and slaughter just because it happened 1200 years ago.

Maybe in the future someone will make metal albums about Hitler singing "I killed 6 million Jews" kek

Well, someone did this.

English version
youtube.com/watch?v=7i9ozy739c8

Why do Anglos pronounce it Genghiz while it should be more like Chingiz?

No Idea, those are Swedes though.
youtube.com/watch?v=9BGAHItVtz0

>charlemagne sheds the blood of 4000 saxon men
>7 years pass
>wake up one morning filled with vengeful zeal
>attack anglo-saxons
>pillage a monastery
>get a lot of gold, but the purpose was revenge
this doesn't sound likely

The Christianization pretty much focused on the upper classes and priesthood, with a special focus on excising the gods. Christians also used to be quite superstitious (and still are, in places like Africa and Latin America) so lines were a little blurry.

>peasants did not harvest the last garb because the field-demon such as the "wheat-wolf/pig" lifed in it and made a figure out of it to carry into the barn so it could return to the fields next year
M-muh waifu

It doesn't matter, this modern popular narrative how Scandinavians felt some kinship with some pagans in Germany is totally retarded.

I remember reading about a female corn-spirit too.
But that one was made of tits which spat mercury and tar and tortured children to death in creative ways who wandered into the field.

I want closet furries to leave.

As a practicing Christian, with no animosity held towards our faith, it's abundantly clear to me that Christianity was oftentimes used as a political tool to gain power. It was easy to use God as justification to conquer and lord over others, and Charlemagne committed literal genocide.

Frigg off, Jerry

What the fuck. Where is this from?

Sounds like a good way of hindering them from ruining the corps by walking on them.
Think something like it appears in the Witcher too.

Did Charlemagne speak a vulgar Latin/French language or was Frankish his primary language?

>where is this from

Look up the "Roggenmuhme" and the extensive works of Wilhelm Mannheim such as "Wald und Feldkulte" who tried to categorize the french, german and polish peasant beliefs which were often quiete pagan and weird.

I fear there is not much material on english though.

Read Einhard:
>Charles had the gift of ready and fluent speech, and could express whatever he had to say with the utmost clearness. He was not satisfied with command of his native language merely, but gave attention to the study of foreign ones, and in particular was such a master of Latin that he could speak it as well as his native tongue; but he could understand Greek better than he could speak it.

Charlemagne spoke Romanticized Frankish, but had to learn Latin and Greek because it was thee language to learn

It's kinda sad he got remember as an illiterate simply because he had Dyslexia.

>>christard arguments
Fuck you and fuck Charlemagne too.

...

someone needs to do one of these but with iranians and zoroastrianism

He might be remembered for that, but you better believe no one dared even speak about it during his life. They would have been cleansed like the Saxons.

He made huge leaps to make education stronger among all people in his nation. I recall he used treasury funds to get large cattle ranches going in order to produce more parchment for all the books his monks were going to copy and distribute over his reign.

He communicated with people in Latin, Frankish, and rudimentary Greek... that's more languages than many modern Americans speak

shouldve killed more saxons desu