The Bloody Verdict of Verden (from German Blutgericht) was an alleged massacre of Saxons in 782, ordered by Charlemagne during the Saxon Wars. Blutgericht (literally blood court or blood doom), or high justice in the Holy Roman Empire referred to the right of a reeve to hold a criminal court inflicting bodily punishment, including the death penalty. ... This article does not cite its references or sources. ... Events Alcuin becomes teacher to Charlemagne and his court. ... Charlemagne (742 or 747 – 28 January 814) (also Charles the Great; from Latin, Carolus Magnus or Karolus Magnus), son of King Pippin the Short and Bertrada of Laon, was the king of the Franks from 768 to 814 and king of the Lombards from 774 to 814. ... The Saxon Wars denote more than thirty years (772 - 804) of war and eighteen battles between Charlemagne and the Saxons in northwestern Germany whom he intended to convert to Christianity and incorporate into his empire -- by all means necessary. ...

History

Some 4,500 Saxon leaders are said to have been beheaded at Verden in Lower Saxony for practicing paganism after converting to Christianity and undergoing baptism. The river Aller was said to have been flowing red with their blood. Verden is a town in Lower Saxony, Germany. ... With an area of 47,618 km and nearly eight million inhabitants, Lower Saxony (German Niedersachsen) lies in north-western Germany and is second in area and fourth in population among the countrys sixteen Bundesl nder (federal states). ... Paganism (from Latin paganus) and Heathenry are catch-all terms which have come to connote a broad set of spiritual/religious beliefs and practices of a natural religion, as opposed to the Abrahamic religions. ... Christianity is a monotheistic religion centered on the life, teachings, and actions of Jesus of Nazareth, known by Christians as Jesus Christ, as recounted in the New Testament. ... This article is in need of attention. ... The Aller is a river in Saxony_Anhalt and Lower Saxony, Germany. ...

Today, the veracity of this event is in question: there may have been a misspelling in the original source by which the Latin delocabat (meaning exiled or displaced) erroneously became decollabat (meaning beheaded). Archeological evidence for the massacre has not been found, although the bodies of the slain could have been buried elsewhere by their next-of-kin. Latin is an ancient Indo-European language originally spoken in the region around Rome called Latium. ... Archaeology or sometimes in American English archeology (from the Greek words αρχαίος = ancient and λόγος = word/speech) is the study of human cultures through the recovery, documentation and analysis of material remains, including architecture, artefacts, biofacts, human remains, and landscapes. ...

Clearly, although their leader Widukind had escaped to Denmark, the Saxons lost virtually their entire tribal leadership and were henceforth largely governed by Frankish counts installed by Charlemagne. Charlemagne's motives were to demonstrate his overlordship and the severity of punishment for rebellion. Widukind or Wittekind was a Saxon leader, duke of Saxony and one of the heads of the nobility of Westphalia. ... Statue of Charlemagne (also called Karl der Große, Charles the Great) in Frankfurt, Germany. ... Look up Count in Wiktionary, the free dictionary Countess redirects here. ...

As a memorial, the Third Reich assembled the Sachsenhain (Saxon Grove) in 1935, consisting of about 1,000 large stones in Verden. The site now belongs to the Protestant regional youth church and is accessible to the public. Nazi Germany, or the Third Reich, commonly refers to Germany in the years 1933–1945, when it was under the firm control of the totalitarian and fascist ideology of the Nazi Party, with the Führer Adolf Hitler as dictator. ...

External link

• Verden, Germany's Tourist Site for the memorial site.