The Saxon Rebellion or Rebellion of the Saxons[1] (German: Sachsenkrieg) refers to the struggle between the Salian royal family and the rebel Saxons during the reign of King Henry IV. This reached its climax in the period from summer 1073 until the end of 1075, in a rebellion that involved armed conflict. The Saxon Rebellion should not be confused with the Saxon Wars under Charlemagne from 772 to 804.
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Undercurrents of discord between the Salian royal family and the Saxons existed under Henry's father, Henry III. This may have been primarily due to his southern German origin as well as his numerous stays in the Goslar's Imperial Palace, which were associated with a disproportionately high economic burden on the surrounding population. With the accession of Henry IV in 1065 this conflict intensified, as Henry made demands on numerous imperial estates in the centre of the Saxon heartland around the Harz mountains. To secure these estates he initiated a castle building programme, erecting numerous castles around the Harz, the most prominent being the Harzburg. This was perceived as a threat by the Saxons. In addition, these castles were occupied by ministeriales of Swabian origin, who frequently plundered the Saxon population to make up for their lack of income.
According to the chronicler, Lambert of Hersfeld, the Saxon princes came to the Imperial Palace of Goslar on 29 June 1073 in order to point to these abuses and demand improvements. Henry IV refused to enter discussions and then fled from the large, advancing Saxon army to the nearby castle of Harzburg, where he was besieged by Saxon rebels, led by Otto of Northeim and Bishop Burchard of Halberstadt. He succeeded, however, in escaping on the night of 10 August 1073. Henry went first to Eschwege and then moved on to Hersfeld further into southern Germany. But he found hardly any support among the princes of the Empire, who were not willing to go to battle with him against the Saxons.
As a result, on 27 January 1074, Henry stood at the head of what was only a small army compared to the much larger Saxon one at Hersfeld. Both sides were afraid to join in battle, but for different reasons. Henry probably because of his obvious inferiority. The Saxon leaders, by contrast, were clear that a victory by their army, which consisted mainly of farmers, would have strengthened the position of the latter, something they were not in favour of. So it happened that on 2 February 1074 peace negotiations in Gerstungen took place, which resulted in a settlement between the warring parties. The main outcome was that Henry IV agreed to the slighting of his castles on the edge of the Harz.
Henry's accession to the demolition of his Harz castles included the Harzburg, which had a collegiate church and a family grave containing Henry's dead son and brother. To protect them, Henry directed that only the towers and walls of the Harzburg would be removed. This enraged the surrounding rural population who, in March 1074, razed the castle and its church to their foundation walls and desecrated the royal tombs. This deed may have had a considerable personal effect on Henry, but politically it put all the trumps in his hand: the plunder of the church and the desecration of the royal tomb caused great outrage in the kingdom, and many princes returned to Henry's side. The Saxon princes refused any blame for the actions of the rural population and immediately offered to restore the castle and church at their own expense.
Henry was once again bent on confrontation and this time gathered a much larger army, although he was not able to march against Saxony until 1075. In the First Battle of Langensalza (known in German as the "Battle of Homburg on the Unstrut", Homburg being a former monastery near Bad Langensalza) on 9 June 1075 he dealt the Saxon army, which consisted mainly of simple peasants, a crushing defeat and then rampaged through Saxony and Thuringia laying waste.
Amongst the followers of King Henry who fought with him were Rudolf of Rheinfelden, Vratislaus II, Duke of Bohemia, Ernest, Margrave of Austria (killed), Theodoric II, Duke of Lorraine, the Bishop of Bamberg and Hermann II, Count of Gleiberg. On the Saxon side, in addition to Otto of Northeim and Burchard II von Halberstadt, were Magnus, Duke of Saxony, from the House of Billung, Lothar Udo II, Margrave of the Nordmark, Gebhard of Süpplingenburg (killed), Frederick II, Count Palatine of Saxony, and Dietrich II, Count of Katlenburg.
One of the two leaders, Bishop Burchard II of Halberstadt, was detained in Homburg by royal troops and finally handed over on 13 June to the Bishop of Bamberg as a prisoner.
The chronicler Lambert of Hersfeld described the battle in his Annals:
The battle raged from midday until the ninth hour, and the armies of the two states, Swabia and Bavaria, were on the brink of fleeing as messengers repeatedly reported to the King that their people were in danger, when suddenly Count Hermann of Gleiberg and the Bamberg troops launched an attack. Now the Duke of Bohemia, followed by Duke Godfrey of Lorraine galloped with their cavalry to join the battle. The Saxons could not withstand this massive onslaught and slowly fell back.
On 27 October at Spier (Sondershausen), the Saxon leader finally capitulated to the king in public, i.e. in front of the whole army. Henry had no mercy, but savoured his triumph. The Saxon leader's submission was barefoot, according to Lambert, and the surrender, without exception, unconditional. Henry then held numerous Saxon princes in prison in various places and transferred their fiefs to others.
Beginning almost simultaneously with the surrender, the Investiture Controversy took Henry's full attention in the years that followed. Unrest in Saxony also flared up during this period again and again, but did not reach the same level of political and military as in the time from 1073 to 1075.
At the diet of princes in Trebur in October 1076, Otto of Northeim again aligned himself with the opposition. Although he was always a potential candidate, the princes did not choose him; instead, in 1077 in Forchheim, they selected Rudolf of Rheinfelden and, later, Hermann of Salm as antikings. Nevertheless, Otto's had a significant influence on the opposition's politics. Militarily, he distinguished himself again in the battles of Mellrichstadt, Flarchheim and the Elster, leading from the front.
Even Henry's son, Henry V, had to fight the Saxons. He lost, for example, at the Battle of Welfesholz in 1115 to the Saxons led by the later emperor, Lothar III.
The two well-known authors, Bruno and Lambert of Hersfeld, describe the conflict from the perspective of the Saxons, while the unknown author of Carmen was a partisan of Henry.