From 772 to 804 Charlemagne fought a series of campaigns to subjugate the Saxons, combining military conquest with the forcible imposition of Christianity. The Capitulatio de partibus Saxoniae prescribed death for refusing baptism, for cremating the dead in pagan fashion and for eating meat in Lent; the pagan sanctuary at the Irminsul was destroyed in 772. The Royal Frankish Annals record the beheading of 4,500 Saxons at Verden in 782 after a revolt, and repeated deportations of Saxon populations into Francia, culminating in 804 with the removal of the Saxons beyond the Elbe and the settlement of Abodrite Slavs in their place. All the figures come from Frankish court annals written to justify the conquest; the Verden number in particular has been questioned, including an argument that the manuscript verb meant 'deported' rather than 'beheaded', which most specialists now reject while still doubting the round figure. What is not in doubt is that deportation and forced conversion were declared policy.
Charlemagne's Frankish armies conquered the Saxon lands between the Rhine and the Elbe, imposed Christianity by capital law, and deported Saxon populations into Francia while settling others in their place
No enumeration exists for eighth-century Saxony, and modern estimates for the lands between Rhine and Elbe vary by a factor of several depending on assumptions about settlement density; McEvedy and Jones put all of Germany at roughly 3.5 million around 800 CE, but the Saxon share cannot be isolated with confidence. The Frankish annals give episodic figures — 10,000 Saxons deported in 804, 4,500 executed at Verden — that cannot be converted into a share of the population.
The only specific figure is the 4,500 said by the Royal Frankish Annals to have been beheaded at Verden in 782; it is a court-produced number and is not independently corroborated. No total for the thirty-three years of campaigning exists, and deaths from the campaigns as a whole cannot be estimated.
The Royal Frankish Annals record the Verden executions and the destruction of the Irminsul, and the Capitulatio de partibus Saxoniae prescribes death for pagan practice.
Germany