[Patrik Erik Lars Lindblom]

It's sounds like you have mix it up when you have read history,
can it be something with Charles XII and his Caroliners (sp) (Karl 12:e and Karoliner) that you can have read.

[Bob Burns]

No it was "Definitely" Charlemagne and the Carolingians! There is no mix up. But now I am starting to question the source where I found this.

Sincerely,

Bob

[Jean Thibodeau]

[Bjorn Hagstrom]

[Bob Burns]

Hi Jean, it's not a matter of being defensive or anything like thatl. It is what I had read because I found it very surprising at the time. But now I am questioning the source where I read this. I have not returned to searching for this subject matter as of yet. Only a bit frustrated with myself that I did not make a note as to where I came across this idea.
Not at all a matter of being right or wrong, because this was a question of mine and wondering if anyone else had ever heard of this version of history.

I am glad I came up with a topic that was somewhat interesting though.

Bob

[Jean Henri Chandler]

interesting topic but boy, there seems to be a lot of confusion in this thread!

I don't know first hand of any Frankish raids into Sweden, but there were a large number of incursions across the Danewirk at various times, along the border between Denmark and Germany, or at that time the Frankish Holy Roman Empire, which was subdivided after the death of Charlemagne into three regions for (essentially) Germany, Burgundy / Italy, and France. There was strife across the border between the Christian German kingdom and the Danes, both before and after the forcible (and very bloody) conversion of the pagan Saxons by Charlemagne.

It's worth keeping in mind that in the 8th / early 9th century, the Carolingian Empire was militarily strong, and aggressive. Would have been intimidating to the Pagan scandinavians beyond the fringe. Then they got weak, just as the new types of boats began to make sailing all over the Northern seas much easier and safer.

Anyway here are what facts I'm aware of.

The Danevirke was a huge system of border fortifications in Jutland (i.e. a huge wall like Hadrians wall or the Great Wall of China, if on a smaller scale) constructed (it is believed) by the Danes to keep the Germans out. The wall was allegedly upgraded specifically in fact the Franks, allegedly early in the 9th Century. Here is the wiki on it

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danevirke

The Carolingians aggresively pushed the early Danish 'kings' to nominally convert to Christianity starting as early as 826 AD. Harald Blutooth, the first actual King of Denmark in the medieval sense,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harald_Bluetooth

..converted to Christianity in spite of the wishes of his Pagan father, apparently under heavy military pressure from HRE Otto I specifically including border raids. From the wiki:

[Jean Henri Chandler]

I was reading up on Charlemagne because I remembered that he personally had some dealings with the Vikings, his reign spanned the time of the beginning of the Viking raids and I remembered that he had fortified all the coastal towns in France to resist Viking raids, which is what led them to go up the rivers and attack cities in the interior.

I found this on the wiki page for Charlemagne

[Peter Bosman]

The north of the netherlands is (yes still is) the fort of the frysian people that are quite unigque in this in the whole of europ.
The Netherlands have ´always´ (for as far back as we can trace culture and peoples) been quite sharply devided in northern and southern. The romans never conquered the north nor did the franks.
The salian franks had their homeland roughly in the southern netherlands.
Although christian soures start their success story in the 9th dentury it seesm more likely that the réal conversion to christianity did not take place untill the 11th century.
The Frysians and their cousins the Danes were for a large part the ´vikings´ that raide the souther netherlands and belgium.

Quite interesting is the ´detail´ that old frankish is nowadays thought to be véry close to old dutch.
The word ´frank´ still has a meaning in modern dutch that was very likely used with intént by the earliest frankish warring bands and they became known under this banner as a people later.

peter

[Peter Bosman]

Took a quick dive into my sources and the key event seems to be the killing of Bonifatius on 5 june 754 in Dokkum.

The event was described by Willibald who was a fervent christian. He writes about swift revenge by christian (frankisch) soldiers on the perpetrators and their kin, destroying al their posessions too. This is however doubtfull.
Unlike his predecessor Willibrord Bonefacius was not at all popular with the Franks. He was on rather bád foot with them in fact.
Also the franks had quite enough on their hands with the southern ´frysian´provinces they had ´conquered´ since the death of King Radbod in 719 and it would not have been in their interest to spearhead an armed force out to the northernmost tip.

Please note my wording of ´killing of Bonefacius´ which deliberately different from the christian version based on Willibald.
It seesm likely that the man was beaten to death becouse of his abrasive rudeness rather than murdered for his christening activities. Robbery seems to have been an important motive not religion.
In Friesland is is in fact a bit of ´question´what to do with this historical date. Some ´extremists´ have remarked it should be celebrated realy

As for the ts I am véry interested in the source material. Without it I am inclined to think the ts may refer to either the ´(re)conquering´ of southern ´fysian´ land or the wishfull thinking of Willibald.

peter

[Jean Henri Chandler]

[Bram Verbeek]

A friend of mine who is from Friesland can actually speak -though clumsily- with modern danes. Also, if you look at the german province Ostfriesen, the line continues upwards to denmark