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History of the Franks

St Gregory of Tours, tr. Dalton, 1927

Book 5, 15. The War Between the Saxons and the Sueves

When Alboin came into Italy,¹ Lothar and Sigibert had settled Suevi and other peoples in the place which he left void. The Saxons who returned in the time of Sigibert, those, namely, who had been with Alboin, rose up against the new settlers and would have driven them from the district and destroyed them. The intruders offered them a third part of the land, saying: ‘We can live together without falling upon each other.’ But the others, angered because formerly they themselves had owned all the land, were by no means to be appeased. The Suevi then offered the half, and afterwards two-thirds, leaving only one-third for themselves. When the Saxons still refused, they offered, together with the land, all the flocks and herds, if only they would cease to threaten war. But the Saxons would not accept even this, and demanded battle. And already they fell to quarrelling among themselves, and had arranged how they would divide the wives of the Suevi, who should take which, when the men were slain; for these they deemed already as good as dead. But the compassion of the Lord, which doeth justice, frustrated their intent. For when the battle was engaged, out of twenty-six thousand Saxons there fell twenty thousand, while of the six thousand Suevi only four hundred and eighty were laid low, and those who remained won the victory. The survivors of the Saxons took an oath that not a man among them would cut hair or beard until they were avenged of their enemies. There followed a second battle, wherein they were overwhelmed in even greater ruin, and so the war ceased.

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