Wittekind
or WIDUKIND, the leader of the Saxons in their struggle with Karl the Great; came of a noble Westphalian house, and first appears at the head of the Saxon expedition against the Westphalian fortress of Eresburg (774). The emperor's return from conquering the Lombards drove him across the Weser, and after vainly renewing the revolt in 776, he fled to Denmark, but returning during Karl's absence in Spain, laid waste the Rhineland and surprised and annihilated the Frankish army on the Süntelgebirge (782). Karl retaliated by executing 4,500 Saxon prisoners, an action that roused the entire Saxon race to arms. The battle of Detmold was drawn (783), but that of Osnabrück crushed Wittekind's hopes and forced him to enter on negotiations, whose issue was that in 785 he accepted baptism in the imperial camp at Attigny, in Champagne. Karl, it is said, made WODEN him Duke of the Saxons and lord of Engern, and from his castle of Babilonie, near Lübeck, he exercised a mild and righteous sway till 807, when he fell in battle with Gerold, the Swabian duke.
Various princely houses, as those of Brunswick and Sardinia, claim Wittekind for the founder of their line.