=27.= He was very active in aiding the poor, and in that open generosity which the Greeks call alms; so much so, indeed, that he not only made a point of giving in his own country and his own kingdom, but when he discovered that there were Christians living in poverty in Syria, Egypt, and Africa, at Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Carthage, he had compassion on their wants, and used to send money over the seas to them. The reason that he earnestly strove to make friends with the kings beyond seas was that he might get help and relief to the Christians living under their rule. He cared for the Church Of St. Peter the Apostle at Rome above all other holy and sacred places, and heaped high its treasury with a vast wealth of gold, silver, and precious stones. He sent great and countless gifts to the popes;[129] and throughout his whole reign the wish that he had nearest his heart was to re-establish the ancient authority of the city of Rome under his care and by his influence, and to defend and protect the Church of St. Peter, and to beautify and enrich it out of his own store above all other churches. Nevertheless, although he held it in such veneration, only four times[130] did he repair to Rome to pay his vows and make his supplications during the whole forty-seven years that he reigned.[131] 16. The War with the Saxons (772-803) When Charlemagne became sole ruler of the Franks, in 771, he found his kingdom pretty well hemmed in by a belt of kindred, though more or less hostile, Germanic peoples. The most important of these were the Visigoths in northern Spain, the Lombards in the Po Valley, the Bavarians in the region of the upper Danube, and the Saxons between the Rhine and the Elbe. The policy of the new king, perhaps only dimly outlined at the beginning of the reign but growing ever more definite as time went on, was to bring all of these neighboring peoples under the Frankish dominion, and so to build up a great state which should include the whole Germanic race of western and northern continental Europe. Most of the king's time during the first thirty years, or two-thirds, of the reign was devoted to this stupendous task. The first great step was taken in the conquest of the Lombards in 774, after which Charlemagne assumed the title of King of the Lombards. In 787 Bavaria was annexed to the Frankish kingdom, the settlement in this case being in the nature of a complete absorption rather than a mere personal union such as followed the Lombard conquest. The next year an expedition across the Pyrenees resulted in the annexation of the Spanish March--a region in which the Visigoths had managed to maintain some degree of independence against the Saracens. In all these directions little fighting was necessary and for one reason or another the sovereignty of the Frankish king was recognized without much delay or resistance.