CHARLEMAGNE: THE SAXONS AND SARACENS.--_Pipin_ died in 768. By the death of his younger son, Carloman, his older son, _Charles_, in 771 became the sole king of the Franks. Charlemagne is more properly designated _Karl the Great_, for he was a German in blood and speech, and in all his ways. He stands in the foremost rank of conquerors and rulers. His prodigious energy and activity as a warrior may be judged by the number of his campaigns, in which he was uniformly successful. The eastern frontier of his dominions was threatened by the _Saxons_, the _Danes_, the _Slaves_, the _Bavarians_, the _Avars_. He made eighteen expeditions against the Saxons, three against the Danes, one against the Bavarians, four against the Slaves, four against the Avars. Adding to these his campaigns against the Saracens, Lombards, and other peoples, the number of his military expeditions is not less than fifty-three. In all but two of his marches against the Saxons, however, he accomplished his purpose without a battle. That he was ambitious of conquest and of fame, is evident. That he had the rough ways of his German ancestors, and was unsparing in war, is equally certain. Yet he was not less eminent in wisdom than in vigor; and his reign, on the whole, was righteous as well as glorious. The two most formidable enemies of Charlemagne were the _Saxons_ and the _Saracens_. The Saxon war "was checkered by grave disasters, and pursued with undismayed and unrelenting determination, in which he spared neither himself nor others. It lasted continuously--with its stubborn and ever-recurring resistance, its cruel devastations, its winter campaigns, its merciless acts of vengeance--as the effort which called forth all Charles's energy for thirty-two years" (772-804). The Saxons were heathen. The conquest of them was the more difficult because it involved the forced introduction of Christianity in the room of their old religion. More than once, when they seemed to be subdued, they broke out in passionate and united revolt. Their fiercest leader in insurrection was _Witikind_. A last and terrible uprising, in consequence of the slaughter of forty-five hundred Saxons on the _Aller_ as a punishment for breach of treaty, was put down in 785, when _Witikind_ submitted, and consented to receive Christian baptism. During the progress of the Saxon war, at the call of the Arab governor of _Saragossa_ for aid against the caliph _Abderrahman_, Charles marched into Spain, and conquered Saragossa and the whole land as far as the _Ebro_. On his return, in the valley of _Ronceveaux_, the Frank rear guard was surprised and destroyed by the _Basques_. There fell the Frank hero _Roland_, whose gallant deeds were a favorite subject of mediæval romances. The duchy of _Bavaria_ was abolished after a second revolt of its duke, _Tassilo_ (788). One of the most brilliant of Charlemagne's wars was that against the Hunnic _Avars_ (791). Their land between the _Ems_ and _Raab_ he annexed to his empire.