Another means used to convert the Germans was the sword. This was especially true of the Saxons, a sturdy, defiant, warlike people, who lived in Hanover, Oldenburg, and Westphalia.[249:1] They were the last to accept Christianity, because they hated the Franks and far-off Rome. Fruitless efforts to convert them had been made by the Ewald brothers, Suidbert, and others. The work was left, however, for Charles the Great, who consumed thirty-three years in subjecting them to Christian rule (772-805).[249:2] This was done only after five thousand inhabitants had been massacred at Verdun, ten thousand families had been exiled in 804, and bloody laws were enacted against relapse into paganism. This new type of missionary work, which was a radical departure from the apostolic method, can be excused, perhaps, only when we take into consideration the moral standards of the age and the motives of Charles the Great. The best men of the time, however, like Alcuin vehemently opposed this method. After Charles had subjected the Saxons, he established among them eight bishoprics, Osnabrück, Münster, Minden, Paderborn, Verdun, Bremen, Hildesheim, and Halberstädt. The Prussians, located to the north-eastward of the Saxons along the Baltic, stubbornly resisted efforts to Christianise them. Adelbert, Bishop of Prague (997), and his successor, Bruno, were both massacred by them. At length, a Cistercian monk, who was appointed the first bishop of Prussia in the twelfth century, made some headway among them, but was soon compelled to withdraw. Then followed the crusade of the Teutonic Order (1230-1280) in which the methods of Charles the Great were employed and with the same results.