Still even those who fled for refuge to the land, could find little opportunity of improving their situation: there was no room for them in an island which was thenceforward to be organized upon the Teutonic principles of association. The Saxons were an agricultural and pastoral people: they required land for their alods,—forests, marshes and commons for their cattle: they were not only dangerous rivals for the possession of those estates which, lying near the cities, were probably in the highest state of cultivation, but they had cut off all communication by extending themselves over the tracts which lay between city and city. But they required serfs also, and these might now be obtained in the greatest abundance and with the greatest security, cooped up within walls, and caught as it were in traps, where the only alternative was slavery or starvation[788]. Nor can we reasonably imagine that such spoils as could yet be wrested from the degenerate inhabitants were despised by conquerors whose principle it was that wealth was to be won at the spear’s point[789]. ----- Footnote 788: “Sic enim et hic agente impio victore, immo disponente iusto iudice, proximas quasque civitates agrosque depopulans, ab orientali mari usque ad occidentale, nullo prohibente, suum continuavit incendium, totamque prope insulae pereuntis superficiem obtexit. Ruebant aedificia publica simul et privata, passim sacerdotes inter altaria trucidabantur, praesules cum populis, sine ullo respectu honoris, ferro pariter et flammis absumebantur; nec erat qui crudeliter interemptos sepulturae traderet. Itaque nonnulli de miserandis reliquiis, in montibus comprehensi acervatim iugulabantur; alii fame confecti procedentes manus hostibus dabant, pro accipiendis alimentorum subsidiis aeternum subituri servitium, si tamen non continuo trucidarentur: ali transmarinas regiones dolentes petebant; alii perstantes in patria pauperem vitam in montibus, silvis vel rupibus arduis, suspecta semper mente, agebant.” Beda, Hist. Eccl. i. 15. See also Gildas, xxiv. xxv. Footnote 789: “Mit géru scal man geba infahan,” with the spear shall men win gifts. Hiltibrants Lied. -----