While Charles’ intervention in Italy may be considered as the logical outcome of the policy inaugurated by his father, his long struggle with the pagan Teutonic tribes, spoken of loosely by contemporary historians as the Saxons, was part of a program of expansion for which he alone was responsible. Dwelling in a territory extending from the Elbe, on the East, nearly to the Rhine, on the West, the Saxons in three tribes formed a primitive confederation occupying the various divisions of Germany known in modern times as Hanover, Brunswick, Oldenburg, and Westphalia. Beyond the Elbe there was a fourth section of the Saxon stock extending over a territory nearly coextensive with the modern Duchy of Holstein. Though the name suggests a plausible identity, the Saxon territory of the eighth century had no connection with the present kingdom of Saxony, which only to a small extent comprises land that once belonged to these ancient Saxons. Though unlike their kinsfolk to the West, the Saxons held to their old tribal creed, they were in no sense savages, for they had long since abandoned a nomadic life and had become settled tillers of the soil. But probably the primitive institutions of the Germans described by Tacitus still existed among them, and, from the point of view of the Franks, they must have seemed undesirable neighbors, largely because of their obstinate attitude toward all attempts to convert them to Christianity. As the missionaries who undertook the task were either Franks themselves or acted under the patronage and support of Frankish rulers, the feeling toward the Saxons was anything but friendly, especially as since the time of the Merovingians on several occasions the Saxons had recognized the Franks as their overlords, by paying tribute. It is probable, too, that the Saxons were not very scrupulous in respecting the frontier of their Western neighbors. There must have been frequent raids to annoy the Franks, though there is absolutely no proof that the Saxons ever contemplated invading Frankish territory by expeditions organized on a large scale. The situation had, however, been serious enough to call forth active intervention from Charles’s father Pippin, who, in 753, had advanced as far as the Weser, where, by an overwhelming display of military strength, he had forced the Saxons to pay tribute and not to oppose the preaching of Christian missionaries in their territory. Five years later, in another expedition, Pippin advanced beyond the Weser, occupying the Saxon strongholds between that river and the Lippe, and again securing from the Saxon chiefs promises that the terms on which peace had been made should be carried out.