At Paderborn the Frankish assembly was attended by the Saxons, and this meeting was signalized by further extreme measures to protect the Church. The defenders of their independence met with all the more harshness because they were sturdily loyal to a primitive ancestral faith. Charles saw in them only worshipers of evil spirits,--men who are charged in the capitularies with the practice of offering human sacrifices and with eating human flesh. In his ruthless dealings with the Saxons, Charles was the champion of a higher civilization fighting against a lower, but one must at least question the legitimacy of his policy, specifically because it claimed Christian aims and professed Christian sanction. But we know it seemed righteous in Charles’ own eyes, and his satisfaction was increased when he received, after the long military campaigns were over, the Saxon Witikind, and his companion in arms, Abbio, as voluntary converts to the Christian faith. With his baptism (785) Witikind drops into obscurity, and we only hear that his descendants became known for their loyalty to the new religion. From 785 to 792 the Saxons did not stir; they sent regularly their assigned contingents to the army of the Franks, and they took no part in the Bavarian troubles. However, at the beginning of the expedition against the Avars in 793, there was a fresh revolt, marked, as the previous ones had been, by the destruction of churches, the massacre of priests, and the return of the people to idolatry. From 794 to 799 the Franks under Charles were busy each year in enforcing Frankish rule in Saxon lands by a specially thorough military occupation of the country. Further drastic measures of pacification were required, for whenever Charles returned West to his own domains, he took with him a large contingent of the conquered people, men, women, and children. Lands were given them, and so the natural racial traits of Saxon unity were destroyed and their fidelity to paganism broken. It is estimated that a third of the population was removed, and the extent of this enforced emigration may be judged from the fact that in 804 ten thousand men were deported from two districts of Saxony and their land given over to some of Charles’ Slavic allies who had rendered efficient services to him during these wars against their hereditary enemies. The Saxons gave up the fight only when their strength was broken, and when the last adherents of paganism yielded to superior force. Only then was the country from the Elbe to the Atlantic under the sway of a single sovereign, and united by the profession of the same faith. The conquered land was effectively occupied, and the loyalty of the inhabitants to Charles’ empire was secured by the establishment of three richly endowed bishoprics, Bremen, Münster, and Paderborn, under whose supervision the work begun by the Frankish armies was completed. IV OTHER MILITARY ACHIEVEMENTS