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The Saxons were still in that stage of political development which Tacitus describes in his Germania, ruled by petty chiefs who set up a war-leader when there was need for common action, otherwise united only by racial sentiment and the cult of a tribal deity. But they were a warlike race, and found in this crisis a leader of genius, the famous Widukind.
The concubines of Theodoric Jordanes, de orig. acti busque Get., 58. Huga, king of the Franks, had a filium quem ex concubina genuit Widukind, Res Gest. Sax., i, 9. Lex Ripuariorum, Til., 48. Lex Angliorum et Werinorum, vi de alodibus, 1: hereditatem defuncti filius, non filia suscipiat.
At last he set his followers the example of embracing Christianity. Charles acted as sponsor at his baptism, and Widukind became a loyal subject of his spiritual father.
The Saxons, who were finally overthrown with their powerful chief Widukind, have devised a terrible revenge. They have invited Danish and Swedish pirates, called Vikings, into the country. These have sailed up the Rhine, up the Seine as far as Rouen, and up the Loire.
It was through Saxon rulers, descended from Widukind, that the imperial policy of Charles was revived in the tenth century and the imperial diadem appropriated by the German nation. Yet the Saxons sturdily adhered to their national laws and language; their obstinate refusal to be ruled by other races was a stumbling-block to the most masterful sovereigns that medieval Germany produced.
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