With the Saxon confederation, formed by various pagan tribes on the
Weser and the Elbe (the same tribes from among which the Saxons and
Angles, who conquered Britain three centuries before this, had gone
forth), Charlemagne had the greatest trouble. He repeatedly marched into
their country and subdued them; but they constantly rose up again, and
it was only after some terrible acts of vengeance,--for example, he one
day had forty-two hundred prisoners hanged,--that they at length
submitted to be baptized and to become peaceable subjects.
Soon after this the Bavarians attempted to render themselves
independent of the Frankish power by the assistance of the Avars, a
Tartar race living in what we now call Hungary (then _Pannonia_).
Charlemagne overpowered the Bavarians, incorporating Bavaria with his
German territory; and then revenged himself on the Avars by conquering
them, taking their treasures, and annexing Hungary to his dominion.