of the French governor: he possessed the counties of Rousillon
and Catalonia; and the infant kingdoms of Navarre and Arragon were
subject to his jurisdiction. III. As king of the Lombards, and patrician
of Rome, he reigned over the greatest part of Italy, [109] a tract of
a thousand miles from the Alps to the borders of Calabria. The duchy of
Beneventum, a Lombard fief, had spread, at the expense of the Greeks,
over the modern kingdom of Naples. But Arrechis, the reigning duke,
refused to be included in the slavery of his country; assumed the
independent title of prince; and opposed his sword to the Carlovingian
monarchy. His defence was firm, his submission was not inglorious, and
the emperor was content with an easy tribute, the demolition of his
fortresses, and the acknowledgement, on his coins, of a supreme lord.
The artful flattery of his son Grimoald added the appellation of father,
but he asserted his dignity with prudence, and Benventum insensibly
escaped from the French yoke. [110] IV. Charlemagne was the first who
united Germany under the same sceptre. The name of Oriental France
is preserved in the circle of Franconia; and the people of Hesse and
Thuringia were recently incorporated with the victors, by the conformity
of religion and government. The Alemanni, so formidable to the Romans,
were the faithful vassals and confederates of the Franks; and their
country was inscribed within the modern limits of Alsace, Swabia, and
Switzerland. The Bavarians, with a similar indulgence of their laws and
manners, were less patient of a master: the repeated treasons of Tasillo
justified the abolition of their hereditary dukes; and their power was
shared among the counts, who judged and guarded that important frontier.
But the north of Germany, from the Rhine and beyond the Elbe, was still
hostile and Pagan; nor was it till after a war of thirty-three years
that the Saxons bowed under the yoke of Christ and of Charlemagne.
The idols and their votaries were extirpated: the foundation of eight
bishoprics, of Munster, Osnaburgh, Paderborn, and Minden, of Bremen,
Verden, Hildesheim, and Halberstadt, define, on either side of the
Weser, the bounds of ancient Saxony these episcopal seats were the first
schools and cities of that savage land; and the religion and humanity
of the children atoned, in some degree, for the massacre of the parents.
Beyond the Elbe, the Slavi, or Sclavonians, of similar manners and
various denomination