The Franks became Christians when their first King, Clovis, whom they elected in 481, married a Christian wife who converted him. Clovis defeated the last of the Romans at Soissons five years later and drove them from Gaul, a Christian region south of Francia. Gaul then became part of Francia.

The Franks fought hard to spread Christianity by conquest, though even their priests didn’t understand the religion well at all. They could not read, and had no Bibles anyway.

Frankish monks, taught by Roman monks, could read and write Latin, and priests spoke enough Church Latin to conduct masses. Charlemagne believed his people needed to hear and read of their religion in their own language. He translated the Creed into Frankish, and ruled that all priests must learn to read and every church should own a Bible. He brought scholars from England to teach them, and kept an army of scribes busy copying Bibles. He started schools that in later years became famous universities.

Most of the Saxons of the 8th Century were still pagans during Charlemagne’s reign. But they were not as illiterate as we’ve believed. Each of their runes stood for a letter and a number. Most of what they wrote, being on birch bark, leather, or other biodegradable material, perished. A few iron knives have been found that bear runic inscriptions on their blades. Rough stone grave markers inscribed with runic praise of great leaders still stand Germany and Denmark.

The Saxons stayed a bunch of pagan tribes and loosely organized states until Charlemagne defeated the last of them in 804 C.E. When not fighting Charlemagne’s armies, they fought each other. A war leader, Widukind united all the Saxon states into the Saxon Federation. He drew soldiers from every warring Saxon tribe and got them to fight Charlemagne together.

Because of the Frank king’s cavalry and well-trained troops, Widukind and his Saxons lost. Widukind escaped to Denmark, his wife’s homeland. Six years later, he came back and fought Charlemagne’s forces again, and lost again. He and many of his soldiers accepted Christianity. Widukind even established a monastery. Charlemagne gave him a solid gold box with a saint’s bones in it, a very valuable gift. But eventually Widukind went back to his old gods, organized a new Saxon army, and lost again. When Charlemagne defeated the last of the Saxon armies, after fighting them most summers for over thirty years, all Europe at last became Christian and Saxonia and Francia blended into one nation, called the Holy Roman Empire.

That didn’t last. Following Frankish custom, each king divided the empire among his sons. The Empire broke up into about 50 German principalities, and the Frankish lowlands got divided into Belgium, Netherlands, and Frisia in the northwest. Provinces just north of the Rhein became part of Germany. Frankish land south of the Rhein broke up into Austrasia, Gascony, Septimania, Acquitaine, Provence, Burgundy, etc. governed by counts not responsible to King Charlemagne’s descendants.

The states of the old Saxon Federation, plus other Germanic states are now modern Germany. The Old Saxon dialects, along with other now extinct Teutonic languages have morphed into modern German. Francia, with most of her small kingdoms reunited into one nation, is now modern France. The Frankish dialects, much changed by Latin additions, melded and evolved into modern French.