This gives them a robbing-ground as far north as the Orkneys.
Ammianus notices their descent upon Gaul; and writes that in the reign of Valentinian "Gallicanos vero tractus Franci et Saxones iisdem confines, quo quisque erumpere potuit, terra vel mari, praedis acerbis incendiisque et captivorum funeribus hominum violabant."
Again—"Valentinianus Saxones, gentem in Oceani litoribus et paludibus inviis sitam, virtute et agilitate terribilem, periculosam Romanis finibus, eruptionem magna mole meditantes, in ipsis Francorum finibus oppressit." Oros. 7, 32.
A victory over the Saxones at Deuso (Deutz, opposite Cologne) is referred by more than one of the later writers to the same reign.
The banks of the Loire are their next quarters, Anjou being their chief locality, and their great captain bearing a name of which the Latin form was Adovacrius—"igitur Childericus Aurelianis pugnas egit: Adovacrius vero cum Saxonibus Andegavos venit ... (Aegidio) defuncto Adovacrius de Andegavo et aliis locis obsides accepit ... Veniente vero Adovacrio Andegavis, Childericus rex[197] sequenti die advenit; interemtoque Paulo Comite, civitatem obtinuit." Greg. Tur. 2, 18; "his itaque gestis, inter Saxones atque Romanos bellum gestum est, sed Saxones terga vertentes multos de suis, Romanis insequentibus, gladio reliquerunt: insulae eorum cum multo populo interemto a Francis captae atque subversae sunt ... Adovacrius cum Childerico foedus iniit, Alamannosque subjugarunt." id. 2, 19.
Of Saxons who joined the Lombards in the invasion of Italy we also hear from the same author—"Post hæc Saxones qui cum Langobardis in Italiam venerant, iterum prorumpunt in Gallias, ... scilicet ut a Sigiberto rege collecti in loco, unde egressi fuerant, stabilirentur ... Hi vero ad Sigibertum regem transeuntes, in locum, unde prius egressi fuerant, stabiliti sunt." 4, 43.
The best measure, however, of the Saxon piracies is to be found in two terms, each of which has always commanded the attention of investigators—the names Saxones Bajocassini and Littus Saxonicum.
1. Saxones Bajocassini or the Saxons of Bayeux are mentioned under that name by Gregory of Tours (§. 27. 10. 9); and in a charter of Charles the Bald there is the notice of a pagus in the same district called Ot linguæ. Zeuss reasonably suggests, as an emended reading, Otlinga; in which case we have one of the numerous equivalents[198] of those local names which, in the modern English, end in -ing, and in the Anglo-Saxon, in -ingas—Palling, Notting, Horbling, Billing—Æsclingas, Gillingas, &c., &c. Who were these? When we hear of Bayeux again, i.e., in the tenth century, it is alluded to as the most Scandinavian or Norse town of Normandy, the only one indeed where the Norse language and customs were decidedly retained. These Saxons, then, may have been Norsemen. But they may equally easily have been Angles, or Frisians; since a Norse conquest in the tenth is perfectly compatible with a German in the fifth century; and, in Britain, such was actually the case.
2. The Littus Saxonicum is a term in the Notitia Dignitatum, which appears in three places. In chapter xxxvi, where we have the details of the sea-coast of Gaul, under the denomination of the Tractus Armoricanus, the first officer—
[§. 1.] Sub dispositione viri spectabilis Ducis Tractus Armoricani et Nervicani—