Charlemagne feared lest those he placed in distant places be inclined to revolt ; he thought he would find more docility in ecclesiastics : thus he erected a large number of bishoprics in Germany, and attached large fiefs to them. [1] It appears from some charters that the clauses containing the prerogatives of these fiefs were not different from those that were usually put into these concessions, [2] although today we see the principal ecclesiastics of Germany invested with sovereign authority. However that may be, these were pieces he was putting forward against the Saxons. What he could not expect from the indolence or negligence of a leude, he thought he was entitled to expect from the zeal and active attention of a bishop ; besides which, such a vassal, far from using the subject peoples against him, would on the contrary need him to maintain himself against his peoples.