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The ecclesiastical scholars of the early Middle Ages wrote stories about great men or histories of their own people. Historical truth as we understand it today, however, was not taken too seriously. It didn’t seem especially glorious to have descended from the heathen barbarians who lived between the Rhine and the Elbe. In addition, they were under the impression that the ancient realms of antiquity and biblical times provided the ultimate origin of their own people. Many speculations and fabrications were necessary to fashion a connection between cultures. With stunning results: The Franks were supposed to have descended from the Trojans who had spread over the entire world after their conquest of the Greeks. The Saxons, who entered the world of Christianized and civilized peoples comparatively late, did not go so far in their construction of a new family tree. They traced their lineage back to Alexander the Great. The Bavarians were supposed to have originally sprung from the Armenians and because of this origin to have had something to do with Noah, who had landed there on Mount Ararat. And finally, when even the Vikings became Christians, the Scandinavian scholars appropriated a fitting family tree. They believed that the Danes could be traced back to ancient Dakar, in present-day Romania.

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