Widukind

Widukind (8th/9th centuries; modernized name Wittekind) was a pagan Saxon leader and the chief opponent of Charlemagne during the Saxon Wars. Widukind was the leader of the Saxons against the Frankish king Charlemagne (later emperor of the West). In 782, when Charlemagne organized Saxony as a Frankish province and ordered conversions of the pagan Saxons of Widukind to Roman Catholicism, the Saxons resumed warfare against the Franks. In later times, Widukind became a symbol of Saxon independence and a figure of legend.