peoples were worshippers of the same God. At length, by the assistance of divine grace, he brought about his conversion, and when he had been sprinkled with the holy water of baptism he himself received him from the sacred font and adopted him as his son. When, then, he desired to send him back to his own land in order that he might, by his assistance, seek to recover his dominions, he began to make diligent enquiry in order that he might find a holy and devoted man who could go and continue with him, and who might strengthen him and his people, and by teaching the doctrine of salvation might induce them to receive the faith of the Lord." During the reign of Louis the Pious, the Frankish Empire had no effective fleet, and this made the coast of Frisia a weak point in the defense of his realm. The motivation for granting Harald a fief in Frisia possibly had to do with Harald committing himself to defending the Frisian coastline against future Viking raids. The center of his fief was located in northwestern Germany, west of Oldenburg. This may have been the first piece of Frankish territory given to a Dane. Adam of Bremen placed the baptism following another deposition of Harald. "The king of the Danes, Haraldr (Latin:Haraldus), despoiled of his kingdom by the sons of Godofrid, came to Louis a suppliant. And on being instructed thereupon in the doctrine of the Christian faith, he was baptized at Mainz with his wife and brother and a great multitude of Danes. The emperor lifted him from the sacred font and, resolved to restore him to the kingdom, gave him a fief across the Elbe, and, to withstand the pirates, granted his brother Harekr [Latin:Horuch) a part of Frisia. (This territory the Danes still claim as if it were legitimately their own.)" This Harekr is not mentioned elsewhere. Return to Denmark and later life On his return to Denmark Harald was probably accompanied by Saint Anskar and a group of monks and it may have been in this time that a church in Hedeby was first built, as well as a school in which twelve Danish boys (some of whom were from Harald's household) were to be educated as priests. The Vita Ansgari reports: "The two monks [volunteering to travel with Harald] were subsequently brought before the king, who