The men who sailed out were professional merchants and mariners now, not farmers with boats who sometimes went away on business. They were a class of persons to be watched. Charlemagne approved of true pilgrims, he said in a letter to the Saxon king, Offa of Mercia, who carried with them all the things they needed for their journey; but ‘we have found there are some men who mix fraudulently with the pilgrims for the sake of business, chasing profit and not serving religion’.51
