The Saxons were a group of Germanic peoples whose name was given in the early Middle Ages to a large country near the North Sea coast of northern Germania, in what is now Germany. Earlier, in the late Roman Empire, the name was first used to refer to Germanic coastal raiders, and in a similar sense to the later Viking. The origins of these raiders are believed to be in or near the German North Sea coast where they appear later, in Carolingian times. In Merovingian times, continental Saxons had been associated with the activity and settlements on the coast of what later became Normandy. There is possibly a single classical reference to a smaller homeland of an early Saxon tribe, but its interpretation is disputed. According to this proposal, the Saxons' earliest area of settlement is believed to have been Northern Albingia. This general area is close to the probable homeland of the Angles.