Both "Genesis" and "Heliand" appear to be in an artificial literary language, and hence can be placed in the context of a relatively brief period between about 819 and approximately the death of Louis the Pious in 840, when the native Saxon poetic tradition had waned and the Carolingians sought to interest the recently and forcibly converted Saxons in Christian stories. "Genesis" must be the later of the two, because it alludes to "Heliand". Its composition has been located by some scholars at the Abbey of Fulda, a Frankish centre on the edge of Saxon territory, and by others at the Abbey of Werden, in the centre of the Saxon area.