The Saxons[1] were a group of
Germanic[2] peoples whose name was given in the early Middle Ages to a large country (
Old Saxony,
Latin: Saxonia) near the
North Sea coast of northern
Germania, in what is now Germany.[3] 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 (pirate or raider).[4] 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.[5]
During the eighth and ninth centuries the Saxons of Old Saxony were in continual conflict with the
Franks, whose kingdom at the time was ruled by the
Carolingian dynasty. After thirty three years of conquest due to military campaigns led by the lord king and emperor
Charlemagne beginning in 772 and ending around 804, the Franks defeated the Saxons, forced them to convert to
Christianity and seized the territory of Old Saxony, annexing it into the Carolingian domain, although the Franks had been enemies of the Saxons in the time of
Clovis I, during the early Merovingian period of the fifth and sixth centuries.
Charles Martel, Duke and prince of the Franks and Mayor of the Palace of
Austrasia, the grandfather of Charlemagne, had fought and led numerous campaigns against the Saxons.
In contrast, the English Saxons, today referred to in English as
Anglo-Saxons, became a single nation bringing together migrant
Germanic peoples (
Frisians,
Jutes,
Angles [whence English]) and assimilated
Celtic Britons populations. Their earliest weapons and clothing south of the
Thames were based on late Roman military fashions, but later immigrants north of the Thames showed a stronger North German influence.[6][7] The term Anglo-Saxon, combining the names of the Angles and the Saxons, came into use by the eighth century (for example
Paul the Deacon) to distinguish the Germanic inhabitants of Britain from continental Saxons (referred to in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as Ealdseaxe, 'old Saxons'), but both the Saxons of Britain and those of Old Saxony (Northern Germany) continued to be referred to as 'Saxons' in an indiscriminate manner, especially in the languages of Britain and Ireland.
Although the English Saxons were no longer raiders, the political history of the continental Saxons is unclear until the time of the conflict between their semi-legendary hero
Widukind and the Frankish emperor Charlemagne. The continental Saxons are no longer a distinctive ethnic group or country but their name lives on in the names of several regions and
states of Germany, including
Lower Saxony (which includes central parts of the original Saxon homeland known as Old Saxony),
Saxony in
Upper Saxony, as well as
Saxony-Anhalt (which includes Old, Lower and Upper Saxon regions).
Etymology
The name of the Saxons may derive from a kind of knife associated with the
ethnos; such a knife has the name seax in Old English, Sax in German, sachs in Old High German, and sax in Old Norse.[8][9] The seax has had a lasting symbolic impact in the English counties of
Essex and
Middlesex, both of which feature three seaxes in their ceremonial emblem. The names of these counties, along with the names Sussex and Wessex, contain a remnant of the root of the word Saxon.
Their names discover what their natures are,
More hard than stones, and yet not stones indeed.
— I.i.181-2
Saxon as a demonym
Celtic languages
In the
Celtic languages, the words designating English nationality derive from the Latin word Saxones. The most prominent example, a
loanword in English from
Scottish Gaelic (older spelling: Sasunnach), is the word Sassenach, used by
Scots-, Scottish English- and Gaelic-speakers in the 21st century[11] as a
racially pejorative term for an English person and, traditionally, to the English-speaking lowlanders of Scotland.[12] The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) gives 1771 as the date of the earliest written use of the word in English. The Gaelic name for England is Sasann (older spelling: Sasunn,
genitive: Sasainn), and Sasannach (formed with a common adjective suffix -ach[13]) means 'English' in reference to people and things, though not when naming the English language, which is Béarla.
Sasanach, the
Irish word for an Englishman (with Sasana meaning England), has the same derivation, as do the words used in
Welsh to describe the English people (Saeson, singular Sais) and the language and things English in general: Saesneg and Seisnig.
Cornish terms the English Sawsnek, from the same derivation. In the 16th century Cornish-speakers used the phrase Meea navidna cowza sawzneck to feign ignorance of the English language.[14] The Cornish words for the English people and England are Sowsnek and Pow Sows ('Land [Pays] of Saxons'). Similarly
Breton, spoken in north-western France, has saoz(on) ('English'), saozneg ('the English language'), and Bro-saoz for 'England'.
Romance languages
The label Saxons (in
Romanian: Sași) also became attached to
German settlers who settled during the 12th century in southeastern
Transylvania.[15]
From Transylvania, some of these Saxons migrated to neighbouring
Moldavia, as the name of the town
Sascut, in present-day Romania, shows.
Non-Indo-European languages
The
Finns and
Estonians have changed their usage of the root Saxon over the centuries to apply now to the whole country of Germany (Saksa and Saksamaa respectively) and the
Germans (saksalaiset and sakslased, respectively). The
Finnish word sakset (
scissors) reflects the name of the old Saxon single-edged sword –
seax – from which the name Saxon supposedly derives.[16] In
Estonian, saks means colloquially, 'a wealthy person'. As a result of the
Northern Crusades,
Estonia's upper class comprised mostly Baltic Germans, persons of supposedly Saxon origin until well into the 20th century.
Following the downfall of
Henry the Lion (1129–1195, Duke of Saxony 1142–1180), and the subsequent splitting of the Saxon tribal duchy into several territories, the name of the Saxon duchy was transferred to the lands of the
Ascanian family. This led to the differentiation between
Lower Saxony (lands settled by the Saxon tribe) and
Upper Saxony (the lands belonging to the
House of Wettin). Gradually, the latter region became known as Saxony, ultimately usurping the name's original geographical meaning. The area formerly known as Upper Saxony now lies in
Central Germany – in the eastern part of the present-day
Federal Republic of Germany: note the names of the federal states of
Saxony and
Saxony-Anhalt.
History
Early history
Ptolemy's Geographia, written in the second century, is sometimes considered to contain the first mentioning of the Saxons. Some copies of this text mention a tribe called Saxones in the area to the north of the lower
Elbe.[17] However, other versions refer to the same tribe as Axones. This may be a misspelling of the tribe that
Tacitus in his Germania called Aviones. According to this theory, Saxones was the result of later scribes trying to correct a name that meant nothing to them.[18] On the other hand,
Schütte, in his analysis of such problems in Ptolemy's Maps of Northern Europe, believed that Saxones is correct. He notes that the loss of first letters occurs in numerous places in various copies of Ptolemy's work, and also that the manuscripts without Saxones are generally inferior overall.[19]
Schütte remarks that there was a medieval tradition of calling this area "Old Saxony" (covering Westphalia, Angria and Eastphalia).[20] This view is in line with
Bede who mentions Old Saxony was near the Rhine, somewhere to the north of the
river Lippe (Westphalia, northeastern part of the modern German state Nordrhein-Westfalen).[21]
The first undisputed mention of the Saxon name in its modern form is from AD 356, when
Julian, later the
Roman emperor, mentioned them in a speech as allies of
Magnentius, a rival emperor in
Gaul.
Zosimus mentions a specific tribe of Saxons, called the Kouadoi, which has been interpreted as a misunderstanding for the
Chauci, or
Chamavi. They entered the
Rhine-Maas delta in what is now the Netherlands, and displaced the recently settled
Salian Franks from
Batavia, whereupon some of the Salians began to move south into the region of
Texandria. This Frankish settlement eventually gained the acceptance of Julian.[22]
Both in this case and in others the Saxons were associated with using boats for their raids. In order to defend against Saxon raiders, the
Romans created a military district called the Litus Saxonicum ('
Saxon Shore') on both sides of the
English Channel.
In 441–442 AD, Saxons are mentioned for the first time as inhabitants of Britain, when an unknown
Gaulish historian wrote: "The British provinces (...) have been reduced to Saxon rule".[23]
Saxons as inland inhabitants of present-day
Northern Germany are first mentioned in 555, when the Frankish king
Theudebald died, and the Saxons used the opportunity for an uprising. The uprising was suppressed by
Chlothar I, Theudebald's successor. Some of their Frankish successors fought against the Saxons, others were allied with them. The
Thuringians frequently appeared as allies of the Saxons.
Netherlands
In the Netherlands, Saxons occupied the territory south of the
Frisians and north of the Franks. After the conquest of Charlemagne, this area formed the main part of the
Bishopric of Utrecht. The Saxon duchy of
Hamaland played an important role in the formation of the duchy of
Guelders.
The local language, although strongly influenced by standard
Dutch, is still officially recognised as
Dutch Low Saxon.
Italy and Provence
In 569, some Saxons accompanied the
Lombards into Italy under the leadership of
Alboin and settled there.[24] In 572, they raided southeastern Gaul as far as Stablo, now
Estoublon. Divided, they were easily defeated by the
Gallo-Roman general
Mummolus. When the Saxons regrouped, a peace treaty was negotiated whereby the Italian Saxons were allowed to settle with their families in
Austrasia.[24] Gathering their families and belongings in Italy, they returned to
Provence in two groups in 573. One group proceeded by way of
Nice and another via
Embrun, joining up at
Avignon. They plundered the territory and were as a consequence stopped from crossing the
Rhône by Mummolus. They were forced to pay compensation for what they had robbed before they could enter Austrasia. These people are known only by documents, and their settlement cannot be compared to the archeological artifacts and remains that attest to Saxon settlements in northern and western Gaul.
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A Saxon king named
Eadwacer conquered
Angers in 463, to be dislodged by
Childeric I and the Salian Franks, allies of the
Roman Empire.[25] It is possible that Saxon settlement of Great Britain began in response to expanding Frankish control of the
Channel coast.[26]
Some Saxons already lived along the Saxon shore of Gaul as Roman
foederati.[citation needed] They can be traced in documents, but also in archeology and in
toponymy. The Notitia Dignitatum mentions the Tribunus cohortis primae novae Armoricanae, Grannona in litore Saxonico. The location of Grannona is uncertain and was identified by the historians and toponymists at different places: mainly with the town known today as
Granville (in
Normandy) or nearby. The Notitia Dignitatum does not explain where these "Roman" soldiers came from. Some toponymists have proposed
Graignes (Grania 1109–1113) as the location for Grannona/Grannonum. Although some scholars believe it could be the same element *gran, that is recognised in
Guernsey (Greneroi 11th century),[27] it most likely derives from the
Gaulish god
Grannos.[28] This location is closer to
Bayeux, where
Gregory of Tours evokes otherwise the Saxones Bajocassini (
Bessin Saxons), which were ineffective against the Breton
Waroch II in 579.[29][30]
A Saxon unit of laeti settled at Bayeux – the Saxones Baiocassenses.[31] These Saxons became subjects of
Clovis I late in the fifth century. The Saxons of Bayeux comprised a standing army and were often called upon to serve alongside the local
levy of their region in
Merovingian military campaigns. In 589, the Saxons wore their hair in the
Breton fashion at the orders of
Fredegund and fought with them as allies against
Guntram.[32] Beginning in 626, the Saxons of the
Bessin were used by
Dagobert I for his campaigns against the
Basques. One of their own,
Aeghyna, was created a dux over the region of
Vasconia.[33]
In 843 and 846 under king
Charles the Bald, other official documents mention a pagus called Otlinga Saxonia in the Bessin region, but the meaning of Otlinga is unclear. Different Bessin toponyms were identified as typically Saxon, ex :
Cottun (Coltun 1035–1037 ; Cola's "town"). It is the only place name in Normandy that can be interpreted as a -tun one (English -ton; cf.
Colton).[34] In contrast to this one example in Normandy are numerous -thun villages in the north of France, in
Boulonnais, for example Alincthun, Verlincthun, and Pelingthun,[34] showing, with other toponyms, an important Saxon or Anglo-Saxon settlement. Comparing the concentration of -ham/-hem (Anglo-Saxon hām > home) toponyms in the Bessin and in the Boulonnais gives more examples of Saxon settlement.[35] In the area known today as Normandy, the -ham cases of Bessin are unique – they do not exist elsewhere. Other cases were considered, but there is no determining example. For example,
Canehan (Kenehan 1030/Canaan 1030–1035) could be the biblical name Canaan[36] or
Airan (Heidram 9th century), the Germanic masculine name Hairammus.[37]
The Bessin examples are clear; for example,
Ouistreham (Oistreham 1086),
Étréham (Oesterham 1350 ?),[38]Huppain (*Hubbehain ; Hubba's "home"), and
Surrain (Surrehain 11thcentury). Another significant example can be found in the Norman
onomastics: the widespread surname Lecesne,[39] with variant spellings: LeCesne, Lesène, Lecène, and Cesne. It comes from Gallo-Romance *saxinu 'the Saxon', which is saisne in Old French. These examples are not derived from more recent
Anglo-Scandinavian toponyms, because in that case they would have been numerous in the Norman regions (pays deCaux, Basse-Seine, North-Cotentin) settled by
Germanic peoples.[clarification needed] That is not the case, nor does Bessin belong to the pagii, which were affected by an important wave of Anglo-Scandinavian immigration.
In addition, archaeological finds add evidence to the documents and the results of toponymic research. Around the city of
Caen and in the Bessin (
Vierville-sur-Mer,
Bénouville,
Giverville,
Hérouvillette), excavations have yielded numerous examples of Anglo-Saxon jewellery, design elements, settings, and weapons. All of these things were discovered in cemeteries in a context of the fifth, sixth and seventh centuries AD.[40][41]
The oldest Saxon site found in France to date is
Vron, in
Picardy. Archaeologists excavated a large cemetery with tombs dating from the Roman Empire until the sixth century. Furniture and other grave goods, as well as the human remains, revealed a group of people buried in the fourth and fifth centuries AD. Physically different from the usual local inhabitants found before this period, they instead resembled the Germanic populations of the north. Starting around 375 AD the burials are located in the region known in Roman times as the Saxon Shores. 92% of these burials were inhumations, and sometimes included weapons of typical Germanic type. Starting from around 440 AD the burial ground displaced eastward. The burials were now arranged in rows and displayed a strong Anglo-Saxon influence until around 520 AD, when this influence subsided. Archaeological material, neighbouring toponymy, and historical accounts support the conclusion of settlement of Saxon foederati with their families on the shores of the English Channel. Further anthropological research by Joël Blondiaux shows these people were from
Lower Saxony.[42]
Saxons, along with
Angles,
Frisians and
Jutes, became dominant in southeastern parts of
Great Britain (
Britannia) around the time of the collapse of the
Western Roman Empire. Saxon raiders had been harassing the eastern and southern shores of Britannia for centuries before, prompting the construction of the Saxon Shore forts. Before the
end of Roman rule in Britannia, many Saxons and other folk had been permitted to settle in these areas as farmers.
According to tradition, the Saxons (and other tribes) first entered Britain en masse as part of an agreement to protect the indigenous
Britons from the incursions of the
Picts,
Gaels and others. The story, as reported in such sources as the Historia Brittonum and
Gildas, indicates that the British king
Vortigern allowed the Germanic warlords, later named as
Hengist and
Horsa by
Bede, to settle their people on the
Isle of Thanet in exchange for their service as
mercenaries. According to Bede, Hengist manipulated Vortigern into granting more land and allowing for more settlers to come in, paving the way for the Germanic settlement of Britain.
Historians are divided about what followed. Some argue that the takeover of southern Great Britain by the
Anglo-Saxons was peaceful.[43] Gildas, a native Briton who lived in the mid-5th century AD, described a violent takeover:
For the fire (...) spread from sea to sea, fed by the hands of our foes in the east, and did not cease, until, destroying the neighbouring towns and lands, it reached the other side of the island, and dipped its red and savage tongue in the western ocean. In these assaults (...) all the columns were levelled with the ground by the frequent strokes of the battering-ram, all the husbandmen routed, together with their bishops, priests and people, whilst the sword gleamed, and the flames crackled around them on every side. Lamentable to behold, in the midst of the streets lay the tops of lofty towers, tumbled to the ground, stones of high walls, holy altars, fragments of human bodies, covered with livid clots of coagulated blood, looking as if they had been squeezed together in a press; and with no chance of being buried, save in the ruins of the houses, or in the ravening bellies of wild beasts and birds; with reverence be it spoken for their blessed souls, if, indeed, there were many found who were carried, at that time, into the high heaven by the holy angels... Some, therefore, of the miserable remnant, being taken in the mountains, were murdered in great numbers; others, constrained by
famine, came and yielded themselves to be slaves for ever to their foes, running the risk of being instantly slain, which truly was the greatest favour that could be offered them: some others passed beyond the seas with loud lamentations instead of the voice of exhortation (...) Others, committing the safeguard of their lives, which were in continual jeopardy, to the mountains, precipices, thickly wooded forests and to the rocks of the seas (albeit with trembling hearts), remained still in their country.
Gildas described how the Saxons were later slaughtered at the battle of
Mons Badonicus 44 years before he wrote his history, and their conquest of Britain halted. The eighth-century English historian Bede tells how their advance resumed thereafter. He said this resulted in a swift overrunning of the entirety of South-Eastern Britain, and the foundation of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms.
During the period of the reigns from
Egbert to
Alfred the Great, the kings of Wessex aspired to be
Bretwalda, aiming to unify the country. They failed to organise it as the kingdom of England in the face of
Viking invasions. King Athelstan achieved union and Bretwalda in 927.
Later Saxons in Germany
The continental Saxons living in what was known as Old Saxony (
c. 531–804) appear to have become consolidated by the end of the eighth century. After subjugation by the Emperor
Charlemagne, a political entity called the
Duchy of Saxony (804–1296) appeared, covering Westphalia, Eastphalia, Angria and Nordalbingia (Holstein, southern part of modern-day Schleswig-Holstein state).
The Saxons long resisted becoming
Christians[44] and being incorporated into the orbit of the
Frankish kingdom.[45] In 776 the Saxons promised to convert to Christianity and vow loyalty to the king, but, during Charlemagne's campaign in
Hispania (778), the Saxons advanced to
Deutz on the
Rhine and plundered along the river. This was an oft-repeated pattern when Charlemagne was distracted by other matters.[45]
They were conquered by Charlemagne in a long series of annual campaigns, the
Saxon Wars (772–804). With defeat came enforced
baptism and
conversion as well as the union of the Saxons with the rest of the Germanic, Frankish empire. Their sacred tree or pillar, a symbol of
Irminsul, was destroyed. Charlemagne deported 10,000
Nordalbingian Saxons to
Neustria and gave their largely vacant lands in
Wagria (approximately modern
Plön and Ostholstein districts) to the loyal king of the
Abotrites.
Einhard, Charlemagne's biographer, says on the closing of this grand conflict:
The war that had lasted so many years was at length ended by their acceding to the terms offered by the king; which were renunciation of their national religious customs and the worship of devils, acceptance of the sacraments of the Christian faith and religion, and union with the Franks to form one people.
Under
Carolingian rule, the Saxons were reduced to tributary status. There is evidence that the Saxons, as well as Slavic tributaries such as the
Abodrites and the
Wends, often provided troops to their Carolingian overlords. The dukes of Saxony became kings (
Henry I, the Fowler, 919) and later the first emperors (Henry's son,
Otto I, the Great) of Germany during the tenth century, but they lost this position in 1024. The duchy was divided in 1180 when Duke
Henry the Lion refused to follow his cousin, Emperor
Frederick Barbarossa, into war in
Lombardy.
During the
High Middle Ages, under the
Salian emperors and, later, under the
Teutonic Knights, German settlers moved east of the
Saale into the area of a western Slavic tribe, the
Sorbs. The Sorbs were gradually
Germanised. This region subsequently acquired the name Saxony through political circumstances, though it was initially called the
March of Meissen. The rulers of
Meissen acquired control of the
Duchy of Saxe-Wittenberg (only a remnant of the previous Duchy) in 1423; they eventually applied the name Saxony to the whole of their kingdom. Since then, this part of eastern Germany has been referred to as
Saxony (
German: Sachsen), a source of some misunderstanding about the original homeland of the Saxons, with a central part in the present-day German state of
Lower Saxony (German: Niedersachsen).
Language
Linguistic evidence suggests that the majority of the Saxons who migrated to the British isles during the
5th century spoke a form of Germanic which differed from those who stayed behind and whose dialects would eventually form later
Old Saxon. This assumption rests upon the fact that the
North Sea Germanic dialects of Britain immediately seem to have formed a continuum with only a relatively small amount of gradual change (which suggests the arrivals dialects were closely related), whereas the dialects which remained on the mainland (i.e.
Old Frisian and Old Saxon) did not. Instead the Frisian dialects formed their own dialect continuum with a relatively minor yet clear linguistic border with the surrounding dialects (including Saxon), while the Saxon dialects became part of the much larger
Continental West Germanic continuum.
According to the historical linguist
Elmar Seebold, this development can only be explained if Saxon society prior to the migration to Britain was effectively composed of two related, but different forms of West Germanic. In his view, the group of people who, in the
3rd century, first migrated southwards to what is now the northwestern portion of
Lower Saxony spoke North Sea Germanic dialects closely related to
Old Frisian and Old English. There, these migrants encountered an already present population whose language was significantly different from their own, i.e. belonging to the
Weser–Rhine Germanic grouping, over whom they then formed an elite, lending their name to the subsequent tribal federation and region as a whole. Later, during the 5th century, as the Angles started migrating to Britain, the descendants of this elite joined them, while the descendants of the native inhabitants did not, or at least not significantly. As the languages of the Angles and this particular Saxon group were closely related, a continuum between Anglian and Saxon could form in Britain, which later became
English. In the land of the Saxons itself, the departure of a large part of this former elite caused the sociopolitical landscape to change, and the original population, after the departure of the majority of the elite's descendants, became so predominant that their dialects (presumably the language of the
Chauci, the language of the
Thuringians, and possibly other ancient tribes) prevailed and ultimately formed the basis for the
Low Saxon dialects known today, while their speakers retained the tribal name.[46]
Evolution of Saxon within North Sea Germanic according to Seebold:[46]
Position of North Sea Germanic dialects prior to the migration period (3rd century CE).
Migration of the Saxons from the territory of the Angles (A.).
Migration of Weser Rhine Germanic speakers towards the Roman limes (1.), southward migration of Elbe Germanic speakers (2.).
Position of North Sea Germanic dialects during the 5th and 6th century.
Migration of North Germanic speakers (including the Saxon elite) to England (A.) and Frisia (B.)
Migration of Weser Rhine Germanic speakers (1.), migration of West Slavic speakers (2.), migration of North Germanic speakers (2.).
Position of North Sea Germanic dialects (Old English & Old Frisian) directly following the migration period.
10th/11th century migration of (Ems) Frisian speakers to the North German mainland (A.)
Culture
Social structure
Bede, a
Northumbrian writing around the year 730, remarks that "the old (that is, the continental) Saxons have no king, but they are governed by several
ealdormen (or satrapa) who, during war, cast lots for leadership but who, in time of peace, are equal in power." The regnum Saxonum was divided into three provinces –
Westphalia,
Eastphalia and
Angria – which comprised about one hundred pagi or Gaue. Each Gau had its own satrap with enough military power to level whole villages that opposed him.[47]
In the mid-9th century,
Nithard first described the social structure of the Saxons beneath their leaders. The caste structure was rigid; in the
Saxon language the three castes, excluding slaves, were called the edhilingui (related to the term
aetheling), frilingi and lazzi. These terms were subsequently
Latinised as nobiles or nobiliores; ingenui, ingenuiles or liberi; and liberti, liti or serviles.[48] According to very early traditions that are presumed to contain a good deal of historical truth, the edhilingui were the descendants of the Saxons who led the tribe out of
Holstein and during the migrations of the sixth century.[48] They were a conquering warrior elite. The frilingi represented the descendants of the amicii, auxiliarii and manumissi of that caste. The lazzi represented the descendants of the original inhabitants of the conquered territories, who were forced to make oaths of submission and pay tribute to the edhilingui.
The Lex Saxonum regulated the Saxons' different society. Intermarriage between the castes was forbidden by the Lex Saxonum, and
wergilds were set based upon caste membership. The edhilingui were worth 1,440
solidi, or about 700 head of cattle, the highest wergild on the continent; the price of a bride was also very high. This was six times as much as that of the frilingi and eight times as much as the lazzi. The gulf between noble and ignoble was very large, but the difference between a freeman and an indentured labourer was small.[49]
According to the Vita Lebuini antiqua, an important source for early Saxon history, the Saxons held an annual council at
Marklo (Westphalia) where they "confirmed their laws, gave judgment on outstanding cases, and determined by common counsel whether they would go to war or be in peace that year."[47] All three castes participated in the general council; twelve representatives from each caste were sent from each Gau. In 782, Charlemagne abolished the system of Gaue and replaced it with the Grafschaftsverfassung, the system of
counties typical of
Francia.[50] By prohibiting the Marklo councils, Charlemagne pushed the frilingi and lazzi out of political power. The old Saxon system of Abgabengrundherrschaft, lordship based on dues and taxes, was replaced by a form of
feudalism based on service and labour, personal relationships and oaths.[51]
Saxon religious practices were closely related to their political practices. The annual councils of the entire tribe began with invocations of the gods. The procedure by which dukes were elected in wartime, by drawing lots, is presumed to have had religious significance, i.e. in giving trust to divine providence – it seems – to guide the random decision-making.[52] There were also sacred rituals and objects, such as the pillars called
Irminsul; these were believed to connect heaven and earth, as with other examples of trees or ladders to heaven in numerous religions.
Charlemagne had one such pillar chopped down in 772 close to the
Eresburg stronghold.
Early Saxon religious practices in Britain can be gleaned from place names and the
Germanic calendar in use at that time. The Germanic
godsWoden,
Frigg,
Tiw and
Thunor, who are attested to in every Germanic tradition, were worshipped in Wessex, Sussex and Essex. They are the only ones directly attested to, though the names of the third and fourth months (March and April) of the
Old English calendar bear the names Hrēþmōnaþ and Ēosturmōnaþ, meaning 'month of
Hretha' and 'month of
Ēostre'. It is presumed that these are the names of two goddesses who were worshipped around that season.[53] The Saxons offered cakes to their gods in February (Solmōnaþ). There was a religious festival associated with the harvest, Halegmōnaþ ('holy month' or 'month of offerings', September).[54][page needed] The Saxon calendar began on 25 December, and the months of December and January were called
Yule (or Giuli). They contained a Modra niht or 'night of the mothers', another religious festival of unknown content.
The Saxon freemen and servile class remained faithful to their original beliefs long after their nominal conversion to Christianity. Nursing a hatred of the upper class, which, with Frankish assistance, had marginalised them from political power, the lower classes (the plebeium vulgus or cives) were a problem for Christian authorities as late as 836. The Translatio S. Liborii remarks on their obstinacy in pagan ritus et superstitio ('usage and superstition').[55]
Christianity
The conversion of the Saxons in England from their original
Germanic religion to
Christianity occurred in the early to late seventh century under the influence of the already converted
Jutes of
Kent. In the 630s,
Birinus became the "apostle to the West Saxons" and converted
Wessex, whose first Christian king was
Cynegils. The West Saxons begin to emerge from obscurity only with their conversion to Christianity and keeping written records. The
Gewisse, a West Saxon people, were especially resistant to Christianity; Birinus exercised more efforts against them and ultimately succeeded in conversion.[53] In Wessex,
a bishopric was founded at
Dorchester. The South Saxons were first evangelised extensively under
Anglian influence;
Aethelwalh of Sussex was converted by
Wulfhere,
King of Mercia and allowed
Wilfrid,
Bishop of York, to evangelise his people beginning in 681. The chief South Saxon bishopric was
that of Selsey. The
East Saxons were more pagan than the southern or western Saxons; their territory had a superabundance of pagan sites.[56] Their king,
Saeberht, was converted early and a diocese was established at
London. Its first bishop,
Mellitus, was expelled by Saeberht's heirs. The conversion of the East Saxons was completed under
Cedd in the 650s and 660s.
The continental Saxons were evangelised largely by English missionaries in the late seventh and early eighth centuries. Around 695, two early English missionaries,
Hewald the White and
Hewald the Black, were martyred by the vicani, that is, villagers.[52] Throughout the century that followed, villagers and other peasants proved to be the greatest opponents of
Christianisation, while missionaries often received the support of the edhilingui and other noblemen.
Saint Lebuin, an Englishman who between 745 and 770 preached to the Saxons, mainly in the eastern Netherlands, built a church and made many friends among the nobility. Some of them rallied to save him from an angry mob at the annual council at Marklo (near river Weser, Bremen). Social tensions arose between the Christianity-sympathetic noblemen and the pagan lower castes, who were staunchly faithful to their traditional religion.[57][page needed]
Under Charlemagne, the
Saxon Wars had as their chief object the conversion and integration of the Saxons into the Frankish empire. Though much of the highest caste converted readily, forced baptisms and forced tithing made enemies of the lower orders. Even some contemporaries found the methods employed to win over the Saxons wanting, as this excerpt from a letter of
Alcuin of York to his friend Meginfrid, written in 796, shows:
If the light yoke and sweet burden of Christ were to be preached to the most obstinate people of the Saxons with as much determination as the payment of tithes has been exacted, or as the force of the legal decree has been applied for fault of the most trifling sort imaginable, perhaps they would not be averse to their baptismal vows.[58]
Charlemagne's successor,
Louis the Pious, reportedly treated the Saxons more as Alcuin would have wished, and as a consequence they were faithful subjects.[59] The lower classes, however, revolted against Frankish overlordship in favour of their old paganism as late as the 840s, when the Stellinga rose up against the Saxon leadership, who were allied with the Frankish emperor
Lothair I. After the suppression of the Stellinga, in 851
Louis the German brought
relics from
Rome to Saxony to foster a devotion to the
Roman Catholic Church.[60] The
Poeta Saxo, in his verse Annales of Charlemagne's reign (written between 888 and 891), laid an emphasis on his conquest of Saxony. He celebrated the Frankish monarch as on par with the Roman emperors and as the bringer of Christian salvation to people. References are made to periodic outbreaks of pagan worship, especially of Freya, among the Saxon peasantry as late as the 12th century.
Christian literature
In the ninth century, the Saxon nobility became vigorous supporters of
monasticism and formed a bulwark of Christianity against the existing
Slavic paganism to the east and the
Nordic paganism of the
Vikings to the north. Much Christian literature was produced in the vernacular
Old Saxon, the notable ones being a result of the literary output and wide influence of Saxon monasteries such as
Fulda,
Corvey and
Verden; and the theological controversy between the
Augustinian,
Gottschalk and
Rabanus Maurus.[61]
From an early date, Charlemagne and
Louis the Pious supported Christian
vernacular works in order to evangelise the Saxons more efficiently. The Heliand, a verse epic of the life of Christ in a Germanic setting, and Genesis, another epic retelling of the events of
the first book of the Bible, were commissioned in the early ninth century by Louis to disseminate scriptural knowledge to the masses. A council of
Tours in 813 and then a synod of
Mainz in 848 both declared that
homilies ought to be preached in the vernacular. The earliest preserved text in the Saxon language is a
baptismal vow from the late eighth or early ninth century; the vernacular was used extensively in an effort to Christianise the lowest castes of Saxon society.[62]
Buchberger, Erica; Loseby, Simon (2018).
"Saxons". In Nicholson, Oliver (ed.). The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity.
Oxford University Press.
ISBN9780191744457. Retrieved 26 January 2020. Saxons. A Germanic people located primarily in modern north-west Germany...
Kerr, Anne; Wright, Edmund, eds. (2015).
"Saxons". A Dictionary of World History (3 ed.).
Oxford University Press.
ISBN9780191765728. Retrieved 26 January 2020. Germanic tribes, possibly named from their single-edged seax ('sword').
^Springer 2004, p. 12: "Unter dem alten Sachsen ist das Gebiet zu verstehen, das seit der Zeit Karls des Großen (reg. 768–814) bis zum Jahre 1180 also Saxonia '(das Land) Sachsen' bezeichnet wurde oder wenigstens so genannt werden konnte."
^Springer 2004, p. 2004: "Im Latein des späten Altertums konnte Saxones als Sammelbezeichnung von Küstenräubern gebraucht werden. Es spielte dieselbe Rolle wie viele Jahrhunderte später das Wort Wikinger."
^Richard Carew, Survey of Cornwall, 1602. N.B. in revived Cornish, this would be transcribed, My ny vynnaf cows sowsnek. The Cornish word Emit meaning 'ant' (and perversely derived from
Old English) is more commonly used in Cornwall as of 2015[update] as slang to designate non-Cornish Englishmen.
^Suomen sanojen alkuperä. Etymologinen sanakirja (in Finnish). Vol. 3. R-Ö. Suomalaisen kirjallisuuden seura, Kotimaisten kielten tutkimuskeskus. 2012. p. 146.
^Green, D. H.; Siegmund, F. (2003). The Continental Saxons from the Migration Period to the Tenth Century: An Ethnographic Perspective.
Boydell Press. pp. 14–15.
ISBN978-1-84383-026-9.
^Pilet, Christian (31 December 1979). "Quelques témoignages de le présence Anglo-Saxonne dans le Calvados, Basse-Normandie". Frühmittelalterliche Studien. 13. Berlin, New York: Walter de Gruyter.
doi:
10.1515/9783110242126.357.
^Lorren, C. (1980). "Des Saxons en Basse-Normandie au VIe siècle ? A propos de quelques découvertes archéologiques faîtes récemment dans la basse vallée de l'Orne". Studien zur Sachsenforschung. 2.
^Seillier, C. (1995). "La Présence germanique en Gaule du Nord au Bas-Empire". Revue du Nord (in French). 77. Villeneuve d'Ascq.
^
abSeebold, Elmar (2003). "Die Herkunft der Franken, Friesen und Sachsen". Essays on the Early Franks. Barkhuis. pp. 24–29.
ISBN9789080739031.{{
cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (
link)