Saxon Alliance

Lore & Background

The Saxons, sometimes called the Old Saxons or Continental Saxons, were a Germanic people of early medieval "Old" Saxony (Latin: Antiqua Saxonia) which became a Carolingian "stem duchy" in 804, in what is now northern Germany. Many of their neighbours were, like them, speakers of West Germanic dialects, including both the Franks and Thuringians to the south, and the coastal Frisians, Angles and Danes to the north. To their east were Obotrites and other Slavic-speaking peoples. The political history of these continental Saxons is unclear until the 8th century and the conflict between their semi-legendary hero Widukind and the Frankish emperor Charlemagne. They do not appear to have been politically united until the generations of conflict leading up to that defeat, before which they were reportedly ruled by regional "satraps". Previous Frankish rulers of Austrasia, both Merovingian and Carolingian, fought numerous campaigns against Saxons, both in the west near the Lippe, Ems and Weser, and further east, near Thuringia and Bohemia, including the area which later medieval sources referred to as "North Swabia". Charlemagne conquered all the Saxons after winning the long Saxon Wars (772–804 AD) and forced them to convert to Christianity, annexing Saxony into the Carolingian domain. Under the Carolingian Franks Saxony became a single Stem duchy, fitting it within the basic political structure of the later Holy Roman Empire. The early rulers of this Duchy of Saxony expanded their territories—and therefore those of the Holy Roman Empire—to the east, at the expense of Slavic-speaking Wends.

In Their Own Story

Long before any clear historical mention of Saxony as a state, the name "Saxons" was also used to refer to coastal raiders who attacked the Roman Empire from north of the Rhine, in a sense similar to the much later term Viking. These early raiders and settlers included Frisians, Angles and Jutes, and the term Saxon was not at that time a term for any specific tribe. Earlier still, there is a single possible classical reference to a smaller and much earlier Saxon tribe in the second century AD, but the interpretation of this text ("Axones" in most surviving manuscripts) is disputed. For historians who accept this record, the original Saxon tribe lived north of the mouth of the Elbe, close to the probable homeland of the Angles, in the part of later Saxony which later came to be known as Nordalbingia. The first clear and undisputed contemporary uses of the Saxon name come from the 4th century, but some of these refer to events in the 3rd century. Eutropius, a 4th-century Roman historian, claimed that Saxon and Frankish raiders had attacked the North Sea coast near Boulogne-sur-Mer in about 285, when Carausius was posted there to defend against them. However, it is very likely that Saxon was a new term he was using anachronistically. The Panegyrici Latini, written soon after those events, instead mention Franks, Chamavi and Frisians, but not Saxons. The Notitia Dignitatum of about 400 shows the existence of a Saxon military unit (an Ala) in the Roman military, stationed in what is now Lebanon and northern Israel. This Ala primum Saxonum already existed by 363 when Julian used them in Arabia against the Persian empire.

Reader's Guide

Today the Saxons of Germany no longer form a distinctive ethnic group or country, but their name lives on in the names of several regions and states of Germany, including Lower Saxony (German: Niedersachsen) which includes most of the original duchy. Their language evolved into Low German which was the lingua franca of the Hanseatic League, but has faced a long and gradual decline since the Late Medieval period as a literary, administrative and, to a significant extent, cultural language in favor of Dutch and German. The name of the Saxons has traditionally been said to derive from a kind of knife used in this period and called a seax in Old English and sahs in Old High German. The term "Saxon" was first definitely used in written records to describe coastal raiders who attacked the Roman Empire from regions north of the Rhine using boats. Significant numbers of these early Saxons settled within the empire, in what later became northern France and England. England, rather than Saxony, was sometimes written of as the Saxon homeland. To avoid confusion, later writers in the 8th century such as Bede and the author of the Ravenna Cosmography referred to the Saxons of Saxony in Germany as the "old Saxons", and their country as "old Saxony".

Did You Know?

• The Saxons were sometimes called the Old Saxons or Continental Saxons to distinguish them from the Anglo-Saxons of England.
• Charlemagne conquered all the Saxons after winning the long Saxon Wars (772–804 AD) and forced them to convert to Christianity.
• The name "Saxon" has traditionally been said to derive from a kind of knife called a seax in Old English and sahs in Old High German.
• The first clear and undisputed contemporary uses of the Saxon name come from the 4th century, though some refer to events in the 3rd century.
• A Roman military unit called the Ala primum Saxonum existed by 363 AD and was used by Julian in Arabia against the Persian empire.