Saxons

(noun)

A group of Germanic tribes first mentioned as living near the North Sea coast of what is now Germany (Old Saxony) in late Roman times.

Related Terms

Examples of Saxons in the following topics:

  • The Anglo-Saxons

    • The Anglo-Saxons were a people who inhabited Great Britain from the 5th century.
    • The history of the Anglo-Saxons is the history of a cultural identity.
    • He was the first King of the West Saxons to style himself "King of the Anglo-Saxons."
    • Monasticism, and not just the church, was at the centre of Anglo Saxon Christian life.
    • The subject of war and the Anglo-Saxons is a curiously neglected one, however, it is an important element of the Anglo-Saxon society.

  • The Rise of Charlemagne

    • The Germanic Saxons were divided into four subgroups in four regions.
    • He returned to Saxony in 775, marching through Westphalia and conquering the Saxon fort at Sigiburg.
    • He then crossed Engria, where he defeated the Saxons again.
    • Finally, in Eastphalia, he defeated a Saxon force and converted its leader, Hessi,  to Christianity.
    • Many Saxons were baptized as Christians.

  • The Vikings

    • Early on it was the Saxons, who occupied Old Saxony, located in what is now northern Germany.
    • The Saxons were a fierce and powerful people and were often in conflict with the Vikings.
    • To counter the Saxon aggression and solidify their own presence, the Danes constructed the huge defense fortification of Danevirke in and around Hedeby.
    • The Vikings soon witnessed the violent subduing of the Saxons by Charlemagne in the thirty-year Saxon Wars from 772–804.
    • The Saxon defeat resulted in their forced christening and the absorption of Old Saxony into the Carolingian Empire.

  • The Catholic Church

    • Missionaries such as Augustine of Canterbury, who was sent from Rome to begin the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons, and, coming the other way in the Hiberno-Scottish mission, Saints Colombanus, Boniface, Willibrord, and Ansgar, among many others, took Christianity into northern Europe and spread Catholicism among the Germanic and Slavic peoples.
    • These tribes are referred to as the "Anglo-Saxons," predecessors of the English.
    • Later, under Archbishop Theodore, the Anglo-Saxons enjoyed a golden age of culture and scholarship.
    • Soon, important English missionaries such as Saints Wilfrid, Willibrord, Lullus, and Boniface would begin evangelizing their Saxon relatives in Germany.

  • Charles Martel and Pepin the Short

    • He thereafter made significant external gains against fellow Christian realms, establishing Frankish control over Bavaria, Alemannia, and Frisia, and compelling some of the Saxon tribes to offer tribute (738).
    • The brothers were active in subjugating revolts led by the Bavarians, Aquitanians, Saxons, and Alemanni in the early years of their reign.
    • Being well disposed towards the church and papacy on account of their ecclesiastical upbringing, Pepin and Carloman continued their father's work supporting Saint Boniface in reforming the Frankish church and evangelizing the Saxons.
    • Pepin was, however, troubled by the relentless revolts of the Saxons and the Bavarians.

  • Danish Intervention

    • Danish involvement, referred to as the Low Saxon War, began when Christian IV of Denmark, a Lutheran who also ruled as Duke of Holstein, a duchy within the Holy Roman Empire, helped the Lutheran rulers of neighbouring Lower Saxony by leading an army against Ferdinand II's Imperial forces in 1625.
    • Thus, Christian, as war-leader of the Lower Saxon Circle, entered the war with an army of only 20,000 mercenaries, some of his allies from England and Scotland and a national army 15,000 strong, leading them as Duke of Holstein rather than as King of Denmark.

  • Charlemagne's Reforms

    • Charlemagne's vast conquests brought him into contact with the cultures and learnings of other countries, especially Moorish Spain, Anglo-Saxon England, and Lombard Italy, and greatly increased the provision of monastic schools and scriptoria (centers for book copying) in Francia.
    • The pan-European nature of Charlemagne's influence is indicated by the origins of many of the men who worked for him: Alcuin, an Anglo-Saxon from York; Theodulf, a Visigoth, probably from Septimania; Paul the Deacon, a Lombard; Peter of Pisa and Paulinus of Aquileia, both Italians; and Angilbert, Angilram, Einhard, and Waldo of Reichenau, Franks.
    • Pursuing his father's reforms, Charlemagne abolished the monetary system based on the gold sou, and he and the Anglo-Saxon King Offa of Mercia took up the system set in place by Pepin.

  • Intellectual Life

    • A second "renaissance" occurred during the reign of Otto I (936-973) King of the Saxons and from 952 onwards Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.
    • From this close contact many new reforms were introduced in the Saxon Kingdom and in the Holy Roman Empire.

  • The Norman Invasion of 1066 CE

    • William's claim to the English throne derived from his familial relationship with the childless Anglo-Saxon King Edward the Confessor, who may have encouraged William's hopes for the throne.
    • The tapestry depicts the loss of the Anglo-Saxon troops to the Norman forces.

  • Peter's Foreign Policy

    • The Polish-Lithuania nobility resisted the Saxon rule and troops in Poland, which led to military resistance.
    • Eventually Augustus asked for an intervention by Russian forces, the Polish-Lithuanian nobles were defeated by the Saxons in 1716, and a treaty between the King and the Polish-Lithuanian nobility was signed in Warsaw.