the Saxons

Continental Saxons

The Anglo-Saxon historian Bede writing around the year 730 remarks that "the old Saxons have no king, but they are governed by several ealdormen (satrapas), who during war cast lots for leadership, but who in time of peace are equal in power". However, the territory appears to have consolidated itself and by the end of the 8th century, there was a political entity called the Duchy of Saxony.

The Saxons long resisted both becoming Christians ("they are much given to devil worship" Einhard said, "and they are hostile to our religion [see Ewald the Black]), and being incorporated into the orbit of the Frankish kingdom, but were decisively conquered by Charlemagne in a long series of annual campaigns (772 - 804). During Charlemagne's campaign in Hispania (778), the Saxons advanced to Deutz on the Rhine and plundered along the river. With defeat came the enforced baptism and conversion of the Saxon leaders and their people. Even their sacred tree, Irminsul, was destroyed.

Under Carolingian rule, the Saxons were reduced to a tributary status. There is evidence that the Saxons, as well as Slavic tributaries like 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 10th century, but lost this position in 1024. The duchy was divided up in 1180 when Duke Henry the Lion, Emperor Otto's grandson, refused to follow his cousin, Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, into war in Italy.

Today's state Niedersachsen (Lower Saxony).During the late Middle Ages under the Salian emperors, the Teutonic knights and settlers, moved east along the river Elbe into the area of settlement of a western slavic tribe, the Sorbs. The Sorbs were gradually Germanised. This region subsequently acquired the name Saxony through political circumstances and was originally called the Margravate (German: Markgrafschaft) of Meissen. The rulers of the Margravate acquired control of the Duchy of Saxony 1423 and 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 misunderstandings about the original homeland of the Saxons, mostly in the present-day German state of Lower Saxony (German: Niedersachsen).