the Saxons

Saxons in medieval Southeastern Europe

In the Middle Ages, groups of Saxon ore miners (called саси, sasi in the South Slavic languages) settled in ore-rich regions of Southeastern Europe. In the 13th-14th century, Saxons from the Upper Harz and Westphalia settled in and around Chiprovtsi in modern northwestern Bulgaria (then in the Second Bulgarian Empire) to extract ore in the western Balkan Mountains, receiving royal privileges from Bulgarian tsar Ivan Shishman.[1] It is thought that these miners established Roman Catholicism in this part of the Balkans before being completely Bulgarianized (by marrying Bulgarian women) and merging with the local population.[2] Along with spreading Roman Catholicism, the Saxons also enriched the local vocabulary with Germanic words and introduced a number of mining techniques and metal-working instruments to Bulgaria.[3] Ethnic subgroups that are thought to be partial descendants of these Saxons are the Banat Bulgarians and the Krashovani.

Saxons also mined ore in the Osogovo and Belasica mountains (between Bulgaria and the Republic of Macedonia),[4] as well as around Samokov[5] in Rila and various parts of the Rhodopes[6][7] and around Etropole[8] (all in Bulgaria), but were assimilated without establishing Catholicism there. The Saxons miners in Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina—active in Brskovo, Rudnik, Olovo, Novo Brdo and other places—also left a significant trace in the mining and metal-working history of the South Slavs.[9]