The Saxons were a group of early
Germanic peoples whose name was given in the early Middle Ages to a large
country near the North Sea coast of what is now Germany. According to one
proposal, the Saxon’s earliest area of settlement is believed to have been Northern
Albingia, which is close to the probable homeland of the Angles. During the
late Roman Empire, the name ‘Saxon’ referred to Germanic coastal raiders.
Later, they were associated with settlements along the coast of Normandy.
Later still, the Saxons, Angles,
Frisians and Jutes settled in England and became known as Anglo-Saxons. These
were no longer raiders. The political history of the continental Saxons is
unclear until the time of the conflict between their legendary hero Widukind
and the Frankish emperor Charlemagne. Charlemagne won the conflict, and
organized the Saxons into a Frankish province. Although the continental Saxons
are no longer a distinctive ethnic group or country, their name lives on in the
name of several regions and states of Germany.
But as I stated earlier, the Saxons,
Angles, Frisians and Jutes either invaded or migrated to the island of ‘Great
Britain’ around the time of the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. For
centuries before that, Saxon raiders had harassed the eastern and southern
shores, and some had been granted permission to settle in these areas as
farmers.
Tradition says that the Saxons (and
others) were brought in to protect the Britons from raids by the Picts (of
Scotland), Gaels (of Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man) and others. The
Saxons were allowed to settle on the Isle of Thanet (eastern Kent) in exchange
for their services as mercenaries. (Thanet is no longer an island, but is
connected to the English mainland.) For whatever reason, more land was granted
to the Anglo-Saxons, and more of them arrived to settle it. It is uncertain
whether this was a peaceful process or not.
Eventually, in about the 6th
century, the Anglo-Saxons took over all of the southeastern portions of Britain
and formed 4 realms: The East saxons created the Kingdom of Essex; The Middle
Saxons created the province of Middlesex; the South Saxons created the Kingdom
of Sussex; and the West Saxons created the Kingdom of Wessex. Between the
reigns of Egbert to Alfred the great, the kings of Wessex gained sway over the
other realms and unified the country. They eventually organized it as the
Kingdom of England in the face of Viking invasions.
One has to wonder if they saw the
irony of becoming victims of coastal raiders, when that was how their own
people started out?
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