Saxons
Sahson | |
---|---|
England) | |
Languages | |
Old Saxon, Old English | |
Religion | |
Originally Germanic and Anglo-Saxon paganism, later Christianity | |
Related ethnic groups | |
Anglo-Saxons, Angles, Frisii, Jutes |
The Saxons
During the eighth and ninth centuries the Saxons of Old Saxony were in continual conflict with the
Charles Martel, Duke and prince of the Franks and Mayor of the Palace of Austrasia, the grandfather of Charlemagne, had fought and led numerous campaigns against the Saxons.
In contrast, the English Saxons, today referred to in English as
Although the English Saxons were no longer raiders, the political history of the continental Saxons is unclear until the time of the conflict between their semi-legendary hero Widukind and the Frankish emperor Charlemagne. The continental Saxons are no longer a distinctive ethnic group or country but their name lives on in the names of several regions and states of Germany, including Lower Saxony (which includes central parts of the original Saxon homeland known as Old Saxony), Saxony in Upper Saxony, as well as Saxony-Anhalt (which includes Old, Lower and Upper Saxon regions).
Etymology
The name of the Saxons may derive from a kind of knife associated with the
The Elizabethan-era play Edmund Ironside suggests that the name "Saxon" derives from the Latin saxa (stones; singular form: saxum):[10]
Their names discover what their natures are, More hard than stones, and yet not stones indeed.
— I.i.181-2
Saxon as a demonym
Celtic languages
In the
Sasanach, the Irish word for an Englishman (with Sasana meaning England), has the same derivation, as do the words used in Welsh to describe the English people (Saeson, singular Sais) and the language and things English in general: Saesneg and Seisnig.
Cornish terms the English Sawsnek, from the same derivation. In the 16th century Cornish-speakers used the phrase Meea navidna cowza sawzneck to feign ignorance of the English language.[14] The Cornish words for the English people and England are Sowsnek and Pow Sows ('Land [Pays] of Saxons'). Similarly Breton, spoken in north-western France, has saoz(on) ('English'), saozneg ('the English language'), and Bro-saoz for 'England'.
Romance languages
The label "Saxons" (in Romanian: Sași) also became attached to German settlers who settled during the 12th century in southeastern Transylvania.[15] From Transylvania, some of these Saxons migrated to neighbouring Moldavia, as the name of the town Sascut, in present-day Romania, shows.
Non-Indo-European languages
The Finns and Estonians have changed their usage of the root Saxon over the centuries to apply now to the whole country of Germany (Saksa and Saksamaa respectively) and the Germans (saksalaiset and sakslased, respectively). The Finnish word sakset (scissors) reflects the name of the old Saxon single-edged sword – seax – from which the name "Saxon" supposedly derives.[16] In Estonian, saks means colloquially, "a wealthy person". As a result of Northern Crusades, Estonia's upper class comprised mostly Baltic Germans, persons of supposedly Saxon origin until well into the 20th century.
Related personal names
The word survives as the surnames of Saß / Sass (in Low German or Low Saxon), Sachse and Sachs. The Dutch female given name, Saskia, originally meant 'a Saxon woman' (metathesis of Saxia).
Saxony as a toponym
Following the downfall of
History
Early history
Schütte remarks that there was a medieval tradition of calling this area "Old Saxony" (covering Westphalia, Angria and Eastphalia).
The first undisputed mention of the Saxon name in its modern form is from AD 356, when
Both in this case and in others the Saxons were associated with using boats for their raids. In order to defend against Saxon raiders, the Romans created a military district called the Litus Saxonicum ("Saxon Shore") on both sides of the English Channel.
In 441–442 AD, Saxons are mentioned for the first time as inhabitants of Britain, when an unknown Gaulish historian wrote: "The British provinces (...) have been reduced to Saxon rule".[23]
Saxons as inhabitants of present-day
Netherlands
In the Netherlands, Saxons occupied the territory south of the
The local language, although strongly influenced by standard Dutch, is still officially recognised as Dutch Low Saxon.
Italy and Provence
In 569, some Saxons accompanied the
Gaul
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A Saxon king named Eadwacer conquered Angers in 463, to be dislodged by Childeric I and the Salian Franks, allies of the Roman Empire.[26] It is possible that Saxon settlement of Great Britain began in response to expanding Frankish control of the Channel coast.[27]
Some Saxons already lived along the Saxon shore of Gaul as Roman
A Saxon unit of
In 843 and 846 under king Charles the Bald, other official documents mention a pagus called Otlinga Saxonia in the Bessin region, but the meaning of Otlinga is unclear. Different Bessin toponyms were identified as typically Saxon, ex : Cottun (Coltun 1035–1037 ; Cola's "town"). It is the only place name in Normandy that can be interpreted as a -tun one (English -ton; cf. Colton).[35] In contrast to this one example in Normandy are numerous -thun villages in the north of France, in Boulonnais, for example Alincthun, Verlincthun, and Pelingthun,[36] showing, with other toponyms, an important Saxon or Anglo-Saxon settlement. Comparing the concentration of -ham/-hem (Anglo-Saxon hām > home) toponyms in the Bessin and in the Boulonnais gives more examples of Saxon settlement.[37] In the area known today as Normandy, the -ham cases of Bessin are unique – they do not exist elsewhere. Other cases were considered, but there is no determining example. For example, Canehan (Kenehan 1030/Canaan 1030–1035) could be the biblical name Canaan[38] or Airan (Heidram 9th century), the Germanic masculine name Hairammus.[39]
The Bessin examples are clear; for example,
In addition, archaeological finds add evidence to the documents and the results of toponymic research. Around the city of Caen and in the Bessin (Vierville-sur-Mer, Bénouville, Giverville, Hérouvillette), excavations have yielded numerous examples of Anglo-Saxon jewellery, design elements, settings, and weapons. All of these things were discovered in cemeteries in a context of the fifth, sixth and seventh centuries AD.[42][43]
The oldest Saxon site found in France to date is Vron, in Picardy. Archaeologists excavated a large cemetery with tombs dating from the Roman Empire until the sixth century. Furniture and other grave goods, as well as the human remains, revealed a group of people buried in the fourth and fifth centuries AD. Physically different from the usual local inhabitants found before this period, they instead resembled the Germanic populations of the north. Starting around 375 AD the burials are located in the region known in Roman times as the Saxon Shores. 92% of these burials were inhumations, and sometimes included weapons of typical Germanic type. Starting from around 440 AD the burial ground displaced eastward. The burials were now arranged in rows and displayed a strong Anglo-Saxon influence until around 520 AD, when this influence subsided. Archaeological material, neighbouring toponymy, and historical accounts support the conclusion of settlement of Saxon foederati with their families on the shores of the English Channel. Further anthropological research by Joël Blondiaux shows these people were from Lower Saxony.[44]
Saxons in Britain
Saxons, along with Angles, Frisians and Jutes, invaded the island of Great Britain (Britannia) around the time of the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. Saxon raiders had been harassing the eastern and southern shores of Britannia for centuries before, prompting the construction of the Saxon Shore forts. Before the end of Roman rule in Britannia, many Saxons and other folk had been permitted to settle in these areas as farmers.
According to tradition, the Saxons (and other tribes) first entered Britain en masse as part of an agreement to protect the indigenous
Historians are divided about what followed: some argue that the takeover of southern Great Britain by the Anglo-Saxons was peaceful.[45] The known account from a native Briton who lived in the mid-5th century AD, Gildas, described events as a forced takeover by armed attack:
For the fire (...) spread from sea to sea, fed by the hands of our foes in the east, and did not cease, until, destroying the neighbouring towns and lands, it reached the other side of the island, and dipped its red and savage tongue in the western ocean. In these assaults (...) all the columns were levelled with the ground by the frequent strokes of the battering-ram, all the husbandmen routed, together with their bishops, priests and people, whilst the sword gleamed, and the flames crackled around them on every side. Lamentable to behold, in the midst of the streets lay the tops of lofty towers, tumbled to the ground, stones of high walls, holy altars, fragments of human bodies, covered with livid clots of coagulated blood, looking as if they had been squeezed together in a press; and with no chance of being buried, save in the ruins of the houses, or in the ravening bellies of wild beasts and birds; with reverence be it spoken for their blessed souls, if, indeed, there were many found who were carried, at that time, into the high heaven by the holy angels... Some, therefore, of the miserable remnant, being taken in the mountains, were murdered in great numbers; others, constrained by famine, came and yielded themselves to be slaves for ever to their foes, running the risk of being instantly slain, which truly was the greatest favour that could be offered them: some others passed beyond the seas with loud lamentations instead of the voice of exhortation (...) Others, committing the safeguard of their lives, which were in continual jeopardy, to the mountains, precipices, thickly wooded forests and to the rocks of the seas (albeit with trembling hearts), remained still in their country.
Gildas described how the Saxons were later slaughtered at the battle of
Four separate Saxon realms emerged:
- East Saxons: created the Kingdom of Essex.
- Middle Saxons: created the province of Middlesex
- South Saxons: led by Aelle, created the Kingdom of Sussex
- West Saxons: created the Kingdom of Wessex
During the period of the reigns from
Later Saxons in Germany
The continental Saxons living in what was known as Old Saxony (c. 531–804) appear to have become consolidated by the end of the eighth century. After subjugation by the Emperor Charlemagne, a political entity called the Duchy of Saxony (804–1296) appeared, covering Westphalia, Eastphalia, Angria and Nordalbingia (Holstein, southern part of modern-day Schleswig-Holstein state).
The Saxons long resisted becoming
The war that had lasted so many years was at length ended by their acceding to the terms offered by the king; which were renunciation of their national religious customs and the worship of devils, acceptance of the sacraments of the Christian faith and religion, and union with the Franks to form one people.
Under
During the
Culture
Social structure
In the mid-9th century,
The
According to the Vita Lebuini antiqua, an important source for early Saxon history, the Saxons held an annual council at Marklo (Westphalia) where they "confirmed their laws, gave judgment on outstanding cases, and determined by common counsel whether they would go to war or be in peace that year."[48] All three castes participated in the general council; twelve representatives from each caste were sent from each Gau. In 782, Charlemagne abolished the system of Gaue and replaced it with the Grafschaftsverfassung, the system of counties typical of Francia.[51] By prohibiting the Marklo councils, Charlemagne pushed the frilingi and lazzi out of political power. The old Saxon system of Abgabengrundherrschaft, lordship based on dues and taxes, was replaced by a form of feudalism based on service and labour, personal relationships and oaths.[52]
Religion
Germanic religion
Saxon religious practices were closely related to their political practices. The annual councils of the entire tribe began with invocations of the gods. The procedure by which dukes were elected in wartime, by drawing lots, is presumed to have had religious significance, i.e. in giving trust to divine providence – it seems – to guide the random decision making.[53] There were also sacred rituals and objects, such as the pillars called Irminsul; these were believed to connect heaven and earth, as with other examples of trees or ladders to heaven in numerous religions. Charlemagne had one such pillar chopped down in 772 close to the Eresburg stronghold.
Early Saxon religious practices in Britain can be gleaned from place names and the
The Saxon freemen and servile class remained faithful to their original beliefs long after their nominal conversion to Christianity. Nursing a hatred of the upper class, which, with Frankish assistance, had marginalised them from political power, the lower classes (the plebeium vulgus or cives) were a problem for Christian authorities as late as 836. The Translatio S. Liborii remarks on their obstinacy in pagan ritus et superstitio (usage and superstition).[56]
Christianity
The conversion of the Saxons in England from their original
The continental Saxons were evangelised largely by English missionaries in the late seventh and early eighth centuries. Around 695, two early English missionaries,
Under Charlemagne, the
If the light yoke and sweet burden of Christ were to be preached to the most obstinate people of the Saxons with as much determination as the payment of tithes has been exacted, or as the force of the legal decree has been applied for fault of the most trifling sort imaginable, perhaps they would not be averse to their baptismal vows.[59]
Charlemagne's successor,
Christian literature
In the ninth century, the Saxon nobility became vigorous supporters of
From an early date, Charlemagne and Louis the Pious supported Christian vernacular works in order to evangelise the Saxons more efficiently. The Heliand, a verse epic of the life of Christ in a Germanic setting, and Genesis, another epic retelling of the events of the first book of the Bible, were commissioned in the early ninth century by Louis to disseminate scriptural knowledge to the masses. A council of Tours in 813 and then a synod of Mainz in 848 both declared that homilies ought to be preached in the vernacular. The earliest preserved text in the Saxon language is a baptismal vow from the late eighth or early ninth century; the vernacular was used extensively in an effort to Christianise the lowest castes of Saxon society.[63]
See also
- List of Germanic tribes
Notes
- Low German: Sassen, Dutch: Saksen)
- ^
- ISBN 9780191735257. Retrieved 26 January 2020.
Saxons, a Germanic tribe...
- Buchberger, Erica; Loseby, Simon (2018). "Saxons". In Nicholson, Oliver (ed.). The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity. ISBN 9780191744457. Retrieved 26 January 2020.
Saxons. A Germanic people located primarily in modern north-west Germany...
- ISBN 9780191727139.
Saxons. Germanic people whose homeland was in the north German coastal plain...
- Kerr, Anne; Wright, Edmund, eds. (2015). "Saxons". A Dictionary of World History (3 ed.). ISBN 9780191765728. Retrieved 26 January 2020.
Germanic tribes, possibly named from their single-edged seax ('sword').
- ^ (Springer 2004, p. 12): "Unter dem alten Sachsen ist das Gebiet zu verstehen, das seit der Zeit Karls des Großen (reg. 768–814) bis zum Jahre 1180 also Saxonia '(das Land) Sachsen' bezeichnet wurde oder wenigstens so genannt werden konnte."
- ^ (Springer 2004, p. 2004): "Im Latein des späten Altertums konnte Saxones als Sammelbezeichnung von Küstenräubern gebraucht werden. Es spielte dieselbe Rolle wie viele Jahrhunderte später das Wort Wikinger."
- ^ (Springer 2004, p. 2004)
- ^ Halsall, Guy, Barbarian Migration and the Roman West 376–568, pp. 386–392
- ISBN 978-0-431-10209-2.
- ^ "Saxon | Definition of Saxon in English by Oxford Dictionaries". Oxford Dictionaries | English. Retrieved 10 March 2019.[dead link]
- ^ "sax". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.)
- ^ "New times and old stories". Literary Appropriations of the Anglo-Saxons. p. 111 fn 14.
- ^ "Definition of SASSENACH". Merriam-Webster, Inc. Retrieved 16 January 2019.
- ^ Scott, Walter. 'The Lady of the Lake'. 1871. T. Nelson and sons.
- ^ "Sassenach". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.)
- ^ Richard Carew, Survey of Cornwall, 1602. N.B. in revived Cornish, this would be transcribed, My ny vynnaf cows sowsnek. The Cornish word Emit meaning 'ant' (and perversely derived from Old English) is more commonly used in Cornwall as of 2015[update] as slang to designate non-Cornish Englishmen.
- ^ Magazin Istoric (5 September 2013). "Saşii – Saxonii Transilvaniei". Politeia (in Romanian).
- ^ Suomen sanojen alkuperä. Etymologinen sanakirja, R-Ö. Suomalaisen kirjallisuuden seura, Kotimaisten kielten tutkimuskeskus. 2012. p. 146.
- ^ Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. .
- ISBN 978-1-84383-026-9
- ^ Schütte, page 22–23.
- ^ Schütte page 64.
- ISBN 9789077922736
- ISBN 9780415063746
- ISBN 978-1-85109-440-0.
- ^ Bachrach, p. 39.
- ^ Bachrach, p.39.
- ^ Gregory of Tours, History of the Franks, Penguin 1974.
- ^ Stenton, 12.
- ^ François de Beaurepaire, Les noms des communes et anciennes paroisses de la Manche, éditions Picard 1986. p. 125 –127.
- ISBN 9782735500468.
- O. M. Dalton, Clarendon Press 1967.
- ^ Bachrach, 52.
- ^ Bachrach, 10.
- ^ Bachrach, 63.
- Fredegar, IV.54, p. 66.
- ^ Albert Dauzat and Charles Rostaing, Dictionnaire étymologique des noms de lieux en France, Librairie Guénégaud 1979. p. 215.
- ^ Dauzat and Rostaing, DENL.
- ^ Louis Guinet, Les emprunts gallo-romans au germanique (du Ier à la fin du Vème siècle), éditions Klincksieck 1982.
- ^ François de Beaurepaire, Les noms des communes et anciennes paroisses de la Seine-Maritime, éditions Picard 1979. p. 56.
- ^ René Lepelley, Dictionnaire étymologique des noms de communes de Normandie, Charles Corlet / Presses universitaires de Caen. p. 46.
- ^ fr:Ernest Nègre, fr:Toponymie générale de la France, Volume II, Librairie Droz. p. 1008.
- ^ "Répartition des LECESNE entre 1891 et 1915" (in French).
- ^ Quelques témoignages de le présence Anglo-Saxonne dans le Calvados, Basse-Normandie (Christian Pilet), in Frühmittelalterliche Studien (1979), Berlin, New York (Walter de Gruyter) 2009.
- ^ Des Saxons en Basse-Normandie au VIe siècle ? A propos de quelques découvertes archéologiques faîtes récemment dans la basse vallée de l'Orne (C. Lorren) in Studien zur Sachsenforschung 2, 1980.
- ^ C. Seillier, La Présence germanique en Gaule du Nord au Bas-Empire, Revue du Nord, 1995, n° 77.
- ^ "Anglo-Saxons – Peaceful or Barbaric?". Medieval Histories. 28 August 2014. Retrieved 29 December 2023.
- Saints Ewald.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-4422-1395-1.
- ^ a b Goldberg, 473.
- ^ a b Goldberg, 471.
- ^ Goldberg, 472.
- ^ Goldberg, 476.
- ^ Goldberg, 479.
- ^ a b Goldberg, 474.
- ^ a b Stenton, 97–98.
- ^ Stenton.
- ^ Goldberg, 480.
- ^ Stenton, 102.
- ^ Goldberg.
- ^ Goldberg, 478.
- Astronomus.
- ^ Hummer, 143.
- ^ Goldberg, 477.
- ^ Hummer, 138–139.
References
- Bachrach, Bernard S. Merovingian Military Organisation, 481–751. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1971.
- Goldberg, Eric J. "Popular Revolt, Dynastic Politics, and Aristocratic Factionalism in the Early Middle Ages: The Saxon Stellinga Reconsidered." Speculum, Vol. 70, No. 3. (Jul., 1995), pp. 467–501.
- Hummer, Hans J. Politics and Power in Early Medieval Europe: Alsace and the Frankish Realm 600–1000. Cambridge University Press: 2005.
- Reuter, Timothy. Germany in the Early Middle Ages 800–1056. New York: Longman, 1991.
- Reuter, Timothy (trans.) The Annals of Fulda. (Manchester Medieval series, Ninth-Century Histories, Volume II.) Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1992.
- Springer, Matthias (2004), Die Sachsen, Kohlhammer Verlag
- Stenton, Sir Frank M. Anglo-Saxon England. third ed. Oxford University Press, 1971.
- Wallace-Hadrill, J. M., translator. The Fourth Book of the Chronicle of Fredegar with its Continuations. Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1960.
- Thompson, James Westfall. Feudal Germany. 2 vol. New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1928.
External links
- James Grout: Saxon Advent, part of the Encyclopædia Romana
- Saxons and Britons
- Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). . Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.