The Saxons (Latin: Saxones, Old

English: Seaxe, Old

Saxon: Sahson, Low
German: Sassen, German: Sachse
n, Dutch: Saksen) were 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.
They were soon mentioned as
raiding and settling in many North
Sea areas, as well as pushing
south inland towards the Franks.
Significant numbers settled in large
parts of Great Britain in the
early Middle Ages and formed part
of the merged group of AngloSaxons who eventually organised
the first united Kingdom of
England.[1] Many Saxons however

remained in Germania, where they

resisted the expanding Frankish
Empire through the leadership of
the semi-legendary Saxon
hero, Widukind.
The Saxons' earliest area of
settlement is believed to have
been Northern Albingia, an area
approximately that of
modern Holstein. This general area
also included the probable
homeland of the Angles. Saxons,
along with the Angles and other
continental Germanic tribes,
participated in the Anglo-Saxon
settlement of Britain during and
after the 5th century. The BritishCeltic inhabitants of the isles
tended to refer to all these groups
collectively as Saxons.[2] It is

unknown how many Saxons

migrated from the continent to
Britain, though estimates for the
total number of Anglo-Saxon
settlers are around
200,000.[3] During the Middle Ages,
because of
international Hanseatic trading
routes and contingent migration,
Saxons mixed with and had strong
influences upon the languages and
cultures of the North
Germanic, Baltic peoples, Finnic
peoples, Polabian
Slavs andPomeranian West
Slavic people.
Contents
[hide]

1Etymology

1.1Saxon as a demonym
1.1.1Celtic languages
1.1.2Romance languages
1.1.3Non-Indo-European
languages
1.2Related surnames
1.3Saxony as a toponym
2History
2.1Early history
2.2Continental Saxons
2.2.1Saxony
2.2.2Netherlands
2.2.3Italy and Provence
2.2.4Gaul
2.3Saxons in Britain
3Culture
3.1Social structure
3.2Religion
3.2.1Paganism
o

o
o

o
o

o
o

3.2.2Christianity
3.2.2.1Christian literature
4See also
5Notes
6References
7External links

Etymology[edit]

Possible locations of the Angles,

Saxons and Jutes before their
migration to Britain.
The Saxons may have derived their
name from seax, a kind of knife for
which they were known. The seax
has a lasting symbolic impact in
the English counties
of Essex and Middlesex, both of
which feature three seaxes in their
ceremonial emblem. Their names,
along with those
of Sussex and Wessex, contain a
remnant of the word "Saxon".
The Elizabethan era play Edmund
Ironside suggests the Saxon name
derives from the
Latin saxa (stone):[4]

Their names discover what their

natures are, More hard than
stones, and yet not stones indeed.
I.i.181-2
Saxon as a demonym[edit]
Celtic languages[edit]
In the Celtic languages, the words
designating English nationality
derive from the Latin
word Saxones. The most
prominent example, a loanword in
English, is the Scottish
Gaelic Sassenach (Saxon), often
used disparagingly in Scottish
English/Scots. It derives from
the Scottish
Gaelic Sasunnach meaning,
originally, "Saxon", from the Latin
"Saxones". Scots- or Scottish

English-speakers in the 21st

century usually use it in jest, as a
(friendly) term of abuse.
The Oxford English
Dictionary (OED) gives 1771 as the
date of the earliest written use of
the word in English.
Sasanach, the Irish word for an
Englishman, has the same
derivation, as do the words used
in Welsh to describe the English
people (Saeson, sing. Sais) and
the language and things English in
general: Saesneg andSeisnig.
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.[5]
"England" in Scottish Gaelic,
is Sasainn (Saxony). Other
examples include
the Welsh Saesneg (the English
language), Irish Sasana (England),
Breton saoz(on) (English, saozneg
"the English language", Bro-saoz
"England"),
and Cornish Sowson (English
people), Sowsnek (English
language), and Pow Sows for 'Land
[Pays] of Saxons'.
Romance languages[edit]
The label "Saxons"
(in Romanian Sai) was also
applied to German settlers who
migrated during the 13th century to

southeastern Transylvania. From

Transylvania, some Saxons
migrated to the
neighbouring Moldavia, as the
name of the town, Sas-cut,
shows. Sascut is located in the part
of Moldavia that is today part
of Romania.
During Georg Friederich
Hndel's visit to Italy, much was
made of his being from Saxony; in
particular, the Venetians greeted
the 1709 performance of his
opera Agrippina with the cry Viva il
caro Sassone, "Cheers for the
beloved Saxon!"[6]
Non-Indo-European
languages[edit]

The Finns and Estonians have

changed their usage of the
term Saxony over the centuries to
denote now the whole country
of Germany (Saksa and Saksamaa
respectively) and
the Germans (saksalaiset and saks
lased, respectively). The Finnish
word saksetscissors reflects the
name of the old Saxon singleedged sword Seax from which
'Saxon' is supposedly derived. In
Estonian, saks means a nobleman
or, colloquially, a wealthy or
powerful person. As a result of
the Northern Crusades in the
Middle Ages, Estonia's upper class
had been mostly of German
origin until well into the 20th
century.

Related surnames[edit]
The word also survives as the
surnames of Sa/Sass, Sachse
and Sachs. The Dutch female first
name, Saskia, originally meant "A
Saxon woman" (alteration of
"Saxia").
Saxony as a toponym[edit]
Following the downfall of Henry the
Lion (11291195, Duke of Saxony
11421180), and the subsequent
splitting of the Saxon tribal duchy
into several territories, the name of
the Saxon duchy was transferred to
the lands of the Ascanian family.
This led to the differentiation
between Lower Saxony, lands
settled by the Saxon tribe
and Upper Saxony, the lands

belonging to the House of Wettin.

Gradually, a different region
became known as "Saxony",
ultimately usurping the name's
original meaning. The area
formerly known as Upper Saxony
now lies in Central Germany.
History[edit]
Early history[edit]

Map of the Roman Empire and

contemporary indigenous Europe

in 125 AD, showing the location of

the Saxons in Northern Germany
Ptolemy's Geographia, written in
the 2nd century, is sometimes
considered to contain the first
mentioning of the Saxons. Some
copies of this text mention a tribe
called Saxones in the area to the
north of the lower Elbe.[7] However,
other versions refer to the same
tribe as Axones. This may be a
misspelling of the tribe
that Tacitus in
his Germania called Aviones.
According to this theory, "Saxones"
was the result of later scribes trying
to correct a name that meant
nothing to them.[8] On the other
hand, Schtte, in his analysis of

such problems in Ptolemy's Maps

of Northern Europe, believed that
"Saxones" is correct. He notes that
the loss of first letters occurs in
numerous places in various copies
of Ptolemy's work, and also that the
manuscripts without "Saxones" are
generally inferior overall.[9]
Schtte also remarks that there
was a medieval tradition of calling
this area "Old Saxony".[10] In
contrast, other scholars note that
sources such as Bede who
mention Old Saxony, might be
interpreted as saying it was near
the Rhine, somewhere to the north
of the river Lippe, and were in any
case not personally familiar with
the area.[11]

In AD 44142, 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".[12]
The first undisputed mention of the
Saxon name in its modern form is
from AD 356, when Julian, later
the Roman Emperor, mentioned
them in a speech as allies
of Magnentius, a rival emperor
in Gaul.Zosimus also mentions a
specific tribe of Saxons, called
the Kouadoi, which have been
interpreted as the Chauci. They
entered the Rhineland and
displaced the recently
settled Salian Franks from Batavi,
whereupon some of the Salians

began to move into the Belgian

territory of Toxandria, supported by
Julian.[13]
In order to defend against Saxon
raiders, the Romans created a
military district called the Litus
Saxonicum ("Saxon Coast") on
both sides of the English Channel.

Europe in the late 5th century.

Most names shown are the Latin
names of 5th century peoples, with
the exceptions ofSyagrius (king of
a Gallo-Roman rump
state), Odoacer(Germanic king of

Italy), and (Julius)

Nepos (nominally the last Western
Roman emperor, de facto ruler
of Dalmatia).
Saxons as inhabitants of presentday Northern Germany are first
mentioned in 555, when the
Frankish king Theudebald died,
and the Saxons used the
opportunity for an uprising. The
uprising was suppressed
by Chlothar I, Theudebald's
successor. Some of their Frankish
successors fought against the
Saxons, others were allied with
them; Chlothar II won a decisive
victory against the Saxons.
TheThuringians frequently
appeared as allies of the Saxons.

Continental Saxons[edit]
Saxony[edit]
The Continental Saxons living in
what was known as Old
Saxony appear to have become
consolidated by the end of the 8th
century. After subjugation by the
Emperor Charlemagne, a political
entity called the Duchy of
Saxony appeared.
The Saxons long resisted
becoming Christians[14] and being
incorporated into the orbit of
the Frankish kingdom.[15] In 776 the
Saxons promised to convert to
Christianity and vow loyalty to the
king, but once Charlemagne went
to Spain, they staged further
attacks in 778. This was an often

repeated pattern when

Charlemagne was distracted by
other matters.[15] During
Charlemagne's campaign
in Hispania(778), the Saxons
advanced to Deutz on
the Rhine and plundered along the
river.
They were decisively conquered
by Charlemagne in a long series of
annual campaigns, the Saxon
Wars (772804) With defeat came
enforced baptism and conversion a
s well as the union of the Saxons
with the rest of the Germanic,
Frankish empire. Their sacred tree
or pillar, a symbol of Irminsul, was
destroyed. Charlemagne also
deported 10,000 of them
to Neustria and gave their now

vacant lands to the loyal king of

the Abotrites. Einhard,
Charlemagne's biographer, says on
the closing of this grand conflict:
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 Carolingian rule, the Saxons
were reduced to tributary status.
There is evidence that the Saxons,
as well as Slavic tributaries such as
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 they 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 Lombardy.
During the High Middle Ages,
under the Salian emperors and,
later, under the Teutonic Knights,
German settlers moved east of
the Saale into the area of a
western Slavic tribe, the Sorbs.
The Sorbs were gradually

Germanised. This region

subsequently acquired the name
Saxony through political
circumstances, though it was
initially called the March of
Meissen. The rulers
of Meissen acquired control of
the Duchy of Saxony (only a
remnant of the previous Duchy) in
1423; they 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 misunderstanding
about the original homeland of the
Saxons, with a central part in the
present-day German state of Lower
Saxony(German: Niedersachsen).

Netherlands[edit]
In the Netherlands, Saxons
occupied the territory south of the
Frisians and north of the Franks. In
the west it reached as far as
the Gooi region, in the south as far
as the Lower Rhine. After the
conquest of Charlemagne, this
area formed the main part of
theBishopric of Utrecht. The Saxon
duchy of Hamaland played an
important role in the formation of
the duchy of Guelders.
The local language, although
strongly influenced by
standard Dutch, is still officially
recognised as Dutch Low Saxon.
Italy and Provence[edit]

In 569, some Saxons accompanied

the Lombards into Italy under the
leadership of Alboin and settled
there.[16] In 572, they raided
southeastern Gaul as far as Stablo,
now Estoublon. Divided, they were
easily defeated by the GalloRoman general Mummolus. When
the Saxons regrouped, a peace
treaty was negotiated whereby the
Italian Saxons were allowed to
settle with their families
in Austrasia.[17] Gathering their
families and belongings in Italy,
they returned to Provence in two
groups in 573. One group
proceeded by way of Nice and
another via Embrun, joining up
at Avignon. They plundered the
territory and were as a

consequence stopped from

crossing the Rhne by Mummolus.
They were forced to pay
compensation for what they had
robbed before they could enter
Austrasia. These people are known
only by documents, and their
settlement cannot be compared to
the archeological artifacts and
remains that attest to Saxon
settlements in northern and
western Gaul.
Gaul[edit]
See also: Saxon shore
A Saxon king
named Eadwacer conquered Anger
s in 463 only to be dislodged
by Childeric I and the Salian
Franks, allies of the Roman

Empire.[18] It is possible that Saxon

settlement of Great Britain began
only in response to expanding
Frankish control of
theChannel coast.[19]
Some Saxons already lived along
the Saxon shore of Gaul. They can
be traced in documents, but also in
archeology and in toponymy.
The Notitia Dignitatum mentions
the Tribunus cohortis primae novae
Armoricanae, Grannona in litore
Saxonico. The location
ofGrannona is uncertain and was
identified by the historians and
toponymists at different places,
mainly with the town known today
as Granville (in Normandy) or
nearby. The Notitia
Dignitatum does not explain where

these "Roman" soldiers came from.

Some toponymists have
proposed Graignes (Grania 1109 1113) as the location
for Grannona/Grannonum. It could
be the same element *gran, that is
recognised
in Guernsey (Greneroi 11th
century).[20] This location is closer
to Bayeux, where Gregory of Tours
evokes otherwise the Saxones
Bajocassini (Bessin Saxons), which
were ineffective to defeat the
Breton Waroch II in 579.[21]
A Saxon unit of laeti settled
at Bayeux the Saxones
Baiocassenses.[22] These Saxons
became subjects of Clovis I late in
the 5th century. The Saxons of
Bayeux comprised a standing army

and were often called upon to

serve alongside the local levy of
their region in Merovingian military
campaigns. They were ineffective
against the Breton Waroch in this
capacity in 579.[23] In 589, the
Saxons wore their hair in
the Breton fashion at the orders
of Fredegund and fought with them
as allies
against Guntram.[24] Beginning in
626, the Saxons of the Bessin were
used by Dagobert I for his
campaigns against the Basques.
One of their own, Aeghyna, was
created a dux over the region
of Vasconia.[25]
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).[26] In
contrast to this one example in
Normandy are numerous thun villages in the north of France,
in Boulonnais, ex : Alincthun,
Verlincthun, Pelingthun,
etc.[27] showing with other
toponyms, an important Saxon or
Anglo-Saxon settlement.
comparing the concentration of ham / -hem (Anglo-Saxon hm >
home) toponyms in the Bessin and

in the Boulonnais gives more

examples of Saxon
settlement.[28] 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,
f.e. : Canehan (Kenehan 1030
/ Canaan 1030 - 1035) could be the
biblical
name Canaan[29]or Airan (Heidram
9th century), the Germanic
masculine name Hairammus.[30]
The Bessin examples are clear. f.
e. Ouistreham (Oistreham 1086),
trham (Oesterham 1350 ?),[31] Hu
ppain (*Hubbehain ; Hubba 's
"home"), Surrain (Surrehain 11th
century), etc. Another significant

example can be found in the

Norman onomastics: the
widespread
surname Lecesne,[32] with variant
spellings : Le Cesne, Lesne,
Lecne and Cesne. It comes from
Gallo-Romance *SAXINU "the
Saxon" > saisne in Old French.
These examples are not derived
from more recent AngloScandinavian toponyms, because
in that case they would have been
numerous in the Norman regions
(pays de Caux, Basse-Seine,
North-Cotentin) settled by the
Nordic peoples. That is not the
case, nor does Bessin belong to
the pagii, which were affected by
an important wave of AngloScandinavian immigration.

In addition, archeological finds add

evidence to the documents and the
results of toponymic research. All
around the city of Caen and in the
Bessin (Vierville-surMer, Bnouville, Giverville, Hrouvi
llette), excavations have shown
numerous Anglo-Saxon jewellery,
design elements, settings and
weapons. All these things were
discovered in cemeteries in a
context of the 5th, 6th and 7th
centuries AD.[33][34]
The oldest and most spectacular
Saxon site found in France to date
is Vron, in Picardy. There,
archeologists excavated a large
cemetery with tombs dating from
the Roman Empire until the 6th
century. Furniture and other

gravegoods, as well as the human

remains, revealed a group of
people buried in the 4th and 5th
centuries AD. Physically different
from the usual local inhabitants
found before this period, they
instead resembled the Germanic
populations of the north. At the
beginning (4th century) 92% were
buried, sometimes with typical
Germanic weapons. Then, they
were ranked to the east, when they
were buried in the 5th and later to
the beginning of the 6th century. A
strong Anglo-Saxon influence
became obvious in the middle of
the period, but it disappeared later.
Archeological material,
neighbouring toponymy, and texts
support the same conclusions:

settlement of Saxon foederati with

their families. Further
anthropological research by Jol
Blondiaux shows these people
were from Low Saxony.[35]
Saxons in Britain[edit]

Alfred the Great

Further information: Sub-Roman
Britain and Anglo-Saxon settlement
of Britain
Saxons, along
with Angles, Frisians and Jutes,
invaded or migrated to 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 a
string of coastal forts called
the Litora Saxonica or Saxon
Shore. 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 Britons from the incursions of
the Picts, Gaels and others. The
story, as reported in such sources
as the Historia

Brittonum and Gildas, indicates

that the British
king Vortigern allowed the
Germanic warlords, later named
as Hengist and Horsa by Bede, to
settle their people on the Isle of
Thanet in exchange for their
service as mercenaries. According
to Bede, Hengist manipulated
Vortigern into granting more land
and allowing for more settlers to
come in, paving the way for the
Germanic settlement of Britain.
Historians are divided about what
followed: some argue that the
takeover of southern Great Britain
by the Anglo-Saxons was
peaceful.[citation needed] 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 Mons Badonicus 44 years before
he wrote his history, and Britain
reverted to Romano-British rule.

The 8th century English

historian Bede disagreed with
Gildas, stating that the Saxon
invasions continued after the battle
of Mons Badonicus, including
also Jutish and Anglic expeditions.
He said these resulted in a swift
overrunning of the entirety of
South-Eastern Britain, and the
foundation of the Anglo-Saxon
kingdoms.
Four separate Saxon realms
emerged:
1. East Saxons: created
the Kingdom of Essex.
2. Middle Saxons: created the
province of Middlesex
3. South Saxons: led by Aelle,
created the Kingdom of Sussex

4. West Saxons: created

the Kingdom of Wessex
During the period of the reigns
from Egbert to Alfred the Great, the
kings of Wessex emerged
as Bretwalda, unifying the country.
They eventually organised it as the
kingdom of England in the face
of Viking invasions.
Culture[edit]
Social structure[edit]
Bede, a Northumbrian writing
around the year 730, remarks that
"the old (that is, the continental)
Saxons have no king, but they are
governed by
several ealdormen (or satrapa)
who, during war, cast lots for
leadership but who, in time of

peace, are equal in power."

The regnum Saxonum was divided
into three
provinces Westphalia, Eastphalia
and Angria which comprised
about one hundred pagi or Gaue.
Each Gau had its own satrap with
enough military power to level
whole villages that opposed him.[36]
In the mid-9th century, Nithard first
described the social structure of
the Saxons beneath their leaders.
The caste structure was rigid; in
the Saxon language the three
castes, excluding slaves, were
called the edhilingui (related to the
term aetheling), frilingi and lazzi.
These terms were
subsequently Latinised as nobiles
or nobiliores; ingenui, ingenuiles or

liberi;
and liberti, liti or serviles.[37] Accordi
ng to very early traditions that are
presumed to contain a good deal of
historical truth, the edhilingui were
the descendants of the Saxons
who led the tribe out
of Holstein and during the
migrations of the 6th
century.[37] They were a conquering
warrior elite.
The frilingi represented the
descendants of
the amicii, auxiliarii and manumissi
of that caste. The lazzi represented
the descendants of the original
inhabitants of the conquered
territories, who were forced to
make oaths of submission and pay
tribute to the edhilingui.

The Lex Saxonum regulated the

Saxons' unusual society.
Intermarriage between the castes
was forbidden by
the Lex, and wergilds were set
based upon caste membership.
The edhilingui were worth
1,440 solidi, or about 700 head of
cattle, the highest wergild on the
continent; the price of a bride was
also very high. This was six times
as much as that of the frilingi and
eight times as much as the lazzi.
The gulf between noble and
ignoble was very large, but the
difference between a freeman and
an indentured labourer was
small.[38]
According to the Vita Lebuini
antiqua, an important source for

early Saxon history, the Saxons

held an annual council
at Marklo 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."[36] 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 ofcounties typical
of Francia.[39] 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.[40]
Religion[edit]
Paganism[edit]
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.[41] 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 Germanic
calendar in use at that time. The
Germanic gods Woden, Frigg, Tiw
and Thunor, who are attested to in
every Germanic tradition, were
worshipped in Wessex, Sussex
and Essex. They are the only ones
directly attested to, though the

names of the third and fourth

months (March and April) of
the Old English calendar bear the
names Hrethmonath and Eosturmo
nath, meaning "month of Hretha"
and "month of ostre." It is
presumed that these are the
names of two goddesses who were
worshipped around that
season.[42] The Saxons offered
cakes to their gods in February
(Solmonath). There was a religious
festival associated with the
harvest, Halegmonath ("holy
month" or "month of offerings",
September).[43] The Saxon
calendar began on 25 December,
and the months of December and
January were called Yule (or Giuli).
They contained a Modra niht or

"night of the mothers", another

religious festival of unknown
content.
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 (theplebeium
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).[44]
Christianity[edit]

1868 illustration
of Augustineaddressing the Saxons
The conversion of the Saxons in
England from their
original Germanic
religion to Christianity occurred in
the early to late 7th century under
the influence of the already
converted Jutes of Kent. In the
630s, Birinus became the "apostle
to the West Saxons" and
converted Wessex, whose first
Christian king was Cynegils. The
West Saxons begin to emerge from

obscurity only with their conversion

to Christianity and keeping written
records. TheGewisse, a West
Saxon people, were especially
resistant to Christianity; Birinus
exercised more efforts against
them and ultimately succeeded in
conversion.[42] In Wessex, a
bishopric was founded
at Dorchester. The South Saxons
were first evangelised extensively
under Anglian influence; Aethelwal
h of Sussex was converted
by Wulfhere, King of Mercia and
allowed Wilfrid, Archbishop of York,
to evangelise his people beginning
in 681. The chief South Saxon
bishopric was that of Selsey.
The East Saxons were more pagan
than the southern or western

Saxons; their territory had a

superabundance of pagan
sites.[45] Their king, Saeberht, was
converted early and a diocese was
established at London. Its first
bishop, Mellitus, was expelled by
Saeberht's heirs. The conversion of
the East Saxons was completed
under Cedd in the 650s and 660s.
The continental Saxons were
evangelised largely by English
missionaries in the late 7th and
early 8th centuries. Around 695,
two early English
missionaries, Hewald the
White and Hewald the Black, were
martyred by the vicani, that is,
villagers.[41] Throughout the century
that followed, villagers and other
peasants proved to be the greatest

opponents of Christianisation, while

missionaries often received the
support of the edhilingui and other
noblemen. Saint Lebuin, an
Englishman who between 745 and
770 preached to the Saxons,
mainly in the eastern Netherlands,
built a church and made many
friends among the nobility. Some of
them rallied to save him from an
angry mob at the annual council at
Marklo. Social tensions arose
between the Christianitysympathetic noblemen and the
pagan lower castes, staunchly
faithful to their traditional religion.[46]
Under Charlemagne, the Saxon
Wars had as their chief object the
conversion and integration of the
Saxons into the Frankish empire.

Though much of the highest caste

converted readily, forced baptisms
and forced tithing made enemies of
the lower orders. Even some
contemporaries found the methods
employed to win over the Saxons
wanting, as this excerpt from a
letter of Alcuin of York to his friend
Meginfrid, written in 796, shows:
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.[47]

Charlemagne's successor, Louis

the Pious, reportedly treated the
Saxons more as Alcuin would have
wished, and as a consequence
they were faithful subjects.[48] The
lower classes, however, revolted
against Frankish overlordship in
favour of their old paganism as late
as the 840s, when
the Stellinga rose up against the
Saxon leadership, who were allied
with the Frankish emperor Lothair I.
After the suppression of
the Stellinga, in 851 Louis the
German brought relics from Rome t
o Saxony to foster a devotion to
the Roman Catholic
Church.[49] The Poeta Saxo, in his
verse Annales of Charlemagne's
reign (written between 888 and

891), laid an emphasis on his

conquest of Saxony. He celebrated
the Frankish monarch as on par
with the Roman emperors and as
the bringer of Christian salvation to
people. References are made to
periodic outbreaks of pagan
worship, especially of Freya,
among the Saxon peasantry as late
as the 12th century.
Christian literature[edit]
In the 9th century, the Saxon
nobility became vigorous
supporters of monasticism and
formed a bulwark of Christianity
against the existing Slavic
paganism to the east and
the Nordic paganism of
the Vikings to the north. Much

Christian literature was produced in

the vernacular Old Saxon, the
notable ones being a result of the
literary output and wide influence of
Saxon monasteries such
as Fulda, Corvey and Verden; and
the theological controversy
between
the Augustinian Gottschalk and
the semipelagian Rabanus
Maurus.[50]
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
ofthe first book of the Bible, were

commissioned in the early 9th

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 8th or early 9th
centuries; the vernacular was used
extensively in an effort to
Christianise the lowest castes of
Saxon society.[51]
See also[edit]
Ancient Germanic culture portal

List of Germanic tribes

Notes[edit]

1. Jump up^ Haydn Middleton

(1 June 2001). Romans, AngloSaxons & Vikings in Britain.
Heinemann. pp. 7. ISBN 9780-431-10209-2. Retrieved 19
October 2012.
2. Jump up^ Simon Young,
"AD 500 A journey through the
dark isles of Britain and Ireland"
p. 36, Phoenix 2006
3. Jump up^ Mark Thomas;
Michael Stumpf; Heinrich Hrke
(July 18, 2006). "Germans set
up an apartheid-like society in
Britain".
4. Jump up^ "New times and
old stories". Literary
Appropriations of the AngloSaxons. p. 111 fn 14.

5. Jump up^ 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 OE) is more commonly
used in Cornwall as of 2015 as
slang to designate non-Cornish
Englishmen.
6. Jump up^ Barber, David W.
(1996). Bach, Beethoven And
the Boys: Music History as it
Ought to be Taught. Sound and
Vision, Toro