Saxon people
The Saxons (in Latin, Saxons) were a confederation of ancient Germanic tribes linked ethnolinguistically to the western branch. Their oldest known area of settlement is Nordalbingien (Northern Albingia), a territory that roughly corresponds to modern Holstein. Their modern descendants in Lower Saxony and Westphalia and other states of Germany are considered ethnically German; the Free State of Saxony is not inhabited by ethnic Saxons; the State of Saxony-Anhalt is only in its northwestern part; those in the eastern Netherlands are considered ethnically Dutch; those found in the northwest of Belgium (Flemish Region) are considered ethnically Flemish; those in the north of France are considered ethnically French; and those in southern England are ethnically English.
The island of Britain was part of the Roman Empire between AD 50 and 410. C. When the Romans lost control of the territory, the Saxons attacked. At the end of the 6th century, three Germanic peoples - the Angles, the Jutes and the Saxons - inhabited the island and progressively divided the lands they conquered into several kingdoms. The Saxons ruled the kingdoms of Essex, Sussex, and Wessex, in what is now southern England. The Anglo-Saxon term came to describe the descendants of these three Germanic groups of invaders.
Due to the Hanseatic trade routes and emigrations during the Middle Ages, the Saxons mixed with and influenced other peoples and cultures, both with the Scandinavian and Baltic peoples, as well as with the West Slavic peoples (Polavians and Pomeranians). Since the 18th century, many mainland Saxons have settled in other parts of the world, notably in North America, Australia, South Africa and in territories of the former Soviet Union, where some communities still maintain parts of their cultural and linguistic heritage, often under the common denomination of 'German', 'Flemish' and 'Dutch'.
Etymology
It is believed that the word "Saxon" derives from seax or sax, which is a kind of stone sword or knife that they used and were known for. Germanic tribes took their names from the weapons they used. The seax has had a lasting symbolic impact in the English counties of Essex and Middlesex, both of which have three seaxes in their ceremonial emblem.
History
The Saxons are first mentioned by the Greek astronomer and geographer Claudius Ptolemy in the II century AD, who places his lands in Jutland, between the Elbe River and the North Sea, between what is now northwestern Germany and eastern Netherlands. This region roughly corresponds to Schleswig-Holstein, from where they appear to have spread south and west. In the fifth century, the Saxons were among the people who invaded the Romano-British province of Britain. One of the other tribes were the Germanic Angles, whose name, taken along with that of the Saxons, led to the formation of the modern term "Anglo-Saxons".
Ancient history
Ptolemy's Geographia, written in the II century, mentions a tribe called "Saxons" in the territory north of the Lower Elbe River. However, other copies call the same tribe «axons» and it is believed that it is an error when writing about the tribe that Tacitus calls planes in his Germany. The reference to Ptolemy derives from an earlier text, Roman and Greek, which uses old derivations of the Saxon name such as "Sacasena" (German, Sachsen) and " Sacae". Pliny the Younger used both terms, "Sacae" and "Sacasena", to refer to the Saxons on their migration through a region of Armenia known by the Greek historian, Strabo, as "Sacasene" or "Saxony" (Book XI Asia, VIII, 4 and Book XI Asia, XIV, 4). Pliny also notes that the name of at least some of the Saxons changed to Sarmatian and Germanic, providing some clues as to when "Germanic" and "Saxon" emerged as separate terms.
The Greek historian and geographer Herodotus refers to the Saxons as "Sacae" (Saka), but considers the term to be of Persian origin. Herodotus also considers that the Saxons wore trousers and wore on their heads high stiff caps rising to a point, carrying their country's bows and daggers; a very saxon description. The term “Saka” (Sacae) has been discovered on the rock of Behistun and in the tomb of Darío. However, Julius Oppert has argued that the Persians borrowed the Median expression 'Saka', found at Behistun, rather than the Assyrian appellation for the gimirri (Cimmerians) found in Babylonian on the same rock. The expression "Saka" was equivalent to "Cimmerian", since both refer to the same people in two different languages.
The Saxons in Britain
After what would be the final departure of the last Roman legions from Britain in the year 407 AD. C., the Romanized Celts (British) found themselves harassed by the northern tribes, mainly the Picts. These tribes began a southward advance to which the Britons could only offer ineffective resistance, exacerbated by the fact that the peasantry and the lower classes of society were rapidly returning to a totally Celtic culture that they had never abandoned, with little identification. of the cultural values that the Romanized represented. Faced with the desperate situation, the Britons tried to seek help from the Roman general Aetius, who could not do anything due to the delicate situation of the empire on the continent.
A large contingent of Saxons, as well as Angles, Jutes, Frisians, and possibly Franks, invaded or migrated to the island of Great Britain (Britania) in the early Middle Ages, around the same time that Roman authority was waning in the West. The Saxons had been harassing the eastern and southern coasts of Britain for centuries, leading to the construction of a series of coastal forts called the litora Saxonica or Saxon Shore, and many Saxons and other peoples were able to settle on it. these areas as farmers long before the end of Roman rule in Britain. According to English tradition, however, the Saxons (and other tribes) first entered Britain en masse as part of an agreement to protect the Britons from raids by the Picts, an indigenous population without Roman influence, the Irish, and others.. According to sources such as the Historia Brittonum, the first would have been led by two brothers, Hengest and Horsa, who were authorized by the British king Vortigern around 450 to settle with his people on the Isle of Thanet in exchange for their services as mercenaries to defend the island of Great Britain against the Picts.
Historians are divided on what happened then: some argue that the Anglo-Saxon rule of southern Britain was peaceful. There is, however, only one account of a native Briton who lived at this time (Gildas), and the description of him is of a violent take:
For the fire... it spread from coast to coast, rekindled by the hands of our enemies in the East, and did not cease, until it destroyed all the cities and nearby lands, reached the other side of the island and sank its red and wild tongue in the western ocean. In these assaults... all the pillars fell by the clashes of the rites, all the farmers fled, along with their bishops, priests and people, while the sword was shining and the flames were burning around them everywhere. It was regrettable to contemplate, in the middle of the streets, the high places of the towers were laid down to the ground, stones of high walls, sacred altars, fragments of human bodies, covered with liquid clothes of coagulated blood, which seemed to have been squeezed all together in a press; and without any possibility of being buried, except in the ruins of the houses, or in the hungry stomachs of the holy birdsGildas
In any case, the arrival of the Saxons and the political problems related to the dismemberment of Roman Britain into numerous kingdoms converged in a dark period, which English historiography recorded under the name of Dark Age (literally, "it was dark"). A massive depopulation, linked to the calamities of war and epidemics, also seems to have favored the Germanization of the ancient Roman province in the 5th century. .
It was undoubtedly from the VI century that the Saxons formed four kingdoms in the south of the island:
- Eastern Saxons: They created the Kingdom of Essex.
- Southern Saxons: led by Aelle, founded the Kingdom of Sussex.
- West Saxons: in command of Cerdic, created the Wessex Kingdom.
- Middle Saxons: they created the province of Middlessex, more ephemeral, since it was annexed to the land of the Angloes, Anglia, for the Normans ("men of the North", of the kingdom of Nor, of the "road or route to Nor", from which it comes "to enlist" or "to find the North", Norway or Norway) settled in France, Angleterre (England).
The Saxons also showed marked resistance to Christianity, which gained the Kingdom of Kent at the beginning of the 7th century, under the influence of the missionary Pauline.
During the period of the reigns from Egbert (c. 770-839) to Alfred the Great (849–899), the kings of Wessex emerged as bretwaldas, that is, a species of "higher kings", unifying the country and eventually uniting it in the late 10th century to make it the Kingdom of England that stood up to the Viking invasions.
The language of the Saxons gave rise to Old Saxon, and still survives today in Low Saxon. Anglo-Saxon, the ancestor of Modern English, would have had some degree of intelligibility with Old Saxon, but they were clearly different dialect groups within West Germanic.
Italy and Gaul
Some Saxons were already living in Gaul in the V century, for example in Vron-Ponthieu, Sassetot-le -Mauconduit; Flanders to Île-d'Aix. A Saxon king named Eadwacer conquered Angers in 463 only to be driven out by Childeric I and the Salian Franks, allies of the Roman Empire. Saxon settlement in Britain may have begun only in response to increasing Frankish dominance of the Channel coast.
In 569, some Saxons accompanied the Lombards to Italy under the leadership of Alboin and settled there. In 572, they raided Gaul, reaching Estoublon near Riez. Divided, they were easily defeated by the Gallo-Roman general Múmolo. When the Saxons regrouped, a peace treaty was negotiated in which the Italian Saxons could settle with their families in Austrasia. They collected their families and belongings from Otalia and returned to Gaul in two groups in 573. One group proceeded through Nice and another through Embrun, joining at Avignon, where they plundered the territory and consequently Mumolus prevented them from crossing the Rhône. They were forced to pay compensation for what they had stolen before they could enter Austrasia.
A Saxon unit of laeti had settled in Bayeux — the Saxones Baiocassenses — since the time of the Notitia dignitatum . they became subjects of Clovis I in the late V century. The Bayeux Saxons had an army and were often called upon to serve alongside the local militia of their region in Merovingian military campaigns. In this role they were ineffective against Waroch in 579. In 589, the Saxons wore a Breton-like hairstyle under Fredegund and fought with them as allies against Gontran. In early 626 Dagobert I employed the Saxons of the Bessin in their campaigns against the Basques. One of them, Aijinio, even created a doge over the Vasconia region.
Saxony
Original territory of the Saxons
The Saxons as inhabitants of present-day North Germany are first mentioned in 555, when Theodebald, the Frankish king, dies and the Saxons seize the opportunity to rebel. This uprising is suppressed by Clotario I, the successor of Teodebaldo. Some of his Frankish successors fought against the Saxons. Others allied with them. Chlothar II (584-629) won a decisive victory over the Saxons. The Thuringians frequently appear as allies of the Saxons.
This large number of Saxons who remained on the continent formed a pagan nation in the eighth century despite the efforts of Anglo-Saxon missionaries. Indeed, many of the latter came to the Continent, mostly from Northumbria, and professed their faith in Germany in the hope of converting their "brothers" who remained pagan: the best known are Willibrord (c. 657-c 738) and Saint Boniface (680-755), who evangelized the Frisians. The Saxons long resisted becoming Christian. Around the end of the 8th century, the Saxons of Germania were consolidated when a political entity called the Duchy of Saxony.
The Saxons resisted being incorporated into the orbit of the Frankish Kingdom, but were decisively conquered by Charlemagne, following the annual campaigns he led, the Saxon Wars (772–802). During Charlemagne's campaign in Hispania (778), the Saxons advanced to Deutz on the Rhine and plundered along the river. With defeat came forced baptism: the Saxon chieftains, as well as their people, converted to Christianity, probably to win peace in the manner of the most famous of their number, Viduquind, long a fierce opponent of the ensuing tide of Christianization. in the orbit of the kingdom of the Franks. The sacred tree of it, a symbol of Irminsul, was destroyed.
According to Carolingian custom, the Saxons were then forced to pay tribute. There is evidence that the Saxons, like the Slavic peoples of the Abrodites and Vends (also called Lusatians or Sorabs), often provided their Carolingian overlords with troops. The dukes of Saxony became kings (Henry I the Birdcatcher 919) and later the first emperors (Henry's son Otto I the Great) of the Holy Roman Empire in the X, but lost this status in 1024. The duchy was divided in 1180 when Duke Henry the Lion, grandson of Emperor Otto, refused to follow his cousin, the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa to the Lombardy War.
Current territory
During the late Middle Ages, under the Salian emperors and, later, under the Teutonic Knights, German settlers moved east along the Elbe River into the territory of a West Slavic tribe, the Sorbs. The Sorbs were gradually Germanized. This region later acquired the name of Saxony through political circumstances, although it was initially called the March of Meissen. The rulers of Meissen took control of the Duchy of Saxe-Wittenberg in 1423 and eventually applied the name Saxony to its entire territory. Since then, this part of eastern Germany has been known as "Saxony" (German: Sachsen), a source of some misunderstanding about the original territory of the Saxons, mainly in the present-day German Land of Lower Saxony (in German, Niedersachsen).
Later, the Duchy of Saxe-Wittenberg became the "Elector of Saxony" within the German Empire. Many duchies later coexisted with the electorate: the duchies of Saxe-Coburg, Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg, Saxe-Lauenburg, Saxe-Meiningen, Saxe-Weimar.
The electorate, from 1806 to 1918, became the Kingdom of Saxony, which later gave rise to the present Free State of Saxony.
Balkans
In the Middle Ages, groups of mining Saxons (called саси, sasi in the South Slavic languages) settled in the ore-bearing regions of the Balkan Peninsula. In the 13th and 14th centuries, Saxons from the Upper Harz and Westphalia settled in and around Chiprovtsi, in northwestern present-day Bulgaria (then part of the Second Bulgarian Empire), to mine metal in the western Balkan Mountains, receiving royal privileges from the Bulgarian Tsar Ivan Shishman. These miners are believed to have brought Catholicism to this region of the Balkans before being fully assimilated and merging with the local population. Ethnic subgroups believed to be partially descended from these Saxons are the Banat Bulgars and the krashovani.
The Saxons also engaged in mining in the mountains of Osogovo and Belasica (between Bulgaria and Macedonia), as well as around Samokov in the Rila and in various parts of the Rhodope Mountains and around Etropole (all of them in Bulgaria), but they were assimilated without spreading Catholicism there.
Saxon miners in Serbia, Kosovo, Montenegro, and Bosnia-Herzegovina — active in Brskovo, Rudnik, Olovo, Novo Brdo, and elsewhere — also left a significant trace in the mining and metalworking history of the South Slavs.
In the Srebrenica region, for example, Sase's mine translates directly into Saxon in the region's South Slavic languages. The largest lead and zinc mine in present-day Macedonia is still called "Sasa". Many of the Bosnians in the region are direct descendants of these same miners who settled the region between the 12th and 15th centuries.
Other Saxons settled in the medieval principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia, especially in cities (Câmpulung-Musce, Iași, Baia Mare, Suceava, Siret, Roman). The Transylvanian Saxons settled there around the 13th century, where they formed a community of 250,000 by the early 20th century. The colonization took place at the express invitation of the Magyar king Géza II. With this colonization, Hungary intended to repopulate areas that had been depopulated by the Tatar invasions, establish a defensive cushion on the border with the Byzantine Empire and, above all, make use of the industriousness of the Germans in colonizing an area of high strategic value., which at that time was practically an impenetrable jungle and which could have been the object of desire by groups of Slavs, the great colonizers of Eastern Europe. The Saxon migration survived as a myth in tales such as The Pied Piper of Hamelin, which deals, in a highly distorted way, with the great German migration to Transylvania in the Middle Ages.
Most of them left the region towards the end of World War II, and this movement continued in the 1970s and 1980s because of the Romanianization policy carried out by the Ceaușescu regime.
Contenido relacionado
834
688
1389