Saxons

“ Shall you not take means utterly to subjugate this troublesome race, parcel out the lands among your thegns, to hold as martial fiefs at need, build towers and forts on the heights, and at the river mouths?—where a site, like this, for some fair castle and vawmure? In a word, do you Saxons merely overrun, and neglect to hold what you win? ”

“ The Saxons appear to have done their duty; fighting was their every-day trade: their robust natures had received no touch of Roman refinement, they earned their bread with the points of their swords, and the blows of their heavy battle-axes; they drove back the northern hordes beyond the Roman walls, and they soon grew into great favour with the Britons. ”

“ They address themselves to a spirit of inquiry, as the Saxons to enthusiasm, and dilute in their long, clear, and flowing narratives the lively colors of German and Breton traditions; battles, surprises, single combats, embassies, speeches, processions, ceremonies, huntings, a variety of amusing events, employ their ready and wandering imaginations. ”

“ Though illiterate, the early Saxons were a highly intelligent race: look at the speech of the chieftain we have already quoted in the reign of Edwin, the king of Deiri—the beautiful and applicable imagery of the bird, the warm hall it enters in winter, and the cold and darkness, which is compared to death, that reigns without; all evince a fine appreciation of the true elements which constitute poetry; yet we have no doubt in our own minds that this heathen orator could neither read nor write. ”

“ It is but too well known that the Saxons love not the Norman race, and who knows what may be the issue, if he break in upon them when their hearts are irritated by the death of Athelstane, and their heads heated by the carousal in which they will indulge themselves? ”

“ The Saxons.—The Saxons, who were no less deadly enemies of the Roman government, were as fierce and restless as the Picts and Scots, and were better equipped and better armed. At a later time they established themselves in Britain as conquerors and settlers, and became the founders of the English nation; but at first they were only known as cruel and merciless pirates. In their long flat-bottomed vessels they swooped down upon some undefended part of the coast and carried off not only the property of wealthy Romans, but even men and women to be sold in the slave-market. ”

“ But, if the Saxon conquest was ruinous to the Britains, it was yet attended with consequences which were lasting and important. The sun of liberty revisited the island, and displayed itself with uncommon lustre. The Saxons, independent in their original seats, submitted not to tyrants in their new situation. They laid the foundation of a political fabric, the most valuable that has, at any time, appeared among men; and which, though shaken by violent revolutions, a train of fortunate circumstances has continued down to the present times. ”

“ The race that ruled in England down to the day of Hastings—call it the Saxon race, if you like the name, and for convenience' sake—was a slow, a sluggish, and a stupid race; and it never could have made a first-class nation of the insular kingdom. There is little in the history of the Saxons that allows us to believe they were capable of accomplishing anything that was great. ”

“ They became civilized, like the once invading Celts and Goths; and they even embraced the religion of the conquerors. They became ultimately the best people in Europe,--earnest, honest, and brave. They formed great kingdoms and states, and became new barriers against fresh inundations from the North and East. The Saxons formed the nucleus of the great German Empire (or were incorporated with it) which arose in the Middle Ages, and which to-day is the most powerful in Europe, and the least corrupted by the vices of a luxurious life. ”

“ This soil of Britain, these Saxon men have cleared it, made it arable, fertile and a home for them; they and their fathers have done that. Under the sky there exists no force of men who with arms in their hands could drive them out of it; all force of men with arms these Saxons would seize, in their grim way, and fling (Heaven's justice and their own Saxon humour aiding them) swiftly into the sea. ”

“ The Saxons, when they became possessed of the country, would hear many strange tales, which a species of bigoted or unaccountable attachment to the marvellous would cause to be handed down from generation to generation, each magnifying the first wonder, until they reached the climax, whence they are now so fast descending. ”

“ It is with the coming of the Saxons that the history of our towns and villages really begins. For, though there are not a few places which show [Pg 29] some connection with Romans, Britons, and Pit-Dwellers, it is mainly from Saxon times that we can follow the history of the places in which we live, with any certainty.
2. When the Saxons came to Britain they brought their own ideas with them, of course. Nowadays, when English folk go to settle in a distant land, they take their English notions with them. ”

“ In a few years more Saxons arrived, and in about one hundred and fifty years the whole island was subjected to these intruders. The Britons fought bravely for their liberties, but they were divided among themselves, and were sacrificed piece-meal by the hordes of Saxons that came like successive waves to overspread the country.
The Saxons, though a brave and warlike race, were savage and cruel in the extreme. They drove such of the Britons as resisted to the mountains of Cornwall and Wales, and the adjacent islands, making slaves of those who submitted. ”

“ When the Saxons came to England they were less free than they had been; more power was in the hands of the chief or king, and they looked to him for leadership in battle, and he had certain rights which had grown up by long custom. ”

“ But among the Saxons every freeman was still a warrior, and the constant incursions of heathen Danes and Wends gave constant opportunities for the practice of martial habits. The old blood nobility still took the leadership of the race. Not only were the Saxons the strongest, the most energetic, and most martial of the Germans, but the mighty deeds of their Ludolfing dukes showed that their princes were worthy of them. It was only the strong arm of a mighty warrior that could 14save Germany from the manifold evils that beset it from within and without. ”

“ The rude and homely manner in which the greater part of the Saxon thegns lived—dependent solely for their subsistence on their herds and agricultural produce, and therefore on the labour of their peasants—not only made the distinctions of rank less harsh and visible, but rendered it the interest of the lords to feed and clothe well their dependents. All our records of the customs of the Saxons prove the ample sustenance given to the poor, and a general care of their lives and rights, which, compared with the Frank laws, may be called enlightened and humane. ”

“ It is in this wider sense that the name of Saxons was applied to those people who harassed the coast of Britain in the concluding half-century of the Roman province. It is to the people inhabiting this country that the name of Old Saxons was applied, to distinguish them from the Saxons in Britain. Beyond the Elbe were the original Saxons, and mixed with both were Frisians—one body extending along the coast from the Ems to the Weser, and another beyond the Saxons in Sleswick, where Bede places his Jutes. ”

“ I have more to tell of the Saxons yet, but I stop to say this now, because under the Great Alfred, all the best points of the English-Saxon character were first encouraged, and in him first shown. It has been the greatest character among the nations of the earth. Wherever the descendants of the Saxon race have gone, have sailed, or otherwise made their way, even to the remotest regions of the world, they have been patient, persevering, never to be broken in spirit, never to be turned aside from enterprises on which they have resolved. ”

“ In a land of forest and swamp, where roads hardly exist for eight months of the year, it must always be difficult for armed men, judges or traders to pass from place to place, except on horseback; and the Saxons were no great horse-soldiers. I think we shall see that it was the knight and his horse, who, from the eleventh century onwards, first made the rule of one king possible over the whole island. Meanwhile, the ‘great men’ of the Saxons, ‘thegns’, ‘aldermen’, ‘earls’, or whatever they were called, took most of the power, and naturally began to oppress their poorer neighbours. ”

“ The Saxons, strong in their numbers and intrepidity, sustained several naval encounters before they yielded to his genius. They ceased at last to molest the tranquillity of Britain; and the addition of a deserved surname, Saxonicus, proclaimed the service of Theodosius. He added the province of Valentia to Roman Britain, restored the deserted garrisons, and coerced the unruly borderers by judicious stations, and a vigilant defence. The Saxon confederation might be defeated, but was not subdued. ”

“ When the Saxons once turned their attention to letters, none of the barbarous nations excelled them—the progress made during the reign of Alfred, we again repeat, is marvellous.
Nothing can be more primitive than our Anglo-Saxon poetry. Every line bears the stamp of originality. The praise of brave warriors is ever the subject. ”

“ It is natural to imagine that when once the Saxons broke up from their peaceful settlements and commenced a career of aggression, they would direct their marches by the great lines of roads which the Roman or British authorities had maintained in every part of the island. ”

“ A great many people are born, and live their lives, and die, in such a period of time as that. It was only little by little that the various tribes of Saxons got a footing in England. They were the stronger and fiercer race, and the Britons were gradually subdued or driven into the mountainous regions by them.
2. Those early tribes of Saxons, who came to Britain, brought with them their own special manners and customs. As they settled down, the face of the country was gradually changed by them. They disliked and suspected everything Roman, and destroyed the towns and villas. ”

“ The Saxons fled amain, and some of them carried the news over the country that all was lost, and the king's army overthrown; and indeed it passed for an oversight with some that the king did not place some of his old troops among the Saxons, who were new-raised men. The Saxons lost here near 2000 men, and hardly ever showed their faces again all the battle, except some few of their horse. ”

“ They fought as long as there were any men to be raised? but the Saxons swarming continually over from vastly populous countries, the few Britons that remained, took sanctuary in the wes-tern mountains of Wales, and from the crags and cliffs, poor and distrest as they were, they made constant inroads and excursions upon the Saxons; the Saxon Annals are filled with accounts of the renewed warfare. ”

“ The gaiety and good-humour of the court are much desired by the Saxons, who have a most lofty notion of princes, and repeat all they say, and all that is said of them, with a most venerating affection. ”

“ Saxon area.—From the preceding investigations we determine the area occupied by the Saxons of Germany to be nearly as follows:
a.—Ethnologically considered.—Tract bounded on the north by the North Frisian Germans and Jute Danes of Sleswick; on the north and north-east by the Slavonians of the Elbe, sometimes Trans-Albian like the Wagrians and Obotrites; sometimes Cis-Albian, like the Linones and the Slaves of Altmark; on the south by the Thuringians, Catti, and Franks; on the west by the Franks, Batavians, and Frisians. ”

“ But, meanwhile, the Norwegians who had not passed the Derwent drew together to make a desperate defence; and the Saxons advanced to consummate their victory. This, however, proved no easy achievement. In fact, the strength and resolution of one man long kept the Saxons at bay. ”

“ Counting the men that had come in all the barks, there were more than one hundred and ten true-hearted Saxons, well armed and equipped, and well practised in the use of arms, as well in the Saxon fashion as in the fashions used abroad; and every one of these men was proper to become a centurion, or the trainer and leader of a hundred of our fen-men. ”

“ Still the Saxons, or English, as I shall henceforth call them, were very rough and ignorant as compared with the Romans.
9. Their churches and houses, and even the palaces of the kings, were rude wooden buildings, and the cottages of the poor people were no better than the huts of the ancient Britons.
10. The common people were almost all employed in cultivating the land, and lived in villages on the different estates to which they belonged; for the Saxon landlords were not only the owners of the land, but of the people also; who were not at liberty, as they are now, to go where they pleased ”

“ Procopius was probably right in saying that they consisted of Frisians and Angles. [229] The tribes who arrived much later, and founded the petty kingdoms of the East, West, and South Saxons, probably alone belonged to the Saxons proper. The bulk of the natives consisted of the Angli, and their national name soon superseded the general appellation of Saxons, though the geographical term ‘Saxonia’ still remained attached to the most northern part of their territory. ”

“ With the conversion of the Saxons the whole German race became nominally Christian; and their ruler was lavish in granting lands and privileges to prelates, and untiring in founding bishoprics, monasteries and schools. Measures were also taken for the security and good government of the country. Campaigns against the Slavonic tribes, if sometimes failing in their immediate object, taught those peoples to respect the power of the Frankish monarch; and the establishment of a series of marches along the eastern frontier gave a sense of safety to the neighbouring districts. ”