West Saxons

“ The first day we beat them, though they were in superior numbers, the second we withstood them all day, although they were ten to one against us, and they would never have triumphed even then had our men listened to their leaders and kept their ranks. I do not believe that even the West Saxons could have fought more bravely than did our men on that day; but they are better organized, their king is energetic and determined, and when the Danes invade Wessex they will find themselves opposed by the whole people instead of merely a hastily raised assemblage gathered in the neighbourhood. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Saxons must have crept in without violent invasion, across the Axe, rather than through the gaps in the Black Down and Exmoor—for to the north, as already said, the vast morasses were a hindrance—and have established themselves without violent opposition by the riversides. ”

“ This selection is from the history of the Saxons written by Widukind, a monk in the monastery of New Corvey, who wrote in the latter part of the tenth century. The passage illustrates the relations of the Germans to the Slavs on the east and the origin of the Saxon cities. The Slavs had moved as far west as the Elbe, occupying the lands left vacant by the Germans after the migrations. Much of this territory was gradually recovered by the Germans from the time of Henry. Here we see the capture of the city of Brandenburg and the reduction of Bohemia. ”

“ For the Saxon kings and ruling men embraced religion with so signal, and in their rank so unusual a zeal, that in many instances they even sacrificed to its advancement the prime objects of their ambition. Wulfhere, king of the West Saxons, bestowed the Isle of Wight on the king of Sussex, to persuade him to embrace Christianity. [41] This zeal operated in the same manner in favor of their instructors. The greatest kings and conquerors frequently resigned their crowns and shut themselves up in monasteries. ”

“ King Hlothver, i.e. Louis I, King of the Franks and Emperor, 814-840.
The Saxons inhabited a large part of north-west Germany and Holland; but the name Saxland is often used in a wider sense, i.e. the German part of the Empire.
Nornagest, i.e. 'Gest (or guest) of the Norns.' The Norns were represented in Scandinavian mythology as women with the power of shaping human destiny. See Helgakviða Hundingsbana, 1, str. 2; Gylfaginning, chs. 15, 16; Saxo Grammaticus, Dan. Hist., p. 223; the Saga of Burnt Njál, ch. 156. Similar beliefs occur in Greek stories about the Fates (Κλὥθες) e.g. ”

“ For though the Franks had long been the greatest power in Germany, yet Germany could not be said to form a single whole as long as the Saxons, the greatest people of Northern Germany, remained independent. The conquest of Saxony brought the Frankish power for the first time in contact with the Danes and the other people of Scandinavia. ♦Boundary of the Eider.♦ The dominions of Charles took in what was then called Saxony beyond the Elbe, that is the modern Holstein, and the Eider was fixed as the northern boundary of the Empire. ”

“ At that period the whole northern portion of Europe was inhabited by wild and barbarous tribes who had never heard of Christ, but were Pagans and worshiped imaginary gods, of whom Woden was chief. Among these races were the Saxons, a fair-haired, fair-complexioned people, of great size and strength, who inhabited that portion of country now known as north Germany. They have never been permanently driven out of this country, which is to this day occupied by their descendants, the Germans. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. The descendants of those Saxons are among the most industrious and useful settlers in the New World. ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Summary.—The history of our present towns and villages really begins with the Saxons. The Saxons had been used to a settlement very like the early Aryan settlement. All the men had equal rights, and the business of the community was settled in the folk-moot. When new settlements were formed they looked back to the early settlement as their home: they were all of one kin. Gradually the chief man of the first home was looked upon as their chief or king. The land was shared amongst the men in strips in the common field, and the shares changed from time to time. ”

“ Down to the death of Conrad, the Franks were still the ruling nation, and the German realm was East Frankish rather than German. The accession of the Saxon gave the best chance for a more general development on national lines. |The Saxon nation.| For of all the five nations of Germany, the Saxons were the least affected by the Carolingian tradition. Christianity was still less than a century old with them, and formal heathenism still lingered on in the wilder moors and marshes of the north. Roman civilisation was still but a sickly exotic ”

“ 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. ”

“ For aught we know there may be only three or four thousand men facing us and, while we are waiting here, the whole Austrian army may have crossed over again, and be marching up the river bank to form a junction with the Saxons; or they may have gone by the defiles we traversed the last two days, and may come down into Saxony and fall on the rear of our camp watching Pirna, while the Saxons are attacking in front. No wonder his majesty paces backwards and forwards like a wild beast in a cage. ”

“ Those who had often quarrelled were now neighbours; the difference in language and manners was beginning to disappear; for as they, to a certain extent, understood each other's dialect, the Saxon and the Danish idioms began to assimilate; they, with few exceptions, lived under the same common law; their children mingled and played together in the same streets, in the same fields and forests, became men and women, married, and forgot the quarrels of their forefathers, and at last began to settle down like one nation upon the soil. ”

“ The more I see of the people here, the more I like them. The national character of the Germans is integrity, tho' sometimes cloaked under a rough exterior as in Bavaria and Austria; but here in Saxony it is combined with a suavity of manners that is very striking, for the Saxons are the Tuscans of Germany in point of politeness, and they are far more accomplished because they take more pains in cultivating their minds.
A savant in Italy is a man who writes a volume about a coin, filled with hypotheses, when, with all his learning forced into the service, he proves nothing ”

“ Since, however, similar variations are seen in skulls obtained from the graves at Bremen and other parts of North Germany, it is probable that the so-called Saxons were not a people of a homogeneous race, but comprised tribal people who had variations in head-form, a small percentage being even broad-headed. The migration of such people into England among other Saxons would explain the variations found in the Anglo-Saxon head-form, and, moreover, help us to explain variations in custom that are known to have existed within the so-called Saxon kingdoms of England. ”

“ And now, by trumpet-sound, and proclamation through the land, the Saxons were called forth, on pain of death, to come and seek their dead, lest the health of the conquerors should suffer from the pollution they themselves had wrought. Scarce had the blast sounded, and the glad tidings been announced once only, ere from their miserable shelters, where they had herded with the wild beasts of the forest—from wood, morass, and cavern, happy if there they might escape the Norman spear—forth crept the relics of that persecuted race. ”

“ The Saxons themselves were a handsome people. The men were proud of their long fair hair, parted on the forehead; their ample beards, their fresh complexions, and clear eyes. The beauty of the Saxon women filled all England with a new delight and grace. ”

“ There is some similarity between these two races in this valley contending for supremacy—the stronger being sometimes held in check, the weaker gradually losing ground—in certain aspects, it calls to mind the period in English history when Saxons, Jutes and Angles struggled for leadership. The Saxons had developed the higher civilization; the Danes were the more vigorous and aggressive. Sometimes the Saxons would be able to set up their king, again the Danes would enthrone one of their number. ”

“ In time, as the Saxons settled down, they began to have new wants, and some of them began to be attracted towards places where there were more people than in their native tuns. Some men found that they could make certain articles of common use better than their neighbours could. ”

“ It is pretty safe to say that the Romanized cities and the Romanized population generally offered no great resistance to the Saxons; mixed with them fairly readily, and went to form perhaps the basis of the English race; that they lost their language and culture is due to the fact that they were cut off from the sources of these on the continent, and, being of an effete civilization, were far less in vigor than the Saxon incomers. And as we saw in the first of these lectures, there was probably a large Teutonic or Saxon element in Britain since before the days of Julius Caesar. ”

“ 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? ”

“ From the time of Honorius to that of Charlemagne, Saxo is, like Franc, a general term applied, indeed, to the maritime Germans rather than those of the interior, and to those of the north rather than the south, yet nowhere specifically attached to any definite population with a local habitation and a name to match. Whenever we come to detail, the Saxons of the Roman writers become Chamavi, Bructeri, Cherusci, Chauci, or Frisii; while the Frank details are those of the Ostphali, Westphali, and Angrivarii. ”

“ 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. ”