Saxon

The Saxons (Latin: Saxones, German: Sachsen, Old English: Seaxe, Old Saxon: Sahson, Low German: Sassen, Dutch: Saksen) were a Germanic people whose name was given in the early Middle Ages to a large country (Old Saxony, Latin: Saxonia) near the North Sea coast of what is now Germany.[1] In the late Roman Empire, the name was used to refer to Germanic coastal raiders, and also as a word something like the later “Viking”.[2] In Merovingian times, continental Saxons were associated with the coast of what later became Normandy. Though sometimes described as also fighting inland, coming in conflict with the Franks and Thuringians, no clear homeland can be defined. There is possibly a single classical reference to a smaller homeland of an early Saxon tribe, but it is disputed. According to this proposal, the Saxons’ earliest area of settlement is believed to have been Northern Albingia. This general area is close to the probable homeland of the Angles.

In contrast, the British “Saxons”, today referred to in English as Anglo-Saxons, became a single nation bringing together Germanic peoples (Frisian, Jutish, Angle) with the Romanized natives, establishing long-lasting post-Roman kingdoms equivalent to those formed by the Franks on the continent. Their earliest weapons and clothing south of the Thames were based on late Roman military fashions, but later immigrants north of the Thames showed a stronger North German influence.[3][4] The term “Anglo-Saxon” came into use by the 8th century (for example Paul the Deacon) to distinguish English Saxons from continental Saxons (referred to in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as Ealdseaxe, “old Saxons”), but both the Saxons of Britain and those of Old Saxony (Northern Germany) continued to be referred to as ‘Saxons’ in an indiscriminate manner, especially in the languages of Britain and Ireland.