Saxons: Map & History
The Saxons, sometimes called the Old Saxons or Continental Saxons, were a Germanic people of early medieval "Old" Saxony which became a Carolingian "stem duchy" in 804, in what is now northern Germany.
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The Saxons, sometimes called the Old Saxons or Continental Saxons, were a Germanic people of early medieval "Old" Saxony which became a Carolingian "stem duchy" in 804, in what is now northern Germany. Many of their neighbours were, like them, speakers of West Germanic dialects, including both the Franks and Thuringians to the south, and the coastal Frisians, Angles and Danes to the north who were among the peoples who were originally referred to as "Saxons" in the context of early raiding and settlements in Roman Britain and Gaul. To their east were Obotrites and other Slavic-speaking peoples.
Modern Countries Once Part of Saxons
At its mapped extent, Saxons covered territory in 1 present-day country. The period shown is when the mapped borders include that country, and the note says how much of it.
States and Provinces
Largest Present-Day Cities in Its Territory
Each opens on the live map inside Saxons's borders of that time.
Derived by testing mapped cities against this polity's dated territorial polygons, so the list is indicative and follows the borders in the source dataset.
Saxons in Depth
History
Ptolemy's Geographia, written in the 2nd century, is sometimes considered to contain the first mention of the Saxons. Some copies of this text mention a tribe called Saxones in the area just to the north of the lower Elbe, and there were also three islands north of the Elbe's mouth which were called the Saxon islands. However, other versions refer to the same tribe as Axones. Some scholars such as Mathias Springer have proposed that 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. On the other hand, Schütte, in his analysis of such problems in Ptolemy's Maps of Northern Europe, believed that Saxones is correct.
Culture
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 satraps 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.
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.
Sections adapted from Wikipedia: Saxons (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Saxons Map Over Time
Dated world maps on which Saxons appears, with the other states of the time.
Saxons Timeline
Key historical inflections from foundation to peak territorial expansion
Expansion to peak recorded area of 82,798 km² in 462 CE.
Saxons: Frequently Asked Questions
When did Saxons exist?
Saxons is dated to 283 CE – 799 CE, in the Classical Antiquity era.
How large was Saxons at its peak?
At its peak in 462 AD Saxons covered about 82,798 km².
How did the map of Saxons change over time?
Saxons appears on 5 dated world maps in the atlas, from 300 CE to 750 CE. Each shows its borders in that year next to the other states of the time.