SAXONS (Lat. Saxaes, Ger. Sachsen), a German people, whose name Is usually derived from an old German word salts, meaning a "knife," are first mentioned by Ptolemy, who makes them inhabit a district s. of the Cimbrian peninsula. Toward the end of the 3d c., a " Saxon league" or " Confederation" makes its appearance in north-western Germany, to which belonged, besides Saxons proper, the Cherusei, the Angrivarii, and the largest part of Chauci. In the times of the emperors Julian and Valentinian, Sax ons and Franks invaded the Roman territory; but their piratical descepts on the coasts of Britain and Gaul are far more famous.. At what period these commenced, it is impossible to tell, but it is believed to have been much earlier than is commonly snp posed. Recent investigations seem to prove that Saxons had established therm;eives iu England long before the time of the mythical Hengist and Horsa (see ANoLo-SAxoss); and we know that as early as 287 A.D., Carausius, a Belgic admiral in the Roman ser vice, made himself " Augustus" in Britain by their help. They had firmly rooted them selves, at the beginning of the 5th c., in the present Normandy, where a tract of land was named after them, the Limes Saxonicu-s. They fought against Attila (q.v.) in the Catalaunian plain, 451 A.p. They also obtained a footing at the mouth of the Loire; but all the Saxons who settled in France " disappeared" before the Franks, i.e., were probably incorporated with their more powerful kinsmen of southern Germany. At, home, the Saxons (called Alt Sachsen, or "Old Saxons," to distinguish them from the ' emigrant hordes who found their way to England and France) enlarged, by conquest, their territory n. and n.w. as far as the North Sea, the Yssel, and the Rhine; s., as far as the Sieg, and nearly to the Eder; eastward, to the Weser and Werra, the southern Harz, the Elbe, and the Lower Seale. Along with the Franks, they destroyed the king
dom of the Thuringians in 531, and obtained possession of the land between the Harz and the Unstnit ; but this district was in turn forced to acknowledge the Frankish sover eignty. From 719, wars between the Saxons and the Franks became constant; but the the latter, after 722, were generally successful, in spite of the vigorous resistance offered by Wittekind; and 804, the Saxons were finally subjugated by the arms of Charlemagne. Wittekind was the last Saxon king, and the first Saxon duke of the German empire. A collection of the old national laws and usages of the Saxons, under of Lex Sax *num, was made during the reign of Charlemagne.
During 1830-40, A. Schmeller published (from two manuscripts, one preserved at Munich, and the other in the British museum) an " Old Saxon" poem of the 9th c., called 'Oland, i.e., the " Healer," or " Saviour," which narrates in alliterative verse the " His tory of Christ" according to the gospels, whence it is also called the " Old Saxon Gospel Harmony." It is probably a part of a more comprehensive work, embracing a poetical treatlient of the history of the Old and New Testament, which Ludvig, the pious intrusted to some celebrated Saxon singer. This unknown poet lived, as his language Dads us to conjecture, somewhere between Jlianster, Essen, and Kleve. His work is not only the almost sole monument of the old Saxon tongue left us, but is also of bight poetical value, through] its warmth of feeling, and the strength and splendor of its dic tion—worthy, indeed, to take its place alongside the contemporary Anglo-Saxon and old Norse Vilmar's Deutsche Alterthienter ion Iislhund (Marti. 1845).