Manufactures, Commerce, etc.—Manufacturing industry has also been greatly devel oped, and several branches have been carried to a high degree of perfection. This species of labor employs nearly three-fifths of the whole population. The oldest manu facture is that of linen, which at present employs more than 16,000 looms; but it is now eclipsed by the cotton-spinning and weaving, which is the most important branch of Saxon industry, has its chief seats at Chemnitz, Frankenberg, Zschoppau, Folklaud, and Lausitz, and gives work to upward of 150 spinning-mills. The woolen manufactures are also extensive. Broadcloth, thread, merinos, silks, mixed silk, and woolen wares, etc., are also produced in considerable quantity, and of excellent quality; the muslin de lames being still preferred by many to those of England and France, while the laces and embroiderie% preserve their ancient well-won reputation. Saxon pottery and porcelain have long been famous. The chief centers of manufacturing industry are in Bautzen and in the mountainous country to the n. of the Erzgebirge. Owing to this extension of manufacturing industry, combined with a deficiency in the supply of home-grown ' articles of Consumption, i onsumption, an extensive foreign commerce is rendered necessary, and this is chiefly carried on through the medium of the great fairs of Leipsic (q.v.). The chief imports are corn, wine, salt (not found in Saxony, though common enough iu Prussian Saxony), cotton, silk, flax, hemp, wool, coffee, tea, etc. The country is well pro vided with roads, railways, and lines of telegraph.
Government, Religion, Education, Revenue, etc.—The government of this very interest ing country—the reading of the history of which leaves on one's' mind a firm sense of both past ages and present activity—is a limited monarchy, hereditary in the Albertine line, and is carried on according to the constitution of Sept. 4, 1831, modified by changes in 1849, 1851, 1860, 1861, 1868, and 1874. By the electoral law passed in the year 1868, the first of the two chambers which constituteothe legislature consists of the princes of Ore royal family, certain nobles, representatives of the Lutheran and Roman Catholic churches, the chief proprietors, representatives of the universities, and the burgomasters of the eight principal towns. The second chamber comprises 35 deputies from the towns, and 45 from the rural communes. The supreme administration is managed by six ministers (of justice, finance, the interior, war, religion and education, and foreign affairs). The established religion is the Lutheran, though the family, since the , time of Fr. Augustus I., have been Roman Catholic. The church department must, so long as the reigning family remains Catholic, be administered by a member of the established church. In 1871 there were 2,484,075 Lutherans; 9,347 Re formed; 53,642 Roman Catholics. The population of Saxony is by no means purely German; in 1875 there still were upward of 50,000 who spoke Wendish. Saxony has upward of 2,000 elementary schools, 11 gymnasia, and 12 real-schulen; the university is at Leipsic. The budget for 1876-77 showed receipts to the amount of 53,856.977 marks; the expenditure was a little less. The public debt at the beginning of 1877 amounted to 40482,925 marks (of which a large proportion was incurred for railways). The Saxon troops form the twelfth corps Warm& of the German empire. Saxony has a war ministry of its own; but after the war of 1866 Saxony paid the penalty of her opposition to Prussia by being compelled to make over to the king of Prussia the supreme military command of the Saxon army, the right to garrison the fortress of Konigstein, the management of the postal, railway, and telegraphic systems, and the clutrga of the diplomatic representation of Saxony abroad. As a member of the German - empire, Saxony has four voices in the federal council, and has a right to send 23 deputies to the diet.
History of the Great Duchy of Lower Saxony, and of the Ascanian Electorate of Upper, Saxony.—After the final conquest of the Saxons by Charlemagne they became one of the components of the German empire; but their country by no means corresponded to what is now known as Saxony. It included the most of the country between the Elbe, the Harz mountains, the Rhine, and Friesland; and, in 850, was erected into a dukedom, with Lubeck for its capital, and ruled by hereditary princes. Ludolf, the first duke, is said to have been the great-grandson of Wittekind, hut nothing is certainly known of his ancestry. His second son, (Rho the illustrious (880-912), was the most distinguished of the German princes; lie fought valiantly against the Normans, and, on the extinction r of the Carlovingian dynasty (911), refused the crown of Germany which was unanimously offered him by the electors. His son duke Henry (912-936), surnamed "the Fowler," obtained the throne (919). and commenced the Saxon line of German sovereigns, which was continued by Otto I. (q.v.), Otho II. (q.v.), Otho III. (q.v.), and Henry II., and ended in 1024. Otho I. handed over the great duchy of Saxony to Hermann Billung in 960, on condition of military service; and this family held it till 1106. Under the Billing dynasty the prosperity of the country greatly increased, and Meissen, Thuringia, East Saxony in Lusatia, Saxony in the Northern Mark, Anhalt, Saltzwedel, and Slesvig were all dependent on the Saxon duke. A portion of Saxony had however, been reserved by the emperor, Otho L, for his nephew Bruno, who founded a lordship of %axony-Brunswick ; and, in the middle of the 11th c., a duchy of " Saxony on the Weser" waS aim) founded; bet both of these (united by marriage in 1090 or 1096) came (1113) by marriage to count Lothar of Supriinburg, who was also invested (1106) with the great duchy of Saxony, which was now more extensive than ever, stretching from the Unstrnt in Gotha, to the Eider, and from the Rhine to Pomerania. After Lothar's accession to the imperial throne in 1125, he handed over (1127) the duchy to his son-in-law, the proud, the Gnelphie duke of Bavaria, who was thus the ruler of more than half of Germany; but this overgrown dominion did not long exist, for under his son, Henry the lion (q.v.), it was wrested (1180) from the house of Guelph, Bavaria being given to the house of Wittelsbaeb; East Saxony created an electorate, and given to Bernhard of Ascanm; Brunswick and Luneburg mostly restored to Henry's son; while the numerous und powerful bishops of Northern Germany divided among themselves Westphalia, Oldenburg, and many portions of Luneburg and Brunswick; Mecklenburg and Holstein became independent, and the Saxon palatinate in Thuringia went to the landgraf Lud wig. Saxony, now shorn of its former greatness, consisted chiefly of what is now Prus sian Saxony, a few districts separated from Brandenburg, and Saxe-Laueuburg, the last being the only portion of the great duchy of Saxony, or Lower Saxony, as it is called, which retained the name. Wittenberg was the capital of the new duchy. Saxony was diminished in 1211 by the separation of Anhalt as a separate principality; and in 1260 it was permanently divided into two portions, Saxe-Lauenburg and Saxe-lVittenberg, to the latter of which the electoral dignity remained, and to which, on subsequent dispute between the two branches, it was confirmed by the celebrated golden bull (1356). The Ascanian line became extinct in 1422 with duke Albert III., and the duchy then passed to Frederick the warlike, markgraf of Misnia, and landgraf of Thuringia, who was invested with it by the emperor Sigismund in 1423. Hig possessions consisted of Thu ringia, the present kingdom of Saxony, Prussian Saxony, iu fact the whole of Upper Saxony, with the exception of Anhalt.