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The Saxons, sometimes called the Old Saxons or Continental Saxons, were the Germanic people of early medieval "Old" Saxony (Latin: Antiqua Saxonia) which became a Carolingian "stem duchy" in 804, in what is now northern Germany. [1] Many of their neighbours were, like them, Germanic-speaking, including the Franks and Thuringians to the south.
The Anglo-Saxons, in some contexts simply called Saxons or the English, were a cultural group who spoke Old English and inhabited much of what is now England and south-eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to Germanic settlers who became one of the most important cultural groups in Britain by the 5th century.
Anglo-Saxons" or "Britons" were no more homogeneous than nationalities are today, and they would have exhibited diverse characteristics: male/female, old/young, rich/poor, farmer/warrior—or even Gildas' patria (fellow citizens), cives (indigenous people) and hostes (enemies)—as well as a diversity associated with language.
The Kingdom of the South Saxons, today referred to as the Kingdom of Sussex (/ ˈ s ʌ s ɪ k s /; from Middle English: Suth-sæxe, in turn from Old English: Suth-Seaxe or Sūþseaxna rīce, meaning "(land or people of/Kingdom of) the South Saxons"), was one of the seven traditional kingdoms of the Heptarchy of Anglo-Saxon England. [6]
The old Saxon coats of arms today lives on in the coats of arms of Lower Saxony and Westphalia.. The original Duchy of Saxony comprised the lands of the Saxons in the north-western part of present-day Germany, namely, the contemporary German state of Lower Saxony as well as Westphalia and Western Saxony-Anhalt, not corresponding to the modern German state of Saxony.
The history of Saxony began with a small tribe living on the North Sea between the Elbe and Eider River in what is now Holstein. The name of this tribe, the Saxons (Latin: Saxones), was first mentioned by the Greek author Ptolemy. The name Saxons is derived from the Seax, a knife used by the tribe as a weapon. [citation needed]
The arrival of the Anglo-Saxons into Britain can be seen in the context of a general movement of Germanic peoples around Europe between the years 300 and 700, known as the Migration period (also called the Barbarian Invasions or Völkerwanderung).
The Saxons were one of the most robust groups in the late tribal culture of the times, and eventually bequeathed their tribe's name to a variety of more and more modern geopolitical territories, such as Old Saxony (Altsachsen), Upper Saxony, the Electorate, the Prussian Province of Saxony (in present-day Saxony-Anhalt), and the Kingdom of ...