The history of Saxony is encompassing the history of modern German state of Saxony and its predecessors in the wider region of Upper Saxony, and also includes the historical overview of various medieval and early modern states named Saxony, situated in regions that initially belonged to the Old Saxony and located today mainly within boundaries of modern German states of Lower Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt. Complex regional histories of various states and provinces that bore the Saxon name from medieval to modern times thus jointly constitute a wider history of Saxony.
Scope
Historical states named Saxony were varying significantly in their territorial scopes, particularly during the medieval and early modern times, while their geopolitical developments and traditions were often marked by conflicting dynastic claims and subsequent transfers of Saxon titles and designations to various regions beyond boundaries of the original (old) Saxony.
In some regions, such terminological saxonization did not gain permanent ground, as in Thuringia, where early modern Saxon duchies (Wettinian states in Thuringia) did not erase Thuringian regional identity (officially restored in 1920 by the creation of the State of Thuringia). In other territories, particularly in regions on the middle Elbe, gradual expansion of Saxon designations became permanent, thus replacing older, both Slavic and German geopolitical terms (the old March of Meissen was associated with the Electorate of Saxony only since 1423, and the March of Lusatia only since 1635).
On the other hand, the core regions of the Old Saxony, that started to lose their formal Saxon designations already after the division of the Stem Duchy of Saxony in 1180, managed to officially regain their original Saxon name only in 1946, with the establishment of the modern German state of Lower Saxony, a term borrowed from the former imperial Lower Saxon Circle (1512).
Old Saxony
The name of Saxony was derived from the Saxons (Latin: Saxones), an early Germanic tribe that was living in the North Sea coastal regions around the river Elbe. During the 3rd and 4th centuries, Germany was inhabited by great tribal confederations of the Alamanni, Bavarians, Thuringians, Franks, Frisii, and Saxons. These took the place of numerous petty tribes with their own popular tribal forms of government. With the exception of the Saxons, all these confederations were ruled by kings. The Saxons, in contrast, were divided into a number of independent bodies under different chieftains. In time of war these chieftains drew lots to select a leader, who was followed by the other chieftains until the war ended.See pages 182 and 183 of Turner (1852).
In the 3rd and 4th centuries, the Saxons fought their way victoriously towards the west, and their name was given to the great tribal confederation that stretched towards the west exactly to the former boundary of the Roman Empire, almost to the Rhine. Only a small strip of land on the right bank of the Rhine remained to the Frankish tribe. Towards the south the Saxons pushed as far as the Harz Mountains and the Eichsfeld, and in the succeeding centuries they absorbed the greater part of Thuringia. In the east their power extended at first as far as the Elbe and Saale Rivers. In later centuries it extended much farther. The whole coast of the North Sea (the German Ocean) belonged to the Saxons except the part west of the Weser that the Frisians retained.
Ptolemy's Geographia, written in the 2nd century, is considered to contain the first written reference to the Saxons. Some copies of this text mention a tribe called Saxones in the area to the north of the lower Elbe. However, other versions refer to the same tribe as Axones. This may be a misspelling of Aviones, the name of a tribe mentioned by Tacitus in his Germania. According to this theory, the word "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. He notes that the loss of first letters occurs in numerous places in various copies of Ptolemy's work, and also that the manuscripts without "Saxones" are generally inferior overall. Schütte also remarks that there was a medieval tradition of calling this area "Old Saxony". This view is in line with Bede, who mentions that Old Saxony was near the Rhine, somewhere to the north of the river Lippe, roughly equivalent to Westphalia, the northeastern part of the modern German state of North Rhine Westphalia.
From the 8th century, the Saxons were divided into four subdivisions (gau): Westphalians, between the Rhine and the Weser; the Engern or Angrians, on both sides of the Weser; the Eastphalians, between the Weser and the Elbe; and the Transalbingians, in what is now Holstein. The only one of these names that has been preserved is Westphalians, later given to the inhabitants of the Prussian Province of Westphalia.
The Frankish King Clovis I (481-511) united the various Frankish tribes, conquered Roman Gaul, and accepted Christianity. The new Frankish kingdom was able to bring all the Germanic tribes except the Saxons under its authority and to make them Christian. For more than a hundred years there was almost uninterrupted warfare between the Franks and the Saxons.
After a bloody struggle that lasted thirty years (772–804), the Saxons were finally brought under Frankish supremacy by the Emperor Charlemagne. The earliest date at which it can be proved that Charlemagne had the conquest of the Saxon districts in view is 776. Charlemagne's campaigns were intended mainly to punish the Saxons for their annual marauding expeditions to the Rhine. Charlemagne also vigorously pursued the conversion of the Saxons to Christianity, which involved the Frankish emperor in the suppression of the native religion and brutalities such as the execution of 4,500 Saxons at Verden in 782.
Stem Duchy of Saxony
When the Frankish kingdom was divided by the Treaty of Verdun (843) the territory east of the Rhine became the East Frankish Kingdom, from which the present Germany has developed. A strong central authority was lacking during the reigns of the weak East Frankish kings of the Carolingian dynasty. Each German tribe was forced to rely upon itself for defence against the incursions of the Norsemen from the north and of the Slavs from the east, consequently the tribes once more chose dukes as rulers. The first Saxon duke was Otto the Illustrious (880–912) of the Liudolfinger line (descendants of Liudolf); Otto was able to extend his power over Thuringia. Otto's son Henry was elected king of Germany (919–936); Henry is justly called the real founder of the German Empire. His son Otto I (936–973) was the first non-Carolingian German king to receive from the pope the imperial Roman crown (962). Otto I was followed as king and emperor by his son Otto II (973–983), who was succeeded by his son Otto III (983–1002).
The line of Saxon emperors expired with Henry II (1002–1024). Henry I had been both King of Germany and Duke of Saxony at the same time. Mainly for the sake of his ducal possessions he had carried on a long and difficult struggle with the Slavs on the eastern boundary of his country. The Emperor Otto I was also for the greater part of his reign Duke of Saxony. He divided the region he had acquired into several margraviates, the most important being: the North Mark, out of which in the course of time the Kingdom of Prussia developed, and the Margraviate of Meissen, from which sprang the Kingdom of Saxony. Each mark was divided into districts, not only for military and political purposes but also for ecclesiastical: the central point of each district was a fortified castle.
Otto I laid the basis of the organization of the Church in this territory by making the chief fortified places which he established in the different marks the sees of dioceses. In 960 Otto I had transferred the ducal authority over Saxony to Margrave Hermann Billung, who had distinguished himself in the struggle with the Slavs, and the ducal title became hereditary in Count Hermann's family. This old Duchy of Saxony, as it is called in distinction from the Duchy of Saxe-Wittenberg, became the centre of the opposition of the German princes to the imperial power during the era of the Franconian or Salian emperors. With the death of Duke Magnus in 1106 the Saxon ducal family, frequently called the Billung line, became extinct.
The Emperor Henry V (1106–1125) gave the Duchy of Saxony in fief to Count Lothair of Supplinburg, who in 1125 became King of Germany, and at his death (1137) transferred the Duchy of Saxony to his son-in-law, Duke Henry the Proud, of the princely family of the Welf (Guelph). Henry the Lion refused to aid the Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa in his campaign against the cities of Lombardy in 1176, consequently in 1180 the ban of the empire was proclaimed against Henry at Würzburg, and 1181 the old Duchy of Saxony was cut up at the Diet of Gelnhausen into many small portions.
Ascanian Duchy of Saxony
Upon the division in 1180-1181, the Saxon ducal title was transferred to the House of Ascania that held possessions in eastern regions along the Elbe river, while the deposed ducal House of Welf maintained its allodial possessions, which did not remain as part of the Duchy of Saxony after the enfeoffment of the Ascanians. The Welf possessions were elevated to the Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg in 1235, whose subsequent successor states and provinces in core regions of the Old Saxony adopted Hanoverian designations, up to 1946.
Western portions of the old Saxon duchy were given, as the Duchy of Westphalia, to the Archbishopric of Cologne. The Saxon bishops, who had before this possessed sovereign authority in their territories, though under the suzerainty of the Duke of Saxony, gained imperial immediacy subject only to the imperial government;Thus the Saxon (arch)bishops turned into prince-(arch)bishops, such as the Prince-Archbishops of Bremen and Magdeburg, and the prince-bishops of Halberstadt, Lübeck, Ratzeburg, Schwerin as well as Verden etc. the case was the same with a large number of secular counties and cities.
The Diet of Gelnhausen (1181) was of much importance in the history of Germany. The Emperor Frederick executed here a great legal act. Yet the splitting up of the extensive country of the Saxons into a large number of principalities subject only to the imperial government was one of the causes of the system of petty states which proved so disadvantageous to Germany in its later history. The territory of the old duchy never again bore the name of Saxony; the large western part acquired the name of Westphalia. However, as regards customs and peculiarities of speech, the designation Lower Saxony was still in existence for the districts on the lower Elbe, that is, the northern part of the Province of Saxony, Hanover, Hamburg, etc., in distinction from Upper Saxony, that is, the Kingdom of Saxony, and Thuringia.