SAXONS 



SAXONY 



185 



and politically united until 1873. Saxe-Gotha was 

 made an independent duchy in 1641, was united 

 with Altenliuvg from 1672 to 1825, and after that 

 joined to Coburg. As Ernest II., Duke of Saxe- 

 Coburg-Gotha and brother of Prince Alfred, died 

 childless ( 1893), the succession passed to the Duke 

 of Edinburgh (1844-1900). Saxe-Meiningen lia~ IUM-II 

 a separate duchy since 1681. Saxe- Weimar has been 

 under the rnle of the Saxon house since 1376. 

 Bernhard (q.v.), a brother of the reigning duke, 

 distinguished himself as a Protestant general 

 in tlie Thirty Years' War. Duke Karl August 

 (1758-1828) made Weimar (q.v.) the centre of 

 the intellectual and artistic fife of Germany by 

 gathering round him Goethe, Schiller, Herder, 

 \Vieland, &c. , and by encouraging the theatre, the 

 university of Jena, and the fine arts. 



Saxons (Lat. Saxones, Ger. Sae/uen), a Ger- 

 manic people, whose name is usually derived from 

 an old Teutonic word sahs, meaning a 'knife, ' 

 though some authorities believe it to be another 

 form of Sassen = ' i\\e settled people,' are first 

 mentioned by Ptolemy as dwelling in the south 

 of the Cimbrian Peninsula. In the 3d century a 

 ' Siixun League' or 'Confederation,' to which lie- 

 longed the Cherusci, the Angrivarii, the Chauci, 

 ami other tribes, was established on both sides of 

 the estuary of the Elbe and on the islands off the 

 adjacent coast. During the reigns of the emperors 

 Julian and Valentinian they invaded the Roman 

 territory ; but their piratical descents on the coasts 

 of Itritain and Gaul are far more famous. In 287 

 Carausius, a Belgic admiral in the Koman service, 

 made himself ' Augustus ' in Britain by their help ; 

 and about 450 they, in conjunction witli the Angles, 

 established themselves permanently in the island 

 and founded the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. Before 

 the 5th century they had settled along the North 

 Sea coasts from the Elbe to the Loire, a part of 

 what was later Flanders being called tin- Saxon 

 shore.' But these Saxon settlements soon liecame 

 absorbed in the kingdom of the Franks. In Britain 

 too there was a Saxon shore with its count. In 

 Roman times the coast districts of Britain from 

 Brighton northwards to the Wash were called 

 Litiu Saxonicum, or Saxon shore. These localities 

 were particularly exposed to the attacks of the 

 Saxons from across the North Sea, and were placed 

 under the authority of a special officer, the Count 

 of the Saxon Shore. At home the Old Saxons 

 enlarged their territory by conquest till it embraced 

 all the lands between the Rhine and Elbe, the 

 North Sea and the Harz Mountains. Along with 

 the Franks they destroyed the kingdom of the 

 Thnringians in 531, and obtained possession of the 

 land between the Harz and the river Unstnit ; but 

 tin- region too was forced to acknowledge the 

 Prankish sovereignty. But the Saxons having 

 thrown off the yoke, wars l>etween the Saxons and 

 the Franks were constant after 719; and the latter 

 after 772 were, under the vigorous leadership of 

 < harlemagne, generally successful, in spite of the 

 dftt-rinined opposition offered by Wittekiml (or 

 \\ i In kind ). The desperate resistance of the Saxons 

 was not finally broken until 804, though Wittekind 

 submitted in 785. After the final submission the 

 conquered people accepted Christianity, having 

 before defended their heathen faith in conjunction 

 with their freedom. By the treaty of Verdun 

 (843) the Saxon districts fell to Australia, the 

 nucleus of the German empire (see SAXONY). The 

 'Saxons' of Transylvania (q.v.) are not all of pure 

 Saxon descent ; the name is used rather as synony- 

 mous with Merman.' See HELIAND and ANGMI- 

 SAXOS LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE. 



To the Celtic Britons the English or Anglo- 

 Saxon invaders were known only as Saxons, and 

 Snuenac/t, or other Celtic form of the word Saxon, 



is still the name for Englishmen and their language 

 alike in Wales, the Scottish Highlands, and Ire- 

 land. But the ' hated Saxon ' as a political war- 

 cry was the coinage of O'Connell. 



Saxony, a kingdom of Germany, taking in 

 respect of area the fifth place, but in respect of 

 population the third place, amongst the states of 

 the empire; it is surrounded by Bohemia (on the 

 S.), Silesia (NE. and N. ), Prussian Saxony (N. 

 and NW. ), and the minor Saxon states (W.). It 

 measures 130 miles from east to west, 90 miles 

 from north to south, and has a total area of 5787 

 >'|. in. (a little smaller than Yorkshire); in shape 

 it roughly resembles a right-angled triangle, the 

 right angle being in the north-west, the hypo- 

 thenuse in the south, along the Erzgebirge (to 

 3343 feet). The greater part of the surface is 

 diversified by the spurs (2800 feet) of this 

 mountain-chain, with to the west the outliers 

 (2900 feet) of the Fichtelgebirge and to the east 

 the northern extensions (2600 feet) of the Riesen- 

 gebirge. The northern districts pass over into the 

 great North German plain. On the whole the 

 surface is therefore elevated (nearly 60 per cent, 

 above 800 feet) ; in many parts it is studded with 

 isolated peaks of basalt and sandstone (e.g. the 

 fantastic pinnacles of the Saxon Switzerland, 

 skirting the Elite just above Dresden). It lies 

 almost wholly within the basin of the Elbe, being 

 drained by that river and its tributaries. The 

 climate, owing to the elevation, is somewhat 

 colder and severer than the latitude (50 10' to 51 

 '2!i' N.) would indicate. The population grows 

 fast: (1815) 1,178,802; (1840) 1,706,276; (1864) 

 2.344,094; (1880) 2,972,805; (1890) 3,500,513. 

 Thus it has doubled since 1840. Saxony, whose 

 area is a little more than half that of Belgium 

 (pop. 6,093,798 in 1890), is more densely inhabited, 

 having 605 inhabitants on the square mile to 

 Belgium's 535. By race the majority of the |>eople 

 are Germanised Slavs, close upon 50,000 lieing 

 Wends, living in Lusatia ; the non-Slavonic re- 

 mainder are descended from ancient immigrants 

 from Franconia and Thuringia. More than 96 

 per cent of the population are Lutherans. The 

 capital is Dresden ; the largest towns are Leipzig, 

 Dresden, Chemnitz, Plauen, Zwickau, Freiberg, 

 Zittau, Meerane, and Glaiichau, in the order named, 

 the first three having each more than 100,000. 



Saxony is essentially a mining and manufactur- 

 ing country ; whilst more than 58 per cent, of the 

 population are engaged in the mines and manufac- 

 tures, less than 20 per cent, depend upon agri- 

 culture. The first place amongst the manufactures 

 is taken by the textile industries, which embrace 

 the making of linen, damask, muslin, hosiery, 

 ribbons, cloth and buckskin, flannel, woollen 

 goods, and waxcloth ; to these must be added 

 numerous dye-works and factories for printing and 

 stamping textiles. The other branches of industry 

 deal with machinery, pottery, porcelain and glass, 

 chemicals, beer (83 million gallons annually), 

 spirits, lace, paper, straw-plait, tobacco, artificial 

 flowers, pianofortes, hats, toys, watches, books, 

 musical instruments, ornamental wooden articles, 

 &c. These various industries employ close upon 

 800,000 persons, a large proportion being women. 

 The principal mineral products are coal, argentifer- 

 ous lead, zinc, iron, and cobalt. Coal is extracted 

 to the annual value of 2,178,850, the other mine- 

 rals to 175,000. Nearly 30,000 j>ersons are em- 

 ployed in and about the mines, which, however, 

 have decreased since 1860 in number and conse- 

 quently now employ fewer people. Building- 

 stones, turf, lime, slates, potter's clav, &c. are 

 extracted in considerable quantities. Freiberg is 

 one of the chief centres in Germany for smelting 

 metals, the annual output for all except iron being 



