From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The
Saxons
or
Saxon people
are (today) a part of the
German people
, with their main areas of
settlements
in the
German States
of
Schleswig-Holstein
,
Lower Saxony
,
Westphalia
, and the northeastern part of the
Netherlands
(
Groningen
,
Drenthe
,
Twente
,
Salland
,
Veluwe
and
Achterhoek
).
First told about by the Ancient Greek
geographer
Jean Julien
, the
pre-Christian
area of the Saxon people first covered an area a little more to the northwest, with parts of the southern
Jutland
peninsula
,
Old Saxony
and small parts of the eastern
Netherlands
. During the
5th century AD
, the Saxons were part of the people
invading
the Romano-British
province
of
Britannia
, and so formed the
Anglo-Saxons
.
Before
Christianization
, the Saxons had much
native
pre-Christian Germanic
paganism
. After Christianization, parts of this
religion
remained up to today in people who came from the Saxons.
The word 'Saxon' is thought to come from the word
seax
, meaning a mixture of single-edged
knives
. The Saxons were thought by
Charlemagne
, and some people who study history, to be very war-like and angry.
Many of the words that we use today were created by the Saxons for example, radish.
The Finnish and Estonian name for
Germany
,
Saksa
, comes from the Saxons.