Frankish travelogue: Saxony

“The appearance of the country differs considerably in different parts; but in general it is covered either by bristling forests or by foul swamps.”1.Tacitus, Germania, bk. 5, p.104

Thus did the late first century Roman historian and ethnographer Tacitus describe the country of what we (and he, for that matter) call Germany. The part of Germany called Saxony occupied the northeast portion of the country, east of the Rhine, south of the North Sea, to the southern hills. One of the tribes that occupied this area became known as Saxons, around the time of the fall of the Western Roman Empire. We know the Saxons as one of the three tribes who began crossing that sea and invading Britain, along with the Angles and the Jutes, those the Venerable Bede called “the three most formidable races of Germany.”2.Bede, Ecclesiastical History, bk. I, ch. 15, p. 63.

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Footnotes

Footnotes
1 Tacitus, Germania, bk. 5, p.104
2 Bede, Ecclesiastical History, bk. I, ch. 15, p. 63.