Where was Saxony?
27718913#2
It was particularly to distinguish the lands from 'Lower Saxony', a concept which arose later in popular usage (though never enforced) as a term for the original Saxon lands in north and west Germany (where Low German dialects had spread), in what is now the state of Lower Saxony, as well as the adjacent Westphalian region, Holstein and the western part of today's Saxony-Anhalt north of the Harz range (Eastphalia).
Upper Saxony
4474841#17
The new kingdom was an ally of France in all the Napoleonic wars of the years 1807-13. At the beginning of the great German Campaign of 1813 the king sided neither with Napoleon nor with his allied opponents, but united his troops with those of France when Napoleon threatened to treat Saxony as a hostile country. At the Battle of Leipzig (16–18 October 1813), when Napoleon was completely defeated, the greater part of the Saxon troops deserted to the allied forces. The King of Saxony was taken as a Prussian prisoner to the Castle of Friedrichsfeld near Berlin. The Congress of Vienna (1814–15) took from Saxony the greater part of its land and gave it to Prussia, namely with about 850,000 inhabitants; this ceded territory included the former Duchy of Saxe-Wittenberg, the former possessions of the Dioceses of Merseburg and Naumburg, a large part of Lusatia, etc. What Prussia had obtained, with the addition of some old Prussian districts, was formed into the Province of Saxony.
The Kingdom of Saxony had left only an area of with a population at that era of 1,500,000 inhabitants; under these conditions it became a member of the German Confederation that was founded in 1815. King John (1854–73) sided with Austria in the struggle between Prussia and Austria as to the supremacy in Germany. Consequently, in the War of 1866, when Prussia was successful, the independence of Saxony was once more in danger; only the intervention of the Austrian Emperor saved Saxony from being entirely absorbed by Prussia. The kingdom, however, was obliged to join the North German Confederation of which Prussia was the head. In 1871 Saxony became one of the states of the newly founded German Empire. King John was followed by his son King Albert (1873–1902); Albert was succeeded by his brother George (1902–04); the son of George is King Frederick Augustus III. Prince Maximilian (born 1870), a brother of the present king, became a priest in 1896, was engaged in parish work in London and Nuremberg, and since 1900 has been a professor of canon law and liturgy in the University of Freiburg in Switzerland. The Kingdom of Saxony is the fifth state of the German Empire in area and third in population; in 1905 the average population per square mile was 778.8. Saxony is the most densely peopled state of the empire, and indeed of all Europe; the reason is the very large immigration on account of the development of manufactures. In 1910 the population amounted to 5,302,485; of whom 218,033 were Catholics; 4,250,398 Evangelical Lutherans; 14,697 Jews; and a small proportion of other denominations. The Catholic population of Saxony owes its present numbers largely to immigration during the 19th century. Catholicism that can be traced back to the period before the Reformation is found only in one section, the governmental department of Bautzen. Even here there is no continuous Catholic district, but there are a number of villages where the population is almost entirely Catholic, and two cities (Ostritz and Schirgiswalde) where Catholics are in the majority. It should also be mentioned that about 1.5 of the inhabitants of Saxony consists of the remains of a Slavonic tribe called by the Germans Wends, and in their own language "Serbjo". These Wends, who number about 120,000 persons and live in Saxon and Prussian Lusatia, are entirely surrounded by a German population; consequently owing to German influence the Wendic language, manners, and customs are gradually disappearing. About 50,000 Wends live in the Kingdom of Saxony; of these about 12,000 belong to the Catholic Church; some fifty Wendic villages are entirely Catholic. There is also a large Wendic population in the city of Bautzen, where among 30,000 inhabitants 7,000 are Wends.
History of Saxony
18435#14
The name and coat of arms of the present state go back to the Germanic tribe of Saxons. During the Migration Period some of the Saxon peoples left their homeland in Holstein about the 3rd century and pushed southwards over the Elbe, where they expanded into the sparsely populated regions in the rest of the lowlands, in the present-day Northwest Germany and the northeastern part of what is now the Netherlands. From about the 7th century the Saxons had occupied a settlement area that roughly corresponds to the present state of Lower Saxony, of Westphalia and a number of areas to the east, for example, in what is now west and north Saxony-Anhalt. The land of the Saxons was divided into about 60 "Gaue". The Frisians had not moved into this region; for centuries they preserved their independence in the most northwesterly region of the present-day Lower Saxon territory. The original language of the folk in the area of Old Saxony was West Low German, one of the varieties of language in the Low German dialect group.
Lower Saxony
2420186#12
Old Saxony is the place from which most of the raids and later colonisations of Britain were mounted. The region was called "Old Saxony" by the later descendants of Anglo-Saxon migrants to Britain, and their new colonies in Wessex and elsewhere were the "New Saxony" or "Seaxna". In Germany the Saxon lands were known simply as "Saxony" (Modern German:"Sachsen") and only later came to be called "Lower Saxony", to differentiate those original Saxon tribal territories from what became the Kingdom of Saxony or "Upper Saxony" in territories far to the south-east of the original Saxon homeland. The Anglo-Saxon writer Bede claimed in his work "Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum" (731) that Old Saxony was the area between the Elbe, the Weser and the Eider in the north and north west of modern Germany and was a territory beyond the borders of the Roman Empire.
Old Saxony
28395#22
Saxony-Wittenberg, in modern Saxony-Anhalt, became subject to the margravate of Meissen, ruled by the Wettin dynasty in 1423. This established a new and powerful state, occupying large portions of the present Free State of Saxony, Thuringia, Saxony-Anhalt and Bavaria (Coburg and its environs). Although the centre of this state was far to the southeast of the former Saxony, it came to be referred to as Upper Saxony and then simply Saxony, while the former Saxon territories were now known as Lower Saxony.
Saxony
12176945#1
Hailing from Saxony and Bavaria, where they had many lands and "honores", the Hattonids were appointed to prefectures and counties in East Franconia and the central Rhineland from an early date. One of their family, Banzleib, was both Count of Maine in Neustria and Margrave of Saxony under Louis the Pious. The Hattonids more or less controlled Saxony in the last years of Louis the Pious' reign. They were staunch supporters of Louis the Pious and his eldest son Lothair I in the years from 838 to 843. They had a hatred for Louis the German and opposed his rule in Saxony and the creation of a kingdom of East Francia, since they had lands on both sides of the Rhine. Louis the German, however, jealous of their influence and power in the Rhineland, made war on them; a war which culminated in the Battle of Wörnitz, whereat the Hattonid leader Adalbert, Count of Metz, died. Adalbert and Banzleib's older brother, Hatto, was displaced from his county of Nassau, too, but he maintained his ground in Alemannia until at least 857.
Hattonids
29662#2
The original Duchy of Saxony comprised lands of the Saxon people 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.With the removal of the Welfs in 1180, the Duchy of Saxony was sharply reduced in territory. Westphalia fell to the Archbishop of Cologne, while the Duchy of Brunswick remained with the Welfs. The Ascanian Dukes had their base further east, near the Elbe, in what is sometimes called the "younger Duchy of Saxony", resulting in the name Saxony moving towards the east.
List of rulers of Saxony
679247#2
Following the defeat of Saxony's ally Prussia at the Battle of Jena in 1806, Saxony joined the Confederation of the Rhine, and remained within the Confederation until its dissolution in 1813 with Napoleon's defeat at the Battle of Leipzig. Following the battle, in which Saxony — virtually alone of all the German states — had fought alongside the French. King Frederick Augustus I was deserted by his troops, taken prisoner by the Prussians and considered to have forfeited his throne by the allies, who put Saxony under Prussian occupation and administration. This was probably more due to the Prussian desire to annex Saxony than to any crime on Frederick Augustus's part, and the fate of Saxony would prove to be one of the main issues at the Congress of Vienna. In the end, 40% of the Kingdom, including the historically significant Wittenberg, home of the Protestant Reformation, was annexed by Prussia, but Frederick Augustus was restored to the throne in the remainder of his kingdom, which still included the major cities of Dresden and Leipzig. The Kingdom also joined the German Confederation, the new organization of the German states to replace the fallen Holy Roman Empire.
Kingdom of Saxony
28395#36
The Electoral Saxony, a predecessor of today's Saxony, was the original birthplace of the Reformation. The elector was Lutheran starting in 1525. The Lutheran church was organized through the late 1510s and the early 1520s. It was officially established in 1527 by John the Steadfast. Although some of the sites associated with Martin Luther also lie in the current state of Saxony-Anhalt (including Wittenberg, Eisleben and Mansfeld), today's Saxony is usually viewed as the formal successor to what used to be Luther's country back in the 16th century (i.e. the Electoral Saxony).
Saxony
28395#26
In 1806, French Emperor Napoleon abolished the Holy Roman Empire and established the Electorate of Saxony as a kingdom in exchange for military support. The Elector Frederick Augustus III accordingly became King Frederick Augustus I of Saxony. Frederick Augustus remained loyal to Napoleon during the wars that swept Europe in the following years; he was taken prisoner and his territories declared forfeit by the allies in 1813, after the defeat of Napoleon. Prussia intended the annexation of Saxony but the opposition of Austria, France, and the United Kingdom to this plan resulted in the restoration of Frederick Augustus to his throne at the Congress of Vienna although he was forced to cede the northern part of the kingdom to Prussia. These lands became the Prussian province of Saxony, now incorporated in the modern state of Saxony-Anhalt except westernmost part around Bad Langensalza now in the one of Thuringia. Also Lower Lusatia became part of Province of Brandenburg and northeastern part of Upper Lusatia became part of Silesia Province. The remnant of the Kingdom of Saxony was roughly identical with the present federal state, albeit slightly smaller.
Saxony