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Question: Why did the saxons invade the british isles !?
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Initially some of the Saxons were recruited by the Roman army in England!.

After the Roman legions left (year 410) more of the Saxons were invited by the Britons as mercenaries in fighting the Picts (Scottish people)!.

As to "why" they kept coming, I am not aware of any particular reason other than the standard reasons!. The land was good, the people were weak!. Part of the problem is that nearly everyone involved was illiterate!. Literacy almost completely disappeared when the Romans left!. British historians have struggled with the fact that the most important part of the history was not written until centuries after it happened!. The most important scholar in the re-creation was Bede!.

Bede ( 673 – 735), was a Benedictine monk was a well known as an author and scholar, and his most famous work, (The Ecclesiastical History of the English People) gained him the title "The father of English history"!.

Of course, since there were no historians writing at the time of the invasion, the oral legend of King Arthur became such an important part of English culture!. King Arthur was a Briton who fought the Saxons!. As to how much is based on a real person, that is subject to endless speculation!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

The word invade, as it is generally understood these days, doesn't really apply!. Small groups of Saxons (and Angles - from which the word England is derived) crossed the sea and settled in the British Isles over a couple of centuries!.

They were part of a vast movement which saw successive waves of peoples heading West - Vandals, Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Franks, Alans, Huns etc!. They were seeking new lands to settle on!.

During the last days of the Roman occupation of Britain, the East coast was known as the Saxon Shore!. Historians differ over whether this was because it was an area frequently raided by Saxons, or because Saxons were recruited to defend it!. The truth is probably a bit of both - by this time Rome would recruit troops from wherever it could!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

The saxons were always a thresat to early britain, niggling at the heels of britain, perhaps!. They invaded after an invasion by the picts, which had left England weak!. Mainly they wanted the land, but were payed as mercenaries by other Germanic tribes to inhabit some South-Eastern islands!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

They wanted an easy touch Land, food ,and riches of the land!. Just like to day with immigration!. House of plenty and land of golden opportunity!. All free!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

Um!.!.!.!.Charles K Browning!.!.!.!.!.the Saxons became the English!. There were no English in Britain until they arrived!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

Why does any nation/peoples protect its/their interest(s)!?Www@QuestionHome@Com

It seemed like a good idea at the time!. They are beginning to regret it now!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

they wanted land, they were bored and they had heard the natives we a pushover! (all farmers)Www@QuestionHome@Com

Hu noes !!!Www@QuestionHome@Com

cuz they were afraid to attack us and went to pick on the farmersWww@QuestionHome@Com

they brought Saxy backWww@QuestionHome@Com

Hi friend

The Saxons or Saxon people were a confederation of Old Germanic tribes!. Their modern-day descendants in northern Germany are considered ethnic Germans; those in the eastern Netherlands are considered to be ethnic Dutch; and those in southern England ethnic English!. Their earliest known area of settlement is Northern Albingia, an area approximately that of modern Holstein!.

Saxons participated in the Germanic settlement of Britain during and after the 5th century!. It is unknown how many migrated from the continent to Britain though estimates for the total number of Germanic settlers vary between 10,000-200,000!.[1] Over the past two centuries or so, many continental Saxons settled other parts of the world, especially in North America, Australia, South Africa, and in areas of the former Soviet Union, where some communities still maintain parts of their cultural and linguistic heritage, often under the umbrella categories “German” and “Dutch”!.

Because of international Hanseatic trading routes and contingent migration during the Middle Ages, Saxons mixed with and had strong influences upon the languages and cultures of the Scandinavian and Baltic peoples, and also upon the Polabian and Pomeranian West Slavic peoples!.

First mentioned by the Ancient Greek geographer Ptolemy, the pre-Christian settlement of the Saxon people originally covered an area a little more to the northwest, with parts of the southern Jutland peninsula, Old Saxony and small sections of the eastern Netherlands!. During the 5th century AD, the Saxons were part of the people invading the Romano-British province of Britannia!. One of these tribes was the Germanic Angles, whose name, taken together with that of the Saxons, led to the formation of the modern term, Anglo-Saxons!.

The word 'Saxon' is believed to be derived from the word seax, meaning a variety of single-edged knives!. The Saxons were considered by Charlemagne's historian Einhard to be especially war-like and ferocious!.


Saxony

The Saxons appear to have consolidated themselves by the end of the 8th century, when a political entity called the Duchy of Saxony appears!.


Map showing the Saxons' homeland (the Duchy of Saxony [Ger!. Herzogtum Sachsen] in the tenth century) in traditional region bounded by the three rivers: Weser, Eider, and Elbe!.The Saxons long resisted both becoming Christians and being incorporated into the orbit of the Frankish kingdom, but they were decisively conquered by Charlemagne in a long series of annual campaigns, the Saxon Wars (772 – 804)!. During Charlemagne's campaign in Hispania (778), the Saxons advanced to Deutz on the Rhine and plundered along the river!. With defeat came the enforced baptism and conversion of the Saxon leaders and their people!. Their sacred tree or pillar, a symbol of phallic, pagan, nature worship, Irminsul, was destroyed!.

Under Carolingian rule, the Saxons were reduced to tributary status!. There is evidence that the Saxons, as well as Slavic tributaries such as the Abodrites and the Wends, often provided troops to their Carolingian overlords!. The dukes of Saxony became kings (Henry I, the Fowler, 919) and later the first emperors (Henry's son, Otto I, the Great) of Germany during the 10th century, but they lost this position in 1024!. The duchy was divided up in 1180 when Duke Henry the Lion, Emperor Otto's grandson, refused to follow his cousin, Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, into war in Lombardy!.

During the Late Middle Ages, under the Salian emperors, the Teutonic knights and settlers, moved east along the river Elbe into the area of settlement of a western Slavic tribe, the Sorbs!. The Sorbs were gradually Germanised!. This region subsequently acquired the name Saxony through political circumstances, though it was initially called the March of Meissen!. The rulers of Meissen acquired control of the Duchy of Saxony in 1423 and eventually applied the name Saxony to the whole of their kingdom!. Since then, this part of eastern Germany has been referred to as Saxony (German: Sachsen), a source of some misunderstanding about the original homeland of the Saxons, mostly in the present-day German state of Lower Saxony (German: Niedersachsen)!.

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