History of Saxony
The history of Saxony began with a small tribe living on the North Sea between the Elbe and Eider River in what is now Holstein.
[citation needed] In the 3rd and 4th centuries, Germany was inhabited by great tribal confederations of the Alamanni, Bavarians, Thuringians, Franks, Frisii, and Saxons.
Towards the south the Saxons pushed as far as the Harz Mountains and the Eichsfeld, and in the succeeding centuries they absorbed the greater part of Thuringia.
The whole coast of the North Sea (the German Ocean) belonged to the Saxons except the part west of the Weser that the Frisians retained.
He notes that the loss of first letters occurs in numerous places in various copies of Ptolemy's work, and also that the manuscripts without "Saxones" are generally inferior overall.
A strong central authority was lacking during the reigns of the weak East Frankish kings of the Carolingian dynasty.
Otto I laid the basis of the organization of the Church in this territory by making the chief fortified places which he established in the different marks the sees of dioceses.
Yet the splitting up of the extensive country of the Saxons into a large number of principalities subject only to the imperial government was one of the causes of the system of petty states which proved so disadvantageous to Germany in its later history.
From the era of the conversion of the Saxons up to the revolt of the 16th century, a rich religious life was developed in the territory included in the medieval Duchy of Saxony.
That same year, the Palatinate of Saxony was enfeoffed by Emperor Frederick Barbarossa to Louis the Pious of the Ludovingian family.
When Ludwig IV died on crusade in 1227, his brother Henry Raspe took over the affairs of state on behalf of Louis' underage son Hermann II.
[3] The Protestant Reformation of the 16th century began under the protection of the electors of Saxony – in 1517, Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses at the castle church of Wittenberg.
The electorate remained a focal point of religious strife throughout the Reformation and to the subsequent Thirty Years' War.
In addition, electoral status required succession based on primogeniture, which precluded the division of the territory among several heirs and the consequent disintegration of the country.
Many landmarks in Saxony date from this period and contain remnants of the Polish-Saxon dual state, such as the coat of arms of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth on the facades and in the interiors of palaces, churches, edifices, etc.
(e.g. Zwinger, Dresden Cathedral, Moritzburg Castle), and on numerous mileposts, and the close political and cultural relationship persisted well into the 19th century, with Saxony being the place of preparations for the Polish Kościuszko Uprising against the partitioning powers,[4] and one of the chief destinations for Polish refugees from partitioned Poland, including the artistic and political elite, such as composer Frédéric Chopin, war hero Józef Bem and writer Adam Mickiewicz.
Frederick II of Prussia chose to attack pre-emptively and invaded Saxony in August 1756, precipitating the Seven Years' War.
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 Kingdom of Saxony had left only an area of 5,789 square miles (14,990 km2) 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.
Prince Maximilian (born 1870), a brother of the 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.
Saxony was the most densely peopled state of the empire, and indeed of all Europe; the reason was the very large immigration on account of the development of manufactures.
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".
During World War II, under the secret Nazi programme Aktion T4, an estimated 15,000 people suffering from mental and physical disabilities, as well as a number of concentration camp inmates, were murdered at Sonnenstein Euthanasia Centre near Pirna.
[7][8][9] Saxony was dissolved in 1952, and divided into three smaller 'Bezirke' based on Leipzig, Dresden and Karl-Marx-Stadt, but re-established within slightly altered borders in 1990 upon German reunification.
During the summer months about 15,000 to 20,000 Catholic labourers, called Sachsengänger, came into the country; they were Poles from the Prussian Province of Posen, from Russian Poland, or Galicia.
Up to 1802 the Eichsfeld and Erfurt had belonged to the principality of the Archbishopric of Mainz; a large part of the population had therefore retained the Catholic faith during the Reformation.
As regards ecclesiastical affairs the Province of Saxony had been assigned to the Diocese of Paderborn by the papal bull De salute animarum of 16 July 1821.
