It should not be confused with the modern German state of Saxony, which is in eastern Germany, adjoining the northwest border of the Czech Republic.

Some copies of this text mention a tribe called Saxones in the area to the north of the lower River Elbe, thought to derive from the word Sax or stone knife.

It has been claimed that the Old Saxons were composed of an aristocracy of nobles, a free warrior class of distinction and renown, leading freemen united and controlled by ancient custom of kindred and clan.

So tenaciously did the Saxons cling to their ancient customary law that clear traces of these social survivals persisted in Saxony down through the Middle Ages."[how?

It is possible that the level of migration was relatively minimal and that the ethnic makeup of the post-Roman population in Britain remained largely unchanged.

The Saxon pagan religion appears to have focused on the worship of the Irminsul or "great pillar"; a divine tree that connected Heaven and Earth and is thought to have existed at a site close to modern Obermarsberg.

For the most part, the Saxon lands were a broad plain, save on the south, where they rose into hills and the low mountainous country of the Harz and Hesse.

However, by 695 the pagan Saxons had become extremely hostile to the Christian priests and missionaries in their midst and began to realize that their aim was to convert their overlord and destroy their temples and religion.

The Saxons' reluctance to accept the new Christian religion and propensity to mount destructive raids on their neighbours would eventually bring them into direct conflict with Charlemagne, the powerful king of the Franks and later emperor.

After a bloody and highly attritious thirty-year campaign between 772–804 the Old Saxons led by Widukind were eventually subdued by Charlemagne and ultimately forced to convert to Christianity.