Saxons were members of a Germanic people that invaded the island of Britain about 1,500 years ago. The Angles and the Jutes, who were also Germanic peoples, invaded Britain about the same time. These groups mixed and eventually established the Anglo-Saxon kingdom, which lasted until the Norman Conquest of 1066.
The ancient geographer Ptolemy first mentioned the Saxons in a book he wrote during the A.D. 100’s. According to Ptolemy, the Saxons lived in what is now the state of Schleswig-Holstein in Germany. They were a warlike people who invaded Roman territory in the late 300’s, during the reigns of the emperors Julian and Valentinian. By the 500’s, the Saxons had settled in most of what is now northern Germany, between the Elbe and Rhine rivers. During the 400’s and 500’s, the Saxons invaded Britain, conquered the Celts there, and settled in southern and eastern Britain. In the 700’s, Charlemagne conquered the Saxons still on the continent, forced them to accept Christianity, and made their land, then called Saxony, part of his empire.
