SAXONY is the name successively given in German history to a mediaeval duchy in northern Germany, to a later electorate which afterwards became the present kingdom of Saxony (described below), and to a ducal province of Prussia. The last was formed directly out of part of the second in 1815, but the connexion between the first and second, as will be seen from the present article, is neither local nor ethnographical but political.

The Saxons (Lat. Saxones, Ger. Sachsen), a tribe of the Teutonic stock, are first mentioned by Ptolemy as occupy-ing the southern part of the Cimbrian peninsula between the Elbe, Eider, and Trave, the district now known as Holstein. The name is most commonly derived from " sahs," a short knife, though some authorities explain it as meaning " settled," in contrast to the Suevi or " wandering" people. By the end of the 3d century, when we hear of a "Saxon Confederation" embracing the Cherusci, Chauci, and Angrivarii, and perhaps corresponding to the group of tribes called Ingsevones by Tacitus, the chief seat of the nation had been transferred south of the Elbe to the lands on both sides of the Weser now occupied by Oldenburg and Hanover. The Saxons were one of the most warlike and adventurous of the Teutonic peoples, and they not only steadily extended the borders of their home, but made colonizing and piratical excursions bj sea far and wide. In 287 they assisted the Menapian Carausius to make himself master of Romanized Britain, where he assumed the titie of Augustus; and on the Continent they came into collision with the Boman empire under both Julian and Valentinian, the latter of whom defeated them in 373 so far south as Deutz, opposite Cologne. Their settlements along the coast of France extended to the mouth of the Loire, and, though these were soon absorbed by the Franks, their expeditions to England finally resulted in the foundation of lasting kingdoms (Essex, Sussex, Wessex) (see ENGLAND, vol. viii. pp. 268 sq.). About the beginning of the 5th century part of the Flemish coast became known as the Litus Saxonium, from the settlements of this people. The Saxons who remained in Germany (Alt-Sachsen or Old Saxons) gradually pushed their borders further and further until they approached the Rhine, and touched the Elbe, the North Sea, and the Harz Mountains. In 531 they joined their neighbours the Franks in a successful expedition against the Thuringians, and received as their spoil the conquered territory between the Harz and the Unstrut. Their settlements here were, however, forced to acknowledge the supremacy of the Franks, and from this period may be dated the beginning of the long strife between these two peoples which finally resulted in the subjugation of the Saxons. During the reigns of the weak Merovingian kings who succeeded Lothair I. on the Frankish throne, the Saxons pushed into northern Thur-ingia, afterwards known as the Alt-Mark. Pippin the Short obtained a temporary advantage over them in 753 and imposed a tribute of three hundred horses, but their final conquest was reserved for Charlemagne. At this time the Saxons did not form a single state under one ruler, but were divided into the four districts of Westphalia to the west of the Weser, Eastphalia chiefly to the east of that river, Engern or Angria along both banks, and Nordal-bingia in Holstein. The gaus were independent, each having an ealdorman of its own; and they only combined in time of war or other emergency to choose a herzog, or common leader. The people were divided into the " frilinge " or "frone," who possessed the land, the "liti" or "lazzi," a semi-freed class, and the serfs, who had no rights. The "edilinge" were the chiefs, but had no political advantages over the "frilinge." Their religion was a simple type of northern heathenism. See GERMANY, vol. x. pp. 473 and 477 sq.

In 772 Charlemagne, induced partly by a desire to protect his kingdom from the incursions of hostile neigh-bours and partly by a proselytizing spirit, began the sub-jugation of the Saxons. The war, waged on both sides with the utmost ferocity, lasted in a series of campaigns with but brief intervals for thirty-one years. Repeatedly conquered and baptized, the Saxons rose again and again in revolt as soon as Charlemagne withdrew his troops, threw off their forced allegiance to Christianity, and under various leaders, of whom Wittekind or Widukind is the most famous, struggled fiercely to regain their independ-ence. Charlemagne was too strong and his measures too relentless. On one occasion he butchered 4500 captives in cold blood, as a revenge and a warning. Wittekind surrendered and was baptized in 785; and after what is called the Second Saxon War, which broke out in 792, resistance died away about 803. The Saxons were allowed a considerable amount of freedom by their sagacious conqueror. The first Capitulare Saxonicum, issued at Paderborn in 788, while very strict in maintaining Christianity and in punishing all rebellion, confirmed a great number of Saxon customs and laws. After 803 the laws were made milder, and no tribute except tithes was demanded. The people lived according to their former laws, under grafs appointed by Charlemagne; various bishoprics were founded, of which Osnabruek (783), Verden (786), and Bremen (787) are the earliest; and tranquillity was still further secured by transplanting colonies of Saxons to other parts of the kingdom, and introducing Prankish colonies to take their place in Saxony. The land now gradually became an integral portion of the kingdom of the Franks. Under Louis the German, to whom Saxony had fallen at the treaty of Verdun in 843, it was harassed by the inroads of the Normans and Slavs on either side, and, in order to cope with these, herzogs or dukes were appointed about 850 to keep the Saxon Mark, a narrow territory in Nordalbingia, on the west bank of the Elbe. These herzogs, remembering their predecessors or their ancestors (Ludolf, the first duke of Saxony, is said to have been a descendant of Wittekind), rapidly extended their power beyond the mark over the rest of Saxony, and thus founded the powerful duchy of Saxony. Otto the Illus-trious, who succeeded his brother Bruno as duke in 880, added Thuringia to the duchy, and attained such a pitch of power that he was offered the crown of Germany in 911. He refused the honour on the score of old age, but his son Henry the Fowler accepted it in 919, and founded the line of Saxon emperors which expired with Henry II. the Pious in 1024. Otto the Great, son of Henry I., bestowed the duchy of Saxony upon Hermann Billing or Billung, in whose family it remained till 1106. The power and in-fluence of Saxony during this period depended partly on the favour of the emperors, but chiefly on the sagacity and energy of the successive dukes. The Saxons were hostile to the Franconian emperors who succeeded the Saxon house, and in 1073 they rose in revolt against Henry IV. They were at first successful, but in 1075, at the battle of Langensalza, they were defeated by the emperor. The rebels were severely punished, though Otto of Nordheim, one of their leaders, was made administrator of the duchy. Taking advantage of Henry IV.'s troubles with the pope, they again rebelled and espoused the cause of Budolf of Swabia; but in 1087, on the resignation of Hermann of Luxemburg, whom they had chosen king, they made peace once more with the emperor. Magnus was the last duke of the Billing line. The emperor Henry V. now (1106) presented the lapsed duchy to Lothair, count of Supplin-burg, who rapidly became the most powerful prince in Germany, and in 1125 was placed on the imperial throne by the influence of the papal party. Two years after his elevation he assigned the duchy of Saxony to his powerful son-in-law Henry the Proud, who was already duke of Bavaria and had inherited the private possessions of the Billings in Saxony, in right of his mother, who was a daughter of Magnus. Henry had aspired to be emperor in 1138, and his successful rival Conrad III., wishing to reduce his power, alleged that it was unlawful for one prince to hold two duchies, and ordered him to resign Saxony. On his refusal, the emperor immediately declared both duchies to be forfeited. Henry died before the ensuing war was ended, and Conrad compromised matters by appointing his opponent's young son, after-wards known as Henry the Lion, to the duchy of Saxony, compensating Albert the Bear, the former imperial candi-date, with the independence of the North Mark of Saxony, afterwards called Brandenburg (see PRUSSIA, vol. xx. p. 2). In 1155 Henry received Bavaria from his cousin and per-sonal friend the emperor Frederick Barbarossa, and thus became second only to the emperor in power. He added considerably to the extent of Saxony by conquest among the Wends, east of the Elbe, where the boundary had always been a fluctuating one. But Henry was not only powerful, he was also arrogant, and incurred the jealousy of the other princes, so that, when he quarrelled with the emperor and his lands were declared forfeited in 1180, he had no allies to assist him in his resistance. Westphalia, the principal part of Saxony, went to the archbishop of Cologne, the Saxon Palatinate to the landgrave of Thuringia, and other portions to other princes. A small district round Lauenburg, north of the Elbe, was assigned with the title of duke of Saxony to Bernhard of Ascania, son of Albert the Bear. Henry was reduced to submission in 1181; but his duchies could not be restored, and he was forced to content himself with Brunswick and Lüneburg. The duchy of Saxony was never restored in the old sense, in which it had been one of the four principal duchies of the empire, and embraced the territories now occupied by Westphalia, Oldenburg, Hanover, the Harz, and parts of Mecklenburg and Holstein. The new creation never rose to any importance. Bernhard of Ascania (1181-1212), before his accession as duke of Saxony, had held Anhalt and Wittenberg, to the south-east of Saxony, and separated from it by the Mark of Brandenburg; and when his grandsons John and Albert II. divided their inheritance in 1260 the latter placed his seat at Wittenberg, and two tiny duchies arose—Saxe-Lauenburg and Saxe-Wittenberg. Saxe-Lauenburg was now the only part of the great duchy which retained the name; while Saxe-Wittenberg, the nucleus of the later electorate, transferred the name to entirely new soil. Both duchies claimed the electoral privileges, including the office of grand marshal (Erzmarschall), which had belonged to the original duke of Saxony, but the Golden Bull of 1356 confirmed the claims of Wittenberg. Rudolph II. (about 1370) is the first duke who formally styles himself elector (princeps elector). The small electorate was made still smaller in 1411 by the formation of Anhalt into a separate principality. In 1422 the Ascanian line became extinct with Albert III., and in 1423 the emperor Sigismund conferred their lands and titles upon Frederick, margrave of Meissen, and landgrave of Thur-ingia, to whom he was deeply indebted both for money and assistance in the Hussite wars. The new and more honourable style of elector of Saxony superseded Frederick's other titles, and the term Saxony gradually spread over all his other possessions, which included the country now known under that name. The early history of the electorate and kingdom of Saxony is thus the early history of the Mark of Meissen, the name of which now lingers only in a solitary town on

Among the mountains of Lusatia, in the south of the Saxon province of Bautzen, there exist to this day about 50,000 Wends, possessing characteristics and speaking a language of their own. These curious people are the relics of a vast Slavonic horde which, appearing on the borders of the kingdom of the Hermunduri or Thuringians about the 4th century, pressed into their territories on the downfall of that kingdom in the 6th century, and settled themselves between the Spree and the Saale. They were known as the Sorbs or Sorabi, and the country, which included the whole of the modern kingdom of Saxony, was called Sorabia. Warlike and persistent, their influence has never been obliterated, and, though conquered, their stock has neither been exterminated nor absorbed. They were skilled in agriculture and cattle-breeding, and soon improved the fertile soil of their new settlements. Some writers are disposed to recognize their influence in the strong bent to agricultural and industrial pursuits which has ever since characterized the inhabitants of this part of Germany ; and less doubtful traces have been left in the popular superstitions and legends, and in the local names. For more than a hundred years after their first collision with the German kingdom the Sorbs repulsed all attacks, but in 928 Henry the Fowler, the first Saxon emperor, crossing the Elbe, devastated the land of the Daleminzians, and built the strong castle of Misnia or Meissen, which thenceforward formed the centre of a gradually increasing mark against the heathen. For two hundred years the office of margrave of Meissen was not hereditary, but in 1123 Count Conrad of Wettin obtained the succession for his house, and founded a line of princes whose descendants still occupy the throne. It is said, though on very doubtful grounds, that Conrad was a scion of the family of the old Saxon hero Wittekind. In 1156, when Conrad abdicated and set the pernicious example of dividing his lands among his sons, his possessions extended from the Neisse and the Erzgebirge to the Harz and the Saale. During these two centuries the state of the country had but slowly improved. The Sorbs had been reduced to a condition of miserable serfdom, and the best land was in the hands of Frankish peasants who had been attracted by its fertility. Agriculture was encouraged by the ecclesiastics, especially by Bishop Benno, who occupied the see of Meissen (founded in 961) about the lime of the conquest of England by the Normans. In the reign of Otto the Rich (1157-1190) the first silver mines were discovered, and the famous mining town of Freiberg founded. Trade also received its first encouragement; the great fairs of Leipsic were protected ; and roads were made and towns fortified with the produce of the mines. Otto's grandson, Henry the Illustrious (1221-1288), whose mother Jutta was a Thuringian princess, reunited most of Conrad's lands by inheriting part of Thuringia (the rest went to the duke of Brabant) and the Pleissnerland, as the district on both banks of the upper course of the Pleisse was called. Pie too lost the ch«nc» of founding a magnificent kingdom in the heart of Germany, by sub-dividing his territories, which stretched in a compact mass from the Werra to the Oder and from the mountains of Bohemia to the Harz. The consequences of this policy of subdivision, which was followed by his successors, were bitter family feuds and petty wars, seriously hampering the development of the country. Frederick the Grave (1324-1347) was the last prince of the house of Wettin who was sole ruler of all the ancestral lands of his house. The next powerful figure is Frederick the Warlike, who became margrave in 1381. Besides the Mark he possessed the Osterland, the territory to the north-west of the present kingdom, stretching from the Saale at Weissenfels to the Elbe at Torgau, and embracing the plain of Leipsic. Frederick, in whose reign the university of Leipsic was founded, had acquired his surname by his energetic support of Sigismund, especially in the Hussite wars. As we have seen, that emperor's desire to attach to himself so powerful an ally led him to bestow the vacant electoral duchy of Saxo-Wittenberg upon the margrave in 1423. Despite the troublous state of public affairs, the internal prosperity of the land had steadily advanced. Most of the chief towns had by this time been founded,—Leipsic, Erfurt, Zwickau, and Freiberg being the most conspicuous. Chemnitz had begun its textile industry. The condition of the peasants was still far below that of the burghers of the towns ; many of them were mere serfs. The church retained the high pitch of power which it had early attained in Meissen, and religious institutions were numerous all over the most fertile districts. In spite of fresh discoveries of silver, the pecuniary wants of the princes had to be occasionally supplied by contributions called "bedes" from the nobles and ecclesiastics, who were summoned from time to time to meet in a kind of diet.





Frederick's new dignities as elector, combined with his personal qualities, now made him one of the most powerful princes in Germany; had the principle of primogeniture been established in the country as he left it, Saxony and not Brandenburg might have been the leading power in the empire to-day. He died in 1428, just in time to escape the grief of seeing his lands cruelly ravaged by the Hussites in 1429 and 1430. The division of territory between his two sons, Frederick the Mild (1428-1464) and William, once more called forth destructive internecine wars (the " Briiderkrieg "), in which the former for a time forgot his surname. It was in 1455, during this war, that the knight Kunz von Kaufungen carried into execution his bold, though only momentarily successful, plan of stealing the two young sons of the elector Frederick. Ernest and Albert, the two princes in question, succeeded to their father's possessions in 1464, and for twenty years ruled peacefully in common. The land rapidly prospered during this respite from war. Trade made great advances, encouraged by an improved coinage, which was one of the consequences of the silver discoveries on the Schneeberg. Several of the powerful ecclesiastical principalities were at this time held by members of the Saxon electoral house, so that the external influence of the electorate corresponded to its internal prosperity. Matters were not suffered to continue thus. The childless death of their uncle William in 1482 bequeathed Thuringia to the two princes, and the younger Albert insisted upon a division of the common possessions. In August 1485 the Partition of Leipsic took place, which resulted in the foundation of two Saxon lines, the Ernestine and the Albertine. The lands were never again united. Ernest divided the lands into two portions, and Albert chose. Apart from the electoral duchy of Wittenberg, which necessarily went to Ernest as the elder brother, the lands were divided into Thuringia, half of the Osterland, and Naumburg and the Voigtland on the one hand, and Meissen and the remaining parts of eastern Saxony on the other. To Ernest's deep chagrin, Albert chose Meissen, the old ancestral lands of the Wettins. The former only survived his vexation a year.

The electorate remained at first with the Ernestine line. Ernest was succeeded by his son Frederick the Wise (1486-1525), one of the most illustrious princes in German history. Under his rule Saxony was perhaps the most influential member of the German empire ; and on the death of Maximilian the imperial crown itself was offered to him, but he vindicated his character by refusing it. In this reign Saxony became the cradle of the Reformation. The elector's wise tolerance and subsequent protection and hearty support of Luther are well known to every reader. He is said to have remained unmarried out of love to his brother John, who succeeded him. He died during the horrors of the Peasants' War. John (1525-1532) was an even more enthusiastic favourer of the Beformed doctrines, and shared the leadership of the Schmalkald League with Philip of Hesse. His son, John Frederick the Magnanimous (1532-1547), might with equal propriety have been surnamed the Unfortunate. He took part in the Schmalkald War, but in 1547 was captured at Miihlberg by the emperor Charles V., and forced to sign the capitulation of Wittenberg. This deed transferred the electorate and nearly all the Saxon lands to the Albertine line, whose astute representative had taken the imperial side. Only a few scattered territories in Thuringia were reserved for John Frederick's sons, and on these were afterwards founded the Ernestine duchies of Weimar, Gotha, <fee. For the second time in the history of the Saxon electorate, the younger line on a division ultimately secured the highest dignity, for the Wittenberg line had been junior to the Laueuberg line. The Albertine line is now the royal line of Saxony.
The Albertine Maurice became elector after the capitula-tion of Wittenberg. He was the grandson of the founder of his house, and had been preceded on the throne of Meissen by his uncle George (1500-1539) and by his father Henry (1539-1541). George was a zealous Roman Catholic, and had vainly endeavoured to ttem the Reformation in his dominions ; Henry was an equally devoted Protestant. Maurice (1541-1553) was also a Protestant, but he was too astute to permit his religion to blind him to his political interests. His ruling motive seems to have been ambition to increase his personal power and the consequence of his country. He refused to join the Schmalkald League with the other Protestant princes, and made a secret treaty with the emperor instead. By invading the Ernestine lands in John Frederick's absence during the Schmalkald War, he forced that prince to return hastily from the Danube, and thus weakened the army opposed to the emperor. Though he was compelled to retreat before his indignant and surprised kinsman, his fidelity to the emperor was rewarded, as we have seen, at the capitulation of Wittenberg. All the lands torn from the Ernestines were not, however, assigned to Maurice ; he was forced to acknowledge the suzerainty of Bohemia over the Voigtland and the Silesian duchy of Sagan, and to renounce his own superiority over the Beuss dominions. The Roman Catholic prelates were moreover reinstated in the three great bishoprics of Meissen, Merseburg, and Naumburg-Zeitz. Recognizing as a Protestant sovereign that the best alliance for securing his new possessions was not with the Roman Catholic emperor but with the other Pro-testant princes, Maurice now began to withdraw from the former and to conciliate the latter. In 1552, suddenly marching against the emperor at Innsbruck, he extorted from him the peace of Passau, which accorded religious freedom throughout Germany. Thus, at the close of his life (he died of a wound in battle in 1553), Maurice came to be regarded as the champion of German national and religious freedom. Amid the distractions of outward affairs, Maurice had not neglected the internal interests of Saxony. To the already conspicuous educational advant-ages in the country he added the three grammar schools (Fürstenschulen) at Pforta, Grimma, and Meissen ; and for administrative purposes, especially for the collection of the taxes which had now become practically annual, he divided the country into the four " circles" of the Electorate, Thuringia, Leipsic, and Meissen. In 1542 the first coal mine was opened. Over two hundred convents were suppressed in Saxony; Leipsic, Wittenberg, Jena, and Erfurt had each a university; books began to increase, and. the Saxon dialect became the ruling dialect of German in virtue of Luther's translation of the Bible. Augustus I. (1553-1586), brother of Maurice, was one of the best domestic rulers that Saxony ever had. He increased the area of the country by the "circles " of Neustadt and the Voigtland, and by parts of Henneberg and the silver-yielding Mansfeld, and he devoted his long reign to the development of its resources. He visited all parts of the country himself, and personally encouraged agriculture ; he introduced a more economical mode of mining and smelting silver ; he favoured the importation of finer breeds of sheep and cattle ; and he brought foreign weavers from abroad to teach the Saxons. Under him lace-making began on the Erzgebirge, and cloth-making flourished at Zwickau. He was the first to fortify the Konigstein, the one fortress in modern Saxony, and he built other castles. With all his virtues, however, Augustus was an intolerant Lutheran, and used very severe means to exterminate the Calvinists; in his electorate he is said to have expelled one hundred and eleven Calvinist preachers in a single month. Under his son Christian I. (1586-1591) the chief power was wielded by the chancellor Crell, who strongly favoured Calvinism, but, when Christian II. (1591-1611) came to the throne a mere child, Crell was sacrificed to the Lutheran nobles. The duke of Weimar was made regent, and continued the persecution of crypto-Calvinism, in spite of the breach with the Reformed imperial diet which this course involved. Christian II. was succeeded by his brother John George I. (1611-1656), under whom the country was devastated by the Thirty Years' War. John George was an amiable but weak prince, totally unfitted to direct the fortunes of a nation in time of danger. He refused the proffered crown of Bohemia, and, when the Bohemian Protestants elected a Calvinist prince, he assisted the emperor against them with men and money. The Restitution Edict, however, in 1629, opened his eyes to the emperor's projects, and ha joined Gustavus Adolphus. Saxony now became the theatre of war. The first battle on Saxon soil was fought in 1631 at Breitenfeld, where the bravery of the Swedes made up for the flight of the Saxons. Wallenstein entered Saxony in 1632, and his lieutenants Hoik and Gallas plundered, burned, and murdered through the length and breadth of the land. After the death of Gustavus Adolphus at the battle of Lützen, not far from Leipsic, in 1632, the elector, who was at heart an imperialist, detached himself from the Swedish alliance, and in 1635 concluded the peace of Prague with the emperor. By this peace he was confirmed in the possession of Upper and Lower Lusatia, a district of 180 square miles and half a million inhabitants, which had already been pledged to him as a reward for his services against the Bohemians. Lusatia had once belonged to Conrad of Meissen, whose descendants, however, had lost it to Brandenburg at the beginning of the 14th century. Saxony had now to suffer from the Swedes a repetition of the devastations of Wallenstein. No other country in Germany was so terribly scourged by this terrible war. Immense tracts were rendered absolutely desolate, and whole villages vanished from the map; the people were tortured to reveal their treasures, or from wanton brutality; famine was followed by plague; civilization was thrown back and barbarism revived. In eight years the population sank from three to one and a half millions. When the war was at length ended by the peace of Westphalia in 1648, Saxony found that its influence had begun to decline in Germany. Its alliance with the Catholic party deprived it of its place at the head of the Protestant German states, which was now taken by Brandenburg. John George's will made the decline of the electorate even more inevitable by detaching from it the three subsidiary duchies of Saxe-Weissenfels, Saxe-Merseburg, and Saxe-Zeitz in favour of his younger sons. By 1746, however, these lines were all extinct, and their possessions had returned to the main line. Saxe-Neustädt wras a short-lived branch from Saxe-Zeitz, extinct in 1714. The next three electors, who each bore the name of John George, had uneventful reigns. The first made some efforts to heal the wounds of his country; the second wasted the lives of his people in foreign wars against the Turks ; and the third was the last Protestant elector of Saxony. John George IV. was succeeded by his brother Frederick Augustus I., or Augustus the Strong (1694-1733). This prince was elected king of Poland as Augustus II. in 1697, but any weight which the royal title might have given him in the empire was more than counterbalanced by the fact that he, though the ruler of an almost exclusively Protestant electorate, became a Roman Catholic in order to qualify for the new dignity. The connexion with Poland was disastrous for Saxony. In order to defray the expenses of his wars with Charles XII., which resulted from his Polish policy, Augustus pawned and sold large districts of Saxon territory, while he drained the electorate of both men and money. For a year before the peace of Altranstädt in 1706, when Augustus gave up the crown of Poland, Saxony was occupied by a Swedish army, which had to bo supported at an expense of twenty-three million thalers. The wars and extravagance of the elector-king, who regained the Polish crown in 1709, are said to have cost Saxony a hundred million thalers. From this reign dates the privy council (Geheimes Kabinet), which lasted till 1830. The caste privileges of the estates (Stände) were increased by Augustus, a fact which tended to alienate them more from the people, and so to decrease their power. Böttger made his famous discovery in 1710, and the manufacture of porcelain was begun at Meissen, and in this reign the Moravian Brethren made their settlement at Herrnhut (1722). Frederick Augustus II. (1733-1763), who succeeded his father in the electorate, and was afterwards elected to the throne of Poland as Augustus III., was an indolent prince, wholly under the influence of Graf von Brühl. Brühl was an incompetent statesman and an extravagant financier, who yet contrived to amass large sums for his private purse. Under his ill-omened auspices Saxony sided with Prussia in the First Silesian War, and with Austria in the other two. It gained nothing in the first, lost much in the second, and in the third, the Seven Years' War (1756-1763), again became the scene of war and suffered renewed miseries. The country was deserted by its king and his minister, who retired to Poland. By the end of the war it had lost 90,000 men and a hundred million thalers ; its coinage was debased and its trade ruined; and the whole country was in a state of frantic disorder. The elector died seven months after his return from Poland; Brühl died twenty-three days later. The elector's son and successor, Frederick Christian, survived his father only two months, leaving a son, Frederick Augustus III. (1763-1827), a boy of thirteen. Prince Xaver, the elector's uncle, was appointed guardian, and he set himself to the sorely-needed work of healing the wounds of the country. The foundation of the famous school of mining at Freiberg, and the improve-ment of the Saxon breed of sheep by the importation of merino sheep from Spain, were due to his care. Frederick assumed the government in 1768, and in his long and eventful reign, which saw the electorate elevated to the dignity of a kingdom, though deprived of more than half its area, he won the surname of the Just. As he was the first king of Saxony, he is usually styled Frederick Augustus I. The first ten years of his active reign passed in peace and quiet; agriculture, manufactures, and industries were fostered, economical reforms instituted; and the heavy public debt of forty million thalers was steadily reduced. In 1770 torture was abolished. When the Bavarian succession fell open in 1777, Frederick Augustus joined Prussia in protesting against the absorption of Bavaria by the Austrian emperor, and Saxon troops took part in the bloodless " potato-war." The elector commuted his claims in right of his mother, the Bavarian princess Maria Antonia, for six million florins, which he spent chiefly in redeeming Saxon territory that had been pawned to other German states. When Saxony joined the Fürstenbund in 1785, it had an area of 15,185 square miles and a population of nearly 2,000,000, but its various parts had not yet been combined into a homogeneous whole, for the two Lusatias, Querfurt, Henneberg, and the ecclesiastical foundations of Naumburg and Merseburg had each a separate diet and government, independent of the diet of the electorate proper. In 1791 Frederick declined the crown of Poland, although it was now offered as hereditary even in the female line. He remembered how unfortunate for Saxony the former Polish connexion had been, and he mistrusted the attitude of Bussia towards the proffered kingdom. Next year saw the beginning of the great struggle between France and Germany. Frederick's conduct throughout was perhaps more pusillanimous than self-seeking, but it entailed its own punishment. His first policy was one of selfish abstention, and from 1793 until 1796, when he concluded a definite treaty of neutrality with France, he limited his contribution to the war to the bare contingent due from him as a prince of the empire. When war broke out in 1806 against Napoleon, 22,000 Saxon troops shared the defeat of the Prussians at Jena, but the elector immediately afterwards snatched at Napoleon's offer of neutrality, and abandoned his former ally. At the peace of Posen (11th December 1806) Frederick entered the Confederation of the Rhine, assuming the title of king of Saxony, and promising a contingent of 20,000 men to Napoleon.

No change followed in the internal affairs of the new kingdom, except that Roman Catholics were admitted to equal privileges with Protestants. Its foreign policy was dictated by the will of Napoleon, of whose irresistibility the king was too easily convinced. In 1807 his submission was rewarded with the duchy of Warsaw and the district of Cottbus, though he had to surrender some of his former territory to the new kingdom of Westphalia. The king of Saxony's faith in Napoleon was momentarily shaken by the disasters of the Russian campaign, in which 21,000 Saxon troops had shared, and in 1813 he began to lean towards an alliance with Austria. Napoleon's victory at Lützen (May 2, 1813), however, suddenly restored all his awe for that great general, and the Saxon king and the Saxon army were once more at the disposal of the French. After the battle of Bautzen, Napoleon's headquarters were successively at Dresden and Leipsic. During the decisive battle at the latter town in October 1813, the popular Saxon feeling was displayed by the desertion of the Saxon troops to the side of the allies. Frederick was taken prisoner in Leipsic, and the government of his kingdom was assumed for a year by the Bussians, who promptly turned its resources against its late French ally. Saxony was now regarded as a conquered country. Nothing but Austria's vehement desire to keep a powerful neighbour at a distance from her boundaries, preserved it from being completely annexed by the Prussians, who had succeeded the Russians in the government. As it was, the congress of Vienna assigned the northern portion, consisting of 7800 square miles, with 864,404 inhabitants to Prussia, leaving 5790 square miles, with a population of 1,182,744 to Frederick, who was permitted to retain his royal title. He was forced to acquiesce in the dismemberment of his kingdom, and to console himself with the reflexion that his share, though the smaller half, was richer, more populous, and more beautiful than the other.





From the partition in 1815 to the war of 1866 the history of Saxony is mainly a narrative of the slow growth of constitutionalism and popular liberty within its limits. Its influence on the general history of Europe ceased when the old German empire was dissolved. In the new empire it is too completely overshadowed by Prussia to have any objective importance by itself. Frederick lived twelve years after the division of his kingdom. The commercial and industrial interests of the country continued to be fostered, but only a few of the most unavoidable political reforms were granted. The fact that some of these had not been granted before is more significant than that they were granted now. Religious equality was extended to the Reformed Church in 1818, and the separate diet of Upper Lusatia abolished. Frederick Augustus was succeeded by his septuagenarian brother Antony (1827-1836), to the great disappointment of the people, wdio had expected a more liberal era under Prince Frederick Augustus, the king's nephew. Antony announced his intention of following the lines laid down by his predecessor. He accorded at first only a few trifling reforms, wdiich were far from removing the popular discontent, while he retained the unpopular minister Einsiedel and continued the encouragement of the Roman Catholics. The old feudal arrangement of the diet, with its inconvenient divisions, was retained, and the privy council continued to be the depository of power. An active opposition began to make itself evident in the diet and in the press, and in 1830 riots in Leipsic and Dresden impressed the king with the necessity of concession. Einsiedel was cashiered, Prince Frederick Augustus assumed as co-regent, and a constitution promised. After consultation with the diet the king promulgated a new constitution on September 4, 1831, which is the basis of the present government. An offer from Metternich of Austrian arms to repress the discontent by force had been refused. The feudal estates were replaced by two chambers, largely elective, and the privy council by a responsible ministry of six departments. Bernhard von Lindenau was the head of the first responsible cabinet, and the first constitutional assembly sat from January 27, 1833, till October 30, 1834. While Saxony's political liberty was thus enlarged, its commerce and credit were stimulated by the construction of railways. Antony had died in 1836, and Frederick Augustus II. (1836-1854) became solo king. Growing interest in politics produced dissatisfaction with the compromise of 1831, and the liberal opposition grow in numbers and influence. The burning questions were the publicity of legal proceedings and the freedom of the press; and on these the Government sustained its first crushing defeat in the lower or second chamber in 1842. Lindenau resigned in 1843. Religious considerations as to the recognition of the German Catholics and a new constitution for the Protestant Church began to mingle with purely political questions, and Princo John, as the supposed head of the Jesuit party, was insulted at a review of the communal guards at Leipsic in 1845. The military rashly interfered, and several innocent spectators were shot. The bitterness which this occurrence provoked was intensified by a political reaction which was initiated about the same time under Von Konneritz. Warned by the sympathy excited in Saxony by the revolutionary events at Paris in 1848, the king dismissed bis reactionary ministry, and a liberal cabinet took its place in March 1848. The disputed points were now conceded to the country. The privileges of the nobles were curtailed ; the administration of justice was put on a better foot-ing ; the press was unshackled ; publicity in legal proceedings was granted ; trial by jury was introduced for some special cases ; and the German Catholics were recognized. The feudal character of the first chamber was abolished, and its members made mainly elective from among the highest tax-payers, while an almost universal suffrage was introduced for the second chamber. The first demand of the overwhelmingly democratic diet returned under this reform bill was that the king should accept the Frankfort constitution. Frederick, alleging the danger of acting without the concurrence of Prussia, refused, and dissolved the diet. A public demonstration at Dresden in favour of the Frankfort constitution was prohibited as illegal on May 2, 1849. This at once awoke the popular fury. The mob seized the town and barricaded the streets ; Dresden was almost destitute of troops ; and the king fled to the Konigstein. The rebels then proceeded to appoint a provisional Government, consisting of Tzschirner, Heubner, and Todt, though the true leader of the insurrection was the Russian Bakunin. Meanwhile Prussian troops had arrived to aid the Government, and after two days' fierce street fighting the rising was quelled. The bond with Prussia now became closer, and Frederick entered with Prussia and Hanover into the temporary " alliance of the three kings." He was not sincere, however, in desiring to exclude Austria, and in 1850 accepted the invitation of that power to send deputies to Frankfort. The first chamber immediately protested against this step, and refused to consider the question of a pressing loan. The king retorted by dissolving the diet and summoning the old estates abolished in 1848. When a quorum, with some difficulty, was obtained, another period of retrograde legislation set in. The constitution of the chambers has never been restored to the basis of 1848. The king himself was carried away with the reactionary current, and the people remained for the time indifferent. Von Beust became minister for both home and foreign affairs in 1852, and under his guidance the policy of Saxony became more and more hostile to Prussia and friendly to Austria. Saxony was not, however, able to withdraw from the customs union, which indeed conferred the very highest benefit on its trade and manufactures.

The sudden death of the king, by a fall from his carriage in Tyrol, left the throne to his brother John (1854-1873), a learned and accomplished prince, whose name is known in German literature as a translator and annotator of Dante. His brother's ministers kept their portfolios, but their views gradually .be-came somewhat liberalized with the spirit of the times. Beust, however, still retained his federalistic and philo-Austrian views. When war was declared between Prussia and Austria in 1866, Saxony declined the former's offer of neutrality, and, when a Prussian force crossed the border, the Saxon army under the king and the crown prince joined the Austrians in Bohemia. The entire kingdom, with the solitary exception of the Konigstein, was occupied by the Prussians. On the conclusion of peace Saxony lost no territory, but had to pay a war indemnity of ten million thalers, and was compelled to enter the North-German Confederation. Its army and its postal and telegraph system were placed under the control of Prussia, and its representation at foreign eourts was entrusted to the Prussian embassies. Reust was forced to resign ; and liberal measures in both church and state were actively carried through. John was succeeded in 1873 by his elder son Albert (born 1828), who had won distinction as a general in the wars of 1866 and 1870. Under this prince the general course of politics has presented nothing of special importance, except perhaps the steady spread of the doctrines of social democracy, which has flourished especially in Saxony. As a loyal member of the new German empire, Saxony has gradually transferred its sympathies from its old ally Austria to its new leader Prussia. In 1877 Leipsic was chosen as the seat of the supreme court of law for the empire.

The political history of the parts of Saxony left by the capitulation of Wittenberg to the Ernestine line, which occupy the region now generally styled Thuringia (Thüringen), is mainly a recital of partitions, reunions, redivisions, and fresh combinations of territory among the various sons of the successive dukes. The principle of primogeniture was not introduced until the end of the 17th century, so that the Protestant Saxon dynasty, instead of building up a single compact kingdom for itself, has split Into four petty duchies, of no political influence whatever. In 1547 the ex-elector John Frederick the Magnanimous was allowed to retain Weimar, Jena, Eisenach, Gotha, Henneberg, and Saalfeld. Altenburg and a few other districts were added to the Ernestine possessions by the treaty of Naumburg in 1554, and other addi-tions were made from other sources. John Frederick, who had retained and transmitted to his descendants the title of duke of Saxony, forbade his sons to divide their inheritance; but his wishes were respected only until after the death of his eldest son in 1565. The two survivors then founded separate jurisdictions at Weimar and Coburg, though arrangements were made to exchange territories every three years. In 1596 Saxe-Coburg gave off the branch Saxe-Eisenach ; and in 1603 Saxo-Weimar gave off Saxe-Altenburg, the elder Weimar line ending and the younger begin-ning with the latter date. By 1638 Weimar had absorbed both Coburg and Eisenach ; Altenburg remained till 1672. John, duke of Saxe-Weimar, who died in 1605, is regarded as the common ancestor of the present Ernestine lines. In 1640 his three surviving sons ruled the duchies of Weimar, Eisenach, and Gotha. Eisenach fell in in 1644 and Altenburg in 1672, thus leaving the dukes of Saxe-Weimar and Saxe-Gotha to become the ancestors of the modern ruling houses. Saxe-Weimar was still repeatedly divided ; in 1668 a Saxe-Marksuhl appears, and about 1672 a Saxe-Jena and a new Saxe-Eisenach. All these, however, were extinct by 1741, and their possessions returned to the main line, which had adopted the principle of primogeniture in 1719. The present grand-duchy of SAXE-WEIMAR-EISENACH is separately noticed.

Saxe-Gotha was even more subdivided and the climax was reached about 1680, when Gotha, Coburg, Meiningen, Romhild, Eisenberg, Hildburghausen, and Saalfeld were each the capital of a duchy. By the beginning of 1825 only the first three of these and Hildburghausen remained, the lands of the others having been divided after much quarrelling. In that year the Gotha line expired, and a general redistribution of the lands of the "Nexus Gothanus," as this group of duchies was called, was arranged on 12th November 1826. The duke of Hildburghausen gave up his lands entirely for Altenburg and became duke of SAXE-ALTENBURG; the duke of Coburg exchanged Saalfeld for Gotha and became duke of SAXE-COBURG-GOTHA; and the duke of SAXE-MEININGEN received Hildburghausen, Saalfeld, and some other territories, and added Hildburghausen to his title. These duchies are separately noticed. See also THURINGIA.

GEOGRAPHY AND STATISTICS. The kingdom of Saxony, the history of which has been traced above, is the third constituent of the German empire in point of population, and the fifth in point of area. With the exception of the two small exclaves of Ziegelhein in Saxe-Altcnburg and Leibschwitz on the borders of Reuss, Saxe-Weimar, and Saxe-Altenburg, it forms a compact whole of a triangular shape, its base extending from north-east to south-west, and its apex pointing north-west. It lies between 50° 10' and 51° 29' N. lat. and between 11° 53' and 15° 4' E. long. The total area is 5789 square miles (about half the size of Belgium), or 2'7 per cent, of the entire empire ; its greatest length is 130 miles, and its greatest breadth 93 miles. Its frontiers have a circuit of 760 miles. On the south it is bounded by Bohemia, on the west by Bavaria and the Thuringian states, and on the remaining sides by Prussia. Except on the south, where the Erzgebirge forms at once the limit of the kingdom and of the empire, the boundaries are entirely political. For administrative purposes the kingdom of Saxony is divided into the four districts of Bautzen in the south-east, Dresden in the north-east, Leipsic in the north-west, and Zwickau in the south-west.

Physical Features.—Saxony belongs almost entirely to the central mountain region of Germany, only the districts along the north border and around Leipsic descending into the great North-European plain. The average elevation of the country is not, however, great; and it is more properly described as hilly than as mountainous. The ordinary estimates return one-fifth of the area as plain, two-fifths as hill country, and two-fifths as mountain land. I The slope is very regularly from south-east to north-west, in the direction of the shorter axis. The chief mountain range is the Erzgebirge, stretching for 90 miles along the south border, and reaching in the Fiehtelbergs (3979 feet and 3953 feet) the highest elevation in the i kingdom. The west and south-west half of Saxony is more or less occupied by the ramifications and subsidiary groups of this range, one of which is known from its position as the Central Saxon chain, and another lower group still farther north as the Oschatz group. The south-east angle of Saxony is occupied by the mountains of Upper Lusatia (highest summit 2600 feet), which form the link between the Erzgebirge and Kiesengebirge in the great Sudetic chain. North-west from this group, and along both banks of the Elbe, which divides it from the Erzgebirge, extends the picturesque mountain region known as the Saxon Switzerland. The action of water and ice upon the soft sandstone of which the hills here are chiefly composed has produced remarkable formations of deep goiges and isolated fantastic peaks, which, however, though both beautiful and interesting, by no means recall the characteristics of Swiss scenery. The highest summit attains a height of 1830 feet; but the more interesting peaks, as the Lilienstein, Konigstein, and the Bastei, are lower. With the trifling exception of the south-east of Bautzen, which sends its waters by the Neisse to the Oder, Saxony lies wholly in the basin of the Elbe, which has a navigable course of 72 miles from south-east to north-west through the kingdom. Comparatively few of the numerous smaller streams of Saxony flow directly to the Elbe, and the larger tributaries only join it beyond the Saxon borders. The Mulde, formed of two branches, is the second river of Saxony; others are the Black Elster, the White Elster, the Pleisse, and the Spree. There are no lakes of any size, but mineral springs are very abundant. The best known is at Bad Elster in the Voigtland.

Climate.—The climate of Saxony is generally healthy. It is mildest in the valleys of the Elbe, Mulde, and Pleisse, and severest in the Erzgebirge, where the district near Johanngeorgenstadt is known as Saxon Siberia. The average temperature, like that of central Germany as a whole, varies from 48° to 50° Fahr.; in the Elbe valley the mean in summer is from 62° to 64°, and in winter about 30°; in the Erzgebirge the mean temperature in summer is from 55° to 57°, and in winter 23° or 24°. The Erzgebirge is also the rainiest district, 27 1/2 to 33 1/2 inches falling per annum; the amount decreases as we proceed northwards, and Leipsic with an annual fall of 15 __ to 21 __ inches enjoys the driest climate.

Soil.—Saxony is one of the most fertile parts of Germany; and in regard to the productive occupation of its soil it stands among the most advanced nations of the world. Only 1 per cent, of the total area is waste or unused. According to the returns for 1883, 557 per cent, of the area is under agriculture, 117 in pasture and meadow, 27 '4 under forest, and 4 '2 occupied by buildings, roads, and water. The lowest lands are the most productive, and fertility diminishes as we ascend towards the south, until on the bleak crest of the Erzgebirge cultivation ceases altogether. Saxon agriculture, though dating its origin from the Wends, has received its full development only in the present century. Long fettered by antiquated customs, the land was subdivided into small parcels and subjected to vexatious rights. But in 1834 a law was passed providing for the union of the scattered lands belonging to each proprietor, and that may be considered the dawn of modern Saxon agriculture, which has now reached a very high pitch of excellence. It has been fostered both publicly and privately, and a special official secretary assists the minister of the interior in attending to this branch of national prosperity. In 1883 the agricultural lands in Saxony were divided among 192,000 farmers or proprietors, of whom only 758 held 250 acres and upwards, 28,200 between 25 and 250 acres, and the rest less than 25 acres. The small pro-prietors held 287 per cent, of the total area, the middle class 57'2, and the large owners 14T. The richest grain districts are near Meissen, Grimnia, Bautzen, Dobeln, and Pirna. The chief crop is rye, but oats are hardly second to it. Wheat and barley are grown in considerably less quantity. Very large quantities of potatoes are grown, especially in the Voigtland. Beet is chiefly grown as feeding stuff for cattle, and not for sugar. Flax (8270 acres in 1883) is grown in the Erzgebirge and Lusatian mountains, where the manufacture of linen was at one time a flourishing domestic industry. Saxony owes its unusual wealth in fruit to the care of the paternal elector Augustus (1553-1586), who is said never to have stirred abroad without fruit seeds for distribution among the peasants and farmers. Enormous quantities of cherries, plums, and apples are annually borne by the trees round Leipsic, Dresden, and Colditz. The cultivation of the vine in Saxony is respectable for its antiquity, though the yield is insignificant. Wine is said to have been grown here in the 11th century; the Saxon vineyards, chiefly on the banks of the Elbe near Meissen and Dresden, occupied 2515 acres in 1883.

Live Stock.—According to returns made for 1883 Saxony con-tained 126,886 horses, 651,329 cattle, 149,037 sheep, 355,550 pigs, | and 116,547 goats. The breeding of horses is carried on to a very limited extent in Saxony, more than nine-tenths of the horses required being imported. Cattle-rearing, which has been an industry since the advent of the Wends in the 6th century, has attained very considerable importance on the extensive pastures of the Erzgebirge and in the Voigtland. Sheep-farming has considerably declined within the last few decades, as in most parts of northern Germany. While other classes of domestic animals have retained very much the same proportion to the number of the human population, sheep have decreased from one to every six inhabitants in 1861 to one to every twenty in 1883. In 1765 the regent Prince Xaver imported 300 merino sheep from Spain, and so improved the native breed by this new strain that Saxon sheep were eagerly imported by foreign nations to improve their flocks, and "Saxon electoral wool" became one of the best brands in the market. The high level was not long maintained; flock-masters began to pay more attention to quantity than to quality of wool, and the Saxon wool has accordingly deteriorated. In 1868 no less than 1,166,130 lbs. of wool were offered for sale in the wool markets of Saxony, of which Leipsic and Dresden are the chief; in 1884 only 276,843 lbs. were offered. Swine furnish a very large proportion of the flesh-diet of the people. Geese abound particularly round Leipsic and in Upper Lusatia, poultry about Bautzen. Bee-keeping flourishes on the heaths on the right bank of the Elbe ; in 1883 there were 53,756 bee-hives in Saxony. Game is not now very abundant; hares and partridges are shot in the plains to the north-west.

Forests.—The forests of Saxony are extensive, and have long been well cared for both by Government and by private proprietors. The famous school of forestry at Tharandt was founded in 1811. The Voigtland is the most densely wooded portion of the kingdom, and next comes the Erzgebirge. About 8,379,200 acres, or 85 per cent, of the whole forest land, were planted with coniferous trees ; and about 1,439,700 acres or 15 per cent, with deciduous trees, among which beeches and birches are the commonest. About 30 per cent, of the total belongs to Government.

Minerals. —The mineral wealth of Saxony is very considerable ; and its mines are among the oldest in Germany. Silver was raised in the 12th century, and argentiferous lead is still the most valuable ore mined ; tin, iron, and cobalt rank next; and coal is one of the chief exports. Copper, zinc, and bismuth are also worked. Saxon mines now produce about 6 per cent, of the gross quantity, and about 8 per cent, of the aggregate value of metals raised in Germany. The country is divided into four mining districts :—Freiberg, where silver and lead are the chief products; Altenberg, where tin is mainly raised; Sclmeeberg, yielding cobalt, nickel, and ironstone; and Johanngeorgenstadt, with ironstone and silver mines. There are in all 236 mines, but in 1883 only 150 of these were in operation, employing 8615 hands. In 1870 253 mines employed 9132 hands. The total value of metal raised in Saxony in 1883 was £288,200 ; in 1870 it was £314,916. Coal is found principally in two fields,—one near Zwickau, and the other in the circle of Dresden. Brown coal or lignite is found chiefly in the north and north-west, but not in sufficiently large quantities to be exported. The number of coal-mines is steadily decreasing, though the numbers of miners and the gross produce are both on the increase. The following table shows the output in tons since the years named :—

== TABLE ==

Peat is especially abundant on the Erzgebirge. Immense quantities of bricks are made all over the country. Excellent sandstone for building is found on the hills of the Elbe ; in 1883 266 quarries employed 1348 hands. Fine porcelain clay occurs near Meissen, and coarser varieties elsewhere. A few precious stones are found among the southern mountains. Saxony has no salt-mines.

Industries.—The Central-European position of Saxony has fostered its commerce ; and its manufactures have been encouraged by the abundant water-power throughout the kingdom. Nearly one-half of the motive power used in Saxon factories is supplied by the streams, of which the Mulde, in this respect, is the chief. The early foundation of the Leipsic fairs, and the enlightened policy of the rulers of the country, have also done much to develop its commercial and industrial resources. Next to agriculture, which supports about 20 per cent, of the population, by far the most important industry is the textile. Saxony carries on 26 per cent, of the whole textile industry in Germany, a share far in excess of its proportionate population. Prussia, which has more than nine times as many inhabitants, carries on 45 per cent., and no other state more than 8 per cent. Nearly 18$ per cent, of the population were engaged in this industry in 1882, by far the largest proportion in any German state except Beuss (alterer Linie), which had 36 per cent, so engaged. The chief seats of the manufacture are Zwickau, Chemnitz, Glauchau, Meerane, and Hohenstein in the south of Zwickau, and Camenz, Pulsnitz, and Bischofswerda in the north of Dresden. The centre of the cotton manufacture (especially of cotton hosiery) is Chemnitz ; cotton-muslins are made throughout the Voigtland, ribbons at Pulsnitz and its neighbourhood. Woollen cloth and buckskin are woven at Camenz, Bischofswerda, and Grossenhain, all in the north-east, woollen and half-woollen underclothing at Chemnitz, Glauchau, Meerane, and Reichenbach; while Bautzen and Limbach produce woollen stockings. Linen is manufactured chiefly in the mountains of Lusatia, where the looms are still to some extent found in the homes of the weavers. The coarser kinds only are now made, owTing to the keen English competition in the finer varieties. Damask is produced at Gross-Schijnau and Neu-Schonau. Lace-making, discovered or introduced by Barbara Uttmann in the latter half of the 16th century, and now fostered by Government schools, has long been an important domestic industry among the villages of the Erz Mountains. Straw-plaiting occupies 6000 hands on the mountain slopes between Gottleuba and Lockwitz. Waxcloth is manufactured at Leipsic, and artificial flowers at Leipsic and Dresden. Stoneware and earthenware are made at Chemnitz, Zwickau, Bautzen, and Meissen, porcelain ("Dresden china") at Meissen, chemicals in and near Leipsic. Dobeln, Werdau, and Lossnitz are the chief seats of the Saxon leather trade ; cigars are very extensively made in the town and district of Leipsic, and hats and pianofortes at Leipsic, Dresden, and Chemnitz. Paper is made chiefly in the west of the kingdom, but does not keep pace with the demand. Machinery of all kinds is produced, from the sewing-machines of Dresden to the steam-locomotives and marine-engines of Chemnitz. The last-named place, though the centre of the iron-manufacture of Saxony, has to import every pound of iron by railway. The leading branch is the machinery used in the industries of the country—mining, paper-making, and weaving. The very largo printing trade of Leipsic encourages the manufacture of printing-presses in that city. In 1883-84 Saxony contained 744 active breweries and 683 distilleries. The tendency in this branch of industry is to extinguish the smaller establishments, and to form large joint-stock com-panies. The smelting and refining of the metal ores is also an important industry. The chief smelting works, at Freiberg, employed 1377 hands in 1883.

Trade.—-Leipsic, with its famous and still frequented fairs, is the focus of the trade of Saxony. The fur trade between eastern and western Europe and the book-trade of Germany centre here. Chemnitz, Dresden, Plauen, Zwickau, Zittau, and Bautzen are the other chief commercial cities. The principal exports are wool, woollen, cotton, and linen goods, and the other produce of the factories and of the mines.

Communication.—The roads of Saxony are numerous and good. In 1883 there were 2304 miles of road in the kingdom. Saxony was the first German state to encourage and develop a railway system, and, although at first private enterprise led the way, the Saxon lines are now almost exclusively in the hands of Govern-ment. The first railway, between Leipsic and Althen, was opened on April 24, 1837. In 1837 there were 9 miles of state railway ; in 1840, 71 miles ; in 1850, 250 ; in 1870, 685 ; in 1880, 1184 ; and in 1884, 1355 miles, which, together with 75 miles of private line, mostly worked by the state, employed 24,400 hands. There are no canals in Saxony, and the only navigable river is the Elbe.

Population.—In 1880 the population of Saxony was 2,972,805, or 6 __ per cent, of the total population of the German empire, on 2'7 per cent, of its area. The provisional returns of the census of 1885 gave a population of 3,179,168. With the exception of the free towns, Saxony is the most densely peopled member of the empire, and its population is increasing at a more rapid rate than is the case in any of the larger German states. In 1880 Saxony had 513'5 inhabitants per square mile, nearly three times as many as Bavaria; Prussia had 202'8, and the average for the empire was 2167. More than half (56 per cent.) of the people live in communities of over 2000 inhabitants. The following table shows the distribu-tion of the population among the four administrative districts. It will be noticed that the industrial district of Zwickau is the most densely peopled.

== TABLE ==

The number of marriages per 1000 inhabitants is between 8 and
9; the birth-rate is 43, and the death-rate 30 per thousand. The annual increase of the population, on the average of the five years between 1875 and 1880, is at the rate of 1"48 per cent. The death-rate in Saxony is the highest in Germany, but its birth-rato is also the highest, except in the small state of Reuss (alterer Lime). In 1883, out of 132,209 births, 16,990, or 12'8 per cent, were illegitimate, and 4935, or 37 per cent., were still-born, and these rates represent tolerably accurately the average of the last few years. In the relative number of suicides (311 per 1,000,000 inhabitants) Saxony ranks highest among the European states (see Morselli, Int. Sci. Ser., vol. xxxvi.). In 1884 1114 persons, of whom 861 were males, committed suicide. In the same year 17,706 persons were punished as vagrants.

The preponderating industrial activity of Saxony fosters the tendency of the population to concentrate in towns ; with the exception of the free towns and Anhalt, no German state has so large a proportion of urban population, i.e., inhabitants residing in communities of 2000 persons and upwards. In the empire as a whole 41-4 per cent, of the population is urban in this sense ; in Saxony the proportion rises to 56 -6 per cent. The largest towns are Dresden (245,515 inhabitants), the capital since the middle of the 16th century, Leipsic (170,076), and Chemnitz (110,693). Eighteen other towns, chiefly in the manufacturing district of Zwickau, have over 10,000 inhabitants, and thirty-five between 5000 and 10,000. The main results of the industrial census of 1882, which shows an increase of population since 1880 of 42,000, are summarized in the following table, which gives the number of persons (including wives, families, and dependants) supported by the several occupations, and the percentage of the total population :—

== TABLE ==

The people of Saxony are chiefly of pure Teutonic stock ; a proportion are Germanized Slavs, and in the south of Bautzen there are still about 50,000 Wends, who retain their peculiar customs and language. In some villages near Bautzen hardly a word of German is spoken.

Religious Statistics.—About 97 per cent, of the inhabitants of Saxony are Protestants ; between 6000 and 7000 are Jews, and the remainder, including the royal family, are mostly Roman Catholics. According to the religious census of 1880, 2,886,806 were Evangelicals, 74,333 Roman Catholics, 1467 German Catholics, 620 Anglicans, 453 Greek Catholics, 6518 Jews, and 339 "others." The Evangelical-Lutheran or State Church had 1130 pastors and 1393 places of worship in 1884. Its head is the minister "de evangelicis" so long as the king is Roman Catholic; and its management is vested in the Evangelical Consistory at Dresden. Its representative assembly, consisting of twenty-nine clergymen and thirty-five lay-men is called a synod (Synode). The Roman Catholic Church has enjoyed the patronage of the reigning family since 1697, though it was the peace of Posen (1806) which placed it on a level with the Lutherans. By the peace of Prague, which transferred Upper Lusatia to Saxony in 1635, stipulations were made in favour of the Roman Catholics of that region, who are ecclesiastically in the jurisdiction of the cathedral chapter of St Peter at Bautzeu, the dean of which has ex officio a seat in the first chamber of the diet. The other districts are managed by an apostolic vicariate at Dresden, under the direction of the minister of public worship. Two nunneries in Bautzen are the only conventual establishments in Saxony, and no others may be founded. Among the smaller religious sects the MORAVIAN BRETHREN (q.v.), whose chief seat is at Herrnhut, are perhaps the most interesting. In 1868 civil rights were declared to be independent of religious confession.

Education. —Saxony claims to be one of the most highly educated countries in Europe, and its foundations of schools and universities were among the earliest in Germany. Of the four universities founded by the Saxon electors at Leipsic, Jena, Wittenberg, and Erfurt, only the first is included in the present kingdom of Saxony. It is second only to Berlin in the number of its students. The endowed schools (Fiirstenschulen) at Meissen and Grimma have long enjoyed a high reputation. Besides these there are 12 other gymnasia, 13 realschulen of the first class, and 19 of the second class, the organization of which resembles that already described in detail under PRUSSIA. There are nearly 4000 elementary and preparatory schools ; and education is compulsory. Of 8856 recruits in 1883-84 only 13 ('15 per cent.) were unable to read and write. Saxony is particularly well-equipped with technical schools, the textile industries being especially fostered by numerous schools of weaving, embroidery, lace-making, &c. ; but the mining academy at Freiberg and the school of forestry at Tharandt are probably the most widely known. The conservatory of music at Leipsic enjoys a world-wide reputation ; not less the art-collections at Dresden.

Constitution.—Saxony is a constitutional monarchy and a member of the German empire, with four votes in the federal council and twenty-three in the reichstag. The constitution rests on a law promulgated on 4th September 1831, and subsequently amended. The crown is hereditary in the Albertine Saxon line, with reversion to the Ernestine line, of which the duke of Saxe-Weimar is now the head. The king enjoys a civil list of 2,940,000 marks or £147,000, while the apanages of the crown, including the payments to the other members of the royal house, amount to £15,670 more. The legislature (Ständeversammlung) is bicameral,— the constitution of the co-ordinate chambers being finally settled by a law of 1868 amending the enactment of 1831. The first chamber consists of the adult princes of the blood, five hereditary members from among the nobility, representatives of the Lutheran and Roman Catholic Churches, a representative of Leipsic university, twelve representatives of proprietors with landed property of an annual value of at least £150, elected for life, and ten representatives of the same class nominated for life by the crown, the chief magistrates of the eight principal towns, and five other life members, chosen without any restrictions by the king. The second chamber consists of thirty-five members from the towns and forty-five from the country, elected for six years. All male citizeus twenty-five years old and upwards who pay one thaler (3s.) per annum in taxes have the suffrage ; and all above thirty years of age who pay 10 thalers in annual taxes are eligible as members of the diet. The chambers must be convened at least once every two years ; and extraordinary meetings take placo at every change of ruler and on other special occasions. One-third of the members of the second chamber retire at the end of every period of two years. "With the exception of the hereditary and some of the ex-officio members of the first chamber, the members of the diet are entitled to an allowance (12s.) for their daily expenses, as well as their travelling expenses. The executive consists of a responsible min-istry (Gesammtministerium), with the six departments of justice, finance, homo affairs, war, public worship and education, and foreign affairs. The minister of the royal household does not belong to the cabinet. The constitution also provides for the formation of a kind of privy council (Staatsrath), consisting of the cabinet ministers and other members appointed by the king.

For administrative purposes Saxony is divided into four Kreishauptmannschaften or governmental departments, subdivided into fifteen Amtshauptmannschaften and one hundred and sixteen Aeniter. The cities of Dresden and Leipsic form departments by themselves. The supreme court of law for both civil and criminal cases is the Oberlandes-Gericht at Dresden, subordinate to which are seven other courts in the other principal towns and one hundred and five inferior tribunals. The German imperial code was adopted by Saxony in 1879. Leipsic is the seat of the imperial supreme court.

Finance.—The Saxon financial period embraces a space of two years. For 1884-5 the " ordinary " budget showed an income of £3,496,000, balanced by the expenditure, which included a reserve fund of £29,400. The chief sources of income were taxes (£1,377,293, including £899,975 of direct taxes), state-railways (£1,357,890), and the public forests and domains (£359,171). Lotteries brought in £232,270, and the royal porcelain manu-facture £17,500. The chief expenditure was on the interest (£1,135,681) and sinking fund (£410,000) of the national debt. The " extraordinary " budget, applying exclusively to public works, showed an income and expenditure tallying at £882,800. The national debt, incurred almost wholly in making and buying railways, amounted on 1st January 1885 to £32,670,300, mostly paying interest at the rate of 4 per cent.

Army.—The Saxon army is modelled on that of Prussia. It forms the 12th army corps in the imperial German army, and con-sists of the 23rd and 24th divisions, with headquarters at Dresden and Leipsic respectively. On its peace-footing the Saxon contingent includes 20,500 infantry, 4180 cavalry, and 3000 artillery ; in war it has 75,800 infantry, 6680 cavalry, and 8050 artillery.

The statistical information in the ahove article has heen derived chiefly from the Kalendar und statistisches Jahrbuch für das Königreich Sachsen (Dresden, 1875-86) and the Zeitschrift des Königlichen Sächsischen statistischen Bureau (Dresden, 1855-85). The Staatshandbuch für das Königreich Sachsen is an annual official register. Engelhardts Vaterlandskunde für Schule und Haus im Königreich Sachsen (Dresden, 3d ed. by Flathe, 1877) contains a comprehensive account of the country and its resources; and Daniel's Handbuch der Geographie (Leipsic, 1881) clearly summarizes the principal points. The standard history of Saxony is Böttiger's Geschichte des Kurstaats und Königreichs Sachsens (3 vols., Gotha, 3d ed., edited and continued by Flathe, 1867-73). Brandes's Grundriss der Sächsischen Geschichte (Leipsic, 1860) is a succinct but somewhat dry summary. Other leading works on the subjects are Gretschel, Geschichte des Sächsischen Staats und Volks (3 vols., Leipsic, 2d ed., continued by Bulau, 1862-63); Meynert, Geschichte des Sächsischen Volks (2 vols., Leipsic, 1833-35) ; Heinrich, Sächsische Geschichte (2 vols., Leipsic, 1810-12); and Weisse, Geschichte der Kursächsischen Staaten (7 vols., Leipsic, 1802-12). The publication of the Codex Diplomatiae Saxoniae Regiae was begun in 1864 under the care of Gersdorf, and has been continued under Posse and Emerisch. Posse has also published Die Markgrafen von Meissen und das Haus Wettin bis zu Konrad dem Grossen (Leipsic, 1881); and Emerisch is the editor of the Neue Archiv für Sächsische Geschichte (Leipsic, 6 vols.), which contains full information as to works on the history of the country. Weber's older Archiv für die Sächsische Geschichte appeared in 1864 sq.; and a still older periodical publication on the subject to Von Braun's Monatlicher Auszug aus der Geschichte des Kur- und Fürstlichen Hauses Sachsens (6 vols., Langensalza, 1778-81). See also Tutschmann's Atlas zur Geschichte der Sächsischen Länder (Grimma, 1852). (F. MU.)


Footnotes

The Lex Saxonum, 19 titles of which have survived, was reduced to writing under Charlemagne. See under SALIC LAW.

The Heliand (Saviour), a religious poem ascribed to an unknown Saxon poet of the 9th century, is often cited as a proof of the rapid Christianization of the Saxons. It is also almost the only relic of their dialect.

3 A different and considerably later use of the name Saxony may be conveniently mentioned here, for, though not based upon any political or ethnographical considerations, it is frequently referred to in German history. When Maximilian (1493-1519) formed the ten great im-perial administrative circles, that part of the empire to the east of the Weser and north of the Erzgebirge was divided between the circles of Lower and Upper Saxony. The former, occupying the north-west of this territory, included the Harz principalities, Magdeburg, Brunswick, Mecklenburg, Bremen, and Holstein; the latter, besides Thuringia, the electorate of Saxony and Brandenburg, embraced the conquered Slavonic lands to the east and north, including Lusatia and Pomerania. The lands which still preserve the name of Saxony are thus all within the limits of these circles.



The above article was written by: Findlay Muirhead, M.A.