why did the saxons become shipbuilders?

[RedGuard]

I get why the Scandinavians became good shipbuilders, their land was prefect for because of the inlets and it allowed them to pillage and bring back resources that were otherwise not there, but the saxons are in the heart of germany. What made them take an interest in becoming shipbuilders and sailing west to britian? why not continue on down through the continent like the rest of the germanians?

[Nikaa47]

You could say they used the favour of the hour. Also you have to imagine that the saxons were a mixture of smaller tribes and a lot of germans served under the romans also in britian. So they knew the land and took the chance when the romans left.

[Boogie Knight]

Pre-conquest Saxons are not my area of expertise, but I do know that the Saxons, in more ways than one, beat the Vikings to the punch. Raiders, traders, explorers, settlers; when you say those words and ask people to guess which historical group you're talking about, everyone's gonna say Vikings. But the Saxons were doing all this long before it was cool, so to speak. They commonly raided both sides of the English channel, and IIRC as far down as the Spanish main and possibly further. In their day, they were the pagan seafaring raiders to be feared; which, as some historians have remarked, makes it all the more odd that they turned their backs on the sea once they'd settled in England. But trading was a major part of what they did pre- and post-conquest, and many settled along the south coast of England and the northern coast of France - long before the Romans left Britain - to live as merchants and traders. So my guess, and it really is just a guess I'm afraid, is that the Saxons were drawn to ship building because it allowed them to trade further afield and with increasingly exotic items and people.

[Nikaa47]

Pre-conquest Saxons are not my area of expertise, but I do know that the Saxons, in more ways than one, beat the Vikings to the punch. Raiders, traders, explorers, settlers; when you say those words and ask people to guess which historical group you're talking about, everyone's gonna say Vikings.

A lot of people dont know the litus saxonicum.

[Boogie Knight]

A lot of people dont know the litus saxonicum.

I have to confess I'd forgotten about that completely; but did their duties involve a naval command at all? I understood there were separate commanders on each side of the channel, rather than one in charge of the whole lot.

[Nikaa47]

I have to confess I'd forgotten about that completely; but did their duties involve a naval command at all? I understood there were separate commanders on each side of the channel, rather than one in charge of the whole lot.

The Commander for the british side was the Comes litoris Saxonici per Britanniam. The point about their duties is controversial because the forts are built very massive. So for just defending against pirates they re to much. Maybe they also were build with the idea to defend against conflicts inside the roman border or against the gallic.

[wulfgar610]

I get why the Scandinavians became good shipbuilders, their land was prefect for because of the inlets and it allowed them to pillage and bring back resources that were otherwise not there, but the saxons are in the heart of germany. What made them take an interest in becoming shipbuilders and sailing west to britian? why not continue on down through the continent like the rest of the germanians?

Best remembered earlier on Ingavones like the Frisians dominated North Sea trade. It's also notable that the Scandinavians come out of hiding historically just at the moment when the Franks Rampage through the Ingavone world leaving the North Sea a power vacuum. The required material with long ships is wood and the best and largest trees make the best boats, so if the Saxon had that, then that was all that was needed.

A warning to CA as well, the monster longships that swarm in Attila can only be built from the very best and tallest trees which soon become a rarity. Indeed when complete replicas of the smaller Gokstad ship were built, timbers large enough had to be acquired in Canada. Longships more than 100 feet long become very tricky to build.

[Charerg]

Didn't the Saxons pretty much live on the coast of the North Sea/Baltic? Take a look at wikipedia's map on the matter:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The Saxons in the game are slightly misplaced, although perhaps their domains expended that far South, since not all Saxons migrated (unlike the Jutes and the Angles, who seem to disappear, probably becoming part of the Danish Kingdom).

[Nikaa47]

Didn't the Saxons pretty much live on the coast of the North Sea/Baltic? Take a look at wikipedia's map on the matter:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The Saxons in the game are slightly misplaced, although perhaps their domains expended that far South, since not all Saxons migrated (unlike the Jutes and the Angles, who seem to disappear, probably becoming part of the Danish Kingdom).

The problem with those maps is that people in this time didnt define themselfs about borders like we do it today especialy in the german barbaricum but if you take a look on the linguistic background you will figure out that even the early jutes(not the one today) belonged more to the northsea/western germans than to the northern one like the danes.

[Magister Militum Flavius Aetius]

Best remembered earlier on Ingavones like the Frisians dominated North Sea trade. It's also notable that the Scandinavians come out of hiding historically just at the moment when the Franks Rampage through the Ingavone world leaving the North Sea a power vacuum. The required material with long ships is wood and the best and largest trees make the best boats, so if the Saxon had that, then that was all that was needed.

Pretty much this. The Frisian Kingdom and the Mainland European Saxons both began to decline in the late 6th century, leading to the rise of the Scandinavians and Danes in the 7th-9th centuries.

[Hunin]

I get why the Scandinavians became good shipbuilders, their land was prefect for because of the inlets and it allowed them to pillage and bring back resources that were otherwise not there, but the saxons are in the heart of germany. What made them take an interest in becoming shipbuilders and sailing west to britian? why not continue on down through the continent like the rest of the germanians?

Is it possible that you are mistaken Saxony for Lower Saxony?

Modern Saxony has its name from a Saxon king. These are not the Saxons.
Lower Saxony (translates as sea-side Saxony) is where the Saxons are from.

They can not move south. South of them is Frankish core-land or Allemanic land.
Nobody ever moved threre from the north to the south and if they did, there is good reason why we never heard of them.

On top of that were most of the Saxons sitting on the most fertile land of Middle-Europe (that's where the conflict with the Franks comes from - the Franks became wealthy by trade - but did not have farm land). They have no reason to move and they never did. Only the people on the shores did, for the same reasons people moved to America.

Why the "sea-side-people" (Lower Saxons) might have something to do with maritime development should be self-explanatory (they have 2000 years of maritime history in that area from Denmark cross Germany to the Netherlands, Hanseatic league f.e.).

The cultural border between Saxons and Franks is today between modern Westphalia (Saxons) and the Rhineland (Franks) in the German state of North-Rhine-Westphalia.

Frankonia (in northern Bavaria) and the bordering state Saxony is not the region, where the interaction took place. The Franks there are settlers. The Saxons there are a mix of settlers and remaining cultures, that took the name later, like the French did from the Franks.

It's a misconception that all Germans were on the move. Only the tribes that needed to move, moved. Only because there were some Frisians at some Scandinavian coast, does not mean, that they all left their core-land. Frisia is still there where it has been 2000 years ago. If you have a good life, you do not give that up - that's a rare, if you do that.
And good life means wealth. Wealth comes with power. That means you can hold your position. So if I want to take that away from you - I need to come at least on eye-height.

If that shore-Saxons would have sailed down the Rhine and said to the Allemanics: Hello, we are living now here. - They would have said: No, you are awake now.
They would have outnumbered them 10:1.
There is good reason why they said, the Franks won because of a miracle. That's maybe the only part of the story that is true. That the Franks won this confrontation was a miracle.
But Saxons are a different story. Much lesser people living there and half of them were gone already towards Britain as the Franks start to win the conflict.
These parties came on eye-height.