lied to the Anglo-Saxon of England,
the Westphalian Saxon is still a notably different form of speech. It
was the Angle language in its southern variety, or (changing the
expression) the Angle was the most northern form of it.

We have seen that _Saxony_ and _Saxon_ were no native terms on the Upper
Elbe. Were they so in the present area--in Westphalia, Eastphalia, and
the land of the Angrivarii? Tacitus knows no such name at all; and
Ptolemy, the first writer in whom we find it, attaches it to a
population of the Cimbric Peninsula. Afterwards, in the third and fourth
centuries it is applied by the Roman and Byzantine writers in a general
sense, to those maritime Germans whose piracies were the boldest, and
whose descents upon the Provinces of Gaul and Britain were most dreaded.
Yet nowhere can we find a definite tract of country upon which we can
lay our finger and say _this is the land of Saxons_, saving only the
insignificant district to the north of the Elbe, mentioned by Ptolemy.
From the time of Honorius to that of Charlemagne, _Saxo_ is, like
_Franc_, a general term applied, indeed, to the maritime Germans rather
than those of the interior, and to those of the north rather than the
south, yet nowhere specifically attached to any definite population with
a local habitation and a name to match. Whenever we come to detail, the
Saxons of the Roman writers become Chamavi, Bructeri, Cherusci, Chauci,
or Frisii; while the Frank details are those of the Ostphali, Westphali,
and Angrivarii.

But the Frank writers under the Merovingian and Carlovingian dynasties
are neither the only nor the earliest authors who speak of the
Hanoverians and Westphalians under the general name of _Saxon_. The
Christianized Angles of England used the same denomination; and, as
early as the middle of the eighth century, Beda mentions the Fresones,
Rugini, Dani, Huni, _Antiqui Saxones_, Boructuarii.--_Hist. Eccles._ 5,
10. Again--the Boructuarii, descendants of the nearly exterminated
Bructeri of Tacitus, and occupants of the country on the Lower Lippe,
are said to have been reduced by the nation of the _Old Saxons_ (_a
gente Antiquorum Saxonum_). In other records we find the epithet
_Antiqui_ translated by the native word _eald_ (=_old_) and the
formation of the compound _Altsaxones_--Gregorius Papa universo populo
provinciae _Altsaxonum_ (vita St. Boniface). Lastly, the Anglo-Saxon
writers of England use the term _Eald-Seaxan_ (=_Old-Saxon_)