of the Weser; and the Nordalbingians, in modern Holstein. But not even with these four tribal groups was the term of tribal division reached. For the Saxon “nation” was really a loose collection of clans of kindred stock. For example, the Nordalbingians alone were divided into lesser groups: Holsteiners, Sturmarii, Bardi, and the men of Ditmarsch. Old Saxony is the place from which most of the raids and later colonisations of Britain were mounted. The region was called "Old Saxony" by the later descendants of Anglo-Saxon migrants to Britain, and their new colonies in Wessex and elsewhere were the "New Saxony" or Seaxna. In Germany, the Saxon lands were known simply as "Saxony" (Modern German: Sachsen) and only later came to be called Lower Saxony, to differentiate those original Saxon tribal territories from what became the Kingdom of Saxony or Upper Saxony in territories far to the south-east of the original Saxon homeland. The Anglo-Saxon writer Bede claimed in his work Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum'' (731) that Old Saxony was the area between the Elbe, the Weser and the Eider in the north and north-west of modern Germany and was a territory beyond the borders of the Roman Empire. 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. "Social differences were jealously guarded by social prescription. The death penalty was imposed on any man who married above his rank; the marriage of a man below his station was severely condemned; bastardy was not tolerated; intermarriage between Saxons and other Germans was frowned upon; and strangers were hated. 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." See also History of Saxony Duchy of Saxony, the early Medieval stem duchy List of rulers of Saxony References Former states and territories of Lower Saxony Former states and territories of North Rhine-Westphalia Former states and territories of Schleswig-Holstein States and territories established in the 530s States and territories disestablished in the 800s 530s establishments 800s disestablishments 9th-century disestablishments in Europe Barbarian kingdoms