saxons. it was an outpost.
in 1066 they were besieged by the normans,
however they had access to the thames so they could get supplies. They pulled off a coup in that their surrender terms specified that they would continue to use certain forms of law (maritime, commercial, lex mercatoria) regardless of what forms of law the normans would impose on the rest of the conquered territory.
when charlemagne ordered that the great yggdrasil tree be cut down and everyone slaughtered back in their homeland (on northern coast of germany, not same as saxony province), the oupost became the expatriate center of their culture.