25 Jan 2026
German Expansion East of the Elbe in the 10th and 11th Centuries
I had intended to write a post about the history of Havelberg, a town on the eastern bank of the Elbe river at the confluence of the Havel into the Elbe. Its landmark, the cathedral situated on a moraine hill, dates back to the 10th century, though the present building was erected in the 13th century on older remains from 1170.
But then I fell down a research rabbit hole deep enough to hide a balrog, about the German expansion east of the Elbe and the Slavic tribes that lived there. So this post will mostly be about those events in form of an overview, with spotlights on some particularly interesting and better documented events. The entire history, as usual, was somewhat more complicated, but my blog is not a thesis paper. It's also the first really long and researched post I've written since 2020.
Reconstructed Slavic settlement
(photo taken in the open air museum Gross-Raden near Schwerin)
The landscape north of the central uplands (the Harz being the northernmost mountain range) is a terminal moraine landscape shaped by the Ice Ages. It is flat to hilly – though those hills are seldom higher than a hundred metres –, with river deltas, many lakes, forests and bogs. The lakes and bogs provided defenses; the ground was fertile once cleared, the coast offered fishing and trade contacts. Further south-east (fe. Bohemia), the land was part of the central uplands.
By the 10th century, the lands east of the Elbe all the way to the Oder and the Baltic Sea were settled by tribes that – as far as we can judge by sources, archaeological finds, place names and such – spoke languages of the Slavic family and likely shared some cultural and religious mores (1).
Open air museum Gross-Raden, view to the reconstructed temple
The museum presents houses, a temple, and a ringwall fort with a tunnel gate from the 9th and 10th centuries, based on excavations on the site. I'll use some of the photos I took there for my post.
When I visited the museum in 2015, the reconstructed 9th century temple still had a roof. One of the reasons to built it that way (including a very unhistorical zinc gutter) in the 1980ies had been to offer shelter for visitors, but now a new visitor centre exists. Further achaeological research led to the conclusion that the temple was most likely an enclosed space open to the sky, therefore the roof was taken down in 2018.
Some of those tribes developed into Christian kingdoms, like Bohemia (Czechia) or Poland (covering part of the present day country), developing a role more or less equal to Germany, France etc. in Medieval history, but others remained more losely structured, led by a gentil-religious élite, sometimes allying, often fighting each other. Since the sources were written by Germans with an ecclesiastic background, mostly after the events, the information is biased and often muddled or contradictory.
The ringwall fort Gross-Raden seen from the lake
When the Ottonian dynasty became kings of Germany, and since Otto the Great also emperors of the Holy Roman Empire (AD 962), proselytising the Slavic tribes east of the Elbe was one of their main interests. Sure, Christianisation of pagans was the duty of every Christian ruler, and stopping Slavic and Hungarian raids across the borders a valid reason to force them stay put, but the main interest was to expand territories by turning the Slavic leaders into vassals and thus increase income and power bases, and to reward the German nobility with lands and honours (2).
King Heinrich I (the Fowler) defeated several Slavic tribes at Lenzen, some 50 kilometres south of Havelberg, in AD 929, and soon thereafter the settlements Brandenburg and Havelberg, seats of the tribe of the Hevelli (Stodorjane), were conquered as well, and a castles set up on the hill in Havelberg where later the cathedral would stand, and in Brandenburg.
The Elbe at Havelberg
King Heinrich took prisoner the son of the Hevellian prince Vaclavic (3), Tugumir, and a high ranking woman who may have been his sister. She became the mistress of Heinrich’s son Otto; their son Wilhelm would become archbishop of Mainz 954-968 and teacher of Otto’s son, another Otto, which clearly shows that the Slavic élite was recognised as such by the Germans, else a bastard could not have risen so high. Information about her is almost nonexistant, but it seems likely she joined a nunnery when Otto married Eadgytha of Wessex.
Tugumir, by then a Christian, returned to rule the Hevelli as vassal of King Otto I after his father’s death, about 940. He is said to have killed his nephew who had succeeded Vaclavic. Chronicler Widukind of Saxony calls him a traitor to his people. Tugumir probably died before 948 since he didn’t sign the foundation charte of the Havelberg and Brandenburg bishoprics – which he should have done as the ruler of the Helvelli and important vassal of Otto.
Havelberg, the cathedral
Those were the earliest bishoprics east of the Elbe, and spearpoints of the Slavic mission/conquest. The bishop got half of the site on the hill in Havelberg where the castle stood, though written information and archaeological traces of an early church are sparse, except for a semicircular east apse. Maybe the first building was partly constructed of timber on stone foundations.
Both sees became suffragan dioceses of the archbishopric Magdeburg in 968. Magdeburg, situated on the west bank of the Elbe river, had developed into an important Ottonian seat by then.
Havelberg Cathedral, interior
Not all contacts in the 10th/11th centuries were violent. Some Slavic tribal rulers saw a chance to strengthen their position by introducing Christian concepts of hierarchy and administration, so they accepted baptism and alliances with the Ottonian kings and nobles holding lands near the border. Besides the Hevelli, the Obodrite at the coast (approximately from Lübeck to Mecklenburg) established a ruling family, the Nakonids, in the 960ies. At least one of their princes was educated in a Christian monastery (see below). There were internal rebellions by the population, though.
After the Slavic defeat at Lenzen, several tribes were forced to acknowledge Ottonian supremacy in form of local castle warders (praefecti castrorum) in strategically important fortifications, either by cooperative locals leaders or German nobles, under command of a sort of marcher lord (4), and pay tribute.
But the system was fragile, and some tribes kept rising against the Saxons and invading Saxon territory – once even with the support of Otto I’s half-brother Thankmar –, so Heinrich and Otto I had to fight several campaigns against them in the 930ies, and sort out their dysfunctional family dynamics.
Magdeburg Cathedral
The group of tribes counted among the Sorbes (Dalemitians, Milceni etc.), settling further south at the Elbe around what today is Meissen and Lusatia, were defeated as well and forced to pay tribute. But they kept raiding Saxon lands and evading tributes. The lord of the Saxon Eastern March, Gero († 965), unable to defeat them for good with his too small army, tried to deal with them by inviting some 30 leaders of the tribes to a feast where he had them treacherously murdered (939). That led to a major rebellion which Gero and Otto I had to put down in several campaigns in 954 to 965, and built a ring of castles. Afterwards, there was no more resistance from those tribes. Meissen became the first margraviate east of the Elbe in 968, and thus part of the German feudal system, though Gero held the title of margrave (marchio) since 941.
One of the reasons for Ottonian interest to subdue those tribes was the fact that their land was used as deployment area by the Hungarian steppe riders who frequently raided far into Germany until Otto put a stop to that for good at the Battle on the Lechfeld (near Augsburg) in August 955.
His father Heinrich had established a system of border castles against those invasions – Castle Sichelnstein may have been one of those – and developed a troop of heavy cavalry; he defeated the Hungarians/Magyars at Riade in 933, which discontinued the raids until 954.
Gross-Raden, the gate tower in the wall of the settlement
Two years before, Wichmann Billung, nephew of Hermann Billung who was Otto's representative in the Duchy of Saxony and marcher lord in the north, had sided with Liudolf, Otto's son with Eadgytha, against his father (Liudolf suspected that he would name his younger half-brother by Otto's second marriage with Adelheid of Burgundy as heir). The rebellion proved unsuccessful and Liudolf reconciled with his father. Wichman was imprisoned but escaped to the Obodrite whose prince Nakon may have been an amicus (friend, ally) of Wichman.
A Slavic host – comprised of Obodrite, Tollensians, Circipanians and others – invaded Saxony (the northern part of present Lower Saxony) and, among other atrocities, massacred the population of a place near Lüneburg after they had been promised a safe conduct to leave. Otto wanted revenge. The Slavic leaders Nakon and Stoignew were willing to pay tribute again, but Otto wanted complete surrender (which would have meant for them to become his vassals). So the tribes decided to fight.
The German army, led by Otto I, his son Liudolf, margrave Gero, and Duke Boleslaus I of Bohemia, invaded the Slavic territories as far as the river Raxa (October 955; 5) where they had problems finding a ford since the enemy had barred the main crossing. The Ukrani, another Slavic tribe that had been brought into the fold of the Ottonian Empire (6) showed them a place where to build a bridge. The battle was won, Stoignew beheaded (either by Otto or some knight, depending on the sources) and several hundred prisoners decapitated as well. Wichman escaped to France; Nakon of the Obodrite seems to have managed to get back into Otto's good graces.
Remains of the monastery in Memleben. Both Heinrich I and Otto the Great died here.
But the Ottonian kings also were frequently active in Italy since parts of northern Italy belonged to the Holy Roman Empire, they had to convince popes to crown them emperor, and there were Saracen attacks in Sicily, drawing many of the nobles and knights south.
It was one of those Italian campaigns of Otto II (reg. 973-983) and the disastrous defeat at the Battle of Stilo/Cape Colonna that offered an opening for the attack of a confederacy of Slavic tribes in 983. The Ottonian engagement east of the Elbe suffered a severe setback in the years to follow after the Slavic tribes reconquered most of the land.
It comes as no surprise that the Redarians were one of the members, and maybe even the instigator, of the so-called Lutici Confederacy that included several tribes of Elb-/Baltic Sea Slaves like the Tollensians and Circipanians. The confederacy had no single leader, but a council of clan leaders and local representatives who met at the central temple at Rethra/Riedegost (its site remains unkown). They could also motivate the priesthood and people of the Obodrite and Hevelli who did not agree with the changes their princes tried to introduce. Only the Sorbic tribes in Lusatia would never join the rising.
The first strike went against the bishoprics on Hevellian territory: Havelberg and Brandenburg. The churches were pludered and destroyed, and several priests murdered. The bishops barely escaped across the Elbe. The Hevellian princes obviously manged to keep their position, but one can assume that they had to make concessions to the pagan priesthood.
Quedlinburg, on of the main places of the Ottonians: View to the castle and cathedral
Otto III (reg. 983-1002, he ascended the throne as three year old child), or rather, his mother and regent, the Byzantine princess Theophanu, led a retributional campaign east of the Elbe, supported by Duke Miezsko of Poland and his son Bolesław Chrobry, whose north-western frontier was endagered by the revolt as well, but the success was limited. Overall, Otto was more busy in Italy, so by 997; the lands north-east of the Elbe and the Northern Mark were lost for the time being, and two bishops remained see-less.
The alliance between Otto III and Bolesław (Duke of Poland since 992) was further strengthened at the Congress of Gniezno in March 1000 – a splendid affair with entourages in pretty clothes and bling, mutual exchanges of gifts between Otto and Bolesław, veneration of a new saint (7), and Otto’s proclamation of Boleslaw as cooperator Imperii (partner of the Empire) and foedus et amicus (ally and friend) which elevated the Polish prince to the level of a king and Otto’s equal (8). Bolesław's son Miezsko was betrothed to Otto's niece Richeza of Lotharingia; they would marry in 1013.
Also, Gniezno was made into an archdiocese, thus gaining independence of the see in Magdeburg. Otto III died in Italy in January 1002, aged 21 and with no offspring.
Quedlinburg Cathedral, interior
The good relationship between the Ottonians and Bolesław Chrobry would not last during the reign of Otto’s successor Heinrich II (1002-1024). Heinrich of Bavaria's – he descends from the line of Otto the Great's younger brother Heinrich – ascension to the throne had not been uncontestend. One of the other claimants was Ekkehard of Meissen, a powerful Saxon nobleman and stout ally of the late Otto. Ekkehard was assassinated shortly after Heinrich's election in a private feud, and Heinrich granted the margraviate to his brother Gunzelin, not his son Hermann.
Back to Bolesław. He had married several times. His third wife (∞ 987) was a daughter of one Dobromir, a nobleman from the Sorbian Lusatians, Emnilda – judging by the name she had a Saxon mother, but no details are known. Their daughter Reglindis married Hermann of Meissen, eldest son of Ekkehard, in 1002. Soon thereafter, Bolesław invaded Lusatia, part of the margraviate, likely on claim by his wife. The following years of border warfare put father-in-law and son-in-law on opposite sides after Hermann was finally granted the margraviate of Meissen in 1009.
The war was part of a simmering proxy conflict with King Heinrich II who wanted to reduce the status of the Polish prince to vassal (tributarius) again, while Bolesław wanted to expand his power. I'll spare you the mess of skirmishes and sieges, and the involvement of the Duke of Bohemia (at cahoots with Bolesław), except to point out that Heinrich allied with the Lutici against Bolesław, much to the dismay of many German nobles, some of whom in turn allied with Bolesław to further their interests. Finally, the conflict ended with the Peace of Bautzen in 1018. Bolesław married Oda, a sister of Hermann of Meissen, and was granted Lusatia as allod.
The statues of Hermann and Reglindis in the cathedral of Naumburg
After Heinrich's death in July 1024, Bolesław became King of Poland, but he died soon thereafter, in June 1025. The conflicts of his son Mieszko II Lambert (by Emnilda) with the Saxons during the reign of Emperor Konrad II, and the internal strife in Poland won't be part of this post. Both Poland and Bohemia had by then become Christian regnae and part of the feudal world.
Instead, we'll move back to the border along the northern Elbe and the lands of the Hevelli and Obodrite. The Lutician Confederacy eventually broke apart, though details are hard to come by since the sources are external and mostly mention events that included the German realm. There is also a confusion, both in sources and secondary literature, in the use of names like Lutici, Obodrite, Wagrians etc. (the Wagrians were a sub-tribe of the Obodrite, the Lutici a confederation that included the Redarians, not a tribe, and they were not the same as the Obodrite).
Gross-Raden, the tunnel gate of the fortress
The Obodrite were still ruled by the Nakonids who were as dysfuntional as many ruling houses, and split over Christianity to boot. Some events are quite well documented in the sources, like the fate of Gottschalk (that is his German baptismal name). He had been educated in Lüneburg, and spent a time of exile in England and Denmark where he married Sigrita, a daughter of Sven Estridsson who hepled him regain the rule over the Obodrite. Upon his return in 1043, he wanted to reform the realm of the Obodrite in the way of Denmark or Poland, with a strong Christian network to support him. The diocese of Mecklenburg-Schwerin was established in 1062 under the bishop John Soctus – maybe Gottschalk had met him in England.
Gottschalk also reorganised the various tribes of the Obodrite into districts with central castles under officials responsible directly to him and collecting taxes, thus taking away much of the power and income of the local chiefs. Two more dioceses were founded in Ratzeburg and Oldenburg/Holstein.
Gross-Raden, the reconstructed temple
Well, the lords didn't like being lorded over by Gottschalk, the people didn't like to pay taxes and being pushed to follow a foreign god, and the influential priesthood didn't want to find themselves unemployed and un-influential.
We are now at the time of Heinrich IV (1050‒1106; emperor since 1084) of the Salian ruling house, one of the more colourful characters on the German and Imperial throne. Gottschalk relied on the assisstance of Archbishop Adalbert of Hamburg-Bremen whom the young Heinrich had chosen as his most influential advisor. That angered Adalbert's rival Anno of Cologne and a number of others nobles in the royal council who forced Heinrich to remove Adalbert from his court in 1066.
It is no chance that shortly thereafter, the disgruntled Obodrite rose against Gottschalk who no longer could call in a German army via Adalbert. The rebels killed Gottschalk (Sigrita and their son Heinrich escaped and fled to Denmark); John Scotus was captured and sacrificed to the gods at the temple in Riedegost, which implies that the rising involved more tribes than only the Obodrite; the abbot in Ratzeburg was stoned to death.
Remains of the Slavic hillfort on Kap Arkona/Rugia
(Only part of it is left due to erosion, and now it is closed to the public.)
Bishop Burchard II of Halberstadt mounted a punitive expedition in the year to follow; he went for the head of the snake, the temple in Riedegost which he destroyed. But the snake proved to be a hydra. While the Redarians lost the claim of the leading cult site, the role was taken over by the temple in Arkona on Rugia. The tribe settling there, the Rani/Rujani (9), had remained pagans. The would later be Christianized by the Danes, not the Germans.
But for the time being, the Obodrite chose the Wagrian (a sub-tribe) leader Kruto as new king. Heinrich IV was too busy with rebellious Saxon nobles, an anti-king, excommunication-happy popes, and troubles in Italy (nothing new there, the Ottoninan emperors had had their share of those), so there were no ressources left to deal with the Obodrite reverting to paganism and escaping the feudal structure.
A Slavic boat (Gross-Raden)
Gottschalk's son Heinrich had to wait almost 25 years to return to his homeland and claim the rule of his people, but return he did in 1090, with the help of the relations of his Danish mother to whom he had fled as child. He defeated and killed Kruto and married his wife Slavinia (according to Helmold of Bosau, she was happy with that since 'she had tired of her aged husband').
Heinrich faced a rebellion a few years after his return; it turned out the Obodrite – while accepting his hereditary claim over Kruto – still didn't want to pay taxes and pray to a foreign god. With the assistance of Duke Magnus Billung of Saxony (ca. 1045‒1106) who provided Heinrich with a Saxon host, he defeated the Obodrite at the battle of Schmilau in 1093. In the years to follow, Heinrich not only established his rule over the sub-tribes of the Obodrite, like the Polabians, but also extended his realm to the Oder and Havel rivers (10) He could count on the support of Duke Magnus and later Lothar of Süpplingenburg (1075‒1137) who became Duke of Saxony in 1106, and King of the Germans in 1125. He took more interest in the eastern borders than Heinrich IV and Heinrich V.
Slavic fibula (Gross-Raden)
Heinrich made Alt-Lübeck (11) his main seat from which he took his name. He built a stone church, but the rebellion had taught him to be more lenient about Christianisation; he allowed missionaries, but no longer forced the Obodrite to convert. Heinrich minted coins and was called rex slavorum in the sources, equal to the kings of Germany and Denmark. But the attempt to modernise the admininstration and introduce a semi-feudal system proved superficial and would not last long after his death.
Heinrich died in June 1127. Some sources say he was assassinated, but there is no agreement about this in the seondary literature. He may well have died of natural causes. He had four sons with Slavinia, but they fought each other about the succession, and the Obodrite kingdom disintegrated.
Eventually, two successors would emerge, Niklot (1130‒1160; not related to the Nakonids) of the Obodrite proper, and Pribislav of the Wagrians and Polabians (* unknown – 1156?; perhaps from a Nakonid sideline). Both were baptized, but not necessarily Christians; they would cause a lot of trouble in the years to come.
Remains of the Danevirke wall in Schleswig-Holstein, 40 km south of the border to Jutland/Denmark
The wall – partly stone or brick, parly earth – dates back in parts to the 6th century, and was expanded and altered several times, though some Medieval sections remain almost intact. The photo shows the so-called Valdemar's Wall (12th century). The entire defense structure was still added to and used in WW2.
We'll have to take a little detour to Denmark, like we did with the Polish Piasts before, to show the network of political, feudal and personal relationships underlying European history. The peninsula that separates the North Sea from the Baltic Sea, today belonging to Germany (county Schleswig-Holstein) and Denmark (Jutland), has been contested between Germany and Denmark for centuries (12), often involved in intricate feudal relationships.
Sven, the father of Sigrita, Heinrich of Alt-Lübeck's mother, had a whole football team of kids with different women. One was Erik, the father of Knud Lavard. Knud had been raised at the court of Lothar of Süpplingenburg and claimed the rule of the Obodrite by right of his aunt – not the closest relationship, but he would have been a good candidate from Lothar's point of view. Some souces claim he paid for it, but that is not proven. Lothar III, by then king, devolved the regnum obotritorum to Knud as fief in 1129, as well as the duchy of Schleswig.
Knud seems to have been accepted by the Obodrite and the sub-tribes. He took captive Niklot and Pribislaw, brought them to Schleswig and had them baptized, obviously planning to turn them into territorial princes as his vassals. He also furthered trade and the guilds in the town of Schleswig, and built a castle there. But all those plans came to naught when he was assassinated by his cousin Magnus the Strong in January 1131. Lothar III was shocked as well, since he seems to have agreed with Knud's plans.
Gross-Raden, view to the fortress
Magnus the Strong (1107‒1134) was the son of Nils, another of the many sons of Sven. He claimed the kingship of Gautland/Sweden via his mother. His murdering Knud started a civil war in Denmark that also would involve Sweden. Nevertheless, Lothar had to deal with Magnus without turning the affair into a war that would drag in Germany, esp. since he wanted to travel to Italy and get crowned emperor. He did march an army to the Danevirke border, but after negotiations, he accepted Nils' and Magnus oath of fealty for Denmark. He also sent Niklot and Pribislav home with the same oath.
The Danish civil war ended with the battle of Fodevig 1134, where Magnus and his father fell. Magnus' half-brother Erik II Emune became King of Denmark, Sverker – actually elected by the thing – king of Sweden. The murdered Knud Lavard became a saint.
Little fun fact aside: Magnus the Strong was married to Richeza (Rikissa) of Poland in 1129, daughter of Bolesław III Wrymouth of the Piast dynasty. Their son, another Knud, would become king of Denmark 1146-1157. Richeza then married Volodar of Minsk, got divorced, and married Sverker (1148), the man who had defeated her first husband. History can be so much fun.
Lothar III died on his way back from Italy in December 1137. Any feudal oath would have to be renewed with his successor, and said succession was contested; eventually, the Staufen dynasty would ascend. Denmark kept having internal troubles (Erik turned out a very unpopular king), and Niklot and Pribislaw didn't give a fig about feudal oaths anyway; they used the chance to plan mischief I will deal with in a future post.
Königslutter Catherdral, burial place of Lothar of Süpplingenburg; the cloister
Let us finally return to the Hevelli who, in a way, started this post. They had more or less disappeared from the sources for a time; obviously there were no major internal troubles or border warfares worth chronicling. It seems that they – or at least the leading families, without facing the opposition the Obodrite rules did - had begun to establish more friendly contacts with the German kings and nobles, else it would be difficult to explain the next step.
In 1127, the Hevellian prince Pribislav Heinrich got into power. He was in close contact with the German nobility, especially Albert the Bear of House Ascania (1100‒1170), marcher lord of Brandenburg and the Northern March. During the rule of Pribislav Heinrich, the land of the Hevelli was integrated into the German feudal system, and Pribislav Heinrich elevated to king by Lothar (1134). Since he remained childless, he named Albert the Bear as successor, therewith delivering land and people firmly into the German feudal system.
After the death of Pribislav Heinrich in 1150, Albert the Bear inherited the land that became the kernel of the Mark Brandenburg; Albert was named the first margrave of Brandenburg in 1157. He was married to Sophie of Winzenburg. This peaceful solution opened the way to reestablishing of the diocese of Havelberg and the construction of a new cathedral. And a post that will indeed be about the history of Havelberg – hopefully not opening another research hole.
Havelberg Cathedral, the cloister
Footnotes
1) Dresden and the predecessor of Lübeck started out as Slavic settlements, for example. The present day counties of Saxony, Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, and parts of Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein were Slavic territory.
2) The German kings were no absolute rulers, but dependent on the cooperation and assistance of the important noble families who, of course, expected rewards for their allegiance.
3) The main souce is an Arabic transcription of the name in al-Masʿūdī’s historiography and travelogue "Meadows of Gold and Mines of Gems" (AD 947) as Basqlābiǧ, who is thought to possibly have been the father of Tugumir, since he is named together with Heinrich I.
4) Those commanders were not yet margraves. The so-called ʹBillung Markʹ in the north and ʹSaxon or Gero’s Markʹ at the Havel confluence are 19th century constructions. Billung and Gero (and his successor Dietrich of Haldensleben) had a special function as border protectors and military leaders, but they held no provinces.
5) The place name Raxa is only mentioned in Widukind's Saxon Chronicle; it has been tentatively identified as river Recknitz.
6) This is the most probable reading of the passage in Widukind.
7) The late bishop Adalbert of Prague who had had been killed during a mission to the pagan Prussians.
8) The sources state that it meant elevating Bolesław from tributarius to dominus.
9) They are sometimes identified with the Ukrani who sided with margrave Gero at the battle of Raxa, but I think it more likely that those were two different tribes: the Ukrani in the Uckermark, and the Rani on Rugia who had nothing to do with the battle.
10) Though it is not clear if he got involved with the Hevelli settling at the Havel. 11) Alt-Lübeck (Liubice) was situated at the Trave river, some 5 miles downward from the old town of present day Lübeck. Achaeological excavations have discovered foundations of fortifications and a church, and a number of small finds like fibulae and rings, dating to the 9th‒11th centuries.
12) The border drawn post WW2 includes a Danish minority in Schleswig-Holstein Germany that is represented in the county parliament, got its own schools, TV channels, etc. Many of the border inhabitants are bilingual on both sides.
Magdeburg Cathedral, interior
Literature:
Helmold von Bosau, Slawenchronik. Neu übertragen und erläutert von Heinz Stoob. Freiherr-von-Stein Gedächtnisausgabe, WBG Darmstadt 1990
Thietmar von Merseburg, Chronik. Neu übertragen und erläutert von Werner Trillmich. Freiherr-von Stein Gedächtnisausgabe, WBG Darmstadt 2011
Quellen zur Geschichte der sächsischen Kaiserzeit: Widukinds Sachsengeschichte / Alberts Fortsetzung der Chronik Reginos / Liudprands Werke. Neu übersetzt und bearbeitet von Albert Bauer und Reinhold Rau. Freiherr-von-Stein Gedächtnisausgabe, WBG Darmstadt 1971
Saxo Grammaticus. Vollständige, neu übersetzte und kommentierte Ausgabe von Hans-Jürgen Hube. Wiesbaden 2004
Wolfgang Giese, Heinrich I. WBG Darmstadt 2008
Gerd Althoff, Die Ottonen – Königsherrschaft ohne Staat. Stuttgart 2000
Gerd Althoff, Otto III. WBG Darmstadt 1996
Matthias Becher, Otto der Große – Kaiser und Reich, München 2012
Michael Bregnsbo/Kurt Villads Jensen, The Rise and Fall of the Danish Empire. Macmillan 2022
Eric Christiansen, The Northern Crusades. Penguin Books 1997
Peter Donat, Mecklenburg und Oldenburg im 8. bis 10. Jahrhundert. In: Mecklenburgische Jahrbücher 111/1996, p. 5-20
Hermann Kamp/Martin Kroker (ed.), Schwertmission – Gewalt und Christianisierung im Mittelalter. Paderborn 2013
Eduard Mühle, Die Piasten – Polen im Mittelalter. München 2011
Eduard Mühe, Die Slawen im Mittelalter – Zwischen Idee und Wirklichkeit. Köln 2020
Burnam W. Reynolds, The Prehistory of the Crusades – Missionary War and the Baltic Crusades. Bloomsbury 2016
Nils Rühberg, Obodritische Samtherrscher und sächsische Reichsgewalt von der Mitte des 10. Jahrhunderts bis zur Erhebung des Fürstentums Mecklenburg 1167. In: Mecklenburgische Jahrbücher 110/1995, p. 21-50
Bernd Schneidmüller/Stefan Weinfurter (ed.), Die deutschen Herrscher des Mittelalters – Historische Porträts von Heinrich I bis Maximilian I. München 2003
I had intended to write a post about the history of Havelberg, a town on the eastern bank of the Elbe river at the confluence of the Havel into the Elbe. Its landmark, the cathedral situated on a moraine hill, dates back to the 10th century, though the present building was erected in the 13th century on older remains from 1170.
But then I fell down a research rabbit hole deep enough to hide a balrog, about the German expansion east of the Elbe and the Slavic tribes that lived there. So this post will mostly be about those events in form of an overview, with spotlights on some particularly interesting and better documented events. The entire history, as usual, was somewhat more complicated, but my blog is not a thesis paper. It's also the first really long and researched post I've written since 2020.
(photo taken in the open air museum Gross-Raden near Schwerin)
The landscape north of the central uplands (the Harz being the northernmost mountain range) is a terminal moraine landscape shaped by the Ice Ages. It is flat to hilly – though those hills are seldom higher than a hundred metres –, with river deltas, many lakes, forests and bogs. The lakes and bogs provided defenses; the ground was fertile once cleared, the coast offered fishing and trade contacts. Further south-east (fe. Bohemia), the land was part of the central uplands.
By the 10th century, the lands east of the Elbe all the way to the Oder and the Baltic Sea were settled by tribes that – as far as we can judge by sources, archaeological finds, place names and such – spoke languages of the Slavic family and likely shared some cultural and religious mores (1).
The museum presents houses, a temple, and a ringwall fort with a tunnel gate from the 9th and 10th centuries, based on excavations on the site. I'll use some of the photos I took there for my post.
When I visited the museum in 2015, the reconstructed 9th century temple still had a roof. One of the reasons to built it that way (including a very unhistorical zinc gutter) in the 1980ies had been to offer shelter for visitors, but now a new visitor centre exists. Further achaeological research led to the conclusion that the temple was most likely an enclosed space open to the sky, therefore the roof was taken down in 2018.
Some of those tribes developed into Christian kingdoms, like Bohemia (Czechia) or Poland (covering part of the present day country), developing a role more or less equal to Germany, France etc. in Medieval history, but others remained more losely structured, led by a gentil-religious élite, sometimes allying, often fighting each other. Since the sources were written by Germans with an ecclesiastic background, mostly after the events, the information is biased and often muddled or contradictory.
When the Ottonian dynasty became kings of Germany, and since Otto the Great also emperors of the Holy Roman Empire (AD 962), proselytising the Slavic tribes east of the Elbe was one of their main interests. Sure, Christianisation of pagans was the duty of every Christian ruler, and stopping Slavic and Hungarian raids across the borders a valid reason to force them stay put, but the main interest was to expand territories by turning the Slavic leaders into vassals and thus increase income and power bases, and to reward the German nobility with lands and honours (2).
King Heinrich I (the Fowler) defeated several Slavic tribes at Lenzen, some 50 kilometres south of Havelberg, in AD 929, and soon thereafter the settlements Brandenburg and Havelberg, seats of the tribe of the Hevelli (Stodorjane), were conquered as well, and a castles set up on the hill in Havelberg where later the cathedral would stand, and in Brandenburg.
King Heinrich took prisoner the son of the Hevellian prince Vaclavic (3), Tugumir, and a high ranking woman who may have been his sister. She became the mistress of Heinrich’s son Otto; their son Wilhelm would become archbishop of Mainz 954-968 and teacher of Otto’s son, another Otto, which clearly shows that the Slavic élite was recognised as such by the Germans, else a bastard could not have risen so high. Information about her is almost nonexistant, but it seems likely she joined a nunnery when Otto married Eadgytha of Wessex.
Tugumir, by then a Christian, returned to rule the Hevelli as vassal of King Otto I after his father’s death, about 940. He is said to have killed his nephew who had succeeded Vaclavic. Chronicler Widukind of Saxony calls him a traitor to his people. Tugumir probably died before 948 since he didn’t sign the foundation charte of the Havelberg and Brandenburg bishoprics – which he should have done as the ruler of the Helvelli and important vassal of Otto.
Those were the earliest bishoprics east of the Elbe, and spearpoints of the Slavic mission/conquest. The bishop got half of the site on the hill in Havelberg where the castle stood, though written information and archaeological traces of an early church are sparse, except for a semicircular east apse. Maybe the first building was partly constructed of timber on stone foundations.
Both sees became suffragan dioceses of the archbishopric Magdeburg in 968. Magdeburg, situated on the west bank of the Elbe river, had developed into an important Ottonian seat by then.
Not all contacts in the 10th/11th centuries were violent. Some Slavic tribal rulers saw a chance to strengthen their position by introducing Christian concepts of hierarchy and administration, so they accepted baptism and alliances with the Ottonian kings and nobles holding lands near the border. Besides the Hevelli, the Obodrite at the coast (approximately from Lübeck to Mecklenburg) established a ruling family, the Nakonids, in the 960ies. At least one of their princes was educated in a Christian monastery (see below). There were internal rebellions by the population, though.
After the Slavic defeat at Lenzen, several tribes were forced to acknowledge Ottonian supremacy in form of local castle warders (praefecti castrorum) in strategically important fortifications, either by cooperative locals leaders or German nobles, under command of a sort of marcher lord (4), and pay tribute.
But the system was fragile, and some tribes kept rising against the Saxons and invading Saxon territory – once even with the support of Otto I’s half-brother Thankmar –, so Heinrich and Otto I had to fight several campaigns against them in the 930ies, and sort out their dysfunctional family dynamics.
The group of tribes counted among the Sorbes (Dalemitians, Milceni etc.), settling further south at the Elbe around what today is Meissen and Lusatia, were defeated as well and forced to pay tribute. But they kept raiding Saxon lands and evading tributes. The lord of the Saxon Eastern March, Gero († 965), unable to defeat them for good with his too small army, tried to deal with them by inviting some 30 leaders of the tribes to a feast where he had them treacherously murdered (939). That led to a major rebellion which Gero and Otto I had to put down in several campaigns in 954 to 965, and built a ring of castles. Afterwards, there was no more resistance from those tribes. Meissen became the first margraviate east of the Elbe in 968, and thus part of the German feudal system, though Gero held the title of margrave (marchio) since 941.
One of the reasons for Ottonian interest to subdue those tribes was the fact that their land was used as deployment area by the Hungarian steppe riders who frequently raided far into Germany until Otto put a stop to that for good at the Battle on the Lechfeld (near Augsburg) in August 955.
His father Heinrich had established a system of border castles against those invasions – Castle Sichelnstein may have been one of those – and developed a troop of heavy cavalry; he defeated the Hungarians/Magyars at Riade in 933, which discontinued the raids until 954.
Two years before, Wichmann Billung, nephew of Hermann Billung who was Otto's representative in the Duchy of Saxony and marcher lord in the north, had sided with Liudolf, Otto's son with Eadgytha, against his father (Liudolf suspected that he would name his younger half-brother by Otto's second marriage with Adelheid of Burgundy as heir). The rebellion proved unsuccessful and Liudolf reconciled with his father. Wichman was imprisoned but escaped to the Obodrite whose prince Nakon may have been an amicus (friend, ally) of Wichman.
A Slavic host – comprised of Obodrite, Tollensians, Circipanians and others – invaded Saxony (the northern part of present Lower Saxony) and, among other atrocities, massacred the population of a place near Lüneburg after they had been promised a safe conduct to leave. Otto wanted revenge. The Slavic leaders Nakon and Stoignew were willing to pay tribute again, but Otto wanted complete surrender (which would have meant for them to become his vassals). So the tribes decided to fight.
The German army, led by Otto I, his son Liudolf, margrave Gero, and Duke Boleslaus I of Bohemia, invaded the Slavic territories as far as the river Raxa (October 955; 5) where they had problems finding a ford since the enemy had barred the main crossing. The Ukrani, another Slavic tribe that had been brought into the fold of the Ottonian Empire (6) showed them a place where to build a bridge. The battle was won, Stoignew beheaded (either by Otto or some knight, depending on the sources) and several hundred prisoners decapitated as well. Wichman escaped to France; Nakon of the Obodrite seems to have managed to get back into Otto's good graces.
But the Ottonian kings also were frequently active in Italy since parts of northern Italy belonged to the Holy Roman Empire, they had to convince popes to crown them emperor, and there were Saracen attacks in Sicily, drawing many of the nobles and knights south.
It was one of those Italian campaigns of Otto II (reg. 973-983) and the disastrous defeat at the Battle of Stilo/Cape Colonna that offered an opening for the attack of a confederacy of Slavic tribes in 983. The Ottonian engagement east of the Elbe suffered a severe setback in the years to follow after the Slavic tribes reconquered most of the land.
It comes as no surprise that the Redarians were one of the members, and maybe even the instigator, of the so-called Lutici Confederacy that included several tribes of Elb-/Baltic Sea Slaves like the Tollensians and Circipanians. The confederacy had no single leader, but a council of clan leaders and local representatives who met at the central temple at Rethra/Riedegost (its site remains unkown). They could also motivate the priesthood and people of the Obodrite and Hevelli who did not agree with the changes their princes tried to introduce. Only the Sorbic tribes in Lusatia would never join the rising.
The first strike went against the bishoprics on Hevellian territory: Havelberg and Brandenburg. The churches were pludered and destroyed, and several priests murdered. The bishops barely escaped across the Elbe. The Hevellian princes obviously manged to keep their position, but one can assume that they had to make concessions to the pagan priesthood.
Otto III (reg. 983-1002, he ascended the throne as three year old child), or rather, his mother and regent, the Byzantine princess Theophanu, led a retributional campaign east of the Elbe, supported by Duke Miezsko of Poland and his son Bolesław Chrobry, whose north-western frontier was endagered by the revolt as well, but the success was limited. Overall, Otto was more busy in Italy, so by 997; the lands north-east of the Elbe and the Northern Mark were lost for the time being, and two bishops remained see-less.
The alliance between Otto III and Bolesław (Duke of Poland since 992) was further strengthened at the Congress of Gniezno in March 1000 – a splendid affair with entourages in pretty clothes and bling, mutual exchanges of gifts between Otto and Bolesław, veneration of a new saint (7), and Otto’s proclamation of Boleslaw as cooperator Imperii (partner of the Empire) and foedus et amicus (ally and friend) which elevated the Polish prince to the level of a king and Otto’s equal (8). Bolesław's son Miezsko was betrothed to Otto's niece Richeza of Lotharingia; they would marry in 1013.
Also, Gniezno was made into an archdiocese, thus gaining independence of the see in Magdeburg. Otto III died in Italy in January 1002, aged 21 and with no offspring.
The good relationship between the Ottonians and Bolesław Chrobry would not last during the reign of Otto’s successor Heinrich II (1002-1024). Heinrich of Bavaria's – he descends from the line of Otto the Great's younger brother Heinrich – ascension to the throne had not been uncontestend. One of the other claimants was Ekkehard of Meissen, a powerful Saxon nobleman and stout ally of the late Otto. Ekkehard was assassinated shortly after Heinrich's election in a private feud, and Heinrich granted the margraviate to his brother Gunzelin, not his son Hermann.
Back to Bolesław. He had married several times. His third wife (∞ 987) was a daughter of one Dobromir, a nobleman from the Sorbian Lusatians, Emnilda – judging by the name she had a Saxon mother, but no details are known. Their daughter Reglindis married Hermann of Meissen, eldest son of Ekkehard, in 1002. Soon thereafter, Bolesław invaded Lusatia, part of the margraviate, likely on claim by his wife. The following years of border warfare put father-in-law and son-in-law on opposite sides after Hermann was finally granted the margraviate of Meissen in 1009.
The war was part of a simmering proxy conflict with King Heinrich II who wanted to reduce the status of the Polish prince to vassal (tributarius) again, while Bolesław wanted to expand his power. I'll spare you the mess of skirmishes and sieges, and the involvement of the Duke of Bohemia (at cahoots with Bolesław), except to point out that Heinrich allied with the Lutici against Bolesław, much to the dismay of many German nobles, some of whom in turn allied with Bolesław to further their interests. Finally, the conflict ended with the Peace of Bautzen in 1018. Bolesław married Oda, a sister of Hermann of Meissen, and was granted Lusatia as allod.
After Heinrich's death in July 1024, Bolesław became King of Poland, but he died soon thereafter, in June 1025. The conflicts of his son Mieszko II Lambert (by Emnilda) with the Saxons during the reign of Emperor Konrad II, and the internal strife in Poland won't be part of this post. Both Poland and Bohemia had by then become Christian regnae and part of the feudal world.
Instead, we'll move back to the border along the northern Elbe and the lands of the Hevelli and Obodrite. The Lutician Confederacy eventually broke apart, though details are hard to come by since the sources are external and mostly mention events that included the German realm. There is also a confusion, both in sources and secondary literature, in the use of names like Lutici, Obodrite, Wagrians etc. (the Wagrians were a sub-tribe of the Obodrite, the Lutici a confederation that included the Redarians, not a tribe, and they were not the same as the Obodrite).
The Obodrite were still ruled by the Nakonids who were as dysfuntional as many ruling houses, and split over Christianity to boot. Some events are quite well documented in the sources, like the fate of Gottschalk (that is his German baptismal name). He had been educated in Lüneburg, and spent a time of exile in England and Denmark where he married Sigrita, a daughter of Sven Estridsson who hepled him regain the rule over the Obodrite. Upon his return in 1043, he wanted to reform the realm of the Obodrite in the way of Denmark or Poland, with a strong Christian network to support him. The diocese of Mecklenburg-Schwerin was established in 1062 under the bishop John Soctus – maybe Gottschalk had met him in England.
Gottschalk also reorganised the various tribes of the Obodrite into districts with central castles under officials responsible directly to him and collecting taxes, thus taking away much of the power and income of the local chiefs. Two more dioceses were founded in Ratzeburg and Oldenburg/Holstein.
Well, the lords didn't like being lorded over by Gottschalk, the people didn't like to pay taxes and being pushed to follow a foreign god, and the influential priesthood didn't want to find themselves unemployed and un-influential.
We are now at the time of Heinrich IV (1050‒1106; emperor since 1084) of the Salian ruling house, one of the more colourful characters on the German and Imperial throne. Gottschalk relied on the assisstance of Archbishop Adalbert of Hamburg-Bremen whom the young Heinrich had chosen as his most influential advisor. That angered Adalbert's rival Anno of Cologne and a number of others nobles in the royal council who forced Heinrich to remove Adalbert from his court in 1066.
It is no chance that shortly thereafter, the disgruntled Obodrite rose against Gottschalk who no longer could call in a German army via Adalbert. The rebels killed Gottschalk (Sigrita and their son Heinrich escaped and fled to Denmark); John Scotus was captured and sacrificed to the gods at the temple in Riedegost, which implies that the rising involved more tribes than only the Obodrite; the abbot in Ratzeburg was stoned to death.
(Only part of it is left due to erosion, and now it is closed to the public.)
Bishop Burchard II of Halberstadt mounted a punitive expedition in the year to follow; he went for the head of the snake, the temple in Riedegost which he destroyed. But the snake proved to be a hydra. While the Redarians lost the claim of the leading cult site, the role was taken over by the temple in Arkona on Rugia. The tribe settling there, the Rani/Rujani (9), had remained pagans. The would later be Christianized by the Danes, not the Germans.
But for the time being, the Obodrite chose the Wagrian (a sub-tribe) leader Kruto as new king. Heinrich IV was too busy with rebellious Saxon nobles, an anti-king, excommunication-happy popes, and troubles in Italy (nothing new there, the Ottoninan emperors had had their share of those), so there were no ressources left to deal with the Obodrite reverting to paganism and escaping the feudal structure.
Gottschalk's son Heinrich had to wait almost 25 years to return to his homeland and claim the rule of his people, but return he did in 1090, with the help of the relations of his Danish mother to whom he had fled as child. He defeated and killed Kruto and married his wife Slavinia (according to Helmold of Bosau, she was happy with that since 'she had tired of her aged husband').
Heinrich faced a rebellion a few years after his return; it turned out the Obodrite – while accepting his hereditary claim over Kruto – still didn't want to pay taxes and pray to a foreign god. With the assistance of Duke Magnus Billung of Saxony (ca. 1045‒1106) who provided Heinrich with a Saxon host, he defeated the Obodrite at the battle of Schmilau in 1093. In the years to follow, Heinrich not only established his rule over the sub-tribes of the Obodrite, like the Polabians, but also extended his realm to the Oder and Havel rivers (10) He could count on the support of Duke Magnus and later Lothar of Süpplingenburg (1075‒1137) who became Duke of Saxony in 1106, and King of the Germans in 1125. He took more interest in the eastern borders than Heinrich IV and Heinrich V.
Heinrich made Alt-Lübeck (11) his main seat from which he took his name. He built a stone church, but the rebellion had taught him to be more lenient about Christianisation; he allowed missionaries, but no longer forced the Obodrite to convert. Heinrich minted coins and was called rex slavorum in the sources, equal to the kings of Germany and Denmark. But the attempt to modernise the admininstration and introduce a semi-feudal system proved superficial and would not last long after his death.
Heinrich died in June 1127. Some sources say he was assassinated, but there is no agreement about this in the seondary literature. He may well have died of natural causes. He had four sons with Slavinia, but they fought each other about the succession, and the Obodrite kingdom disintegrated.
Eventually, two successors would emerge, Niklot (1130‒1160; not related to the Nakonids) of the Obodrite proper, and Pribislav of the Wagrians and Polabians (* unknown – 1156?; perhaps from a Nakonid sideline). Both were baptized, but not necessarily Christians; they would cause a lot of trouble in the years to come.
The wall – partly stone or brick, parly earth – dates back in parts to the 6th century, and was expanded and altered several times, though some Medieval sections remain almost intact. The photo shows the so-called Valdemar's Wall (12th century). The entire defense structure was still added to and used in WW2.
We'll have to take a little detour to Denmark, like we did with the Polish Piasts before, to show the network of political, feudal and personal relationships underlying European history. The peninsula that separates the North Sea from the Baltic Sea, today belonging to Germany (county Schleswig-Holstein) and Denmark (Jutland), has been contested between Germany and Denmark for centuries (12), often involved in intricate feudal relationships.
Sven, the father of Sigrita, Heinrich of Alt-Lübeck's mother, had a whole football team of kids with different women. One was Erik, the father of Knud Lavard. Knud had been raised at the court of Lothar of Süpplingenburg and claimed the rule of the Obodrite by right of his aunt – not the closest relationship, but he would have been a good candidate from Lothar's point of view. Some souces claim he paid for it, but that is not proven. Lothar III, by then king, devolved the regnum obotritorum to Knud as fief in 1129, as well as the duchy of Schleswig.
Knud seems to have been accepted by the Obodrite and the sub-tribes. He took captive Niklot and Pribislaw, brought them to Schleswig and had them baptized, obviously planning to turn them into territorial princes as his vassals. He also furthered trade and the guilds in the town of Schleswig, and built a castle there. But all those plans came to naught when he was assassinated by his cousin Magnus the Strong in January 1131. Lothar III was shocked as well, since he seems to have agreed with Knud's plans.
Magnus the Strong (1107‒1134) was the son of Nils, another of the many sons of Sven. He claimed the kingship of Gautland/Sweden via his mother. His murdering Knud started a civil war in Denmark that also would involve Sweden. Nevertheless, Lothar had to deal with Magnus without turning the affair into a war that would drag in Germany, esp. since he wanted to travel to Italy and get crowned emperor. He did march an army to the Danevirke border, but after negotiations, he accepted Nils' and Magnus oath of fealty for Denmark. He also sent Niklot and Pribislav home with the same oath.
The Danish civil war ended with the battle of Fodevig 1134, where Magnus and his father fell. Magnus' half-brother Erik II Emune became King of Denmark, Sverker – actually elected by the thing – king of Sweden. The murdered Knud Lavard became a saint.
Little fun fact aside: Magnus the Strong was married to Richeza (Rikissa) of Poland in 1129, daughter of Bolesław III Wrymouth of the Piast dynasty. Their son, another Knud, would become king of Denmark 1146-1157. Richeza then married Volodar of Minsk, got divorced, and married Sverker (1148), the man who had defeated her first husband. History can be so much fun.
Lothar III died on his way back from Italy in December 1137. Any feudal oath would have to be renewed with his successor, and said succession was contested; eventually, the Staufen dynasty would ascend. Denmark kept having internal troubles (Erik turned out a very unpopular king), and Niklot and Pribislaw didn't give a fig about feudal oaths anyway; they used the chance to plan mischief I will deal with in a future post.
Let us finally return to the Hevelli who, in a way, started this post. They had more or less disappeared from the sources for a time; obviously there were no major internal troubles or border warfares worth chronicling. It seems that they – or at least the leading families, without facing the opposition the Obodrite rules did - had begun to establish more friendly contacts with the German kings and nobles, else it would be difficult to explain the next step.
In 1127, the Hevellian prince Pribislav Heinrich got into power. He was in close contact with the German nobility, especially Albert the Bear of House Ascania (1100‒1170), marcher lord of Brandenburg and the Northern March. During the rule of Pribislav Heinrich, the land of the Hevelli was integrated into the German feudal system, and Pribislav Heinrich elevated to king by Lothar (1134). Since he remained childless, he named Albert the Bear as successor, therewith delivering land and people firmly into the German feudal system.
After the death of Pribislav Heinrich in 1150, Albert the Bear inherited the land that became the kernel of the Mark Brandenburg; Albert was named the first margrave of Brandenburg in 1157. He was married to Sophie of Winzenburg. This peaceful solution opened the way to reestablishing of the diocese of Havelberg and the construction of a new cathedral. And a post that will indeed be about the history of Havelberg – hopefully not opening another research hole.
Footnotes
1) Dresden and the predecessor of Lübeck started out as Slavic settlements, for example. The present day counties of Saxony, Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, and parts of Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein were Slavic territory.
2) The German kings were no absolute rulers, but dependent on the cooperation and assistance of the important noble families who, of course, expected rewards for their allegiance.
3) The main souce is an Arabic transcription of the name in al-Masʿūdī’s historiography and travelogue "Meadows of Gold and Mines of Gems" (AD 947) as Basqlābiǧ, who is thought to possibly have been the father of Tugumir, since he is named together with Heinrich I.
4) Those commanders were not yet margraves. The so-called ʹBillung Markʹ in the north and ʹSaxon or Gero’s Markʹ at the Havel confluence are 19th century constructions. Billung and Gero (and his successor Dietrich of Haldensleben) had a special function as border protectors and military leaders, but they held no provinces.
5) The place name Raxa is only mentioned in Widukind's Saxon Chronicle; it has been tentatively identified as river Recknitz.
6) This is the most probable reading of the passage in Widukind.
7) The late bishop Adalbert of Prague who had had been killed during a mission to the pagan Prussians.
8) The sources state that it meant elevating Bolesław from tributarius to dominus.
9) They are sometimes identified with the Ukrani who sided with margrave Gero at the battle of Raxa, but I think it more likely that those were two different tribes: the Ukrani in the Uckermark, and the Rani on Rugia who had nothing to do with the battle.
10) Though it is not clear if he got involved with the Hevelli settling at the Havel. 11) Alt-Lübeck (Liubice) was situated at the Trave river, some 5 miles downward from the old town of present day Lübeck. Achaeological excavations have discovered foundations of fortifications and a church, and a number of small finds like fibulae and rings, dating to the 9th‒11th centuries.
12) The border drawn post WW2 includes a Danish minority in Schleswig-Holstein Germany that is represented in the county parliament, got its own schools, TV channels, etc. Many of the border inhabitants are bilingual on both sides.
Literature:
Helmold von Bosau, Slawenchronik. Neu übertragen und erläutert von Heinz Stoob. Freiherr-von-Stein Gedächtnisausgabe, WBG Darmstadt 1990
Thietmar von Merseburg, Chronik. Neu übertragen und erläutert von Werner Trillmich. Freiherr-von Stein Gedächtnisausgabe, WBG Darmstadt 2011
Quellen zur Geschichte der sächsischen Kaiserzeit: Widukinds Sachsengeschichte / Alberts Fortsetzung der Chronik Reginos / Liudprands Werke. Neu übersetzt und bearbeitet von Albert Bauer und Reinhold Rau. Freiherr-von-Stein Gedächtnisausgabe, WBG Darmstadt 1971
Saxo Grammaticus. Vollständige, neu übersetzte und kommentierte Ausgabe von Hans-Jürgen Hube. Wiesbaden 2004
Wolfgang Giese, Heinrich I. WBG Darmstadt 2008
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Gerd Althoff, Otto III. WBG Darmstadt 1996
Matthias Becher, Otto der Große – Kaiser und Reich, München 2012
Michael Bregnsbo/Kurt Villads Jensen, The Rise and Fall of the Danish Empire. Macmillan 2022
Eric Christiansen, The Northern Crusades. Penguin Books 1997
Peter Donat, Mecklenburg und Oldenburg im 8. bis 10. Jahrhundert. In: Mecklenburgische Jahrbücher 111/1996, p. 5-20
Hermann Kamp/Martin Kroker (ed.), Schwertmission – Gewalt und Christianisierung im Mittelalter. Paderborn 2013
Eduard Mühle, Die Piasten – Polen im Mittelalter. München 2011
Eduard Mühe, Die Slawen im Mittelalter – Zwischen Idee und Wirklichkeit. Köln 2020
Burnam W. Reynolds, The Prehistory of the Crusades – Missionary War and the Baltic Crusades. Bloomsbury 2016
Nils Rühberg, Obodritische Samtherrscher und sächsische Reichsgewalt von der Mitte des 10. Jahrhunderts bis zur Erhebung des Fürstentums Mecklenburg 1167. In: Mecklenburgische Jahrbücher 110/1995, p. 21-50
Bernd Schneidmüller/Stefan Weinfurter (ed.), Die deutschen Herrscher des Mittelalters – Historische Porträts von Heinrich I bis Maximilian I. München 2003
