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Latest revision as of 06:45, 29 March 2024

File:Germania Magna (Greater Germany) from Ptolemaeusโ€™ Geographia, 2nd Century AD.jpg
Ptolemy's map of Germania. The river Vistula is given as the eastern frontier.
File:Germany before the drive west by Slav tribes.jpg
Germania before the migrations of the Slavs.

The Wends were Polabian Slavs, some of the earlier migrating tribes of pagan western Slavs. The Wends were made up of the tribes of Abrotrites, Rani, Lusatians, Wagarians, and Pomeranians who lived east of the River Elbe in northeast Germany and present-day Poland.

History

The Slav migrations west had brought them gradually across the Vistula, which the Romans regarded as the eastern frontier of the Germans.[1] The Teutons named the Slavs Vinithos or Venethas, rendered approximately by the Roman historian Tacitus as Venedi[2]; late Latin Venethae or Venedae, German Wenden. Shakhmatov has proved that the Slavs inherited this name from their former rulers, the Celtic Veneti, who populated the district of the river Vistula about the third and second centuries before Christ (B.C.).[3]

By the 9th and 10th centuries various Slav tribes had arrived and the rulers of Saxony saw as their most pressing enemies the Slavs (Wends) beyond the river Elbe as well as the Danes & Magyars who were also raiders. King of Germany Henry I was at war with numerous Slav tribes (whom the famous Saxon chronicler Widukind of Corvey called barbarians), such as the Daleminzi tribe between the Mulde and the Elbe around Meissen (defeated in 928), the Redarii in northern Brandenburg (defeated in the battle of Lenzen in 929), and the Hevelli tribe in Brandenburg (defeated before 933). Otto I followed his father Henry in these wars, and the 'united' Slavs (such as the Abodrites and Wahrii) between the Lower Elbe and the Oder were crushed in a pitched battle on October 16, 955 in the battle of the river Recknitz when the chief of their Abotrites tribe was killed and beheaded.

During the reign of the German King (from 936) and Holy Roman Emperor, Otto I (962-973), and the early Margraves, in order to consolidate German rule in the east, he founded and endowed a chain of new bishoprics beyond the river Elbe in order to subdue the Slav tribes such as the Wends, who were spread between the Elbe and the Oder,a[4] under the weight of ecclesiastical administrative organisation. Otto attempted to compel the vanquished Wends to convert, to worship the 'German God' and to pay tithes. It is clear that in 965 over seven of the Elbe region Slav tribes were paying tribute to Otto I in silver, and other things such as honey. Otto III (d.1002) is shown in a late 10th century Gospel Book receiving homage and gifts from the Roma (Italian), Gallia (Gaul), Germania, and Sclavinia (Slavs) peoples.[5]

However, in 983 there was a huge Slavic rebellion causing widespread material damage and death. "German settlements perished and disappeared; cultivated land returned to nature; churches and monasteries were left in ruins." This temporarily halted Ottoโ€™s plans for the Germanization of the Eastern Marches.[6] This situation was later reversed. The Poles had, during this period, been becoming stronger, and under their second Duke, Boleslaw 1st (992-1025) he united the five main Polish tribes and speedily decided to compete with Germany for the rule of the Western Slavs. Three wars with the Emperor Henry II left Boleslaw in possession (1018) of Lusatia and more. His son Mieszko II was shorn of these conquests by Conrad II 'the Restorer' (1038-1058). The next Polish ruler, the violent Boleslaw II (1058-1079) squandered his energies in all-round aggression but he failed to annex the Wends to his west.[7]

Wendish Crusade

Finally, in 1147, the Wendish Crusade (German: Wendenkreuzzug) took place, a military campaign, one of the Northern Crusades[8] and a part of the Second Crusade, led primarily by the Kingdom of Germany within the Holy Roman Empire resulting in the complete defeat of the Wends, their conversion to Christianity and their general assimilation.

Further reading

  • The Eastern Frontiers of Germany by Renรฉ Martel, London 1930

References

  1. โ†‘ Bury, Professor J.B., The Cambridge Medieval History, edited by H. M. Gwatkin, M.A., and J. P. Whitney, B.D., vol.ii, Cambridge University Press UK, 1913, chapter xiv "The Expansion of the Slavs", p.425-6.
  2. โ†‘ Portal, Professor Roger, The Slavs, Paris 1965, London, 1969, p.21.
  3. โ†‘ Bury, et al, 1913, p.425-6 and notes.
  4. โ†‘ The Shorter Cambridge Medieval; History by C. W. Previte-Orton, vol.ii, Cambridge University Press, 1952, p.743.
  5. โ†‘ Gospel Book of Reichenau, 10th century, in Bavarian State Library, Munich (Clm 4453)
  6. โ†‘ The Origins of Modern Germany by Professor Geoffrey Barraclough, Blackwells, Oxford, 1949, pp.37-43.
  7. โ†‘ The Shorter Cambridge Medieval; History by C. W. Previte-Orton, vol.ii, Cambridge University Press, 1952, p.743-4.
  8. โ†‘ The Northern Crusades by Professor Eric Christiansen - The Baltic and the Catholic Frontier, London, 1980.
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