HOME





Ratibor (Obotrite Prince)
Ratibor (or Ratse) (died 1043) was a prince of the Obotrite confederacy from the Polabian tribe. His capital was Ratzeburg, which was named in his honor. After Saxons killed Prince Udo of the Obotrites in 1028, his son Gottschalk was taken to be raised at the court of Canute the Great of Denmark. Ratibor led the Obotrite confederacy during Gottschalk's absence. Sven Estridson, Jarl of Denmark, desired independence from King Magnus I of Norway in 1042. Because Magnus was supported by his brother-in-law, Duke Bernard II of Saxony, Sven achieved an alliance with the Obotrites through the mediation of Gottschalk. However, Ratibor was killed in a siege by Magnus in 1043. In an attempt to avenge their father, his sons were killed in the same year in a battle at Lürschau Lürschau () is a municipality in the district of Schleswig-Flensburg, in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. In 1043 a heath at Lürschau was the site of a battle between a Danish-Norwegian army under king Magnus the ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Prince
A prince is a male ruler (ranked below a king, grand prince, and grand duke) or a male member of a monarch's or former monarch's family. ''Prince'' is also a title of nobility (often highest), often hereditary, in some European states. The female equivalent is a princess. The English word derives, via the French word ''prince'', from the Latin noun , from (first) and (head), meaning "the first, foremost, the chief, most distinguished, noble ruler, prince". In a related sense, now not commonly used, all more or less sovereign rulers over a state, including kings, were "princes" in the language of international politics. They normally had another title, for example king or duke. Many of these were Princes of the Holy Roman Empire. Historical background The Latin word (older Latin *prīsmo-kaps, ), became the usual title of the informal leader of the Roman senate some centuries before the transition to empire, the '' princeps senatus''. Emperor Augustus establishe ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Obotrites
The Obotrites (, ''Abodritorum'', ''Abodritos'') or Obodrites, also spelled Abodrites (), were a confederation of medieval West Slavic tribes within the territory of modern Mecklenburg and Holstein in northern Germany (see Polabian Slavs). For decades, they were allies of Charlemagne in his wars against the Germanic Saxons and the Slavic Veleti. The Obotrites under Prince Thrasco defeated the Saxons in the Battle of Bornhöved (798). The still-Pagan Saxons were dispersed by the emperor, and the part of their former land in Holstein north of Elbe was awarded to the Obotrites in 804, as a reward for their victory. This however was soon reverted through an invasion of the Danes. The Obotrite regnal style was abolished in 1167, when Pribislav was restored to power by Duke Henry the Lion, as Prince of Mecklenburg, thereby founding the Germanized House of Mecklenburg. Obotritic confederation The Bavarian Geographer, an anonymous medieval document compiled in Regensburg in 830, c ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Polabians (tribe)
The Polabians (; ) were a constituent Lechitic tribe of the Obotrites who lived between the Trave and the Elbe. The main settlement of the Polabians was Racisburg (modern Ratzeburg), named after their Prince Ratibor. The Polabians were similar to the Drevani, also known as the Draväno-polaben or Drevanen, in Lüchow-Dannenberg. In 1139, Henry the Lion granted "Polabia" to Count Henry of Badewide. The tribe was subsequently Germanized and assimilated over the following centuries. The last remnants of the Polabians, including the Polabian language, died out in the 18th century. Cultural remnants of the Polabians of Lower Saxony include numerous villages in the region based on Slavic settlement forms. See also * List of early Slavic peoples *Lechites Lechites (, ), also known as the Lechitic tribes (, ), is a name given to certain West Slavs, West Slavic tribes who inhabited modern-day Poland and eastern Germany, and were speakers of the Lechitic languages. Distinct fro ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Ratzeburg
Ratzeburg (; Low German: ''Ratzborg'') is a town in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. It is surrounded by Ratzeburger See, four lakes—the resulting isthmuses between the lakes form the access lanes to the town. Ratzeburg is the capital of the district Herzogtum Lauenburg. History The town was founded in the 11th century as Racisburg. The name is traditionally derived from the local Wends, Wendish ruler, Prince Ratibor (Polabian prince), Ratibor of the Polabians (tribe), Polabians, who was nicknamed Ratse. In the year 1044 Christian missionaries under the leadership of the monk Ansverus came into the region and built a monastery. It was destroyed in a Slavic rebellion of 1066, pagan rebellion in 1066; the monks were stoned to death. Today monuments to the missionaries in two of the town's churches commemorate these events. Ansverus was canonised in the 12th century and his relics were entombed in the Ratzeburg cathedral. Henry the Lion became the ruler of the town in 1143 and estab ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Duchy Of Saxony
The Duchy of Saxony () was originally the area settled by the Saxons in the late Early Middle Ages, when they were subdued by Charlemagne during the Saxon Wars from 772 CE and incorporated into the Carolingian Empire (Francia) by 804. Upon the 843 Treaty of Verdun, Saxony was one of the five German stem duchies of East Francia; Duke Henry the Fowler was elected List of German monarchs, German king in 919. Upon the deposition of the House of Welf, Welf duke Henry the Lion in 1180, the ducal title fell to the House of Ascania, while numerous territories split from Saxony, such as the Principality of Anhalt in 1218 and the Welf Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg in 1235. In 1296, the remaining lands were divided between the Ascanian dukes of Saxe-Lauenburg and Duchy of Saxe-Wittenberg, Saxe-Wittenberg, the latter obtaining the title of Electorate of Saxony, Electors of Saxony by the Golden Bull of 1356. Geography The Saxon stem duchy covered the greater part of present-day Northern Germ ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Udo (Obotrite Prince)
Udo (or Uto) (died 1028), born Pribignev (also ''Pribignew'' or ''Pribygnev''), was an Obodrite leader in the early eleventh century. His name Udo, of Germanic origin, was probably given him at his Christian baptism, perhaps after his possible godfather, Lothair Udo I of Stade. Udo's father, Mistislaw, escaped in 1018 from a pagan Slavic uprising to Luneburg. Since two contemporary Obodrite princes are recorded, Anadrag (Anatrog) and Gneus (Gnew), Udo's power could not have been that extensive. According to Adam of Bremen and Helmold following him, Udo was a ''male Christianus'' ("bad Christian"). He was assassinated in 1028 by a Saxon The Saxons, sometimes called the Old Saxons or Continental Saxons, were a Germanic people of early medieval "Old" Saxony () which became a Carolingian " stem duchy" in 804, in what is now northern Germany. Many of their neighbours were, like th ..., allegedly for cruelty. By his wife, a Dane, Udo left a son, Gottschalk, who later united t ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Gottschalk (Obotrite Prince)
Gottschalk, sometimes rendered as Godescalc (; died 7 June 1066), was a prince of the Obotrites, Obotrite confederacy from 1043 to 1066. He established a Polabian Slavs, Polabian Slavic kingdom on the Elbe (in the area of present-day northeastern Germany) in the mid-11th century. His object in life seems to have been to collect the scattered tribes of the Slavs into one kingdom, and to make that kingdom Christian. "A pious and god-fearing man", Gottschalk effected the Christianisation of the Slavic tribes of the Elbe. He organised missions of German priests and founded monasteries at Oldenburg in Holstein, Oldenburg, Mecklenburg, diocese of Ratzeburg, Ratzeburg, Lübeck, and Lenzen, erecting the first three into dioceses. He himself often accompanied the missionaries on their work and augmented their message with his own explanations and instructions. In all this, he was supported by the efforts of Adalbert, Archbishop of Hamburg. However, the Obotrite nobility and peasantry la ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Canute The Great
Cnut ( ; ; – 12 November 1035), also known as Canute and with the epithet the Great, was King of England from 1016, King of Denmark from 1018, and King of Norway from 1028 until his death in 1035. The three kingdoms united under Cnut's rule are referred to together as the North Sea Empire by historians. As a Danish prince, Cnut won the throne of England in 1016 in the wake of Viking Age#Northwestern Europe, centuries of Viking activity in northwestern Europe. His later accession to the Danish throne in 1018 brought the crowns of England and Denmark together. Cnut sought to keep this power base by uniting Danes and English under cultural bonds of wealth and custom. After a decade of conflict with opponents in Scandinavia, Cnut claimed the crown of Norway in Trondheim in 1028. In 1031, Malcolm II of Scotland also submitted to him, though North Sea Empire, Anglo-Norse influence over Scotland was weak and ultimately did not last by the time of Cnut's death.ASC, Ms. D, s.a. 1031 ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Denmark
Denmark is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe. It is the metropole and most populous constituent of the Kingdom of Denmark,, . also known as the Danish Realm, a constitutionally unitary state that includes the Autonomous administrative division, autonomous territories of the Faroe Islands and Greenland in the north Atlantic Ocean.* * * Metropolitan Denmark, also called "continental Denmark" or "Denmark proper", consists of the northern Jutland peninsula and an archipelago of 406 islands. It is the southernmost of the Scandinavian countries, lying southwest of Sweden, south of Norway, and north of Germany, with which it shares a short border. Denmark proper is situated between the North Sea to the west and the Baltic Sea to the east.The island of Bornholm is offset to the east of the rest of the country, in the Baltic Sea. The Kingdom of Denmark, including the Faroe Islands and Greenland, has roughly List of islands of Denmark, 1,400 islands greater than in ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Sven Estridson
Sweyn II ( – 28 April 1076), also known as Sweyn Estridsson (, ) and Sweyn Ulfsson, was King of Denmark from 1047 until his death in 1076. He was the son of Ulf Thorgilsson and Estrid Svendsdatter, and the grandson of Sweyn Forkbeard through his mother's line. He was married at least two times, and fathered 20 children or more out of wedlock, including the five future kings Harald Hen, Saint Canute, Oluf Hunger, Eric Evergood, and Niels. He was courageous in battle, but did not have much success as a military commander. His skeleton reveals that he was a tall, powerfully built man who walked with a limp. Biography Accession to the throne Sweyn was born in England,Bricka, Carl Frederik, ''Dansk Biografisk Lexikon'', vol. XVII vend Tveskjæg – Tøxen 1903pp.3–5 as the son of Ulf Thorgilsson and Estrid Svendsdatter, the latter of whom was the daughter of King Sweyn I Forkbeard and sister of Kings Harald II and Canute the Great. Sweyn grew up a military leader, and served un ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  




Jarl (title)
Jarl was a rank of the nobility in Scandinavia during the Viking Age and Early Middle Ages. The institution evolved over time and varied by region. In Old Norse, it meant "chieftain", specifically one appointed to rule a territory in a king's stead. It could also denote a sovereign prince. For example, during the Viking age, the rulers of several of the petty kingdoms of Norway held the title of ''jarl'', often wielding no less power than their neighboring kings. In later medieval Sweden and Norway, there was typically only one jarl in the kingdom, second in authority only to the king. The title became obsolete in the Middle Ages and was replaced by the rank of duke (''hertig''/''hertug''/''hertog''). The word is etymologically related to the English ''earl''. Etymology The term ''jarl'' (, Old Swedish: ''iarl'', ''iærl'', Old Danish: ''jærl'') has been connected to various similar words across Germanic languages, such as Proto-Norse ''eril,'' Old English ''eorl'' (meaning warr ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Magnus I Of Norway
Magnus Olafsson (; Norwegian and Danish: ''Magnus Olavsson''; – 25 October 1047), better known as Magnus the Good (; Norwegian and Danish: ''Magnus den gode''), was King of Norway from 1035 and King of Denmark from 1042 until his death in 1047. Magnus was an illegitimate son of Saint Olaf, and fled with his mother Alfhild when his father was dethroned in 1028. He returned to Norway in 1035 and was crowned king at the age of 11. In 1042, he was also crowned king of Denmark. Magnus ruled the two countries until 1047, when he died under unclear circumstances. After his death, his kingdom was split between Harald Hardrada in Norway and Sweyn Estridsson in Denmark. Early life Magnus was an illegitimate son of King Olaf Haraldsson (later Saint Olaf) by his English concubine Alfhild,Carl Frederik Bricka, ''Dansk Biografisk Lexikon'', vol. XI aar – Müllner 1897p.44 originally a slave (thrall) of Olaf's queen Astrid Olofsdotter. Born prematurely, the child was weak and unable ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]