The Bardengau was a medieval

county A county () is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesL. Brookes (ed.) '' Chambers Dictionary''. Edinburgh: Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, 2005. in some nations. The term is derived from the Old French denoti ...

('' Gau'') in the

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 84 ...

. Its main town was Bardowick; other important towns were

Lüneburg Lüneburg, officially the Hanseatic City of Lüneburg and also known in English as Lunenburg, is a town in the German Bundesland (Germany), state of Lower Saxony. It is located about southeast of another Hanseatic League, Hanseatic city, Hambur ...

and Oldenstadt (today

Uelzen Uelzen (; ), officially the Hanseatic City of Uelzen (), is a town in northeast Lower Saxony, Germany, and capital of the district of Uelzen. It is part of the Hamburg Metropolitan Region, a Hanseatic town and an independent municipality. Uelz ...

). Since the 10th century, members of the

House of Billung The House of Billung was a dynasty of Saxon noblemen in the 9th through 12th centuries. The first known member of the house was Count Wichmann, mentioned as a Billung in 811. Oda, the wife of Count Liudolf, oldest known member of the Liudolf ...

have been recorded as counts of the Bardengau. Through their heirs, the

House of Welf The House of Welf (also Guelf or Guelph) is a European dynasty that has included many German and British monarchs from the 11th to 20th century and Emperor Ivan VI of Russia in the 18th century. The originally Franconian family from the Meuse-Mo ...

, the Bardengau eventually became part of the

Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg The Duchy of Brunswick and Lüneburg (), commonly known as the Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg or Brunswick-Lüneburg, was an imperial principality of the Holy Roman Empire in the territory of present day Lower Saxony. In 1235, Otto I, Duke of ...

. The Bardengau was bordered by the Limes Saxonicus, the

Polabians Polabian Slavs, also known as Elbe Slavs and more broadly as Wends, is a collective term applied to a number of Lechitic ( West Slavic) tribes who lived scattered along the Elbe river in what is today eastern Germany. The approximate territo ...

, the Drewani, the Gau Osterwalde, the Derlingau, the Gau Gretinge, the Lohingau, the Gau Sturmi, the Gau Mosde, and the Gau Stormarn. It was part of

Eastphalia Eastphalia ( �stˈfaːlən Eastphalian: ''Oostfalen'') is a historical region in northern Germany, encompassing the eastern '' Gaue'' (shires) of the historic stem duchy of Saxony, roughly confined by the River Leine in the west and the Elbe a ...

. The name of the Heaðobards (

Old English Old English ( or , or ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...

: ''Heaðubeardan'',

Old Low German Old Saxon (), also known as Old Low German (), was a Germanic language and the earliest recorded form of Low German (spoken nowadays in Northern Germany, the northeastern Netherlands, southern Denmark, the Americas and parts of Eastern Europ ...

: ''Headubarden'', "war-beards") may be reflected in the toponym Bardengau.The article ''Hadubarder'' in ''Nordisk familjebok'' (1909).
/ref>

References

{{coord missing, Lower Saxony Carolingian counties Former states and territories of Lower Saxony