Pribislaw (Mecklenburg)

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Pribislaw's memorial plaque in the Doberan Minster

Pribislaw († December 30, 1178 in Lüneburg ) from the Abodritic family of the Niklotids was prince of the Abodrites from 1160 to 1166 and from 1167 to 1178 as feudal man of the Saxon Duke Heinrich the Lion, lord of Mecklenburg and Kessin .

Origin and family

Pribislaw was the eldest son of Prince Niklot , who had ruled over the Mecklenburg-based sub-tribes of the Abodrites, Kessiner and Zirzipans after the collapse of the Abodrites . Pribislav had two brothers, Wertislav and Prislav . From his first marriage he had a son Buruwe, better known by his Germanized name Heinrich Borwin I. His second wife Woizlawa died in childbed in 1172.

Pribislaw should not be confused with the recently ruling Brandenburg Hevelli-Prince Pribislaw or the son of the same name of nakonidischen Abodrites -Fürsten Budivoj .

Prince's son

Nothing is known about Pribislav's early years at the side of his father Niklot. He ruled since the Slavic Crusade in 1147 as a largely autonomous, but tributary vassal Heinrich the Lion over Abodrites, Kessiner and Zirzipans. Pribislaw is not mentioned for the first time until the end of Niklot's reign. During Niklot's captivity in Lüneburg from autumn 1158, Pribislaw and Wertislaw negotiated unsuccessfully with Heinrich the Lion for Niklot's release. Only after the Niklot sons had gained the necessary respect with the destruction of the border towns of Gadebusch and Wittenburg, which belong to the neighboring county of Ratzeburg , did the Welf return to the negotiating table. At the beginning of Henry the Lion's punitive expedition against his peace-breaking vassal Niklot in the late summer of 1160, the brothers then carried out a surprise attack on Lübeck , but were discovered and failed with the capture of the city. The equally unsuccessful attacks by the brothers against the Saxon army advancing towards Werle Castle in the further course of the fighting finally caused Niklot himself to attack a troop of Saxon knights disguised as baggage servants, where he was killed.

After Niklot had fallen, Pribislaw and his brother Wertislaw initially continued to fight against the troops of the Duke of Saxony. They burned Werle Castle down and retreated further east across the Warnow . Their families took them on ships in order to be able to bring them to safety across the Baltic Sea if necessary. Heinrich's troops pursued the Niklot sons across the Warnow, without, however, another military clash between Saxons and Abodrites. In the meantime, Henry the Lion's ally, the Danish King Waldemar I , tried to persuade Heinrich to appoint the third son of Niclots Prislav as Niklot's successor. Heinrich rejected Waldemar I's request. Prislav was Waldemar's liege and was related by marriage to him. Because of his Christian faith, he had no support from the pagan Abodritic population. In addition, it was impossible to foresee whether he would be able to hold his own against his brothers who were still fighting. In the context of the Saxon retreat across the Warnow, Pribislaw, in particular, made serious accusations against his renegade brother that he was with Bernhard I von Ratzeburg , from whose hand Niklot was alleged to have fallen.

Instead, Heinrich the Lion undertook a fundamental reorganization of the constitutional conditions in the Abodritenland. Niklot had ruled over the Abodrites as a tributary, but also largely autonomous and indigenous vassal of the Saxon Duke, but the Guelph now placed the land under his own administration. For this purpose, Heinrich the Lion ordered his troops to rebuild the Slavic Schwerin Castle and set up Saxon military bases there, as on the Mecklenburg , Ilow , Quetzin and Malchow , which were commanded by ducal officials. At about the same time as this constitutional reorganization, Pribislaw and Wertislaw stopped fighting. It is not known whether a formal peace agreement was reached or whether the two brothers limited themselves to a cessation of the fighting. In his Slav chronicle, Helmold von Bosau only reports that the sons of Niclots have regained the duke's grace. Then he gave them Werle Castle and " omnem terram ", that is, the entire surrounding country. According to the more recent opinion, this area was only Kessin . The brothers did not gain rule over Zirzipanien until 1161 or 1162. According to an older view, however, Heinrich the Lion is said to have given Pribislaw and Wertislaw Kessin and Zirzipanien as early as 1160, namely as a fief. However, this cannot be proven by sources.

Fight for inheritance

With the establishment of a direct administration of the Abodritenland by Saxon officials, Heinrich the Lion passed over Pribislaw's claim to rule, legitimized under inheritance law. For almost five centuries, the succession of the Abodrites had been subject to inheritance regulations and thus assumed not only constitutional status for the Abodrites, but also an identity-forming role. Saxo Grammaticus reports that the immediate members of the ruling house were considered "untouchable" by the Abodrites. No Slav would have dared to attack them or cause them harm. The violation of Pribislaw's claim was therefore perceived as correspondingly wrong and unjust. It was the cause of a seven-year war Pribislaw against Henry the Lion, at the end of which Henry the Lion Pribislaw transferred a large part of the Abodritean land as a tribute-free fiefdom, giving him a position that no Slavic prince had held before him.

Werle Castle

As early as December 1162, Henry the Lion learned of Pribislaw's plans to regain the Abodrite land as part of his father's inheritance. How seriously the Duke took this threat is illustrated by the fact that, despite the adverse conditions, he immediately embarked on a winter campaign. According to the usual Slavic warfare, part of the Abodritic army under Pribislaw's leadership kept hidden in the swamps and forests on horseback, while the other warriors under the command of Wartislaw holed up in Werle Castle. The hidden cavalry was to attack the besiegers, wear them down and cause them to withdraw. But Heinrich the Lion shot the castle surprisingly quickly ready for storms without prejudice to heavy losses by the Abodritic cavalry due to the use of modern siege techniques. After negotiations, the residents of the castle were given safe conduct against a non-fighting handover of the castle and formal submission ( Dedition ). To do this, the Abodritic warriors had to throw themselves at Heinrich the lion's feet with the sword held over his head. The Abodritic nobles were also forced to buy themselves out for ransom. However, the condition was that Pribislaw would not take up arms again. Heinrich the Lion took Pribislaw's brother, Wertislaw, hostage, imprisoned him in Braunschweig and announced that he would be executed if Pribislaw should violate the peace conditions. Heinrich Niklot's brother Lubemar appointed the new tributary vassal over Kessin and Zirzipanien.

Pribislaw and his entourage were not bound by the peace conditions dictated by the Saxon Duke. They had n't made the dedication . Pribislaw endeavored to turn this situation to his advantage and to offer Henry the Lion a peace on his own terms. For this purpose he sent messengers to Braunschweig who offered the Guelph peace in exchange for the release of the hostage. Heinrich was aware of the fact that the negotiated victorious peace of Werle could not bind Pribislaw and tried to hold Pribislaw off. Thereupon the imprisoned Wertislav asked his brother to finally keep fighting.

Battle of Verchen

At the beginning of 1164 Pribislaw took up the fight for his paternal inheritance again with the support of the Pomeranian princes Casimir and Bogislaw I. Surprisingly, he appeared in front of the Mecklenburg on February 17, 1164 and called on the Flemish castle garrison to surrender, citing his inheritance law. In return, he promised them safe conduct to Saxony. After the Flemings refused, Pribislaw stormed the castle, killing the crew and all the Flemish colonists who had settled in the Mecklenburg area by Henry the Lion. The women and children were taken into slavery. Ilow Castle only escaped storming thanks to the courageous intervention of Count Gunzelin von Hagen, who happened to be present . This threatened to burn the abodrites present in the castle. Pribislaw then moved in front of the castles in Quetzin and Malchow and there, too, demanded the surrender of his inheritance. The castle garrisons surrendered and withdrew in safety. Henry the Lion saw his rule in the Abodriten land in grave danger. All he had left was the two military exclaves in Ilow and Schwerin. The whole country was in turmoil. While trying to bury the fallen on the Mecklenburg, Bishop Berno was almost slain. Heinrich had the castle garrisons in Ilow and Schwerin reinforced immediately and raised an army in the following months. After he had agreed with the Danish king Waldemar I on a joint action against the Pomeran princes who supported Pribislaw, he advanced on Malchow in June 1164 . There he publicly executed Pribislaw's brother Wertislaw. In the battle of Verchen, the Saxon vanguard fought on July 6, 1164 with heavy losses against the numerically superior Slavic army a decisive victory. Pribislaw himself was pushed into the eastern part of Mecklenburg and finally had to switch to Pomeranian territory again .

Ilow Castle

From his exile in Pomerania, Pribislaw led a bitter guerrilla war against the Saxon military bases in the Abodriten region as early as the winter of 1164/65. However, a more significant military undertaking did not take place again until 1166. With massive support from Pomeranian nobles, the Abodrites stormed Ilow Castle and then burned it down. There was no longer a Saxon military base in the northeast. The castles Mecklenburg and Ilow were destroyed. Gunzelin von Hagen and Bernhard I von Ratzeburg were able to repel Pribislaw's further advances on Schwerin and Ratzeburg . In view of the constant attacks by Pribislaw and his followers, however, there was no longer any question of Henry the Lion's power relations in the Abodrite land. Once again, the Duke of Saxony felt compelled, in association with the Danish King Waldemar I, to march against Demmin and the Abodrites Pribislaws who stayed there in the summer of 1166, but without being able to get hold of the rebel. Nevertheless, Pribislaw seems to have run out of strength. Helmold von Bosau reports that Pribislaw has meanwhile lost his best men and horses in the grueling battles. In addition, the host Pomeran princes Pribislaw warned that he should put an end to the " madness " (Helmold), since they had to worry about becoming the next target of the superior military power of the Guelph themselves.

restitution

At the beginning of 1167 - probably at the end of January or not until February - the Duke of Saxony reconciled with Pribislaw and gave him the Abodritenland and Kessin as a tribute-free hereditary fiefdom. Schwerin and its surrounding area, i.e. the areas immediately around Lake Schwerin, were excluded from the return. Gunzelin von Hagen received this area as a hereditary feudal county to compensate for his renunciation of the prefecture in the Abodritenland.

This reinstatement of Pribislaw was not forced upon the Duke of Saxony. From a military point of view, the Abodrite prince did not pose a serious threat to Henry's rule in the Slavic region in 1166, despite his stubborn resistance. Nevertheless, an early and permanent pacification of the Abodrite land was only possible with the involvement of the Niclotides. For Pribislaw's weakening might be temporary, and with his son Borwin and the son of Wertislaw, Nikolaus, who was so shamefully executed by Heinrich, successors grew up who threatened to continue the struggle for the inheritance of the Niclotides as irreconcilable enemies of Heinrich.

When the Saxon War broke out at the end of 1166, the Saxon Duke consulted with his loyal followers and decided, with the involvement of Pribislaw, to reorganize the rulership in the Abodritenland in favor of Pribislaw. With this decision Heinrich not only released the forces bound in the Abodritenland for the battle in the Saxon War, but he also gained an additional and above all consistently loyal supporter in Pribislaw and the Abodrites.

Lord of Mecklenburg

After his reinstatement in 1167, contemporary documents for Pribislaw include other titles as well as the name Pribizlavus de Mikelenburg , so that from this point on he can also be referred to as Lord of Mecklenburg in the sense of a sovereign in Mecklenburg. However, he was not appointed or recognized as an imperial prince. When Pribislaw came to power, a century after Gottschalk's death , a Christian prince ruled the Abodriten country for the first time. The date of Pribislaw's baptism is controversial. The Doberan genealogy, written in the 14th century, states April 29, 1164. The objection has been made that, according to Helmold, Pribislaw had already called on the assistance of the Christian God on the occasion of the storming of the Mecklenburg on February 17, 1164, so that he must inevitably have been baptized beforehand, maybe 1162 or 1163, but maybe also on the occasion of the Recovery of ducal grace in 1160.

Pribislaw adopted the lifestyle of the higher German nobility in everything. However , under Pribislaw there was no change in the ethnic structure in the Abodritenland due to the settlement of German colonists . Even in the area around Schwerin, German settlement seems to have remained the exception until the end of the 12th century. Instead, Pribislaw operated the urgent reconstruction of the country through the planned settlement of Slavs, cleared land and created villages.

Pribislaw built both Mecklenburg and the castles Ilow and Werle again and founded at the suggestion of Bishop Bernos 1171 to Althof a Cistercian monastery , which later after Doberan moved Monastery Doberan . In the same year he endowed the diocese of Schwerin . In 1172 he accompanied his liege lord Heinrich the Lion on his crusade to Jerusalem . He married his son Heinrich Borwin I to a daughter of Heinrich, Mathilde. Pribislaw's settlement with Duke Heinrich in 1167 ensured the continued existence of his dynasty and laid the foundation for the development of the Principality of Mecklenburg , which was ruled by the descendants of Niklot until 1918.

Pribislaw died on December 30, 1178 as a result of a wound sustained at a tournament at the court of Heinrich zu Lüneburg . His body was first buried in the St. Michaelis monastery on the Kalkberg in Lüneburg, the traditional burial place of the Billunger . After the Doberan Minster was completed , Pribislaw's son Heinrich Borwin had his father's bones transferred from the Lüneburg Michaelskloster to Doberan and solemnly buried there again. In return for the surrender of the mortal remains of Pribislaw, Heinrich Borwin transferred the village of Cesemowe , later Michaelisberg, to the Michaeliskloster in 1219 .

Aftermath

The life of Pribislaw is mainly described by the Bosau pastor Helmold , whose Chronica Slavorum reproduces the events in the Abodritenland from a Saxon point of view. In the work, created between 1167/68 and 1172, Pribislaw is described as the originator of the Abodritic uprisings ( rebellionis auctor ), who did not cease to undertake attacks on the Saxon institutions in the Abodritic country . In addition, Pribislaw is mentioned in Saxon documents, annals and the necrology of the Church of St. Michael in Lüneburg . The Danish historiographer Saxo Grammaticus also reports in his Gesta Danorum about Pribislaw's struggle for his inheritance. However, there are no contemporary Slavic written sources.

After King Karl IV had elevated the Mecklenburg sovereigns Albrecht II and his brother Johann I to dukes and thus to the imperial prince status on July 8, 1348, the Doberan genealogy established Pribislaw as the Christian top ancestor of the Mecklenburg ruling house from around 1370 . In a commissioned work by Albrecht II, the Mecklenburg rhyme chronicle from around 1379, Pribislaw was then elevated to the rank of king in order to upgrade the Mecklenburg duchy compared to the neighboring principalities. Ernst von Kirchberg puts Pribislaw in relation to Emperor Friedrich II., King Waldemar of Denmark, Bishop Berno and Heinrich the Lion and asks: “ Who likes the Wende Konig syn? “In addition, Kirchberg sees his“ King ”Pribislaw as the successor to the Abodritic velvet ruler Gottschalk . Just as he established the diocese of Mecklenburg, Pribislaw founded the Doberan Monastery.

Karl Gottfried Pfannschmidt : Baptism of Prince Pribislaw (1855)

During the neo-Gothic redesign of the Schwerin Palace Church , the back wall of the princely gallery under the organ was given a painting by Karl Gottfried Pfannschmidt , which shows the baptism of Prince Pribislaw .

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literature

Web links

Commons : Pribislaw (Mecklenburg)  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Remarks

  1. ↑ Helmold von Bosau, Slawenchronik, I, chap. 92: Pribizlavus senior natu
  2. ↑ Hans-Otto Gaethke: Duke Heinrich the Lion and the Slavs northeast of the lower Elbe. 1999, p. 173.
  3. ↑ Helmold von Bosau, Slawenchronik, I, chap. 87.
  4. ↑ Joachim Ehlers : Heinrich the lion. Biography. Siedler, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-88680-787-1 , p. 158.
  5. ↑ Saxo Grammaticus, Gesta Danorum, 14.25.17 (p. 431); Hans-Otto Gaethke: Duke Heinrich the Lion and the Slavs northeast of the lower Elbe. 1999, p. 199.
  6. ↑ Hans-Otto Gaethke: Duke Heinrich the Lion and the Slavs northeast of the lower Elbe. 1999, p. 200.
  7. ↑ Joachim Ehlers: Heinrich the lion. Biography. Siedler, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-88680-787-1 , p. 158 f.
  8. ↑ Helmold I, 88
  9. ↑ Gesta Danorum 14.25.14 (p. 430,1): Eo enim sanguine oriundus sum, quem nulli Sclavorum attentandi umquam ausus incessit.
  10. ↑ Gerd Althoff : Heinrich the lion in conflicts. On the technology of peace mediation in the 12th century. in: Jochen Luckhardt , Franz Niehoff (Hrsg.): Heinrich the lion and his time. Rule and representation of the Guelphs 1125-1235. Catalog of the exhibition Braunschweig 1995. Volume 2: Essays. Munich 1995, pp. 123-129.
  11. ↑ Hans-Otto Gaethke: Duke Heinrich the Lion and the Slavs northeast of the lower Elbe. 1999, p. 331 f.
  12. ^ MUB vol. I., certificates 101 and 113.
  13. ↑ Elżbieta Foster, Cornelia Willich: Place names and settlement development. Northern Mecklenburg in the Early and High Middle Ages (= research on the history and culture of Eastern Central Europe. Vol. 31). Steiner, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-515-08938-8 , p. 26.
  14. ↑ Helge bei der Wieden : The Beginnings of the House of Mecklenburg - Desire and Reality. In: Yearbook for the history of Central and Eastern Germany . Vol. 53, 2007, pp. 1-20, here p. 66.
  15. ↑ Elżbieta Foster, Cornelia Willich: Place names and settlement development. Northern Mecklenburg in the Early and High Middle Ages (= research on the history and culture of Eastern Central Europe. Vol. 31). Steiner, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-515-08938-8 , p. 26 f.
  16. ^ Manfred Hamann: Mecklenburg history. From the beginnings to the rural union of 1523 (= Central German Research. Vol. 51). Revised on the basis of Hans Witte. Böhlau, Cologne a. a. 1968, p. 89
  17. ^ Sven Wichert: The Doberan Cistercian Monastery in the Middle Ages. (= Studies on the history, art and culture of the Cistercians. Vol. 9). Lukas-Verlag, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-931836-34-7 (At the same time: Rostock, Universität, Dissertation, 1998), p. 158.
  18. ↑ MUBI, Certificate No. 260.
  19. ^ Roderich Schmidt: The historical Pomerania: people - places - events. Böhlau. Cologne, Weimar, 2009 p. 254.
  20. ^ Friedrich Schlie : The art and history monuments of the Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. Volume II: The district court districts of Wismar, Grevesmühlen, Rehna, Gadebusch and Schwerin. Schwerin 1898, reprint Schwerin 1992, ISBN 3-910179-06-1 , p. 587


predecessor Office successor
Niklot Lord of Mecklenburg
1167–1178 		Heinrich Borwin I.
Nicholas I.
personal data
SURNAME Pribislaw
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Prince of the Abodrites, Lord of Mecklenburg
DATE OF BIRTH 12th Century
DATE OF DEATH December 30, 1178
Place of death Luneburg