Budivoj

Budivoj , († probably August 8. 1071 at Plon ), was a elbslawischer prince of the House of nakonids , probably from 1066 to 1071 the Samtherrschaft about in Mecklenburg and East Holstein local tribal Association of Abodrites exercised.

The rule of Budivoj was characterized by disputes with the tribal prince Kruto , who resided on the Oldenburg in Wagrien , in which Budivoj lost his entire rule and life.

According to the chronicler Helmold von Bosau , Budivoj was a weak prince who, because of his Christian faith and his friendship with the Saxon Billungers , was viewed by his tribe as a traitor to freedom.

Life

Origin and family

Budivoj, also Butue or Buthue, was the eldest son of Prince Gottschalk from his first marriage to an unknown Slavic nobleman. The later Abodritic velvet ruler Heinrich was his younger half-brother from Gottschalk's second marriage to Sigrid Svendsdatter, the daughter of the Danish king Sven Estridsson . Budivoj's uncle Blusso was instrumental in the uprising of the Abodritic nobility against Gottschalk and in his murder in 1066. Budivoj's son Pribislaw became part of the tribe prince of the Wagrians and Polabians in 1131 after the murder of Knud Lavard . Like all Naconids, Budivoj was a Christian.

The uprising of 1066

Budivoj's father Gottschalk was murdered on June 7, 1066 in the course of an uprising by the intra-Arab opposition. The ostensibly religiously motivated uprising was directed primarily against the rule policy of the Nakonid princely house. Its “state idea” of a territory administered centrally and directly by the velvet ruler went hand in hand with an increasing disempowerment of the lower and middle nobility. Since Budivoj also stood for his father's politics, he was apparently unable to succeed him at first. Instead, power was in the hands of Budivoj's uncle Blusso. He was at the head of the rebellion. Within the Abodrite Empire, the rebels deliberately destroyed the bishopric on the Mecklenburg , in Ratzeburg and in Oldenburg belonging to the Archdiocese of Bremen - Hamburg . The Archbishop of Bremen Adalbert von Bremen had significantly supported the policy of Budivoj's father Gottschalk until his own disempowerment in 1066. Finally, the rebels attacked the second seat of the Archbishop of Bremen in Hamburg and the Danish Haithabu with the bishopric there and destroyed both.

Velvet rule

After Blusso's return to the Abodritic Empire, Budivoj apparently took revenge on his father's murderer; Blusso was slain. Due to his birthright, Budivoj then initially obtained the dignity of velvet rulers over the entire tribal association, but was only able to maintain power with Saxon support. Because he had lost all support in the population and in the Abodritic nobility due to his adherence to the Christian faith, his closeness to the neighboring Saxons and above all due to the resumption of the oppressive tribute payments to the Billunger and the taxes to the church. In addition, a serious competitor grew up in Wagria with the local tribal prince Kruto, against whom Budivoj was soon unable to enforce the nakonidic claim to supremacy over the Wagrians.

Due to Kruto's raids on Saxon territory and Budivoj's impotence, a Saxon army finally broke out in the winter of 1068/69 on a campaign of devastation against Kruto in Wagrien. At the request of Otto von Northeim, the king himself was at the head of these troops with Heinrich IV. With Magnus , the son of the Duke of Saxony Ordulf , an outstanding representative of the Billungers could have been involved in this winter campaign. Both the Billungers and Otto von Northeim saw their possessions on the Lower Elbe threatened by Kruto. The campaign did not result in an expulsion or submission of Kruto. On the contrary, the Abodritic nobility chose the pagan Kruto as the new velvet ruler over the entire tribal union, which must have amounted to a breach of the constitution, since Kruto had no inheritance legitimation. Nevertheless, Budivoj was able to assert himself in his ancestral territory on both sides of Lake Schwerin and around Wismar, at least as a part of the tribal prince. There he granted Otto von Northeim a refuge in the winter of 1070/1071, after King Henry IV had ostracized him.

Expulsion and death

Before the summer of 1071, Budivoj had to flee to the Billungers in Lüneburg before an attack by Krutos . The political conditions in the empire had changed fundamentally in the meantime. The Saxon nobility, especially Otto von Northeim and the Billunger, were in opposition to the king and were tied up with their forces in the Saxon War. With this, Budivoj lost the support of his important allies. When Budivoj turned to the Billunger with his request for military help, they were prevented. According to the chronicler Helmold , the reason for this prevention was Magnus' imminent wedding to the Hungarian king's daughter Sophia . But it is also possible that Magnus' submission was imminent at Pentecost 1071, which was followed by several years of imprisonment. Budivoj received orders from the Saxon tribes of the Bards , Dithmarschen , Holsten and Stormarn . With 600 bards, Budivoj advanced to Plön , occupied the abandoned fortress, but was trapped, besieged and starved by Kruto. The North Elbe contingent did not appear due to treason. Budivoj was induced to surrender negotiations and, contrary to Kruto's promises, when he left the castle, he was killed with all his men.

Budivoj's year of death is controversial in research. Although Adam von Bremen puts the events of Plön in the year 1072, the still prevailing opinion to this day dates Budivoj's death only in the years 1074/1075. In contrast, a more recent study has shown that the subsequent events could be explained more easily with an early dating of Budivoj's death. The anniversary of the death of a "Bitti comes", son of Gottschalk, is recorded in the necrology of the Church of St. Michael in Lüneburg on August 8th. Older research identified this entry as Budivoj. In 1984 Gerd Althoff took the view that it was not Budivoj, but a Saxon count from the 9th century.

swell

• Adam of Bremen : Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum . In: Werner Trillmich , Rudolf Buchner (Hrsg.): Sources of the 9th and 11th centuries on the history of the Hamburg Church and the Empire. = Fontes saeculorum noni et undecimi historiam ecclesiae Hammaburgensis necnon imperii illustrantes (= selected sources on German history in the Middle Ages. Freiherr-vom-Stein-Gedächtnisausgabe. Vol. 11). 7th edition, expanded compared to the 6th by a supplement by Volker Scior. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 2000, ISBN 3-534-00602-X , pp. 137-499.
• Helmoldi Presbyteri Bozoviensis : Chronica Slavorum (= Monumenta Germaniae Historica. Scriptores. Vol. 7 = Scriptores Rerum Germanicarum in Usum Scholarum separatim editi. Vol. 26). Published by the Reich Institute for Older German History. 3rd edition, edited by Bernhard Schmeidler . Hahnsche Buchhandlung, Hanover 1937 (retransmitted and explained by Heinz Stoob . (= Selected sources on German history in the Middle Ages. Freiherr-vom-Stein-Gedächtnisausgabe. Vol. 19, ISSN  0067-0650 ). Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1963 (7. Edition (unchanged from the 6th, compared to the 5th, expanded by a supplement in 2002). With a supplement by Volker Scior. Ibid. 2008, ISBN 978-3-534-21974-2 )).

literature

• Gerold Meyer von Knonau: Yearbooks of the German Empire under Heinrich IV. And Heinrich V. Volume 1 - 7, published by Duncker & Humblot Leipzig 1890, p. 520, 615 n. 5 - II 150–151, 855–856.
• Ruth Bork: The Billunger. With contributions to the history of the German-Wendish border area in the 10th and 11th centuries. Dissertation Greifswald 1951, pp. 157, 160.

Remarks

1. ↑ Erich Hoffmann : Saxons, Abodrites and Danes in the western Baltic Sea region from the middle of the 10th to the middle of the 12th century. in: Helge Bei der Wieden (ed.): '' Ships and seafaring in the southern Baltic Sea. '' Wachholtz, Neumünster 1986, pp. 1-40, here p. 26 even considers Blusso's velvet rule to be possible.
2. ↑ Adam III, 51
3. ↑ Adam III, 51 (Schol. 81)
4. ↑ Wolfgang H. Fritze : Problems of the abodritic tribal and imperial constitution and its development from a tribal state to a ruling state. In: Herbert Ludat (ed.): Settlement and constitution of the Slavs between the Elbe, Saale and Oder. W. Schmitz, Gießen 1960, pp. 141-219, here p. 170.
5. ↑ On this campaign by Sabine Borchert: Duke Otto von Northeim (around 1025-1083). Reich politics and personal environment. (= Publications of the Historical Commission for Lower Saxony and Bremen 227), Hahn, Hannover 2005, pp. 77–81.
6. ↑ On the constitutional status of inheritance law Wolfgang H. Fritze: Problems of the abodritical tribal and imperial constitution and its development from a tribal state to a ruling state. In: Herbert Ludat (ed.): Settlement and constitution of the Slavs between the Elbe, Saale and Oder. W. Schmitz, Gießen 1960, pp. 141-219, here pp. 179, 184 with reference to Helmold I, 25.
7. ^ Sabine Borchert: Duke Otto von Northeim (around 1025-1083). Reich politics and personal environment. Hahn, Hannover 2005, p. 99.
8. ↑ Helmold I, 25.
9. ^ Gerold Meyer von Knonau : Yearbooks of the German Empire under Heinrich IV. And Heinrich V. Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1890, Vol. II, pp. 148-150, pp. 855f .; Wolfgang H. Fritze: Problems of the abodritic tribal and imperial constitution and its development from a tribal state to a ruling state. In: Herbert Ludat (ed.): Settlement and constitution of the Slavs between the Elbe, Saale and Oder. W. Schmitz, Gießen 1960, pp. 141-219 here p. 168; Walther Lammers : The High Middle Ages up to the Battle of Bornhöved (= history of Schleswig-Holstein. Vol. 4, Part 1). Wachholtz, Neumünster 1981, ISBN 3-529-02404-X , p. 136.
10. ^ Sabine Borchert: Duke Otto von Northeim (around 1025-1083). Reich politics and personal environment. Hahn, Hannover 2005, p. 114.
11. ^ Anton Christian Wedekind : Notes on some historians of the German Middle Ages. Perthes and Besser, Hamburg 1836, p. 57 f.
12. ^ Gerd Althoff: Noble and royal families in the mirror of their memorial tradition. Studies on the commemoration of the dead of the Billunger and Ottonians (= Münster medieval writings. Volume 47). Fink, Munich 1984, ISBN 3-7705-2267-2 , p. 410.