Kruto

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Kruto († around 1090 ) was an Elbe Slavic prince who ruled from Wagrien from the tribal union of the Abodrites in the 11th century .

After the assassination of Gottschalk , Kruto's election as prince of the Wagrians meant the temporary end of more than 150 years of total rule of the Christian Naconids . Kruto helped the polytheistic tribal belief in Wagrien to become the only one. After gaining total control over the Abodritic tribal association, he made tribute to Northern Albingia and reached out to Denmark. As an ally of Heinrich IV , he fought against the Billunger in Hamburg . In old age he was killed by a follower of the naconid Heinrich von Alt-Lübeck, who was allied with the Billungers and the Danes .

The Chronica Slavorum by Helmold von Bosau reports exclusively on Kruto . While Kruto's rule was still regarded by the Mecklenburg historian Beyer in 1848 as "the most brilliant period in the whole history" of the Abodrites, later historiography reduced him to a cruel enemy of Christians. Finally, in 1981 Lammers saw him as a Vagrian separatist whose pagan nationalist state idea was unable to prevail against the Naconids.

Origin and family

Kruto, son of the otherwise unknown Grin, came from a Vagrian dynasty, which had its ancestral seat at Starigard Castle in what is now Oldenburg in Holstein . His name means "cruel" or "mighty" in several Slavic languages. Kruto was married to Slavina. From this or a previous connection there was at least one son whose name was not known. For the years 1138 and 1150, Race and Rochel, two descendants of Krutos ( de semine crutonis ) are named, who could be grandsons of Krutos. Race's son Nicolaus is attested to as the Danish governor of Schleswig in 1168. Older attempts to associate Kruto with the ranic dynasty are now considered refuted.

Life

Kruto benefited from the revolt of the pagan reaction under the leadership of the Blusso against the Christian velvet ruler Gottschalk , who came from the Nakonid dynasty . As a result of this uprising of 1066 and the assassination of Gottschalk, Gottschalk's sons and (throne) heirs Heinrich von Liubice and Budivoj were expelled from the tribal area. While Heinrich, who came from the Danish royal family on his mother's side, escaped to Denmark , Budivoj fled to the Saxons . With their help, he briefly managed to take power over the tribe of the Abodrites in the narrower sense. His attempt to regain control of the Abodrite Empire and to subjugate Kruto failed. Budivoj was lured into a trap by Kruto on the island castle Plön and slain with all his companions in breach of word.

After the elimination of the Gottschalk sons, Kruto was elected the velvet ruler of the Abodrites. The choice of Kruto expresses the full scope of the inner-Abodritic upheaval, as the Abodritic opposition circumvented the inheritance right of the Naconids, which according to the chronicler Helmold von Bosau represented a serious breach of law. Under Kruto's rule, the North Elbian Saxons became dependent on the Abodrites. Kruto also seems to have given the Slavic nobility a free hand in looting raids into the Saxon area based on follower-like associations. At Kruto's instigation, the castle Bucu , located on a Werder between Trave and Wakenitz , at the place of what would later become Lübeck , took place .

In old age, Kruto's rule was endangered by Heinrich von Alt-Lübeck, who fled to Denmark. Kruto was able to repel an invasion by Heinrich around 1090, who was supported militarily by his Danish relatives. As a result, however, Kruto was unable to prevent Heinrich from raiding and plundering the Vagrian coast several times in the Viking style . In the face of this pressure, Kruto found himself ready to compromise and agreed to give Heinrich part of Wagrien as his domain.

Kruto's plan to murder Heinrich at a banquet was brought to Heinrich by Kruto's wife, Slavina. Thereupon Heinrich had Kruto slain by a follower from Denmark at this celebration, married the newly widowed Slavina, took over land and rule in the entire Abodritic Union and "took revenge on his enemies".

Aftermath

The Bosau pastor Helmold only reports about Kruto in his Chronica Slavorum from the 12th century. Helmold, himself a Saxon and a proven supporter of the Christian Naconids, describes Kruto as a "cunning" and "insincere" enemy of the Naconids, as a "persecutor of the Christians" and "greatest enemy of the Saxons." In contrast, the contemporary chronicler Adam von Bremen mentions Kruto in his Hamburg church history is not. The mention of Krutos ( Crito ) in the Mecklenburg Reimchronik of Ernst von Kirchberg from 1379 is based on Helmold's report.

In 1848, the Schwerin archivist Wilhelm Gottlieb Beyer Kruto devoted an extensive study to the yearbooks of the Association for Mecklenburg History and Archeology . However, Beyer's essay, which was progressive at the time, was less of a Kruto than a revision of the lineage of the Mecklenburg Princely House . For centuries the Niklotids had cultivated the origins of fantastic ancestors in the style of their time . Beyer rejected this approach and attempted a source-based genealogy in which he traced the origin of the Niklotids back to Kruto, whom he believed to be a ranic prince. In 1885 his successor Friedrich Wigger refuted Beyer's theses, and since the publication of Richard Wagner's Wendenzeit in 1899, historical science has understood Kruto as an Abodritic prince of Wagrian origin.

swell

  • 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

Remarks

  1. ^ Sabine Borchert: Duke Otto von Northeim (around 1025-1083). Reich policy and personal environment (= publications of the Historical Commission for Lower Saxony and Bremen 227), Hahn, Hannover 2005, p. 77f. ( Review ) following her Günther Bock: The end of the Hamburg counts 1110. A historiographical construction. in: Oliver Auge, Detlev Kraack (ed.): 900 years of Schauenburger in the north. An inventory. Wachholtz, Kiel a. a. 2015, pp. 7–75. here p. 54.
  2. ↑ 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 ff.
  3. ↑ Beyer: King Kruto and his family , p. 53.
  4. ↑ Helmold I, 55.
  5. ↑ Helmold I, 69.
  6. ↑ Wilhelm Gottlieb Beyer: King Kruto and his sex: a historical investigation into the descent of the grand ducal-Meklenburg ducal house . In: Yearbooks of the Association for Mecklenburg History and Archeology , Volume 13 (1848), pp. 3–55, especially p. 49.
  7. ↑ 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. 8 .; 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 note 4.
  8. ↑ Helmold I, 25; 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 p. 184.
  9. ↑ Helmold I, 34.
  10. ↑ Helmold I, 34.
  11. ^ Friedrich Wigger: Family tables of the Grand Ducal House of Meklenburg. In: Yearbooks of the Association for Mecklenburg History and Archeology, Volume 50 (1885), pp. 111–326, here 126.
  12. ^ Richard Wagner: Die Wendenzeit (= Mecklenburg history in single representations. Issue 2). Süsserott, Berlin 1899.
personal data
SURNAME Kruto
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Elbe Slavic prince
DATE OF BIRTH 10th century or 11th century
DATE OF DEATH around 1090