_ BOOK II. OF BRANDENBURG AND THE HOHENZOLLERNS. 928-1417
CHAPTER I. BRANNIBOR: HENRY THE FOWLER
The Brandenburg Countries, till they become related to the Hohenzollern Family which now rules there, have no History that has proved memorable to mankind. There has indeed been a good deal written under that title; but there is by no means much known, and of that again there is alarmingly little that is worth knowing or remembering.
Pytheas, the Marseilles Travelling Commissioner, looking out for new channels of trade, somewhat above 2,000 years ago, saw the country actually lying there; sailed past it, occasionally landing; and made report to such Marseillese "Chamber of Commerce" as there then was:--report now lost, all to a few indistinct and insignificant fractions. [
Memoires de l'Academie des Inscriptions, t. xix. 46, xxxvii. 439, &c.] This was "about the year 327 before Christ," while Alexander of Macedon was busy conquering India. Beyond question, Pytheas, the first WRITING or civilized creature that ever saw Germany, gazed with his Greek eyes, and occasionally landed, striving to speak and inquire, upon those old Baltic Coasts, north border of the now Prussian Kingdom; and reported of it to mankind we know not what. Which brings home to us the fact that it existed, but almost nothing more: A Country of lakes and woods, of marshy jungles, sandy wildernesses; inhabited by bears, otters, bisons, wolves, wild swine, and certain shaggy Germans of the Suevic type, as good as inarticulate to Pytheas. After which all direct notice of it ceases for above three hundred years. We can hope only that the jungles were getting cleared a little, and the wild creatures hunted down; that the Germans were increasing in number, and becoming a thought less shaggy. These latter, tall Suevi Semnones, men of blond stern aspect
(oculi truces coerulei) and great strength of bone, were known to possess a formidable talent for fighting: [Tacitus,
De Moribus Germanorum, c. 45.] Drusus Germanicus, it has been guessed, did not like to appear personally among them: some "gigantic woman prophesying to him across the Elbe" that it might be dangerous, Drusus contented himself with erecting some triumphal pillar on his own safe side of the Elbe, to say that they were conquered.
In the Fourth Century of our era, when the German populations, on impulse of certain "Huns expelled from the Chinese frontier," or for other reasons valid to themselves, began flowing universally southward, to take possession of the rich Roman world, and so continued flowing for two centuries more; the old German frontiers generally, and especially those Northern Baltic countries, were left comparatively vacant; so that new immigrating populations from the East, all of Sclavic origin, easily obtained footing and supremacy there. In the Northern parts, these immigrating Sclaves were of the kind called Vandals, or Wends: they spread themselves as far west as Hamburg and the Ocean, south also far over the Elbe in some quarters; while other kinds of Sclaves were equally busy elsewhere. With what difficulty in settling the new boundaries, and what inexhaustible funds of quarrel thereon, is still visible to every one, though no Historian was there to say the least word of it. "All of Sclavic origin;" but who knows of how many kinds: Wends here in the North, through the Lausitz (Lusatia) and as far as Thuringen; not to speak of Polacks, Bohemian Czechs, Huns, Bulgars, and the other dim nomenclatures, on the Eastern frontier. Five hundred years of violent unrecorded fighting, abstruse quarrel with their new neighbors in settling the marches. Many names of towns in Germany ending in ITZ (Meuselwitz, Mollwitz), or bearing the express epithet
Windisch (Wendish), still give indication of those old sad circumstances; as does the word SLAVE, in all our Western languages, meaning captured SCLAVONIAN. What long-drawn echo of bitter rage and hate lies in that small etymology!
These things were; but they have no History: why should they have any? Enough that in those Baltic regions, there are for the time (Year 600, and till long after Charlemagne is out) Sclaves in place of Suevi or of Holstein Saxons and Angli; that it is now shaggy Wends who have the task of taming the jungles, and keeping down the otters and wolves. Wends latterly in a waning condition, much beaten upon by Charlemagne and others; but never yet beaten out. And so it has to last, century after century; Wends, wolves, wild swine, all alike dumb to us. Dumb, or sounding only one huge unutterable message (seemingly of tragic import), like the voice of their old Forests, of their old Baltic Seas:--perhaps more edifying to us SO. Here at last is a definite date and event:--
"A.D. 928, Henry the Fowler, marching across the frozen bogs, took BRANNIBOR, a chief fortress of the Wends;" [Kohler,
Reichs-Historie (Frankfurth und Leipzig, 1737), p. 63. Michaelis,
Chur-und Furstlichen Hauser in Deutschland (Lemgo, 1759, 1760, 1785), i. 255.]--first mention in human speech of the place now called Brandenburg: Bor or "Burg of the Brenns" (if there ever was any TRIBE of Brenns,--BRENNUS, there as elsewhere, being name for KING or Leader); "Burg of the Woods," say others,--who as little know. Probably, at that time, a town of clay huts, with dit&h and palisaded sod-wall round it; certainly "a chief fortress of the Wends,"--who must have been a good deal surprised at sight of Henry on the rimy winter morning near a thousand years ago.
This is the grand old Henry, called, "the Fowler"
(Heinrich der Vogler), because he was in his
Vogelheerde (Falconry or Hawk-establishment, seeing his Hawks fly) in the upland Hartz Country, when messengers came to tell him that the German Nation, through its Princes and Authorities assembled at Fritzlar, had made him King; and that he would have dreadful work henceforth. Which he undertook; and also did,--this of Brannibor only one small item of it,--warring right manfully all his days against Chaos in that country, no rest for him thenceforth till he died. The beginning of German Kings; the first, or essentially the first sovereign of united Germany,--Charlemagne's posterity to the last bastard having died out, and only Anarchy, Italian and other, being now the alternative.
"A very high King," says one whose Note-books I have got, "an authentically noble human figure, visible still in clear outline in the gray dawn of Modern History. The Father of whatever good has since been in Germany. He subdued his DUKES, Schwaben, Baiern (Swabia, Bavaria) and others, who were getting too HEREDITARY, and inclined to disobedience. He managed to get back Lorraine; made TRUCE with the Hungarians, who were excessively invasive at that time. Truce with the Hungarians; and then, having gathered strength, made dreadful beating of them; two beatings,--one to each half, for the invasive Savagery had split itself, for better chance of plunder; first beating was at Sondershausen, second was at Merseburg, Year 933;--which settled them considerably. Another beating from Henry's son, and they never came back. Beat Wends, before this,--'Brannibor through frozen bogs' five years ago. Beat, Sclavic Meisseners (Misnians); Bohehemian Czechs, and took Prag; Wends again, with huge slaughter; then Danes, and made 'King Worm tributary' (King
Gorm the Hard, our KNUT'S or Canute's great-grand-father, Year 931);--last of all, those invasive Hungarians as above. Had sent the Hungarians, when they demanded tribute or BLACK-MAIL of him as heretofore, Truce being now out,--a mangy hound: There is your black-mail, Sirs; make much of that!
"He had 'the image of St. Michael painted on his standard;' contrary to wont. He makes, or RE-makes, Markgrafs (Wardens of the Marches), to be under his Dukes,--and not too HEREDITARY. Who his Markgraves were? Dim History counts them to the number of six; [Kohler,
Reich-Historie, p. 66. This is by no means Kohler's chief Book; but this too is good, and does, in a solid effective way, what it attempts. He seems to me by far the best Historical Genius the Germans have yet, produced, though I do not find much mention of him in their Literary Histories and Catalogues. A man of ample learning, and also of strong cheerful human sense and human honesty; whom it is thrice-pleasant, to meet with in those ghastly solitudes, populous chiefly with doleful creatures.] which take in their order:--
"1. SLESWIG, looking over into the Scandinavian countries, and the Norse Sea-kings. This Markgraviate did not last long under that title. I guess, it, became
Stade-and-Ditmarsch afterwards.
"2. SOLTWEDEL,--which grows to be Markgraviate of BRANDENBURG by and by. Soltwedel, now called Salzwedel, an old Town still extant, sixty miles to west and north of Brandenburg, short way south of the Elbe, was as yet headquarters of this second Markgraf; and any Warden we have at Brandenburg is only a deputy of him or some other.
"3. MEISSEN (which we call Misnia), a country at that time still full of Wends.
"4. LAUSITZ, also a very Wendish country (called in English maps LUSATIA,--which is its name in Monk-Latin, not now a spoken language). Did not long continue a Markgraviate; fell to Meissen (Saxony), fell to Brandenburg, Bohemia, Austria, and had many tos and fros. Is now (since the Thirty-Years-War time) mostly Saxon again.
"5. AUSTRIA (OEsterreich, Eastern-Kingdom, EASTERNREY as we might say); to look after the Hungarians, and their valuable claims to black-mail.
"6. ANTWERP ('At-the-Wharf,' 'On-t'-Wharf,' so to speak), against the French; which function soon fell obsolete.
"These were Henry's six Markgraviates (as my best authority enumerates them); and in this way he had militia captains ranked all round his borders, against the intrusive Sclavic element. He fortified Towns; all Towns are to be walled and warded,--to be BURGS in fact; and the inhabitants BURGhers, or men capable of defending Burgs. Everywhere the ninth man is to serve as soldier in his Town; other eight in the country are to feed and support him:
Heergeruthe (War-tackle, what is called HERIOT in our old Books) descends to the eldest son of a fighting man who had served, as with us. 'All robbers are made soldiers' (unless they prefer hanging); and WEAPON-SHOWS and drill are kept up. This is a man who will make some impression upon Anarchy, and its Wends and Huns. His standard was St. Michael, as we have seen,--WHOSE sword is derived from a very high quarter! A pious man;--founded Quedlinburg Abbey, and much else in that kind, having a pious Wife withal, Mechtildis, who took the main hand in that of Quedlinburg; whose LIFE is in Leibnitz, [Leibnitz,
Scriptores Rerum Brunswicensium, &c. (Hanover, 1707), i. 196.] not the legiblest of Books.--On the whole, a right gallant King and 'Fowler.' Died, A.D. 936 (at Memmleben, a Monastery on the Unstrut, not far from Schulpforte), age sixty; had reigned only seventeen years, and done so much. Lies buried in Quedlinburg Abbey:--any Tomb? I know no LIFE of him but GUNDLING'S, which is an extremely inextricable Piece, and requires mainly to be forgotten.--Hail, brave Henry: across the Nine dim Centuries, we salute thee, still visible as a valiant Son of Cosmos and Son of Heaven, beneficently sent us; as a man who did in grim earnest 'serve God' in his day, and whose works accordingly bear fruit to our day, and to all days!"--
So far my rough Note-books; which require again to be shut for the present, not to abuse the reader's patience, or lead him from his road.
This of Markgrafs (GRAFS of the Marches, MARKED Places, or Boundaries) was a natural invention in that state of circumstances. It did not quite originate with Henry; but was much perfected by him, he first recognizing how essential it was. On all frontiers he had his GRAF (Count, REEVE, G'REEVE, whom some think to be only GRAU, Gray, or SENIOR, the hardiest, wisest steel-GRAY man he could discover) stationed on the MARCK, strenuously doing watch and ward there: the post of difficulty, of peril, and naturally of honor too, nothing of a sinecure by any means. Which post, like every other, always had a tendency to become hereditary, if the kindred did not fail in fit men. And hence have come the innumerable Markgraves, Marquises, and such like, of modern times: titles now become chimerical, and more or less mendacious, as most of our titles are,--like so many BURGS changed into "Boroughs," and even into "Rotten Boroughs," with Defensive BURGhers of the known sort: very mournful to discover. Once Norroy was not all pasteboard! At the heart of that huge whirlwind of his, with its dusty heraldries, and phantasmal nomenclatures now become mendacious, there lay, at first, always an earnest human fact. Henry the Fowler was so happy as to have the fact without any mixture of mendacity: we are in the sad reverse case; reverse case not yet altogether COMPLETE, but daily becoming so,--one of the saddest and strangest ever heard of, if we thought of it!--But to go on with business.
Markgraviates there continued to be ever after,--Six in Henry's time:--but as to the number, place, arrangement of them, all this varied according to circumstances outward and inward, chiefly according to the regress or the reintrusion of the circumambient hostile populations; and underwent many changes. The sea-wall you build, and what main floodgates you establish in it, will depend on the state of the outer sea. Markgraf of SLESWIG grows into Markgraf of DITMARSCH and STADE; retiring over the Elbe, if Norse Piracy get very triumphant. ANTWERP falls obsolete; so does MEISSEN by and by. LAUSITZ and SALZWEDEL, in the third century hence, shrink both into BRANDENBURG; which was long only a subaltern station, managed by deputy from one or other of these. A Markgraf that prospered in repelling of his Wends and Huns had evidently room to spread himself, and could become very great, and produce change in boundaries: observe what OESTERREICH (Austria) grew to, and what BRANDENBURG; MEISSEN too, which became modern Saxony, a state once greater than it now is.
In old Books are Lists of the primitive Markgraves of Brandenburg, from Henry's time downward; two sets, "Markgraves of the Witekind race," and of another: [Hubner,
Genealogische Tabellen (Leipzig, 1725-1728), i. 172, 173. A Book of rare excellence in its kind.] but they are altogether uncertain, a shadowy intermittent set of Markgraves, both the Witekind set and the Non-Witekind; and truly, for a couple of centuries, seem none of them to have been other than subaltern Deputies, belonging mostly to LAUSITZ or SALZWEDEL; of whom therefore we can say nothing here, but must leave the first two hundred years in their natural gray state,--perhaps sufficiently conceivable by the reader.
But thus, at any rate, was Brandenburg (BOT or Burg of the BRENNS, whatever these are) first discovered to Christendom, and added to the firm land of articulate History: a feat worth putting on record. Done by Henry the Fowler, in the Year of Grace 928,--while (among other things noticeable in this world) our Knut's great-grandfather, GORMO DURUS, "Henry's Tributary," was still King of Denmark; when Harald BLUETOOTH (Blaatand) was still a young fellow, with his teeth of the natural color; and Swen with the Forked Beard (TVAESKAEG, Double-beard, "TWA-SHAG") was not born; and the Monks of Ely had not yet (by about a hundred years) begun that singing, (Without note or comment, in the old, BOOK OF ELY date before the Conquest) is preserved this stave;--giving picture, if we consider it, of the Fen Country all a lake (as it was for half the year, till drained, six centuries after), with Ely Monastery rising like an island in the distance; and the music of its nones or vespers sounding soft and far over the solitude, eight hundred years ago and more.
Merie sungen the Muneches binnen Ely
Tha Cnut ching rew therby:
Roweth enites near the lant,
And here we thes Muneches saeng.
Merry (genially)
sang the Monks in Ely
As Knut King rowed (rew)
there-by:
Row, fellows (knights),
near the land,
And hear we these Monks's song. See Bentham's
History of Ely (Cambridge, 1771), p, 94.] nor the tide that refusal to retire, on behalf of this Knut, in our English part of his dominions.
That Henry appointed due Wardenship in Brannibor was in the common course. Sure enough, some Markgraf must take charge of Brannibor,--he of the Lausitz eastward, for example, or he of Salzwedel westward:--that Brannibor, in time, will itself be found the fit place, and have its own Markgraf of Brandenburg; this, and what in the next nine centuries Brandenburg will grow to, Henry is far from surmising. Brandenburg is fairly captured across the frozen bogs, and has got a warden and ninth-man garrison settled in it: Brandenburg, like other things, will grow to what it can.
Henry's son and successor, if not himself, is reckoned to have founded the Cathedral and Bishopric of Brandenburg,--his Clergy and he always longing much for the conversion of these Wends and Huns; which indeed was, as the like still is, the one thing needful to rugged heathens of that kind. _