Skip to main content

Ostsiedlung / Hochmittelalterlicher Landesausbau (eastward expansion of the Holy Roman Empire during the Middle Ages)

Starting in about 1100, the borderlands (the so-called Marches) to the east of the Holy Roman Empire, an area known as Germania Slavica, in part populated by Slavic peoples such as the Sorbs, were settled by Germans and other peoples. The process came to an end around the start of the 1300s.

The Holy Roman Empire had previously extended as far as Magdeburg. Between 1000 and 1340, its population increased from 4 million to 11.4 million. Consequently, over the course of about 200 years, it extended eastwards into what would later be the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), into western Poland, and as far as the Baltic states. Koenigsberg (now Kaliningrad) was founded in 1286.  

Key figures at the start of this process were Graf Adolf von Schauneburg (1143), and Markgraf Albrecht der Baer (r. 1123-1170). Approximately 200 thousand people moved into these lands in the 1200s, and a comparable number in the 1300s. The Ostsiedlung proceeded in phases, the third of which included the future towns of Coelln and Berlin, initally founded in the mid 1200s. The current Nikolaikirche in the centre of what was East Berlin dates to this time. These and other towns would later amalgamate to form Berlin, which would become the capital first of Brandenburg, then of Prussia, and finally of the German Reich from 1870.  

The Ostsiedlung was accompanied by the work of the Teutonic orders, military and monastic in nature, who were very regretably responsible for the forced Christianisation of peoples in Central and Eastern Europe. While there were instances of expulsion or extermination, for the most part the incoming migrants assimilated with the existing population.  


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Bury, Greater Manchester - Timeline of churches

979?      First Church on the site of the present Parish Church (the picture below is an artist's impression of Bury parish church in 1485). This was the only church in the town of Bury until 1719 (see below).  1585      Parish church (re)built in the gothic style . 1650     During the Commonwealth, Henry Pendlebury was ordained for  Holcombe Chapelry.  1662     Having been ejected from the Church of England,  Henry Pendlebury of Holcombe   (1626-1695) held services at a Chapel on Bass Lane by Richard Kay, and others ejected from the C of E (replaced in 1712 by Dundee Chapel, Holcombe) 1669      The vicar of Bury parish reported to the Bishop of Chester that he heard several conventicles were "constantly kept at private houses of Independents, Presbyterians, Dippers and other such like jointly, of the bset rank of the yeomanry and other inferiors." 1689      ...
Post a Comment
Read more

History of Christianity in Latvia - great "saints" and heroes of the faith in Latvia

The Baltic region, including what is now Latvia , was one of the last outposts of European paganism, and was only evangelised and converted from the 1100s.  Bishop Meinhard (1134-1196) was one of the first to successfully plant the gospel in Latvian soil. An Augustinian canon (similar to a monk), he served as the first bishop of the see of Üxküll (now  Ikšķile ,  Latvia ). However, the murder of his successor led to a more violent imposition of Christianity.  This was in the context of the Northern Crusades  (Livonian Crusade) whereby peoples/tribes inhabiting this region, including the Latgalians, Selonians, Semigallians and Curonians, came to embrace the Christian faith. Andreas Knoepken  (1490-1539), a disciple of Luther, was the one who "brought" the Protestant Reformation to Latvia in its Lutheran form. 1521 is considered the date of the Protestant Reformation in Latvia; by the mid 1500s the majority of people had become Protestant. The Bible was ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The history of the Christian Church in twenty places

α. Jerusalem (30 or 33 AD) The place where Christ, the Son-of-God-become-man, died on the Cross, was raised from the dead on the third day, and from where he ascended back to heaven. This is also where the Holy Spirit was poured out on the first disciples. Sometime after AD 44 (Acts 12), Peter, John and other Apostles dispersed across the world to bear testimony to the risen Christ. 1. Ephesus (approx. 100 AD) The place where the Apostles, Paul and John, handed over to the next generation of Christian leaders, which included the “Apostolic Fathers”. One such “Apostolic Father”, Ignatius of Antioch, passed through Ephesus on his way to martyrdom at Rome, and addressed a letter to the church at Ephesus. 2. Athens (second century) The centre of Greek thought, which Justin Martyr and other Second Century Apologists addressed in their presentations of the Christian faith, proclaiming Christ as the Logos (the Word or principle underlying the universe). 3. Lyon (from 177) The church in ...
Post a Comment
Read more