History, Wonder Tales, Fairy Tales, Myths and Legends The Flemish | Page 281

families was founded in the Meisen diocese, by bishop Gerung in 1154. In the
Magdeburg diocese, archbishop Wichman brought a number of Flemish settlers who
founded a new village of Flemmingen, near Naumburg and Grosswusteritz, in the
second half of the twelfth century. Similary, a nobleman Wyprecht of Groitzsch,
brought some Franconian farmers into his estates, located in Mersenburg diocese.
Bringing new settlers from afar had another important aspect, for German landlords
and margraves.By granting the colonists better conditions, they tried to assure their
loyalty. In many areas, new immigrants were granted some privileges and tax
concesions in the initial phase of their settlement on the new land.Some areas had
free tenure for a number of years, and overall feudal obligations were lower. In some
areas Flemish settlers were also granted the right to exercise a lower justice, on the
village level.
Overall, the German colonisation of the territory was peaceful, with exeption of the
Western Obodrite lands. Only there was a large proportion of Slavic population
forcefully removed from the best land.Still, it appears that the Slavs formed a majority
of population in the region in the second half of the twelfth century.Helmold of Bossau
reported huge numbers of Slavs, in 1156, who gathered on market place at Lьbeck, to
be baptised. In Brandenburgia and Sorbian teritories eviction of the Slavic farmers
probably took place on a much smaller scale. Many Slavs who were evicted from their
land must have been resettled in newly established German estates. As a result,
those displaced and uprooted people became much more prone to germanization. It
comes as no surprise that Wagrien, Brandenburgia and Western Sorbian lands lost
their Slavic identity much earlier then other regions.
However, in Mecklenburgia and Western Pomerania it was another story. Both were
defeated by the Saxon duke Henry the Lion, but neither was conquered. As a result of
1166 agreement between the Saxon duke, the Obodrite prince Przybys aw and the
Pomeranian princes, both principalities became Saxon vassals.As a part of the deal,
Przybys aw's son, Boriwoj married Matilda, an illegitimate daughter of Henry the
Lion.Soon both principalities became duchies of the Empire.So, the Slavic population
there was treated as were other imperial subjects. There were no evictions there and
local princes and nobility remained in charge of local affairs. Consequently, the slow
stream of colonists from Saxony and Flanders settled peacefully on vacant land next
to the Slavs.There were some attempts to calculate the number of people that moved
from west to east.One such calculation, by German scholar Walter Kuhn, puts the
number of German rural settlers in the twelfth century at 200,000.According to Bartlett:
"He ( Kuhn ) based this calculation on the number of mansi or peasant farms which
can be demonstrated or reasonably assumed to have been created..".
It is beyond our judgement to challenge the computation, as I was unable to see its
details or the data it was based on. However, this number could hardly be accepted as
such. To begin with, the available documents are scarce, hence the outcome of such
estimation is highly speculative. But above all, the assumption that all new settlements
were populated by Germanic colonists is definitely very suspect (This issue will be
addressed in a following paragraph).But let us accept Kuhn's findings, purely for the
sake of the argument.
Limited space does not allow us to expand on Polabian agriculture and the emergence
of their towns. However, there is solid archaeological data and many written sources

281