History, Wonder Tales, Fairy Tales, Myths and Legends The Flemish | Page 284

The Settlers
The vast majority of the settlers were speakers of a variety of German dialects. In the
northern zones Low German, at that time varieties of Lower-Saxonian, but also of
early Netherlandish, that is to say, in modern terms, Dutch and Flemish. Next to these
also Frisian. In the central zones speakers of Thuringian en Upper-Saxonian
participated. In the southern zones speakers of East Frankish and Bavarian tongues
were dominant. Significant numbers of Dutch as well as (though to a lesser extent)
Danes, Scots or local Wends and (French speaking) Walloons also participated. The
settlers were mostly landless younger children of noble families who could not inherit
property. Enterpreneur-adventurers, often from lower-noble descent, called locators,
played a recruiting, negotiating and co-ordinating role and established new villages,
juridically and geo-physically. Of course, outlaws took the opportunity to escape but
they were not appreciated because success depended upon discipline and solidarity.
The settlers migrated in nearly straight West-to-East lines. As a result, the Southeast
was settled by South Germans (Bavarians, Swabians), the Northeast by Saxons (in
particular those from Westphalia, Flanders, Holland, and Frisia, while central regions
were settled by Franks. As a result, the different German dialect groups expanded
eastward along with their bearers, the "new" Eastern forms only slightly differing from
their Western counterparts.
Settlers were invited by local secular rulers, such as dukes, counts, margraves,
princes and (only in a few cases due to the weakening central power) the king. Also,
settlers were invited by religious institutions such as monasteries and bishops, who
had become mighty land-owners in the course of Christian mission. Often, a local
secular ruler would grant vast woodlands and wilderness and a few villages to an
order like the Cistercian monks, who would erect an abbey, call in settlers and
cultivate the land.
The settlers were granted estates and privileges. Settlement was usually organised by
a so-called lokator (allocator of land), who was granted an important position such as
the inheritable position of the village elder (Schulte or Schulze). Towns were founded
and granted German town law. The agricultural, legal, administrative, and technical
methods of the immigrants, as well as their successful proselytising of the native
inhabitants, led to a gradual transformation of the settlement areas, as former
linguistically and culturally Slavic areas became Germanised.
Besides the marches, which were adjacent to the Empire, German settlement
occurred in areas farther away, such as the Carpathians, Transylvania, and along the
Gulf of Riga. German cultural and linguistic influence lasted in some of these areas
right up to the present day. The rulers of Hungary, Bohemia, Silesia, Pomerania,
Mecklenburg, and Poland encouraged German settlement in order to promote the
development of the less populated portions of their realms. To provide an incentive to
immigrate, the Transylvanian Saxons and Baltic Germans were corporately combined
and privileged.
In the middle of the 14th century, the settling progress slowed as a result of the Black
Death. Probably the population halved by that time and in addition economically
marginal settlements were left, in particular on the sandy soil of Pomerania and
Western Prussia. Only after more than a century, local Slavic leaders in late Medieval

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