The Obotrites or Obodrites, also spelled Abodrites, were a confederation of medieval West Slavic tribes within the territory of modern Mecklenburg and Holstein in northern Germany. For decades, they were allies of Charlemagne in his wars against the Germanic Saxons and the Slavic Veleti. The Obotrites under Prince Thrasco defeated the Saxons in the Battle of Bornhöved (798). The still heathen Saxons were dispersed by the emperor, and the part of their former land in Holstein north of Elbe was awarded to the Obotrites in 804, as a reward for their victory. This however was soon reverted through an invasion of the Danes. The Obotrite regnal style was abolished in 1167, when Pribislav was restored to power by Duke Henry the Lion, as Prince of Mecklenburg, thereby founding the German House of Mecklenburg.
The Wendish Crusade was a military campaign in 1147, one of the Northern Crusades and a part of the Second Crusade, led primarily by the Kingdom of Germany within the Holy Roman Empire and directed against the Polabian Slavs. The Wends were made up of the Slavic tribes of Abrotrites, Rani, Liutizians, Wagarians, and Pomeranians who lived east of the River Elbe in present-day northeast Germany and Poland.
Polabian Slavs is a collective term applied to a number of Lechitic tribes who lived along the Elbe river in what is today eastern Germany. The approximate territory stretched from the Baltic Sea in the north, the Saale and the Limes Saxoniae in the west, the Ore Mountains and the Western Sudetes in the south, and Poland in the east. They have also been known as Elbe Slavs or Wends. Their name derives from the Slavic po, meaning "by/next to/along", and the Slavic name for the Elbe.
Wolkwitz is a family name, or surname, of German/Western-Slavic origins.
The Limes Saxoniae, also known as the Limes Saxonicus or Sachsenwall, was an unfortified limes or border between the Saxons and the Slavic Obotrites, established about 810 in present-day Schleswig-Holstein.
Thrasco was the Prince (knyaz) of the Obotrite confederation from 795 until his death in 810. He succeeded his father, Witzlaus II, who had been ambushed and killed by the revolting Saxons. Thrasco defeated the Saxons in the battle on Schwentine River in 798. He was murdered in Reric in 810. Thrasco had a son, Cedragus, the Obotrite prince from 819 to 826.
The Billung March or March of the Billungs was a frontier region of the far northeastern Duchy of Saxony in the 10th century. It was named after the family which held it, the House of Billung.
The Wagri, Wagiri, or Wagrians were a tribe of Polabian Slavs inhabiting Wagria, or eastern Holstein in northern Germany, from the ninth to twelfth centuries. They were a constituent tribe of the Obodrite confederacy.
Henry was an Obotrite prince or king (1093–1127) from the Nakonid dynasty; he was regarded by contemporaries as "King of the Slavs". The Obotrite realm reached its greatest area during Henry's rule, extending from the Elbe to the Oder and from the Havelland to the Baltic Sea.
Niklot or Nyklot was a chief or prince of the Slavic Obotrites and an ancestor of the House of Mecklenburg. He became chief of the Obotrite confederacy, including the Kissini and the Circipani, between the years 1130 and 1131. He remained in this position until his death in 1160. At the same time he was Lord of Schwerin, Quetzin and Malchow. For nearly 30 years he resisted Saxon princes, especially Henry the Lion during the Wendish Crusade.
Henry of Badewide was a Saxon Count of Botwide and Count of Ratzeburg.
The Battle of Schmilau was a battle between a coalition of Christian forces and pagan Slavic Obotrites in 1093.
Pribislav was an Obotrite prince who ruled Wagria as "Lesser king" (regulus) and resided in Liubice, governing one half of the Obotrite lands, the other half being governed by Niklot.
Pribislav was an Obotrite prince and the first Prince of Mecklenburg (1167–1178).
Liubice, also known by the German name Alt-Lübeck, was a medieval West Slavic settlement near the site of modern Lübeck, Germany. Liubice was located at the confluence of the Schwartau with the Trave across from Teerhof Island, approximately four kilometres north of Lübeck's island old town. The residence of Henry, the Christian prince of the Obotrites, Liubice was destroyed after his death by the pagan Rani of Rugia.
Mecklenburg Castle was a medieval castle and a residential capital of the Nakonid and Nikloting dynasties of the Obotrites. It was located just south of the modern village Dorf Mecklenburg, seven kilometres south of the Bay of Wismar in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany. The only remnants of the ruined castle are parts of an earthen wall. Some scholars have associated Mecklenburg with the medieval trading emporium Reric.
Bucu or Buku is a hill island surrounded by the Trave and Wakenitz Rivers in Lübeck, Germany. It is also the name of a medieval Slavic castle, now ruined, on the island. Count Adolf II of Holstein founded Lübeck on the island in 1143. The Burgkloster, or fortified monastery, of Lübeck is located atop the ruins of Bucu. "Bucu" is also the name of a hill.
In the Slavic revolt of 983, Polabian Slavs, (Wends), Lutici and Obotrite tribes, that lived east of the Elbe River in modern north-east Germany overthrew an assumed Ottonian rule over the Slavic lands and rejected Christianization under Emperor Otto I.
The Surbi, also known as Sorbs in modern historiography, was an Early Slavic tribe in Lower Lusatia, part of the Wends. In the 7th century, the tribe was part of Samo's Empire. The tribe is last mentioned in the late 10th century, but its descendants are an ethnic group of Sorbs.
The Smeldingi were a small group of Polabian Slavs living on the border of the Old Saxony in the 9th century, probably between the Elbe and the Havel. They were a sub-group of the Hevelli. Their name is etymologically related that of the South Slavic Smolyani and the East Slavic city of Smolensk.
