The Northern Crusades

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Authors: Eric Christiansen
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which the Peene and the Oder push out to the sea from the Gulf of Stettin – all defensible places with markets and ports, competing with each other for trade and able to defend themselves with fleets and armies. Wollin had once been the greatest of them, the Jomsborg of the Vikings, ruler of the Oderine islands, but had declined with the silting up of the Dziwna outflow and the diversion of overseas trade to Stettin, and by 1100 was rivalled by Cammin. Nevertheless, the earliest missionaries baptized 2156 citizens there in 1124, and founded two churches to serve them. Wolgast levied toll on the Peene traffic, and controlled the surrounding districts both on the mainland and on the island of Usedom; the viovot had a two-storey house in 1127, and there was a temple, a city magistracy and conspicuous riches.
    East of the Oder, along the empty Pomeranian coast, and up the river Perseta, you came to Kolberg (Kolobrzeg), a town of unique importance on account of its salt-works, and, further upstream, Belgard (Bialogard), where the Polish ruler had established a short-lived bishopric in the tenth century, and where the knes of the Pomeranians now had his chief residence. From there to the south of the Vistula the coastlands were empty, and a track ran through hill country towards the port of Danzig(Gdansk), then overlooked by a grod and suburbium on an offshore islet, and governed by an agent of the duke of Poland.
    This catalogue includes the most important of the Wendish towns, and, even if their average population may not have been comparable with the numbers of Rhineland or Flemish boroughs in this period, it was most impressive by the standards of the thinly settled Baltic region. Only Schleswig (Slesvig), in Denmark, could compare with these places, and other ports and market-places among the Scandinavians would have looked small beside them. Moreover, they had a special influence on the societies in and round them.
    Consider the power of the prince once more. He was a great landowner in the countryside, the lord of the biggest retinue of mounted warriors in the land, and receiver of taxes and food supplies from his people; he also appears to have commanded abject reverence, in excess of what a Dane or Swede would have shown his king, with kneeling, acclamation and foot-kissing. His blood was sacrosanct, and in the case of the Abotrite princes had been inherited from a line going back at least to the early tenth century. Yet the powerful men who accepted his authority, and served him with their own retinues, were often town-dwellers, who met together either with the whole citizenry in open assembly, or in the ‘senates’ and ‘magistratures’ mentioned by Latin authors, to settle their own affairs, even to decide on peace or war. The business of these magnates was often raiding foreign coasts or rival cities, and it could lead to warfare involving the whole nation. In such cases the knes would be summoned to help, and give command of the city forces, but normally it appears that the relationship between urban communities and princes – especially between the Liutizian cities and Pomeranian princes – was a fairly loose one. The prince sent in his voivot to hold the fort and gather the tolls, taxes and services; the strong men of the city minded their own business and followed policies dictated by local interests.
    Among the Abotrites, it would appear that in the period 1083 to 1127 the knes was able to build up such a strong private army, with the help of Saxon and Danish mercenaries, that his hold on the towns was a tight one. It is noteworthy that this ruler, Henry, was a Christian, educated abroad. And, when his dynasty was overthrown after his death, civil war, Danish and Saxon incursions, and losses of territory in Wagria made the warlord an indispensable leader. By contrast, among the Rugians, the knes was merely a landowner deputed to lead the troops wheneverthe ‘senate’ decided; and the senate was dominated

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