I have to start with an admission. I promised you a History of the Germans but I am afraid there is no such thing. All I can give you is the histories of the German people. The last 94 episodes you have heard one of the histories of the Germans, the one about the mighty emperors and their political, military and spiritual struggle with the papacy. It is a great story, and it was fun to tell it.
But today we kick off another of the histories, the history of the North of Germany, the part that looked east, rather than south. It is a story of a frontier culture where an estimated 7% of the population of the western part of the empire pack up their belongings and move east, sometimes under the cover of expansionary princes or knightly orders, sometimes invited by local potentates looking to grow their economies. It is a story about the creation and expansion of trade networks, the foundation of cities, some that will remain modest in size, others that turn into important European capitals. It is the story of a periphery that will in time become the centre.
And because it is an almost independent history, we start at the beginning, in the year 772, the year when Charlemagne takes his troops into Saxony hell bent on turning these pagan tribesmen into good Christians and subjects of his emerging empire. If things work out as I hope, we should end this episode with the life of Hermann Billung and Margrave Gero, the first of a wave of chancers and warlords that seek their fortune in the east.
And to all of you who may be new to the History of the Germans Podcast, do not panic. You do not have to catch up on all the previous episodes; you can just start right here, and the narrative should make sense in itself – at least I hope it will. However, some say that the previous three seasons weren’t completely shoddy and may be worth listening to.
The music for the show is Flute Sonata in E-flat major, H.545 by Carl Phillip Emmanuel Bach (or some claim it as BWV 1031 Johann Sebastian Bach) performed and arranged by Michel Rondeau under Common Creative Licence 3.0.
As always:
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To make it easier for you to share the podcast, I have created separate playlists for some of the seasons that are set up as individual podcasts. they have the exact same episodes as in the History of the Germans, but they may be a helpful device for those who want to concentrate on only one season.
So far I have:
Salian Emperors and Investiture Controversy
Fredrick Barbarossa and Early Hohenstaufen
The Holy Roman Empire 1250-1356
The Reformation before the Reformation
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The music for the show is Flute Sonata in E-flat major, H.545 by Carl Phillip Emmanuel Bach (or some claim it as BWV 1031 Johann Sebastian Bach) performed and arranged by Michel Rondeau under Common Creative Licence 3.0.
I promised you a History of the Germans but I am afraid there is no such thing. All I can give you is the histories of the German people. The previous 94 episodes you have heard one of the histories of the Germans, the one about the mighty emperors and their political, military and spiritual struggle with the papacy. It is a great story, and it was fun to tell it.
But today we kick off another of the histories, the history of the North of Germany, the part that looked east, rather than south. It is a story of a frontier culture where an estimated 7% of the population of the western part of the empire pack up their belongings and move east, sometimes under the cover of expansionary princes or knightly orders, sometimes invited by local potentates looking to grow their economies. It is a story about the creation and expansion of trade networks, the foundation of cities, some that will remain modest in size, others that turn into important European capitals. It is the story of a periphery that will in time become the centre.
There is no such thing as German history in a straight line. In this season we look at the North of the country that went on its own path
To get our bearings we undertake a tour de force of the history of Bohemia, Poland and Denmark before 973.
The pagan Slavic peoples living east of the Elbe wake up one morning to find their oppressors fatally weakened.
The new emperor Henry II drives a 180 degree turn in imperial policy versus Poland and versus the Slavic tribes in the Marches….
Saxons push back against church and emperor because they are hitting them where it hurts most – the economy, stupid…
The conflict between Saxons and the empire is now hitting the hot stage, resulting in a rebellion that precedes Henry IV in Canossa.
Two men dominate Northern Germany in the 11th century, Gottschalk, leader of the pagan Abodrites, and Adalbert, the ruthlessly ambitious archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen.
Opposition against the centralising efforts of emperor Henry IV links up with the rising power of the papacy – and the result was a World revolution
One of the greatest migrations in European history begins in the 12th century when Lothar III invites landless peasants from the Low Countries, the Rhineland and Franconia to settle in the eastern marches of Saxony
After 200 years of raiding and plundering the Slavic lands north and east of the Elbe River the Saxon magnates have a change of heart with consequences that impacted Eastern European history for centuries to come
we look at how a small settlement on a minor river became the second largest city in the empire north of the Alps
The story of how the state that would later became Prussia came about – featuring Albrecht, called the Bear, and not for nothing.
The House of Wettin ruled modern day Sachsen for centuries. In this episode we explore where they came from and how they became so rich..
How first Henry the Lion, greatest of medieval dukes, and then the great stem duchy of Saxony came to fall apart
