Niklot
Encyclopedia
Slavic peoples
The Slavic people are an Indo-European panethnicity living in Eastern Europe, Southeast Europe, North Asia and Central Asia. The term Slavic represents a broad ethno-linguistic group of people, who speak languages belonging to the Slavic language family and share, to varying degrees, certain...
Obotrites
Obotrites
The Obotrites , also commonly known as the Obodrites, Abotrites, or 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 Germanic Saxons and Slavic...
and an ancestor of the House of Mecklenburg
House of Mecklenburg
The House of Mecklenburg is a North German dynasty of West Slavic origin that ruled until 1918.- Origins :Niklot was a lord of the Wendish tribe of Obotrites. When the Holy Roman Empire expanded eastwards, notably to the coast of Baltic in 13th century, a portion of Obotrite lords allied with...
. From 1130 or 1131 until his death he was chief of the Obotrite confederacy, the Kissini, and the Circipani. At the same time he was Lord of (Herr zu) Schwerin
Schwerin
Schwerin is the capital and second-largest city of the northern German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. The population, as of end of 2009, was 95,041.-History:...
, Quetzin, and Malchow
Malchow
Malchow is a municipality in the Mecklenburgische Seenplatte district, in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Germany.-Geography:It is situated on the river Elde, 25,5 km west of Waren, and 35 km north of Wittstock.-History:...
. For nearly 30 years he resisted Saxon
Saxons
The Saxons were a confederation of Germanic tribes originating on the North German plain. The Saxons earliest known area of settlement is Northern Albingia, an area approximately that of modern Holstein...
princes, especially Henry the Lion
Henry the Lion
Henry the Lion was a member of the Welf dynasty and Duke of Saxony, as Henry III, from 1142, and Duke of Bavaria, as Henry XII, from 1156, which duchies he held until 1180....
, during the German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
Drang nach Osten
Drang nach Osten
Drang nach Osten was a term coined in the 19th century to designate German expansion into Slavic lands. The term became a motto of the German nationalist movement in the late nineteenth century...
. He also opposed the conversion of the pagan Polabian Slavs
Polabian Slavs
Polabian Slavs - is a collective term applied to a number of Lechites tribes who lived along the Elbe river, between the Baltic Sea to the north, the Saale and the Limes Saxoniae to the west, the Ore Mountains and the Western Sudetes to the south, and Poland to the east. They have also been known...
to Roman Catholic
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
.
Niklot's place of birth is unknown. After the death of the Obodrite prince Henry, a Christian, Niklot renounced Christianity in support of the traditional pagan beliefs.
Niklot began his open resistance when Lothar III, Holy Roman Emperor, granted the Obotrite realm to his Danish vassal Canute Lavard
Canute Lavard
Canute Lavard was a Danish prince. Later he was the first Duke of Schleswig and the first border prince who was both a Danish and a German vassal, a position leafing towards the historical double position of Southern Jutland...
. Together with Pribislaw, the son of Henry of Alt-Lübeck, Niklot fought against Lothar and Canute. After the murder of Canute in 1131, Niklot and Pribislav partitioned the Obotrite territory, with Niklot receiving the eastern lands. In order to weaken Pribislav in the following years, Niklot allied himself with Saxon lords, especially Count Adolf II of Holstein
Adolf II of Holstein
Adolf II was the Count of Schauenburg and Holstein from 1130 until his death, though he was briefly out of Holstein from 1137 until 1142. He succeeded his father Adolf I under the regency of his mother, Hildewa....
, allowing Slavic pirates to attack the Danes.
The prince's Saxon allies turned against him during the 1147 Wendish Crusade
Wendish Crusade
The Wendish Crusade was an 1147 campaign, one of the Northern Crusades and also a part of the Second Crusade, led primarily by the Kingdom of Germany inside the Holy Roman Empire and directed against the Polabian Slavs ....
. Although Niklot resisted the siege of his fortress at Dobin, he was forced to pay tribute to the Christian crusaders. He subsequently was on peaceful terms with Adolf of Holstein, Duke Henry the Lion
Henry the Lion
Henry the Lion was a member of the Welf dynasty and Duke of Saxony, as Henry III, from 1142, and Duke of Bavaria, as Henry XII, from 1156, which duchies he held until 1180....
of Saxony
Duchy of Saxony
The medieval Duchy of Saxony was a late Early Middle Ages "Carolingian stem duchy" covering the greater part of Northern Germany. It covered the area of the modern German states of Bremen, Hamburg, Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia, and Saxony-Anhalt and most of Schleswig-Holstein...
, and Henry of Ratzeburg.
By 1158, King Valdemar the Great
Valdemar I of Denmark
Valdemar I of Denmark , also known as Valdemar the Great, was King of Denmark from 1157 until 1182.-Biography:...
of Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
had begun to pay Henry the Lion for assistance, leading Niklot to retaliate. The Danish king and the Saxon duke then allied in 1160. While the Danes harried the coast and distracted the Rani
Rani (Slavic tribe)
The Rani or Rujani were a West Slavic tribe based on the island of Rugia and the southwestern mainland across the Strelasund in what is today northeastern Germany....
, the Saxons killed Niklot at his stronghold of Burg Werle; the Obotrite territory was largely partitioned by the Christians. Niklot's death ended Slavic control in Mecklenburg
Mecklenburg
Mecklenburg is a historical region in northern Germany comprising the western and larger part of the federal-state Mecklenburg-Vorpommern...
up to the Peene
Peene
The Peene is a river in Germany. The Westpeene, Kleine Peene and Ostpeene flow into the Kummerower See, and from there as Peene proper to Anklam and into the Oder Lagoon....
River. His son Pribislav
Pribislav of Mecklenburg
Pribislav was an Obotrite prince and the first Prince of Mecklenburg .Pribislav was one of three sons of the Obotrite chieftain Niklot, who was killed in 1160 during a joint campaign by Duke Henry the Lion of Saxony and King Valdemar the Great of Denmark...
recovered the inheritance of Niklot as Prince of Mecklenburg in 1167 as a Saxon vassal.