Burgward
Encyclopedia
A burgward was a form of settlement used for the organisation of the northeastern marches
Marca Geronis
The Marca Geronis was a vast super-march in the middle of the tenth century. It was created probably for Thietmar and passed to his two sons consecutively: Siegfried and Gero...

 of the Kingdom of Germany
Kingdom of Germany
The Kingdom of Germany developed out of the eastern half of the former Carolingian Empire....

 in the mid-10th century. Based on earlier organisations within the Frankish Empire
Frankish Empire
Francia or Frankia, later also called the Frankish Empire , Frankish Kingdom , Frankish Realm or occasionally Frankland, was the territory inhabited and ruled by the Franks from the 3rd to the 10th century...

 and among the Slavs
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...

, the burgwards were composed of a central fortification (a burg) with a number of smaller, undefended villages, perhaps ten to twenty (the ward), dependent on it for protection and upon which it was dependent economically. The foritified site served as a place of refuge during attack and also as an administrative centre for tax collection, the Church, and the court system. It was given a garrison of cavalry, usually Slavic.

The first burgwards (civitates or Burgen) were Merovingian and Carolingian
Carolingian
The Carolingian dynasty was a Frankish noble family with origins in the Arnulfing and Pippinid clans of the 7th century AD. The name "Carolingian", Medieval Latin karolingi, an altered form of an unattested Old High German *karling, kerling The Carolingian dynasty (known variously as the...

 constructions, mostly built to defend against the Saxons
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...

. An important line of burgwards lay along the Unstrut
Unstrut
The Unstrut is a river in Germany and a left tributary of the Saale. It originates in northern Thuringia near Dingelstädt and its catchment area is the whole of the Thuringian Basin...

 west of Merseburg
Merseburg
Merseburg is a town in the south of the German state of Saxony-Anhalt on the river Saale, approx. 14 km south of Halle . It is the capital of the Saalekreis district. It had a diocese founded by Archbishop Adalbert of Magdeburg....

, but it declined in importance in the early ninth century after the integration of the Saxons into the Frankish state. The first burgwards in Sorbian
Sorbs
Sorbs are a Western Slavic people of Central Europe living predominantly in Lusatia, a region on the territory of Germany and Poland. In Germany they live in the states of Brandenburg and Saxony. They speak the Sorbian languages - closely related to Polish and Czech - officially recognized and...

 territory were founded in the 940s. Not much later they were being established among the Hevelli and around Brandenburg
Brandenburg
Brandenburg is one of the sixteen federal-states of Germany. It lies in the east of the country and is one of the new federal states that were re-created in 1990 upon the reunification of the former West Germany and East Germany. The capital is Potsdam...

. There were three lines of burgwards defending eastern Thuringia
Thuringia
The Free State of Thuringia is a state of Germany, located in the central part of the country.It has an area of and 2.29 million inhabitants, making it the sixth smallest by area and the fifth smallest by population of Germany's sixteen states....

. Many burgwards were controlled by monasteries, such as Hersfeld and Fulda
Fulda
Fulda is a city in Hesse, Germany; it is located on the river Fulda and is the administrative seat of the Fulda district .- Early Middle Ages :...

.

The burgwards were detested by the Slavs, but they were effective in their time. They converted the "tribute-paying peoples" into "census-paying peasants." The German reverses of 983, however, doomed the burgward structure and began a new epoch of Slavic independence in the region (until the 12th century).

Sources

  • Reuter, Timothy
    Timothy Reuter
    Timothy Alan Reuter , grandson of the former mayor of Berlin Ernst Reuter, was a German-British historian who specialized in the study of medieval Germany, particularly the social, military and ecclesiastical institutions of the Ottonian and Salian periods .Reuter received his D.phil from Oxford in...

    . Germany in the Early Middle Ages 800–1056. New York: Longman, 1991. p 66.
  • Bernhardt, John W. Itinerant Kingship and Royal Monasteries in Early Medieval Germany, c. 936–1075. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993.
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