History of Friedrich II of Prussia - Frederick the Great Chapter III. - Markgraves of Brandenburg.
by Thomas Carlyle
Meanwhile our first enigmatic set of Markgraves, or Deputy-
Markgraves, at Brandenburg, are likewise faring ill. Whoever these
valiant steel-gray gentlemen might be (which Dryasdust does not
the least know, and only makes you more uncertain the more he
pretends to tell), one thing is very evident, they had no
peaceable possession of the place, nor for above a hundred years,
a constant one on any terms. The Wends were highly disinclined to
conversion and obedience: once and again, and still again, they
burst up; got temporary hold of Brandenburg, hoping to keep it;
and did frightful heterodoxies there. So that to our distressed
imagination those poor "Markgraves of Witekind descent," our first
set in Brandenburg, become altogether shadowy, intermittent,
enigmatic, painfully actual as they once were. Take one instance,
omitting others; which happily proves to be the finish of that
first shadowy line, and introduces us to a new set very slightly
more substantial.
END OF THE FIRST SHADOWY LINE.
In the year 1023, near a century after Henry the Fowler's feat,
the Wends bursting up in never-imagined fury, get hold of
Brandenburg again,--for the third and, one would fain hope, the
last time. The reason was, words spoken by the then Markgraf of
Brandenburg, Dietrich or Theodoric, last of the Witekind
Markgraves; who hearing that a Cousin of his (Markgraf or Deputy-
Markgraf like himself) was about wedding his daughter to "Mistevoi
King of the Wends," said too earnestly: "Don't! Will you give your
daughter to a dog?" Word "dog" was used, says my authority. [See
Michaelis Chur und Furstlichen Hauser,
i. 257-259: Pauli, Allgemeine Preussische Staats-
Geschichte (Halle, 1760-1769), i. l-182 (the
"standard work" on Prussian History; in eight watery quartos,
intolerable to human nature): Kloss, Vuterlandische
Gemalde (Berlin, 1833), i. 59-108 (a Bookseller's
compilation, with some curious Excerpts):--under which lie modern
Sagittarius, ancient Adam of Bremen, Ditmarus
Merseburgensis, Witichindus Corbeiensis, Arnoldus Lubecensis,
&c. &c. to all lengths and breadths.] Which threw King
Mistevoi into a paroxysm, and raised the Wends. Their butchery of
the German population in poor Brandenburg, especially of the
Priests; their burning of the Cathedral, and of Church and State
generally, may be conceived. The HARLUNGSBERG,--in our time
MARIENBERG, pleasant Hill near Brandenburg, with its gardens,
vines, and whitened cottages:--on the top of this Harlungsherg
the Wends "set up their god Triglaph;" a three-headed Monster of
which I have seen prints, beyond measure ugly. Something like
three whale's-cubs combined by boiling, or a triple porpoise dead-
drunk (for the dull eyes are inexpressible, as well as the
amorphous shape): ugliest and stupidest of all false gods.
This these victorious Wends set up on the Harlungsberg, Year 1023;
and worshipped after their sort, benighted mortals,--with joy, for
a time. The Cathedral was in ashes, Priests all slain or fled,
shadowy Markgraves the like; Church and State lay in ashes;
and Triglaph, like a Triple Porpoise under the influence of
laudanum, stood (I know not whether on his head or on his tail)
aloft on the Harlungsberg, as the Supreme of this Universe, for
the time being.
SECOND SHADOWY LINE.
Whereupon the DITMARSCH-STADE Markgrafs (as some designate them)
had to interfere, these shadowy Deputies of the Witekind breed
having vanished in that manner. The Ditmarschers recovered the
place; and with some fighting, did in the main at least keep
Triglaph and the Wends out of it in time coming. The Wends were
fiercely troublesome, and fought much; but I think they never
actually got hold of Brandenburg again. They were beginning to get
notions of conversion: well preached to and well beaten upon,
you cannot hold out forever. Even Mistevoi at one time professed
tendencies to Christianity; perhaps partly for his Bride's sake,--
the dog, we may call him, in a milder sense! But he relapsed
dreadfully, after that insult; and his son worse. On the other
hand, Mistevoi's grandson was so zealous he went about with the
Missionary Preachers, and interpreted their German into Wendish:
"Oh, my poor Wends, will you hear, then, will you understand?
This solid Earth is but a shadow: Heaven forever or else Hell
forever, that is the reality!" SUCH "difference between right and
wrong" no Wend had heard of before: quite tremendously "important
if true!"--And doubtless it impressed many. There are heavy
Ditmarsch strokes for the unimpressible. By degrees all got
converted, though many were killed first; and, one way or other,
the Wends are preparing to efface themselves as a distinct people.
This STADE-AND-DITMARSCH family (of Anglish or Saxon breed,
if that is an advantage) seem generally to have furnished the
SALZWEDEL Office as well, of which Brandenburg was an offshoot,
done by deputy, usually also of their kin. They lasted in
Brandenburg rather more than a hundred years;--with little or no
Book-History that is good to read; their History inarticulate
rather, and stamped beneficently on the face of things. Otto is a
common name among them. One of their sisters, too, Adelheid
(Adelaide, NOBLENESS) had a strange adventure with "Ludwig the
Springer:" romantic mythic man, famous in the German world,
over whom my readers and I must not pause at this time.
In Salzwedel, in Ditmarsch, or wherever stationed, they had a
toilsome fighting life: sore difficulties with their DITMARSCHERS
too, with the plundering Danish populations; Markgraf after
Markgraf getting killed in the business. "ERSCHLAGEN, slain
fighting with the Heathen," say the old Books, and pass on to
another. Of all which there is now silence forever. So many years
men fought and planned and struggled there, all forgotten now
except by the gods; and silently gave away their life, before
those countries could become fencible and habitable! Nay, my
friend, it is our lot too: and if we would win honor in this
Universe, the rumor of Histories and Morning Newspapers,--which
have to become wholly zero, one day, and fall dumb as stones,
and which were not perhaps very wise even while speaking,--will
help us little!--
SUBSTANTIAL MARKGRAVES: GLIMPSE OF THE CONTEMPORARY KAISERS.
The Ditmarsch-Stade kindred, much slain in battle with the
Heathen, and otherwise beaten upon, died out, about the year 1l30
(earlier perhaps, perhaps later, for all is shadowy still);
and were succeeded in the Salzwedel part of their function by a
kindred called "of Ascanien and Ballenstadt;" the ASCANIER or
ANALT Markgraves; whose History, and that of Brandenburg, becomes
henceforth articulate to us; a History not doubtful or shadowy any
longer; but ascertainable, if reckoned worth ascertaining.
Who succeeded in Ditmarsch, let us by no means inquire. The Empire
itself was in some disorder at this time, more abstruse of aspect
than usual; and these Northern Markgrafs, already become important
people, and deep in general politics, had their own share in the
confusion that was going.
It was about this same time that a second line of Kaisers had died
out: the FRANKISH or SALIC line, who had succeeded to the SAXON,
of Henry the Fowler's blood. For the Empire too, though elective,
had always a tendency to become hereditary, and go in lines:
if the last Kaiser left a son not unfit, who so likely as the son?
But he needed to be fit, otherwise it would not answer,--otherwise
it might be worse for him! There were great labors in the Empire
too, as well as on the Sclavic frontier of it: brave men fighting
against anarchy (actually set in pitched fight against it, and not
always strong enough),--toiling sore, according to their faculty,
to pull the innumerable crooked things straight. Some agreed well
with the Pope,--as Henry II., who founded Bamberg Bishopric, and
much else of the like; [Kohler, pp. 102-104. See, for instance,
Description de la Table d'Aute1 en or fin, donnee a la
Cathedrale de Bale, par l'Empereur Henri II. en 1019
(Porentruy, 1838).] "a sore saint for the crown," as was said of
David I., his Scotch congener, by a descendant. Others disagreed
very much indeed;--Henry IV.'s scene at Canossa, with Pope
Hildebrand and the pious Countess (year 1077, Kaiser of the Holy
Roman Empire waiting, three days, in the snow, to kiss the foot of
excommunicative Hildebrand), has impressed itself on all memories!
Poor Henry rallied out of that abasement, and dealt a stroke or
two on Hildebrand; but fell still lower before long, his very Son
going against him; and came almost to actual want of bread, had
not the Bishop of Liege been good to him. Nay, after death, he lay
four years waiting vainly even for burial,--but indeed cared
little about that.
Certainly this Son of his, Kaiser Henry V., does not shine in
filial piety: but probably the poor lad himself was hard bested.
He also came to die, A.D. 1125, still little over forty, and was
the last of the Frankish Kaisers. He "left the REICHS-INSIGNIEN
[Crown, Sceptre and Coronation gear] to his Widow and young
Friedrich of Hohenstauffen," a sister's son of his,--hoping the
said Friedrich might, partly by that help, follow as Kaiser.
Which Friedrich could not do; being wheedled, both the Widow and
he, out of their insignia, under false pretences, and otherwise
left in the lurch. Not Friedrich, but one Lothar, a stirring man
who had grown potent in the Saxon countries, was elected Kaiser.
In the end, after waiting till Lothar was done, Friedrich's race
did succeed, and with brilliancy,--Kaiser Barbarossa being that
same Friedrich's son. In regard to which dim complicacies, take
this Excerpt from the imbroglio of Manuscripts, before they go
into the fire:--
"By no means to be forgotten that the Widow we here speak of,
Kaiser Henry V.'s Widow, who brought no heir to Henry V., was our
English Henry Beauclerc's daughter,--granddaughter therefore of
William Conqueror,--the same who, having (in 1127, the second year
of her widowhood) married Godefroi Count of Anjou, produced our
Henry II. and our Plantagenets; and thereby, through her
victorious Controversies with King Stephen (that noble peer whose
breeches stood him so cheap), became very celebrated as 'the
Empress Maud,' in our old History-Books. Mathildis, Dowager of
Kaiser Henry V., to whom he gave his Reichs-Insignia at dying:
she is the 'Empress Maud' of English Books; and relates herself in
this manner to the Hohenstauffen Dynasty, and intricate German
vicissitudes. Be thankful for any hook whatever on which to hang
half an acre of thrums in fixed position, out of your way;
the smallest flint-spark, in a world all black and unrememberable,
will be welcome."--
And so we return to Brandenburg and the "ASCANIEN and BALLENSTADT"
series of Markgraves.
