From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A
burgward
or
castellany
[1]
was a form of settlement used for the organisation of the
northeastern marches
of the
Kingdom of Germany
in the mid-10th century. Based on earlier organisations within the
Frankish Empire
and among the
Slavs
, 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 fortified 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
constructions, mostly built to defend against the
Saxons
. An important line of burgwards lay along the
Unstrut
west of
Merseburg
, 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
territory were founded in the 940s. Not much later they were being established among the
Hevelli
and around
Brandenburg
. There were three lines of burgwards defending eastern
Thuringia
. Many burgwards were controlled by monasteries, such as
Hersfeld
and
Fulda
.
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).
References
[
edit
]
- ^
Arnold, Benjamin (1991).
Princes and territories in medieval Germany
, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge and New York, p. 165.
ISBN
0-521-52148-3
.
Sources
[
edit
]
- Reuter, Timothy
.
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.