The Historical Geography of Europe, Vol. I, Text

by Edward A. Freeman

♦The new Saxony.♦

The Saxon name itself withdrew in the end from the old Saxony to the lands conquered from the Slave. ♦Bernhard duke of Saxony, 1180-1212.♦ On the fall of Henry the Lion, the duchy of Saxony, cut short by the grant to the archbishops of Köln, was granted to Bernhard of Ballensted, the founder of the Ascanian House. ♦Sachsen-Lauenburg.♦ Of the older Saxon land his house kept only for a while the small district north of the Elbe which kept the name of Sachsen-Lauenburg, and which in the end became part of the Hannover electorate. ♦1423.♦ But it was in Thuringia and the conquered Slavonic lands to the east of Thuringia that a new Saxony arose, which kept on somewhat of the European position of the Saxon name down to modern times. This new Saxony, with Wittenberg for its capital, grew, through the addition of Thuringia and Meissen, into the Saxon Electorate which played so great a part during the three last centuries of the existence of the German kingdom. ♦Divisions and unions.♦ But in Saxony too the usual divisions took place. Lauenburg parted off; so did the smaller duchies which still keep the Saxon name. ♦1547.♦ The ducal and electoral dignities were divided, till the two, united under the famous Maurice, formed the Saxon electorate as it stood at the dissolution of the kingdom. It was in short a new state, one which had succeeded to the name, but which could in no other way be thought to represent, the Saxony whose conquest cost so many campaigns to Charles the Great.

♦The Mark of Brandenburg.♦

Another power which arose in the marchland of Saxon and Slave, to the north of Saxony in the later sense, was the land known specially as the Mark, the groundwork of the power which has in our own day risen to the head of Germany. The North Mark of Saxony became the Mark of Brandenburg. ♦Reign of Albert the Bear, 1134-1170.♦ In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, under Albert the Bear and his house, the Mark greatly extended itself at the expense of the Slaves. ♦Union with Bohemia, 1373-1415.
House of Hohenzollern, 1415.♦ United for a time with the kingdom of Bohemia, it passed into the house of the Burgraves of Nürnberg, that House of Hohenzollern which has grown step by step till it has reached Imperial rank in our own day. The power thus formed presently acquired a special character by the acquisition of what may be called a German land out of Germany, a land which gave them in the end a higher title, and which by its geographical position led irresistibly to a further increase of territory. ♦Union of Brandenburg and Prussia, 1611-1618.♦ Early in the seventeenth century the Electors of Brandenburg acquired by inheritance the Duchy of Prussia, that is merely Eastern Prussia, a fief, not of the Empire but of the crown of Poland, and which lay geographically apart from their strictly German dominions. ♦Prussia independent of Poland, 1656; becomes kingdom, 1701.♦ The common sovereign of Brandenburg and Prussia was thus the man of two lords; but the Great Elector Frederick William became a wholly independent sovereign in his duchy, and his son Frederick took on himself the kingly title for the land which was thus freed from all homage. Both before and after the union with Prussia, the Electors of Brandenburg continued largely to increase their German dominions. ♦1523-1623.♦ A temporary possession of the principality of Jägerndorf in Silesia, unimportant in itself, led to great events in later times. ♦Westfalian possessions of Brandenburg, 1614-1666.
1702-1744.♦ The acquisition, at various times in the seventeenth century, of Cleve and other outlying Westfalian lands, which were further increased in the next century, led in the same way to the modern dominion of Prussia in western Germany. ♦Acquisitions in Pomerania, 1638-1648.
1713-1719.♦ But the most solid acquisition of Brandenburg in this age was that of Eastern Pomerania, to which the town of Stettin, with a further increase of territory, was added after the wars of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden. The events of the Thirty Years’ War also increased the dominions both of Brandenburg and Saxony at the expense of the neighbouring ecclesiastical princes. ♦Later acquisitions of Prussia.♦ The later acquisitions of the House of Hohenzollern, after the Electors of Brandenburg had taken the kingly title from their Prussian duchy, concern Prussia as an European power at least as much as they concern Brandenburg as a German power. ♦German character of the Prussian Monarchy.♦ Yet their proper place comes in the history of Germany. Unlike the other princes who held lands within and without the German kingdom, the Kings of Prussia and Electors of Brandenburg have remained essentially German princes. Their acquisitions of territory out of Germany have all been in fact enlargements, if not of the soil of Germany, at least of the sphere of German influence. And, at last, in marked contrast to the fate of the rival House of Austria, the whole Prussian dominions have been incorporated with the new German Empire, and form the immediate dominion of its Imperial head. ♦Spread of the name of Prussia.♦ The outward sign of this change, the outward sign of the special position of Brandenburg, as compared with Holstein or Austria, is the strange spread of the name of Prussia over the German dominions of the King of Prussia. No such spread has taken place with the name of Denmark or of Hungary.

♦Conquest of Silesia, 1741.♦

Within Germany the greatest enlargement of the dominion of Prussia—as we may now begin to call it instead of Brandenburg—was the acquisition of by far the greater part of Schlesien or Silesia, hitherto part of the Bohemian lands, and then held by the House of Austria. This, it should be noted, was an acquisition which could hardly fail to lead to further acquisitions. ♦Geographical character of the Prussian dominions.♦ The geographical characteristic of the Prussian dominions was the way in which they lay in detached pieces, and the enormous extent of frontier as compared with the area of the country. The kingdom itself lay detached, hemmed in and intersected by the territory of Poland. The electorate, with the Pomeranian territory, formed a somewhat more compact mass; but even this had a very large frontier compared with its area. The Westfalian possessions, the district of Cottbus, and other outlying dominions, lay quite apart. The addition of Silesia increased this characteristic yet further. ♦Position of Silesia.♦ The newly won duchy, barely joining the electorate, ran out as a kind of peninsula between Saxony, Bohemia, and Poland. Silesia, first as a Polish and then as a Bohemian fief, had formed part of a fairly compact geographical mass; as part of the same dominion with Prussia and Brandenburg, it was an all but isolated land with an enormous frontier. ♦Acquisitions from Poland, 1772-1795.♦ The details of the Polish acquisitions of Prussia will be best given in our survey of Poland. ♦Their geographical character.♦ But it should be noted that each of the portions of territory which were added to Prussia by the several partitions has a geographical character of its own. ♦1772.♦ The addition of West-Prussia—that is the geographical union of the kingdom and the electorate—was something which could not fail in the nature of things to come sooner or later. ♦1793.♦ The second addition of South-Prussia might seem geographically needed in order to leave Silesia no longer peninsular. ♦1795.♦ The last, and most short-lived addition of New-East-Prussia had no such geographical necessity as the other two. Still it helped to give greater compactness to the kingdom, and to lessen its frontier in comparison with its area.

Another acquisition of the House of Hohenzollern during the eighteenth century, though temporary, deserves a passing notice. ♦East-Friesland, 1744.♦ Among its Westfalian annexations was East-Friesland. The King of Prussia thus became, during the last half of the eighteenth century, an oceanic potentate, a character which he presently lost, and which, save for a moment in the days of confusion, he obtained again only in our own day.

♦Parts of Saxony held by foreign kings.♦

A large part of Saxony, both in the older and in the later sense, thus came to form part of a dominion containing both German and non-German lands, but in which the German character was in every way predominant. Other parts of Saxony in the same extended sense also came to form part of the dominions of princes who ruled both in and out of Germany, but in whom the non-German character was yet more predominant. ♦Holstein:♦ The old Saxony beyond the Elbe, the modern Holstein, passed into the hands of the Danish Kings. ♦its relation to Sleswick.♦ Its shifting relations towards Denmark and Germany and towards the neighbouring land of Sleswick, as having become matter of international dispute between Denmark and Germany, will be best spoken of when we come to deal with Denmark. The events of the Thirty Years’ War also made the Swedish kings for a while considerable potentates in northern Germany. ♦German territories of Sweden, 1648-1815.♦ The Peace of Westfalia confirmed to them Western Pomerania and the town of Wismar on the Baltic, and the bishoprics of Bremen and Verden which gave them an oceanic coast. ♦1720.♦ But these last lands were, as we have seen afterwards, ceded to Hannover, and the Pomeranian possessions of Sweden were also cut short by cession to Brandenburg. But the possession of Wismar and a part of Pomerania still gave the Swedish kings a position as German princes down to the dissolution of the Empire.

These are the chief powers which rose to historical importance within the bounds of Saxony, in the widest sense of that word. To trace every division and union which created or extinguished any of the smaller principalities, or even to mark every minute change of frontier among the greater powers, would be impossible. ♦Free cities of Saxony.
The Hanse Towns.♦ But it must be further remembered that the Saxon circles were the seats of some of the greatest of the free cities of Germany, the leading members of the Hanseatic League. In the growth of German commerce the Rhenish lands took the lead, and, in the earliest days of the Hansa, Köln held the first place among its cities. ♦Lübeck, Bremen, Hamburg.♦ The pre-eminence afterwards passed to havens nearer to the Ocean and the Baltic, where, among a crowd of others, the Imperial cities of Lübeck and Bremen stand out foremost, and with them Hamburg, a rival which has in later times outstripped them. And at this point it may be noticed that Lübeck and Bremen specially illustrate a law which extended to many other of the episcopal cities of Germany. ♦The cities and the bishoprics.♦ The Bishop became a prince, and held a greater or smaller extent of territory in temporal sovereignty. But the city which contained his see remained independent of him in temporal things, and knew him only as its spiritual shepherd. Such were the archbishopric of Bremen and the bishopric of Lübeck, principalities which, after the change of religion, passed into secular hands. Thus we have seen the archbishopric of Bremen pass, first to Sweden, and then to Hannover. But the two cities always remained independent commonwealths, owning no superior but the Emperor.