Lubeck

A port in Schleswig-Holstein on the southwestern coast of the Baltic Sea.

The oldest settlement associated with Lubeck dates back to the ninth century, when a Slavic fortress was established some way inland on the river Trave. In the late eleventh century this settlement, known as Liubice (Old Lubeck), became the residence of the Abodrite king, Henry. When Henry died in 1127, parts of his realms were taken over by the expansionist German counts of Holstein and Ratzeburg.

Liubice itself was destroyed in 1138 by the Rugian prince Race, who was fighting for supremacy among the Abodrites. However, the town was refounded in 1143, when Count Adolf I of Holstein established a settlement on a small island further upstream where the rivers Trave and Wakenitz formed a natural harbor. The new settlement became known under its Germanized name, Lubeck. Merchants from Saxony now settled there in great numbers and soon profited from the ideal location close to the Baltic Sea and the trading routes between Scandinavia and the Baltic region. So great was the success of Lubeck that Duke Henry the Lion of Saxony soon found the city to be a threat to his own trade in the region. Consequently, he forcibly took over control of Lubeck in 1159. The following year Henry transferred the bishopric of Oldenburg in Holstein to Lubeck.

The city now became linked to the colonization and Christianization of the western Slavic lands and to the crusades in the Baltic region. When the first German missionaries made their way to Livonia in the early 1180s, they traveled with German merchants who sailed from either Lubeck or Visby on Gotland. The merchants journeyed to the shores of Livonia on a regular basis to trade with the local people, which made them ideal traveling companions for the missionaries. Soon afterward, the mission among the Livonians expanded into regular crusades, with most of the crusaders coming from Germany (notably Saxony, Westphalia, and Frisia) and assembling in the harbor town of Lubeck. Here they acquired ships, weapons, and supplies from local merchants and then set out to Livonia, usually via Visby. The merchants undoubtedly profited greatly from the crusaders assembling in Lubeck on an annual basis, as they did from the great number of unarmed pilgrims and ordinary travelers (especially from northern Germany and Scandinavia) who used Lubeck as a transit town on their journeys.

In addition to furnishing and manning the ships needed by the crusaders, the people of Lubeck played an active role in the crusades in the Baltic region, often taking the cross. Merchants from Lubeck are also believed to have taken part in the Third Crusade (1189-1192) and may have been involved in the foundation of the Teutonic Order at Acre (mod. ‘Akko, Israel) in 1190, together with merchants from Bremen. The Teutonic Knights later settled in Lubeck, founding a commandery in 1228/1229. At the same time they also took over the priestly services in the Hospital of the Holy Ghost in the town. The Sword Brethren, too, were present in Lubeck; by around 1220 the order had acquired a house in the town.

The merchants of Lubeck seem to have associated themselves fairly closely with the military orders, especially the Teutonic Knights, with whom they went on crusade, and also became involved in founding towns in the newly conquered territories in the Baltic region. The importance of Lubeck for crusading in the north was recognized by the popes, who endowed the town with privileges to protect the port and crusaders using it against any form of violations from neighboring secular powers; nevertheless, on several occasions the kings of Denmark blockaded the harbor of Lubeck in an attempt to gain supremacy in the region. On such occasions the popes intervened on behalf of Lubeck, demanding that the crusaders be allowed to move freely in and out of the city.

In 1226 the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II granted Lubeck the status of an imperial free town (Ger. freie Reichsstadt), ending its dependence on the secular powers in the region (notably the Danish kings) and securing favorable political and fiscal privileges for the city (that in some cases lasted until 1937). With regard to trade, Lubeck also orientated itself toward other parts of Europe; its role as an important harbor for crusaders and other travelers undoubtedly added greatly to its wealth and political influence. In the later Middle Ages Lubeck steadily increased its power and influence and soon became the most prominent town of the Hanseatic League, negotiating favorable treaties with the secular powers around the Baltic Sea and the North Sea.

-Carsten Selch Jensen

Bibliography

Grafimann, Antjekathrin, ed., Lubeckische Geschichte, 2d ed. (Lubeck: Schmidt-Romhild, 1988).

Hauschild, Wolf-Dieter, Kirchengeschichte Lubecks: Christentum und Burgertum in neun Jahrhunderten (Lubeck: Schmidt-Romhild, 1981).

Jensen, Carsten Selch, “Urban Life and the Crusades in North Germany and the Baltic Lands in the Early Thirteenth Century,” in Crusade and Conversion on the Baltic Frontier, 1150-1500, ed. Alan Murray (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2001).

Lind, John H., Kurt Villads Jensen, and Carsten Selch Jensen, “Communicating Crusades and Crusading Communications in the Baltic Region,” Scandinavian Economic History Review 59 (2001), 5-25.

Lotter, Friedrich, “The Crusading Idea and the Conquest of the Region East of the Elbe,” in Medieval Frontier Societies, ed. Robert Bartlett and Angus Mackay (Oxford: Clarendon, 1996), pp. 267-306.