Adolf II of Holstein

The Ottonian dynasty had supported eastward expansion of the Holy Roman Empire towards Wendish (West Slavic) lands during the tenth century.

The campaigns of King Henry the Fowler and Emperor Otto the Great had led to the introduction of burgwards to protect German conquests in the lands of the Sorbs.

Otto's lieutenants, Margraves Gero and Hermann Billung, had advanced eastward and northward respectively to claim tribute from conquered Slavs.

Bishoprics had been established at Meissen, Brandenburg, Havelberg, and Oldenburg to administer the territory.

A great Slavic rebellion in 983 had reversed the initial German gains, however.

While the burgwards had allowed the Saxons to retain control of Meissen, they had lost Brandenburg and Havelberg.

The Elbe River had thus become the eastern limit of German-Roman control.

The Christianization of Wagria had begun under Unwan, Archbishop of Bremen, in the 1020s.

By the early twelfth century, the Archbishoprics of Bremen and Magdeburg had begun to seek the conversion of the pagan Slavs to Christianity through peaceful means: notable missionaries include Vicelin of Oldenburg, Norbert of Xanten, and Otto of Bamberg.

Vicelin, a Christian priest, had first begun to evangelize the Wagri and Wilzi with the permission of the Obrodite prince, Henry, who was reigning from the site of present Lübeck, around 1126.

Secular Saxon princes seeking Slavic territory, lacking support from the Salian dynasty of the Holy Roman Empire, had found themselves in a military stalemate with their adversaries.

Christians, especially Saxons from Holstein, and pagans raid each other across the Limes Saxonicus, usually for tribute.

In the years following Vicelin's mission, the Emperor Lothair III had thoroughly encastellated Wagria.

From 1140-43, Canute Lavard and the Holsteiners had invaded it and taken Pribislav and Niklot, the Wagrian leaders, away in chains.

Count Adolf II of Holstein and Henry of Badewide take control of Polabian settlements that will soon become Lübeck and Ratzeburg; Vicelin had subsequently been installed as bishop at Oldenburg.

Adolf had sought peace with the chief of the Obodrite confederacy, Niklot, and encouraged German colonization and missionary activity in Wagria.

Henry the Lion and Adolf II of Holstein had divided the newly conquered Slav lands between them in 1143: Polabia with Ratzeburg had gone to Henry, while …

…Wagria, with its castle of Sigberg, had gone to Adolf.

The Trave River divides the regions.

There has followed a great influx of German colonists.

During the Wendish Crusade of 1147, the Wagri attack recently founded colonies of Flemings and Frisians, but this is the last that is heard of their resistance to Germanization.

Niklot, upset at Adolf's participation in the crusade, had preemptively invaded Wagria in June 1147, leading to the march of the crusaders in late summer 1147.

After expelling the Obodrites from his territory, Adolf signs a peace treaty with Niklot.

The remaining Christian crusaders target the Obodrite fort Dobin and the Liutizian fort Demmin.

The forces attacking Dobin include those of the Danes Canute V and Sweyn III, Archbishop Adalbert II of Bremen, and Duke Henry the Lion of Saxony.

Niklot, avoiding pitched battles, ably defends the marshland of Dobin.

One army of Danes is defeated by Slavs from Dobin, while another has to defend the Danish fleet from Niklot's allies, the Rani of Rügen.

Henry and Adalbert maintain the siege of Dobin after the retreat of the Danes.

When some crusaders advocate ravaging the countryside, others object by asking, "Is not the land we are devastating our land, and the people we are fighting our people?"

The Saxon army under Henry the Lion withdraws after Niklot agrees to have Dobin's garrison undergo baptism.

The Saxon army directed against Demmin is led by several bishops, including those of Mainz, Halberstadt, Münster, Merseburg, Brandenburg, Olmütz, and Bishop Anselm of Havelberg.

While their stated goal is to achieve the conversion of the pagans, most also seek additional territory and tithe for their dioceses; Abbot Wibald of Corvey has gone in the hopes of acquiring the island of Rügen.

The Demmin campaign also includes the secular margraves Conrad I and Albert the Bear, who hope to expand their marches.

A Royal Polish contingent wants to add to the Bishopric of Lebus.

Marching from Magdeburg, Albert the Bear recovers Havelberg, lost since the 983 Slavic rebellion.

The crusaders then destroy a pagan temple and castle at Malchow.

After an unsuccessful siege of Demmin, …

...the margraves divert a contingent of crusaders to attack central Pomerania instead.

The countryside of Mecklenburg and central Pomerania is plundered and depopulated with much bloodshed, especially by the troops of Henry the Lion.

Of Henry's campaigns, Helmold of Bosau writes that "there was no mention of Christianity, but only of money".

The Slavic inhabitants have also lost much of their methods of production, limiting their resistance in the future.

The crusaders reach the already Christian city Stettin, whereupon the crusaders disperse after meeting with Pomerania’s Bishop Adalbert and Christian duke Ratibor I.

The area around Lübeck had been settled after the last Ice Age.

Several Neolithic dolmens can be found in the area.

Slavic peoples started around CE 700 coming into the eastern parts of Holstein, which had previously been settled by Germanic inhabitants and were then evacuated in the course of the Migration Period.

In the early ninth century, Charlemagne, whose attempts to Christianize the area were opposed by the Saxons, had moved the Saxons out and brought in Polabian Slavs, allied to Charlemagne, in their stead.

Liubice ("lovely") had been founded on the banks of the river Trave about four kilometers north of the present-day city center of Lübeck.

In the tenth, century it became the most important settlement of the Obotrite confederacy and a castle had been built.

The settlement had been burned down in 1128 by the pagan Rani, a West Slavic tribe based on the island of Rugia (Rügen) and the southwestern mainland across the Strelasund in what is today northeastern Germany.

The modern town was founded by Adolf II, Count of Schauenburg and Holstein, in 1143 as a German settlement on the river island Bucu.

He has established a new castle which was first mentioned by Helmold in 1147.

Adolf has to cede the castle to Henry the Lion in 1158.