The history of Schleswig-Holstein consists of the corpus of facts since the pre-history times until the modern establishing of the Schleswig-Holstein state.
Early history
The Jutland Peninsula is a peninsula in Northern Europe with modern-day Schleswig-Holstein at its base. Schleswig is also called Southern Jutland (Sønderjylland). The old Scandinavian sagas, perhaps dating back to the times of the Angles and Jutes give the impression that Jutland has been divided into a northern and a southern part with the border running along the Kongeå River.
Taking into account both archeological findings and Roman sources, however, one could conclude that the Jutes inhabited both the Kongeå region and the more northern part of the peninsula, while the native Angles lived approximately where the towns Haithabu and Schleswig later would emerge (originally centered in the southeast of Schleswig in Angeln), the Saxons (earlier known apparently as the Reudingi) originally centered in Western Holstein (known historically as "Northalbingia") and Slavic Wagrians, part of the Obodrites (Abodrites) in Eastern Holstein. The Danes settled in the early Viking ages in Northern and Central Schleswig and the Northern Frisians after approximately the year 900 in Western Schleswig.
The pattern of populated and unpopulated areas was relatively constant through Bronze Age and Iron Age.
Prehistory People have lived in the area of present-day Schleswig-Holstein since the Stone Age. During the Neolithic, the first farming and livestock-raising communities in the region lived in villages and constructed large stone burial monuments known as megalithic tombs. By the Late Neolithic, approximately 2350–1700 BCE, metal objects, flint hoards and burials containing flint daggers appear in the archaeological record. Finds from this period show connections between Schleswig-Holstein and both Central Europe and southern Scandinavia, connections that continued into the Bronze Age.
By the Iron Age, the archaeological record includes settlements, cemeteries and sites devoted to iron production. At Borgstedt, archaeologists excavated a cemetery dating to the 5th century BCE containing 90 burials, most in urns. Several centuries later, from about 200 BCE to 200 CE, an iron-production site at Großenaspe operated using locally extracted bog iron ore. Archaeologists there uncovered 73 bloomery furnaces.
The region's peat bogs have also preserved human remains from the Iron Age. Bog bodies held by the Archaeological State Museum at Gottorf include Rendswühren Man, Damendorf Man, Osterby Man, Windeby I and Dätgen Man. Their preservation varies considerably. Some survived as substantially complete bodies, while others were preserved as heads or as compressed remains in which the bones had been largely demineralized by the peat.
After the Dark Ages migrations
After many Angles emigrated to the British Islands in the 5th century, the land of the Angles came in closer contact with the Danish islands – plausibly by partly immigration/occupation by the Danes. Later also the contacts increased between the Danes and the people on the northern half of the Jutish peninsula.
Judging by today's placenames, then the southern linguistic border of the Danish language seems to have been (starting at the west) up the Treene river, along the Danevirke (also known as Danewerk), then cutting across from the Schlei estuary to Eckernförde, and leaving the Schwansen peninsula, while the West coast of Schleswig had been the area of the Frisian language.
After the Slavic migrations, the eastern area of modern Holstein was inhabited by Slavic Wagrians (Vagri) a subgroup of the Obotrites (Obotritae).
Nordalbingia and Wagria in 8th–9th centuries
Apart from northern Holstein and Schleswig inhabited by Danes there were Nordalbingia and Wagria in respectively, Western and Eastern Holstein.
Nordalbingia (German: Nordalbingien, i.e. land north of the Elbe river) was one of the four administrative regions of the medieval Duchy of Saxony, the others being Angria, Eastphalia, and Westphalia. Nordalbingia consisted of four districts: Dithmarschen, Holstein, Stormarn (north of the Elbe) and Hadeln (south of the Elbe).
The Wagri, Wagiri, or Wagrians were a tribe of Polabian Slavs inhabiting Wagria, or eastern Holstein in northern Germany, from the ninth to twelfth centuries. They were a constituent tribe of the Obodrite confederacy.
Conquest of Nordalbingia by Obodrites and Franks In the Battle of Bornhöved (798) (German: Schlacht bei Bornhöved) on the field of Sventanafeld (Sventanapolje, Slavonic for "sacred field") near the village of Bornhöved near Neumünster in 798 the Obodrites, led by Drożko, allied with the Franks, defeated the Nordalbingian Saxons.
Following the Nordalbingian defeat in the Battle of Bornhöved by combined forces of the Obodrites and the Franks, where the Saxons lost 4,000 people, 10,000 Saxon families were deported to other areas of the empire. Areas north of Elbe (Wagria) were given to the Obodrites, while Hadeln was directly incorporated. However, the Obodrites soon were invaded by Danes and only the intervention of Charlemagne pushed the Danes out of Eider river.
Danes, Saxons, Franks struggle for control of Holstein
As Charlemagne extended his realm in the late 8th century, he met a united Danish army which successfully defended Danevirke, a fortified defensive barrier across the south of the territory west of the Schlei. A border was established at the Eider River in 811.
This strength was enabled by three factors: the fishing, the good soil giving good pasture and harvests in particular the tax and customs revenues from the market in Haithabu, where all trade between the Baltic Sea and Western Europe passed.
The Danevirke was built immediately south of the road where boats or goods had to be hauled for approximately 5 kilometers between a Baltic Sea bay and the small river Rheider Au (Danish, Rejde Å) connected to the North Sea. There on the narrowest part of southern Jutland was established the important transit market (Haithabu, also known as Hedeby, near modern Haddeby), which was protected by the Danevirke fortification. Hedeby was located on the inlet Schlei opposite to what is now the City of Schleswig.
The wealth of Schleswig, as reflected by impressive archeological finds on the site today, and the taxes from the Haithabu market, was enticing. A separate kingdom of Haithabu was established around year 900 by the Viking chieftain Olaf from Svealand. Olaf's son and successor Gnupa was however killed in battle against the Danish king, and his kingdom vanished.
The southern border was then adjusted back and forth a few times. For instance, the Holy Roman Emperor Otto II occupied the region between the river Eider and the inlet Schlei in the years 974–983, called the March of Schleswig, and stimulating German colonisation. Later Haithabu was burned by Swedes, and first under the reign of King Sweyn Forkbeard (Svend Tveskæg) (986–1014) the situation was stabilised, although raids against Haithabu would be repeated. Haithabu was once again and ultimately destroyed by fire in 1066. As Adam of Bremen reported in 1076, the Eider River was the border between Denmark and the Saxon territories.
From the time Danes came to Schleswig from today's eastern part of Denmark and Germans colonised Schleswig migrating from Holstein, the country north of the Elbe had been the battleground of Danes and Germans, as well as certain Slavic people. Danish scholars point to the existence of Danish placenames north for Eider and Danevirke as evidence that at least the most of Schleswig was at one time Danish; German scholars claim it, on the other hand, as essentially "Germanic", due to the fact that Schleswig became an autonomous entity and a duchy (in the 13th century) since it has been populated and been dominated from the South. The Duchy of Schleswig, or Southern Jutland (Sønderjylland), had been a Danish fief, though having been more or less independent from the Kingdom of Denmark during the centuries, similarly to Holstein, that had been from the first a fief of the Holy Roman Empire, originating in the small area of Nordalbingia, in today western Holstein, inhabited then mostly by Saxons, but in 13th century expanded to the present Holstein, after winning local Danish overlord. Throughout the Middle Ages, Schleswig was a source of rivalry between Denmark and the nobility of the duchy of Holstein within the Holy Roman Empire. The Danish position can be exemplified with an inscription on a stone in the walls of the town of Rendsburg (Danish: Rendsborg) located on the border between Schleswig and Holstein: Eidora Romani Terminus Imperii ("The River Eider is the Border of the Holy Roman Empire"). A number of Holsatian nobles sought to challenge this.
Danes, Saxons, Angles struggle for control of Schleswig
The area of Schleswig (Southern Jutland) was first inhabited by the mingled West Germanic tribes Cimbri, Angles and Jutes, later also by the North Germanic Danes and West Germanic Frisians. Holstein was inhabited mainly by the West Germanic Saxons, aside Wends (such as Obotrites) and other Slavic peoples in the East. The Saxons were the last of their nation to submit to Charlemagne (804), who put their country under Frankish counts, the limits of the Empire being pushed in 810 as far as the Schlei in Schleswig. In 811 the river Eider was declared as borderline between the Frankish Empire and Denmark. Then began the secular struggle between the Danish kings and the rulers of the Holy Roman Empire, and in 934 the German king Henry I established the March of Schleswig (Limes Danarum) between the Eider and the Schlei as an outpost of the Empire against the Danes.
South of this raged the contest between the Empire and Slavs. The Slavs, conquered and Christianised, rose in revolt in 983, after the death of the emperor Otto II, and for a while reverted to paganism and independence. The Saxon dukes, however, continued to rule central Holstein, and when Lothair of Supplinburg became duke of Saxony (1106), on the extinction of the Billung line, he enfeoffed Lord Adolphus of Schauenburg with the County of Holstein, as a Saxon subfief, becoming Adolphus I, Count of Holstein with the Saxon, later Lower Saxon dukes as liege lords.
12th century
The Earl (jarl) Knud Lavard (known in English as Canute Lavard), son of a Danish king, became Duke of Jutland or Southern Jutland. His son ascended the Danish throne, and the main branch continued as Kings, and a cadet branch descended from Abel of Denmark received Southern Jutland (Slesvig) as their appanage. During the rule of the dynasty Southern Jutland functioned as the Duchy which provided for the expenses of Royal Princes. Rivalry of royal succession and particularly the tendency of autonomy led to long-lasting feuds between the Dukes of Schleswig and the Kings of Denmark 1253–1325.
At that time, the Holy Roman Empire expanded northwards and had set up the Schauenburg family as counts of Holstein, under German suzerainty, first located in Nordalbingia, the Saxon part of the region, in what now is western Holstein. Knud Lavard had also gained awhile parts of Holstein, and thereby came in conflict with Count Adolphus I (Schauenburg) in the part of Holstein within the Empire, as they both were very keen on expanding their influence and pacifying the Wagrian tribe (see: Wends). Count Adolphus II, son of Adolphus I, succeeded and established the County of Holstein (1143) with about the borders it has had since then. Holstein was Christianised, many of the Wagrians were killed and the land was inhabited by settlers from Westphalia, Friesland and Holland. Soon the Holsatian towns, such as Lübeck and Hamburg, became serious trade competitors on the Baltic Sea.
13th century