This Ascanien, happily, has nothing to do with Brute of Troy or the
pious AEneas's son; it is simply the name of a most ancient Castle
(etymology unknown to me, ruins still dimly traceable) on the north
slope of the Hartz Mountains; short way from Aschersleben,--the Castle
and Town of Aschersleben are, so to speak, a second edition of Ascanien.
Ballenstadt is still older; Ballenstadt was of age in Charlemagne's
time; and is still a respectable little Town in that upland range of
country. The kindred, called GRAFS and ultimately HERZOGS (Dukes) of
"Ascanien and Ballenstadt," are very famous in old German History,
especially down from this date. Some reckon that they had intermittently
been Markgrafs, in their region, long before this; which is conceivable
enough: at all events it is very plain they did now attain the Office
in SALZWEDEL (straightway shifting it to Brandenburg); and held it
continuously, it and much else that lay adjacent, for centuries, in a
highly conspicuous manner.
In Brandenburg they lasted for about two hundred years; in their Saxon
dignities, the younger branch of them did not die out (and give place
to the Wettins that now are) for five hundred. Nay they have still their
representatives on the Earth: Leopold of Anhalt-Dessau, celebrated "Old
Dessauer," come of the junior branches, is lineal head of the kin in
Friedrich Wilhelm's time (while our little Fritzchen lies asleep in his
cradle at Berlin); and a certain Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst, Colonel in
the Prussian Army, authentic PRINCE, but with purse much shorter than
pedigree, will have a Daughter by and by, who will go to Russia, and
become almost too conspicuous, as Catharine II., there!--
"Brandenburg now as afterwards," says one of my old Papers, "was
officially reckoned SAXON; part of the big Duchy of Saxony; where
certain famed BILLUNGS, lineage of an old 'Count Billung' (connected
or not with BILLINGS-gate in our country, I do not know) had long borne
sway. Of which big old Billungs I will say nothing at all;--this
only, that they died out; and a certain Albert, 'Count of Ascanien and
Ballenstadt' (say, of ANHALT, in modern terms), whose mother was one of
their daughters, came in for the northern part of their inheritance. He
made a clutch at the Southern too, but did not long retain that. Being
a man very swift and very sharp, at once nimble and strong, in the huge
scramble that there then was,--Uncle Billung dead without heirs, a SALIC
line of emperors going or gone out, and a HOHENSTAUFFEN not yet come
in,--he made a rich game of it for himself; the rather as Lothar, the
intermediate Kaiser, was his cousin, and there were other good cards
which he played well.
"This is he they call 'Albert the Bear '_Albrecht der Bar_;' first of
the ASCANIEN Markgraves of Brandenburg;--first wholly definite MARKGRAF
OF BRANDENBURG that there is; once a very shining figure in the world,
though now fallen dim enough again. It is evident he had a quick eye,
as well as a strong hand; and could pick what way was straightest among
crooked things. He got the Northern part of what is still called Saxony,
and kept it in his family; got the Brandenburg Countries withal, got the
Lausitz; was the shining figure and great man of the North in his day.
The Markgrafdom of SALZWEDEL (which soon became of BRANDENBURG) he very
naturally acquired (A.D. 1142 or earlier); very naturally, considering
what Saxon and other honors and possessions he had already got hold
of."--
We can only say, it was the luckiest of events for Brandenburg, and the
beginning of all the better destinies it has had. A conspicuous Country
ever since in the world, and which grows ever more so in our late times.
He had many wars; inextricable coil of claimings, quarrellings and
agreeings: fought much,--fought in Italy, too, "against the Pagans"
(Saracens, that is). Cousin to one Kaiser, the Lothar above named;
then a chief stay of the Hohenstauffen, of the two Hohenstauffens who
followed: a restless, much-managing, wide-warring man. He stood true by
the great Barbarossa, second of the Hohenstauffen, greatest of all the
Kaisers; which was a luck for him, and perhaps a merit. He kept well
with three Kaisers in his time. Had great quarrels with "Henry the Lion"
about that "Billung" Saxon Heritage; Henry carrying off the better part
of it from Albert. Except that same Henry, head of the Guelphs or Welfs,
who had not Albert's talent, though wider lands than Albert, there was
no German prince so important in that time.
He transferred the Markgrafdom to BRANDENBURG, probably as more central
in his wide lands; SALZWEDEL is henceforth the led Markgrafdom or
MARCK, and soon falls out of notice in the world. Salzwedel is called
henceforth ever since the "Old Marck (_Alte Marck, Altmarck_ );" the
Brandenburg countries getting the name of "New Marck." Modern NEUMARK,
modern "Middle-Marck" (in which stands Brandenburg itself in our time),
"UCKER-Marck" (OUTSIDE Marck,--word UCKER is still seen in UKRAINE, for
instance): these are posterior Divisions, fallen upon as Brandenburg
(under Albert chiefly) enlarged itself, and needed new Official
parcellings into departments.
Under Albert the Markgrafdom had risen to be an ELECTORATE withal. The
Markgraf of Brandenburg was now furthermore the KURFURST of Brandenburg;
officially "Arch-treasurer of the Holy Roman Empire;" and one of the
Seven who have a right (which became about this time an exclusive one
for those Seven) to choose, to KIEREN the Romish Kaiser; and who are
therefore called KUR Princes, KURFURSTE or Electors, as the highest
dignity except the Kaiser's own. In reference to which abstruse matter,
likely to concern us somewhat, will the uninstructed English reader
consent to the following Excerpt, slightly elucidatory of KURFURSTS and
their function?
"FURST (Prince) I suppose is equivalent originally to our noun of
number, First. The old verb KIEREN (participle ERKOREN still in use, not
to mention 'Val-KYR' and other instances) is essentially the same word
as our CHOOSE, being written KIESEN as well as KIEREN. Nay, say the
etymologists, it is also written KUSSEN (to KISS,--to CHOOSE with such
emphasis!), and is not likely to fall obsolete in that form.--The other
Six Electoral Dignitaries who grew to Eight by degrees, and may be worth
noting once by the readers of this Book; are:--
"1. Three Ecclesiastical, MAINZ, COLN, TRIER (Mentz, Cologne,
Treves), Archbishops all, with sovereignty and territory more or less
considerable;--who used to be elected as Popes are, theoretically by
their respective Chapters and the Heavenly Inspirations, but practically
by the intrigues and pressures of the neighboring Potentates, especially
France and Austria.
"2. Three Secular, SACHSEN, PFALZ, BOHMEN (Saxony, Palatinate, Bohemia);
of which the last, BOHMEN, since it fell from being a Kingdom in itself,
to being a Province of Austria, is not very vocal in the Diets. These
Six, with Brandenburg, are the Seven Kurfursts in old time; SEPTEMVIRS
of the Country, so to speak.
"But now PFALZ, in the Thirty-Years War (under our Prince Rupert's
Father, whom the Germans call the `Winter-King'), got abrogated, put to
the ban, so far as an indignant Kaiser could; and the vote and KUR
of Pfalz was given to his Cousin of BAIERN (Bavaria),--so far as an
indignant Kaiser could. However, at the Peace of Westphalia (1648) it
was found incompetent to any Kaiser to abrogate PFULZ or the like of
Pfalz, a Kurfurst of the Empire. So, after jargon inconceivable, it was
settled, That PFALZ must be reinstated, though with territories much
clipped, and at the bottom of the list, not the top as formerly; and
that BAIERN, who could not stand to be balked after twenty years'
possession, must be made EIGHTH Elector. The NINTH, we saw (Year 1692),
was Gentleman Ernst of HANOVER. There never was any Tenth; and the Holy
ROMISCHE REICH, which was a grand object once, but had gone about in a
superannuated and plainly crazy state for some centuries back, was at
last put out of pain, by Napoleon, '6th August, 1806,' and allowed to
cease from this world." [Ms. _penes me._]
None of Albert's wars are so comfortable to reflect on as those he had
with the anarchic Wends; whom he now fairly beat to powder, and either
swept away, or else damped down into Christianity and keeping of the
peace. Swept them away otherwise; "peopling their lands extensively with
Colonists from Holland, whom an inroad of the sea had rendered homeless
there." Which surely was a useful exchange. Nothing better is known to
me of Albert the Bear than this his introducing large numbers of Dutch
Netherlanders into those countries; men thrown out of work, who already
knew how to deal with bog and sand, by mixing and delving, and who first
taught Brandenburg what greenness and cow-pasture was. The Wends, in
presence of such things, could not but consent more and more to efface
themselves,--either to become German, and grow milk and cheese in the
Dutch manner, or to disappear from the world.
The Wendish Princes had a taste for German wives; in which just taste
the Albert genealogy was extremely willing to indulge them. Affinities
produce inheritances; by proper marriage-contracts you can settle on
what side the most contingent inheritance shall at length fall. Dim but
pretty certain lies a time coming when the Wendish Princes also shall
have effaced themselves; and all shall be German-Brandenburgish, not
Wendish any more.--The actual Inhabitants of Brandenburg, therefore,
are either come of Dutch Bog-farmers, or are simple Lower SAXONS
("Anglo-Saxon," if you like that better), PLATT-TEUTSCH of the common
type; an unexceptionable breed of people. Streaks of Wendish population,
extruded gradually into the remoter quagmires, and more inaccessible,
less valuable sedgy moors and sea-strands, are scattered about;
Mecklenburg, which still subsists separately after a sort, is reckoned
peculiarly Wendish. In Mecklenburg, Pommern, Pommerellen (Little
Pomerania), are still to be seen physiognomies of a Wendish or Vandalic
type (more of cheek than there ought to be, and less of brow; otherwise
good enough physiognomies of their kind): but the general mass, tempered
with such admixtures, is of the Platt-Deutsch, Saxon or even Anglish
character we are familiar with here at home. A patient stout people;
meaning considerable things, and very incapable of speaking what it
means.
Albert was a fine tall figure himself; DER SCHONE, "Albert the
Handsome," was his name as often as "Albert the Bear." That latter
epithet he got, not from his looks or qualities, but merely from his
heraldic cognizance: a Bear on his shield. As was then the mode of
names; surnames being scant, and not yet fixedly in existence. Thus too
his contemporaries, Henry THE LION of Saxony and Welfdom, William THE
LION of Scotland, were not, either of them, specially leonine men: nor
had the PLANTAGENETS, or Geoffrey of Anjou, any connection with the
PLANT of BROOM, except wearing a twig of it in their caps on occasion.
Men are glad to get some designation for a grand Albert they are often
speaking of, which shall distinguish him from the many small ones.
Albert "the Bear, DER BAR," will do as well as another.
It was this one first that made Brandenburg peaceable and notable. We
might call him the second founder of Brandenburg; he, in the middle of
the Twelfth Century, completed for it what Henry the Fowler had begun
early in the Tenth. After two hundred and fifty years of barking and
worrying, the Wends are now finally reduced to silence; their anarchy
well buried, and wholesome Dutch cabbage planted over it: Albert did
several great things in the world; but, this, for posterity, remains
his memorable feat. Not done quite easily; but, done: big destinies of
Nations or of Persons are not founded GRATIS in this world. He had
a sore toilsome time of it, coercing, warring, managing among his
fellow-creatures, while his day's work lasted,--fifty years or so, for
it began early. He died in his Castle of Ballenstadt, peaceably among
the Hartz Mountains at last, in the year 1170, age about sixty-five. It
was in the time while Thomas a Becket was roving about the world,
coming home excommunicative, and finally getting killed in Canterbury
Cathedral;--while Abbot Samson, still a poor little brown Boy, came over
from Norfolk, holding by his mother's hand, to St. Edmundsbury; having
seen "SANTANAS s with outspread wings" fearfully busy in this world.