aal and
the Elbe. The downfall of the Thuringian kingdom was the occasion of
Slavic encroachments even on the left bank of the Elbe between Stendal
and Lueneburg. This German recession, which boded the Slavization not
only of Eastern but also of Central Europe, was due to various causes,
many of which are veiled in the impenetrable darkness which still
hangs over the early Middle Ages. The chief causes were undoubtedly
the Germanic migration over the Roman world and the settlement of the
Franks in Northern Gaul and the Saxons in England.

But with the Carolingian dynasty came a new era. Charles Martel,
Pepin and Charlemagne aspired to universal monarchy. Not content with
France, Northern Spain, Italy and Germany proper, Charlemagne, as we
have already seen, recaptured the middle Danube. His successors in
Germany, the Saxon, Franconian and Swabian emperors, continued the
impulse, but gave it in the main a different direction. Instead
of moving toward the south-east, where they would have encountered
stubborn opposition from the already compact Hungarian nationality,
they chose for their field of colonization (or recolonization) the
east and north-east. Throughout the eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth
and fourteenth centuries we observe a strong and unremitting tide
of German peasants, burghers and knights flowing through and over
Brandenburg, Pomerania, Mecklenburg, Silesia, the Prussian duchies,
and even into Lithuania, Curland, Livonia and Esthonia. We have here
an explanation of the want of interest taken by the Germans in the
Crusades. While the kings of England and France, the barons and counts
of Brabant and Italy, were wasting their substance and the blood of
their subjects in hopeless attempts to overthrow Mohammedanism on its
own ground, the Germans were laying the foundations--unconsciously, it
is true--of a new empire. The lands wrested from the Slaves were to
be the kingdom of Frederick the Great. The work was done thoroughly,
almost as thoroughly as the Saxon conquest of Britain. The Obotrites,
Wiltzi, Ukern, Prussians, Serbs and Vends were annihilated or
absorbed. The only traces of their existence now to be found are the
scattered remnants of dialects spoken in remote villages or small
districts, and the countless names of towns bequeathed by them
to their conquerors. These names are often recognizable by the
terminations _in_ and _itz_. The most conspicuous factor in this labor
of colonization was the Teuton