German Mixes

German - August 2001 LoAR - Tatiana Heinemann

François la Flamme

2001.08

... the combination of a Russian given name and a German byname is not documented... although it is registerable. [Tatiana Heinemann, 08/01, A-Trimaris]

According to Bahlow-Gentry, "RuS: sometimes indicating personal or business relations (of traveling merchants e.g.) with the land of the Rus (Russians); see ReuS."

According to Bahlow-Gentry, "ReuS (UGer.)... 'cobbler'... But when used as surn. for knights, it means Russian (MHG riuSe 'Russian'), i.e. one who was in the land of the ReuSen [Russians]; cf. around 1250 doc. governor Heinrich of Plauen, called Bohemian (Bo:hme), and his brother Heinrich, called RuSo: likewise "her [lord] Arnolt der Ru:Se", knight near Lahr 1298. Jakobus ReuS (Ruthenus), Bru:nn 1360.

According to the Encyclopedia Brittanica 1911:

HANSEATIC LEAGUE. It is impossible to assign any precise date for the beginning of the Hanseatic League or to name any single factor which explains the origin of that loose but effective federation of North German towns. Associated action and partial union among these towns can be traced back to the 13th century...

While the political element in the development of the Hanseatic League must not be underestimated, it was not so formative as the economic. The foundation was laid for the growth of German towns along the southern shore of the Baltic by the great movement of German colonization of Slavic territory east of the Elbe. This movement, extending in time from about the middle of the 11th to the middle of the 13th century and carrying a stream of settlers and traders from the Northwest, resulted not only in the Germanization of a wide territory but in the extension of German influence along the sea-coast far to the east of actual territorial settlement. The German trading towns, at the mouths of the numerous streams which drain the North European plain, were stimulated or created by the unifying impulse of a common and long-continued advance of conquest and colonization.

The impetus of this remarkable movement of expansion not only carried German trade to the East and North within the Baltic basin...

Germans were early pushing as permanent settlers into the Scandinavian towns, and in Wisby, on the island of Gothland, the Scandinavian centre of Baltic trade, equal rights as citizens in the town government were possessed by the German settlers as early as the beginning of the 13th century. There also came into existence at Wisby the first association of German traders abroad, which united the merchants of over thirty towns, from Cologne and Utrecht in the West to Reval in the East. We find the Gothland association making in 1229 a treaty with a Russian prince and securing privileges for their branch trading station at Novgorod. According to the "Skra," the by-laws of the Novgorod branch, the four aldermen of the community of Germans, who among other duties held the keys of the common chest, deposited in Wisby, were to be chosen from the merchants of the Gothland association and of the towns of Lubeck, Soest and Dortmund. ...

In 1293 the Saxon and Wendish merchants at Rostock decided that all appeals from Novgorod be taken to Lubeck instead of to Wisby, and six years later the Wendish and Westphalian towns, meeting at Lubeck, ordered that the Gothland association should no longer use a common seal. Though Lubeck's right as court of appeal from the Hanseatic counter at Novgorod was not recognized by the general assembly of the League until 1373, the long-existing practice had simply accorded with the actual shifting of commercial power...

The last of the chief trading settlements, both in importance and in date of organization, was that at Bergen in Norway, where in 1343 the Hanseatics obtained special trade privileges... The fishing centre at Schonen was important as a market, though, like Novgorod, its trade was seasonal, but it did not acquire the position of a regularly organized counter, reserved alone, in the North, for Bergen...

In 1361 representatives from Lubeck and Wisby visited Novgorod to recodify the by-laws of the counter and to admonish it that new statutes required the consent of Lubeck, Wisby, Riga, Dorpat and Reval. This action was confirmed in 1366 by an assembly of the Hansa which at the same time, on the occasion of a regulation made by the Bruges counter and of statutes drawn up by the young Bergen counter, ordered that in future the approval of the towns must be obtained for all new regulations...

For the Russian trade new competitors were emerging in southern Germany. The Hanseatic embargo against Bruges from 1451 to 14J7, its later war and embargo against England, the Turkish advance closing the Italian Black Sea trade with southern Russia, all were utilized by Nuremberg and its fellows to secure a landtrade outside the sphere of Hanseatic influence. The fairs of Leipzig and Frankfort-on-Main rose in importance as Novgorod, the stronghold of Hanse trade in the East, was weakened by the attacks of Ivan III. The closing of the Novgorod counter in 1494 was due not only to the development of the Russian state but to the exclusive Hanseatic policy which had stimulated the opening of competing trade routes...

http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Hanseatic_League

Wikipedia Article on "Reuss (state)" in Germany:

Early House of Reuss

Erkenbert I (1122) is proved by documentary evidence to have been their ancestor. His successors acquired almost the whole Vogtland by feuds or marriage settlement, although in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries they lost the greater part of their possessions, most of which fell to the Electorate of Saxony. In 1244 Henry IV entered a German monastery. His sons divided his possessions, their seats being respectively at Weida (extinct in 1535), Gera (extinct in 1550), and Plauen.

In 1306 the Plauen branch was subdivided into an elder line that died out in 1572, and a younger line called Plauen at Greiz. Henry, the founder of the Plauen line (d. about 1300), on account of his marriage with a granddaughter of King Daniel of Galicia received the surname of "der Reusse" (Ruthenus), whence the name passed to the country.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Reuss

Wikipedia Article on "Daniel of Galicia" (1201-1264):

In the last years of his reign, Daniel engaged in dynastic politics, marrying a son and a daughter to the offspring of Mindaugas of Grand Duchy of Lithuania and acquiring territorial concessions in Poland from the latter. Another daughter of his, Ustynia, was married to Prince Andrey Yaroslavich of Vladimir-Suzdal. He also arranged for the marriage of his son Roman to Gertrude, the Babenberg heiress [niece of Frederick II "the Quarrelsome" who was killed in battle in 1246?], but was unsuccessful in his bid to have him placed on the ducal throne of Austria.

Sons (partial list)

• Irakli Danielvich (*ca. 1223 – † by 1240)
• Roman Danielvich (*ca. 1230 – † ca. 1261), Prince of Black Ruthenia (Navahradak) 1255? – 1260?, and Slonim
• Mstyslav Danielvich († aft. 1300), Prince of Lutsk 1265–1289, Prince of Volynia 1289 – aft. 1300
• Svarn (Shvarno, Švarnas, Ioann; † 1269, bur. Chełm), Grand Duke of Lithuania 1264–1267 (1268–1269?), Prince of Chełm 1264–1269

Daughters

• Sofia Danielvna, m. 1259 Graf Heinrich V von Schwarzburg-Blankenburg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_of_Galicia