WENDS. 



11 



fulfilled the wish of the members of the empire, 

 to extinguish by force, all debts due to Jews, 

 for which all debtors were obliged to pay fifteen 

 per cent, of the debts to the emperor, who was 

 the legal protector of the Jews ! In Bohemia, 

 Wenceslaus was disliked on account of his pre- 

 ference of the Germans, and his arbitrary spirit. 

 He alienated the nobility by exacting the resto- 

 ration of the crown domains, which had been mort- 

 gaged to them, and excited general odium on ac- 

 count of the cruelty with which he acted in his 

 disputes with the clergy. His brother, the king 

 of Hungary, and his cousin, the margrave of Mo- 

 ravia, were hostile to him ; and thus originated, 

 in 1394, a conspiracy of the Bohemian nobles, 

 who surprised him, and kept him prisoner. Af- 

 ter some months he was released ; but his autho- 

 rity was gone in Germany. He was accused of 

 having made John Galeazzo Visconti duke of Milan 

 for money, and thus diminished the territory of 

 the empire. Dissensions broke out every where ; 

 ind the part which circumstances compelled him to 

 take in ecclesiastical affairs, contributed much to 

 deprive him of the German crown. He united 

 with France, to induce the Popes, elected in Rome 

 and Avignon, to resign, and to re-establish peace 

 in the church, by a new election ; and he under- 

 took, particularly, to induce Boniface to resign ; 

 but this pope had been recognised by most of the 

 electors, and they were dissatisfied with the mea- 

 sures of Wenceslaus, particularly the archbishop of 

 Mayence, who owed his elevation to this pope. 

 At last the electors resolved to deprive him of the 

 crown, but disagreed respecting who should suc- 

 ceed him ; so that, in 1400, the electors of May- 

 ence, Treves, Cologne, and the Palatinate, only, 

 pronounced his deposition. Wenceslaus remained 

 inactive, but, nevertheless, found several supporters, 

 because most of the members of the empire were 

 dissatisfied with the steps of those electors. His 

 successor, Robert, could do as little to remedy the 

 deep-rooted evils of the empire as Wenceslaus. 

 The latter quarrelled again with his brother Sigis- 

 mund, who took him prisoner, and kept him a year 

 and a half in Vienna. Robert died in 1410, and 

 Sigismund, to whom Wenceslaus resigned his 

 claims, was elected emperor. He remained in pos- 

 session of Bohemia, and was only disturbed by the 

 commotions caused by Huss. He died of apoplexy, 

 in 1419, upon hearing of the insurrection of the j 

 Hussites, after the execution of Huss, whom he j 

 had endeavoured to protect. Modern historians 

 have attempted to find apologies for his conduct. 

 Certainly all is not true which was said of him in 

 his time, but his faults deprive him of all esteem. 



WENDS ; the name given by the Germans to a 

 particular branch of that great Sclavonic family, 

 the settlements of which in the northern and 

 eastern part of Germany, from the Elbe along the 

 Baltic to the Vistula, and, towards the south, as far 

 as Bohemia, were known as early as the sixth cen- 

 tury. It included, 1. the Obotrites, in Mecklen- 

 burg, a powerful tribe, under their own kings. 

 Henry the Lion, duke of Saxony, almost extirpated 

 them in the twelfth century. 2. The Pomeranians 

 and Wiltzians, from the Oder to the Vistula. Their 

 princes united themselves with Germany in 1181, 

 and did not become extinct until 1637. 3. The 

 TJkers (Frontier Wends; see Ukraine), and other 

 tribes in the five Brandenburg marks. Albert 

 the Bear, margrave of Brandenburg, conquered and 

 extirpated them, not because they were heathens, 



but because they were Sclavonians. 4. The Ser- 

 bians (more properly Serbians), between the Saale 

 and Elbe : ancient Misnia, therefore, was called by 

 the Bohemians, Srbsko. 5. Lusitzians (improperly 

 Lusatians}, in the margraviate of Upper and Lower 

 Lusatia. The Serbians had their own lords, 

 princes and kings, and extended their dominion 

 over the whole of the present Osterland, Misnia, 

 the two Lusatias, Anhalt, the Electoral Circle, 

 and the southern part of Brandenburg. In the 

 tenth century, German colonists became inter- 

 mingled with them. The mountains, particularly, 

 became peopled with Germans, because the Sclavo- 

 nians preferred the plains, as more adapted to agri- 

 culture ; hence, even now, the villages in the moun- 

 tains have German names, but almost all places in 

 the plains, Sclavonic names. In Leipsic, the Ser- 

 vian language ceased to 'be spoken in 1327, though 

 many Sclavonic words have been preserved in the 

 country. From the mixture of the Sclavonians 

 with the Franks and Saxons, the Upper Saxon 

 idiom was formed since the tenth century. Many 

 German names have evidently come from the Ser- 

 bes ; those which end in itz, ik, nik, enz, as Nostitz, 

 Maltitz, Gablenz, Lessing (said to be originally 

 Lesnjk). Of the Lusatians only, considerable re- 

 mains have been preserved, owing to their long 

 connexion with Bohemia, and the toleration which 

 they experienced. The dialect of Upper Lusatia 

 approaches to the Bohemian ; the Lower Lusatian 

 more to the Polish. In imitation of the German, 

 it adopted the article and several other peculiarities, 

 as did also the Sclavonians bordering on Germany, 

 in Stiria, Carinthia and Carniola. Of the state of 

 their language before their conversion to Christiani- 

 ty, we know little. Even after that event they 

 remained subject to the severest oppression : no 

 light penetrated to them. It was not till after the 

 reformation that they began to write their dialect. 

 During the thirty years' war (q. v.), it was con- 

 templated to eradicate their language, and Ger- 

 man ministers were given to them : sixteen parishes 

 actually became German. It was not till the 

 eighteenth century that they were left unmolested 

 in the use of their own language. The orthography 

 was settled in 1689, by a mixture of Bohemian and 

 German. In 1716, a seminary, for the instruction 

 of the Wends, was established in Leipsic, and, in 

 1749, one in Wittenberg. A Wendish seminary 

 for Catholics was also established in Prague. There 

 is a complete translation of the Bible, a grammar, 

 and several other books, in their language ; yet the 

 decrease of the Wendish, in Lusatia, is very great. 

 In Pomerania, the last person who spoke that 

 language died in 1404. Only between the Elbe 

 and Iretze, a remnant of Obotrites (called Polabes, 

 from Labe, Elbe, and po, dwelling) maintained it- 

 self till recent times; and, in 1751, the last reli- 

 gious service in Wendish took place in Wustrow. 

 These Wends existed, indeed, in the latter half of 

 the last century ; but the government laboured to 

 destroy the peculiarities of language and customs 

 by which they were distinguished from their Ger- 

 man neighbours. The language was so ridiculed, 

 that people became ashamed to speak it. Some 

 customs and modes of dress still exist in many 

 places, which remind us of the Wendish origin of 

 their inhabitants, although German only is spoken 

 there at present, as in Altenburg. The Wends 

 were a warlike people, and waged war against the 

 Germans, at different periods, from the seventh 

 century, several times in connexion with the Bo- 



