Brokmerland

The Brokmerland is a landscape and an historic territory, located in western East Frisia, which covers the area in and around the present-day communities of Brookmerland and Südbrookmerland. The Brokmerland borders in the east on the Harlingerland and in the north on the Norderland. The historic Brokmerland is usually written with only one "o". Occasionally one also finds the spelling "Broekmerland" ("oe" pronounced as a long "o"), while today's communities have chosen to spell the name with a double "o".

The name of the Brokmerland comes from the Old Frisian and Old Low German word brōk, which meant a moor-like carr landscape, that had been very sparsely settled. It stretched from the western edge of the East Frisian geest ridge, from the Ley (Norder Tief) to the Flumm (Fehntjer Tief) and was characterised by numerous shallow lakes from the Großes Meer to the Sandwater.

The rest of the name consists of mer, a slurred version of mann i.e. "man", with the possessive suffix er. Brokmerland therefore means nothing other than "land of the men from the bog."

Until the early Middle Ages the Brokmerland was largely uninhabited and provided a natural boundary between the Federgau and the Emsgau on one side and the provinces of Norditi (Norderland) and Östringen on the other side. This boundary also played a role in church history because it was the dividing line between the Diocese of Münster (Federgau and Emsgau) and the Archdiocese of Bremen (Norderland and Östringen).

Archaeological finds suggest a sparse population in the period up to 800 AD. The population grew from about 1100. Firstly because the construction of dykes in the region was completed and, secondly, because the "Julian Flood" of 1164 forced many people to flee inland from the coast. In addition, the population increased in the High Middle Ages, which resulted the sparsely populated or unsettled areas of East Frisia being opened up by land development, a process known as internal colonization. As a result of this, the Brokmerland was reclaimed for agriculture by settlers from the Krummhörn Marsh as well as the Norder and Aurich Geest. In the 11 and 12th centuries new settlements and the first churches were built here on the edge and the outliers of the geest. The result of this process were the ribbon villages (Reihendörfer) with their right (called Upstrecken) to claim land into the moor until they reached someone else's land.

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