Nakonids

The Nakonids were the leading noble family of the Slavic peoples of the Elbe River from ca. 960 until 1129. They were themselves of Obotrite origin and engineered the formation of a Slavic principality in the region. They became extinct in the male line in the early 12th century. Their capital was Mecklenburg Castle.

The Nakonids derive their name — a modern invention — from the earliest attestable ruler of the dynasty, Nako, who fought the expansionist tendencies of the German kingdom in the mid and late 10th century before being defeated and converted to Christianity. The Nakonid leaders alternated between being lapsed Christians (mali christiani) and ardent missionaries of the Slavs who were the prime movers of the Germanisation and Christianisation of the Polabian Slavs.

The German historian Heinz Stoob, in his retranslation of the chronicle of Helmold, derived the first genealogy of the Nakonids. Besides Helmold, Adam of Bremen, Thietmar of Merseburg, and Saxo Grammaticus are important sources for Nakonid history. Despite these sources, uncertainty exists concerning the nature of the Nakonid rule over their people. Historiographers sometimes call them Samtherrscher or Oberherrscher, meaning "overlords". The primary sources, in Latin, use the various titles regulus (subking), dux (duke), and tyrannus (tyrant or usurper) to describe them. When Canute Lavard was granted lordship over the Obotrites in 1128 by Emperor Lothair II, he took the Slavic title knes.

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