Südschleswig
| Duchy of Schleswig | ||||||||||
| Hertugdømmet Slesvig Herzogtum Schleswig |
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| Fiefdom of the Danish Crown (partly between 1544 and 1713/20) | ||||||||||
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| Capital | Schleswig, Flensburg, Copenhagen | |||||||||
| Languages | Danish, German, Low German, North Frisian | |||||||||
| Religion | Catholicism, Lutheranism and Mennonitism (from 16th century), Judaism | |||||||||
| Government | Duchy | |||||||||
| Duke | ||||||||||
| • | 1058–1095 | Olaf I of Denmark | ||||||||
| • | 1863–66 | Christian IX of Denmark | ||||||||
| History | ||||||||||
| • | Established | 1058 | ||||||||
| • | Disestablished | 1866 | ||||||||
| Currency | Schleswig-Holstein speciethaler, Danish rigsdaler, Pfennig | |||||||||
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| Today part of |
 Denmark Germany
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The Duchy of Schleswig (Danish: Hertugdømmet Slesvig; German: Herzogtum Schleswig; Low German: Sleswig; North Frisian: Slaswik) was a duchy in Southern Jutland (Sønderjylland) covering the area between about 60 km north and 70 km south of the current border between Germany and Denmark; the territory has been divided between the two countries since 1920, with Northern Schleswig in Denmark and Southern Schleswig in Germany. The region is also called Sleswick in English.
The area's traditional significance lies in the transfer of goods between the North Sea and the Baltic Sea, connecting the trade route through Russia with the trade routes along the Rhine and the Atlantic coast (see also Kiel Canal).
Roman sources place the homeland of the Jute tribe north of the river Eider and that of the Angles to its south, who in turn abutted the neighbouring Saxons. By the early Middle Ages, the region was inhabited by three groups:
During the 14th century the population on Schwansen began to speak Low German beside Danish, but otherwise the ethnic borders remained remarkably stable until around 1800 with the exception of the population in the towns that became increasingly German from the 14th century onwards.
During the early Viking Age, Haithabu - Scandinavia's biggest trading centre - was located in this region, which is also the location of the interlocking fortifications known as the Danewerk. Its construction, and in particular its great expansion around 737, has been interpreted as an indication of the emergence of a unified Danish state. In May 1931 scientists of the National Museum of Denmark announced the finding of eighteen Viking graves with the remains of eighteen men in them. The discovery came during excavations in Schleswig. The skeletons indicated that the men were bigger proportioned than twentieth-century Danish men. Each of the graves was laid out from east to west. Researchers surmised that the bodies were entombed in wooden coffins originally, but only the iron nails remained. Towards the end of the Early Middle Ages, Schleswig formed part of the historical Lands of Denmark as Denmark unified out of a number of petty chiefdoms in the 8th to 10th centuries (the puissant of the Viking incursions).
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Wikipedia