Stedingen

Stedingen is an area north of Bremen in the delta of the Weser river in north-western Germany.

In the year 1106, five Dutchmen made a long journey from the mouth of the Rhine to Bremen. They wanted to talk to the Archbishop of Bremen about taking over settling land on the Weser River, under certain conditions. They made an agreement whereby the Archbishop gave the farmers and their descendants the swampy regions south of the Hunte on both sides of the Weser for cultivation. This land was to pass from father to son in free hereditary possession. Every settler would pay a yearly tax of one pfennig, and in addition would pay the 11th sheaf of all fruits of the field and a 10th of livestock. In the administration of their lands and in secular jurisdiction the farmers and their descendants were free. When the Dutch farmers showed this agreement to their countrymen, after returning to their homeland, many young men eagerly set out to cultivate the new land on the Weser.

It was a difficult beginning. The troubled waters of the Weser flooded through moor and swamp. Heath, cotton grass and reeds covered the land and the riverbank. But the settlers took the work in hand. They dug ditches to drain much of the water, and they built dikes to provide dry land and to prevent the flooding. At first, there was little to gain from its soil. Often it was difficult for them to do their work, but they were free. And this freedom was worth all the difficulties. Other country folk had to perform compulsory services for their Counts and their Lords.

After a decade, the settlers had won fruitful acres out of swamp and moor. New settlers came to Stedingen, as the land was named. After several generations, the settlers melted into one large society. They certainly knew how to handle weapons, and patterned themselves after the Rustringer Frisians, on the mouth of the Weser. Like the Frisians, they bore a particular provincial seal.

The freethinking Stedingers displeased the Archbishop of Bremen. He would have gladly seen them as dependent as most other peasants. To slowly force them under the Carolingian-Roman order, the Count of Oldenburg, with the agreement of the Archbishop of Bremen, built two fortresses in Stedingen: Lechtenburg and Lineburg. The character of the people who manned the fortresses soon showed itself. Women and young girls were suddenly attacked and carried off to the fortresses, and were only freed again for high ransom. For the first time in Stedingen, the rural Germanic order and the Roman order of sovereigns clashed. At the Thing (popular assembly), this situation was discussed, and it was decided that the fortresses should be removed, and judgment held on the evildoers, which was soon accomplished. This was in the year 1204, some 100 years after the first settling of the land.

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