History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 2 [3]
frontiers he had his GRAF (Count, REEVE, G'REEVE, whom some think to be only GRAU, Gray, or SENIOR, the hardiest, wisest steel-GRAY man he could discover) stationed on the MARCK, strenuously doing watch and ward there: the post of difficulty, of peril, and naturally of honor too, nothing of a sinecure by any means. Which post, like every other, always had a tendency to become hereditary, if the kindred did not fail in fit men. And hence have come the innumerable Markgraves, Marquises, and such like, of modern times: titles now become chimerical, and more or less mendacious, as most of our titles are,--like so many BURGS changed into "Boroughs," and even into "Rotten Boroughs," with Defensive BURGhers of the known sort: very mournful to discover. Once Norroy was not all pasteboard! At the heart of that huge whirlwind of his, with its dusty heraldries, and phantasmal nomenclatures now become mendacious, there lay, at first, always an earnest human fact. Henry the Fowler was so happy as to have the fact without any mixture of mendacity: we are in the sad reverse case; reverse case not yet altogether COMPLETE, but daily becoming so,--one of the saddest and strangest ever heard of, if we thought of it!--But to go on with business.
Markgraviates there continued to be ever after,--Six in Henry's time:--but as to the number, place, arrangement of them, all this varied according to circumstances outward and inward, chiefly according to the regress or the reintrusion of the circumambient hostile populations; and underwent many changes. The sea-wall you build, and what main floodgates you establish in it, will depend on the state of the outer sea. Markgraf of SLESWIG grows into Markgraf of DITMARSCH and STADE; retiring over the Elbe, if Norse Piracy get very triumphant. ANTWERP falls obsolete; so does MEISSEN by and by. LAUSITZ and SALZWEDEL, in the third century hence, shrink both into BRANDENBURG; which was long only a subaltern station, managed by deputy from one or other of these. A Markgraf that prospered in repelling of his Wends and Huns had evidently room to spread himself, and could become veiy great, and produce change in boundaries: observe what OESTERREICH (Austria) grew to, and what BRANDENBURG; MEISSEN too, which became modern Saxony, a state once greater than it now is.
In old Books are Lists of the primitive Markgraves of Brandenburg, from Henry's time downward; two sets, "Markgraves of the Witekind race," and of another: [Hubner, Genealogische Tabellen (Leipzig, 1725-1728), i. 172, 173. A Book of rare excellence in its kind.] but they are altogether uncertain, a shadowy intermittent set of Markgraves, both the Witekind set and the Non-Witekind; and truly, for a couple of centuries, seem none of them to have been other than subaltern Deputies, belonging mostly to LAUSITZ or SALZWEDEL; of whom therefore we can say nothing here, but must leave the first two hundred years in their natural gray state,--perhaps sufficiently conceivable by the reader.
But thus, at any rate, was Brandenburg (BOT or Burg of the BRENNS, whatever these are) first discovered to Christendom, and added to the firm land of articulate History: a feat worth putting on record. Done by Henry the Fowler, in the Year of Grace 928,--while (among other things noticeable in this world) our Knut's great- grandfather, GORMO DURUS, "Henry's Tributary," was still King of Denmark; when Harald BLUETOOTH (Blaatand) was still a young fellow, with his teeth of the natural color; and Swen with the Forked Beard (TVAESKAEG, Double-beard, "TWA-SHAG") was not born; and the Monks of Ely had not yet (by about a hundred years) begun that singing, [Without note or comment, in the old, BOOK OF ELY date before the Conquest) is preserved this stave;--giving picture, if we consider it, of the Fen Country all a lake (as it was for half the year, till drained, six centuries after), with Ely Monastery rising like an island in the distance; and the music of its nones or vespers sounding soft and far over the solitude, eight hundred years ago and more.
Markgraviates there continued to be ever after,--Six in Henry's time:--but as to the number, place, arrangement of them, all this varied according to circumstances outward and inward, chiefly according to the regress or the reintrusion of the circumambient hostile populations; and underwent many changes. The sea-wall you build, and what main floodgates you establish in it, will depend on the state of the outer sea. Markgraf of SLESWIG grows into Markgraf of DITMARSCH and STADE; retiring over the Elbe, if Norse Piracy get very triumphant. ANTWERP falls obsolete; so does MEISSEN by and by. LAUSITZ and SALZWEDEL, in the third century hence, shrink both into BRANDENBURG; which was long only a subaltern station, managed by deputy from one or other of these. A Markgraf that prospered in repelling of his Wends and Huns had evidently room to spread himself, and could become veiy great, and produce change in boundaries: observe what OESTERREICH (Austria) grew to, and what BRANDENBURG; MEISSEN too, which became modern Saxony, a state once greater than it now is.
In old Books are Lists of the primitive Markgraves of Brandenburg, from Henry's time downward; two sets, "Markgraves of the Witekind race," and of another: [Hubner,
But thus, at any rate, was Brandenburg (BOT or Burg of the BRENNS, whatever these are) first discovered to Christendom, and added to the firm land of articulate History: a feat worth putting on record. Done by Henry the Fowler, in the Year of Grace 928,--while (among other things noticeable in this world) our Knut's great- grandfather, GORMO DURUS, "Henry's Tributary," was still King of Denmark; when Harald BLUETOOTH (Blaatand) was still a young fellow, with his teeth of the natural color; and Swen with the Forked Beard (TVAESKAEG, Double-beard, "TWA-SHAG") was not born; and the Monks of Ely had not yet (by about a hundred years) begun that singing, [Without note or comment, in the old, BOOK OF ELY date before the Conquest) is preserved this stave;--giving picture, if we consider it, of the Fen Country all a lake (as it was for half the year, till drained, six centuries after), with Ely Monastery rising like an island in the distance; and the music of its nones or vespers sounding soft and far over the solitude, eight hundred years ago and more.