Rani (Slavic tribe)
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The Rani or Rujani (German: Ranen, Rujanen) were a West Slavic tribe based on the island of Rugia and the southwestern mainland across the Strelasund in what is today northeastern Germany and 1500 years ago was the territory of the Rugi. The Rani were one of the most powerful Slav tribes during the eleventh and twelfth centuries, as the Germans from the Holy Roman Empire began expanding eastward. They were one of the last Slavic peoples to resist Christianisation and Germanisation and cling to their own native paganism.
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[edit] Settlement
In the late migration period, the areas settled by East Germanic tribes before were found to be settled with Slavs. In the case of Rügen and the adjacent mainland, where the Rugians were recorded before the migration period, Slavs first appeared in the 7th century. Yet, parts of the area were settled continuously, so Rugian remains seem to have been assimilated. Even their name seems to have persisted in the new Slavic tribe's name (Rugians vs R(uj)anes).
[edit] Religion
The Rani believed in multiple gods, all of which had several faces and were worshipped as tall wooden statues in their respective temples. The mightiest among their gods was Svantevit, a four-headed god having his temple at Cape Arkona in the northernmost part of his isle of Wittow. This temple was worshipped and collected tributes not only from the Rani, but from all Baltic Wends after Rethra, which was the main Wendish religious centre before, had been destroyed in a German raid in 1068/69.
Other gods were Tjarnaglofi with his temple on Jasmund near today's Sagard, further there were Rugievit, Porevit and Porenut with temples in the capitol, Charenza, and other gods with temples all over the Rani realm.
After the forced Christianization, monasteries and churches replaced the temples. In the church of Altenkirchen, a large stone from Arkona was used with a relief showing a Svantevit priest.
[edit] Administration and culture
The Rani political capital was Charenza (today an unsettled site called Venzer Burgwall). Rani dukes also resided at Rugard castle, a precursor of the modern city of Bergen. Throughout the Rani lands there were castles (burghs), all having a ring-like wall of wood and clay, protecting villages and/or religious sites, and functioned as strategic strongholds or seats of the gentry.
The Rani also established a main, mixed Slavic and Scandinavian trading center in Ralswiek. In the 11th and 12th centuries, they also raided their neighbors in a Viking manner.
[edit] Language
The Rani spoke a Polabian tongue, which belonged to the Lechitic group of the West Slavic languages. In the course of the 12th to 15th centuries, it was replaced by Low German as politics and ethnic structure had changed due to the Ostsiedlung. The Rani language became extinct, when the last Rujani-speaking woman died on the Jasmund peninsula in 1404.
[edit] History
In 955, Rani participated in the Battle of Recknitz, assisting German Otto I in defeating the Obotrites at the Recknitz (Raxa) River.
Wendish leader Kruto might have been of Rani descent.
The Rani also assaulted Liubice, but were repulsed by the Obotrites with Saxon assistance. In 1123, they struck again and killed Henry's son Waldemar. In revenge for their constant attacks, in the winter of 1114–5 or 1124–5, Henry, with an army of 2,000–6,000 men, undertook a campaign to cross the frozen strait separating the continent from Rugia. The priests of Rugia, after Henry devastated the coastal towns, negotiated an agreement sparing their island in return for an immense sum which had to be collected from the continental Slavs further east. Regrouping after Henry's death (1127), the Rani assaulted and destroyed Liubice. At this time they seem to have been devoted pagans, with their priests holding theocratic powers.
In 1137, the Danes defeated the Rani, who in turn had to promise to adopt Christian faith - yet returned to their pagan beliefs as the Danish headed back.
A force of Rani attacked the Danish fleet during the 1147 Wendish Crusade. Saxon armies repeatedly managed to raid Rügen.
[edit] Principality of Rugia
- See also: list of Rugian dukes
The Danes conquered the Rani stronghold of Arkona in 1168 and forced the Slavs to become vassals of Denmark. The Rani were eventually converted to Christianity. The wooden statues of their gods were burned and monasteries and churches were built throughout the Rani lands.
The now Danish duchy of Rügen not only functioned as a bridgehead for Danish expansions into Vendland, but also Rani forces successfully participated in Danish raids into Circipania and areas conquered by Pomerania's Wartislaw I in the 1120s. After Pomerania had become part of the Holy Roman Empire in 1181, she sent out a navy in 1184 to subdue Rügen for the empire, too. A Danish and Rani counterattack destroyed the Pomeranian navy in the Bay of Greifswald - granting Danish access to all of the Wendish Baltic coast and making Denmark the predominant power until 1227. In this year's Bornhöved battle the Danes again lost all Wendish lands except for Rügen.
When Rügen became a Danish duchy, not only religion changed. In the course of the Ostsiedlung, large amounts of German settlers had been encouraged to come to Rugia by the Rani duke Jaromar I and his successors. In the early 1200s, the mainland section of the duchy, which in large parts consisted of woodland, was settled by Germans, who established new villages and towns as well as settling in existing Rani dwellings. The German settlement on the islands of Rügen followed soon after. In the following centuries, Rani and German population mixed and shared a common fate. As the Rani language, culture and administration was transformed into German in the 13th century, the Rani ceded to exist as a distinguishable ethnic group.
The duchy of Rügen was inherited by Pomerania, after the last Rugian duke Wizlaw III died in 1325 and two wars were fought with Mecklenburg for Rügen inheritance (Rügischer Erbfolgekrieg).
[edit] Sources
- Thompson, James Westfall (1928). Feudal Germany, Volume II. New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing.
- Herrmann, Joachim (1970). Die Slawen in Deutschland. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag GmbH, 530. (German)
