24 Hammel-Kiesow
within the context of his own political initiatives, which, in their entirety,
reached as far as the Baltic coast. Thus began an era of battles for dominion
over the southwest Baltic coast and eventually over the entire Baltic Region.
Descriptions of these events, which primarily emanated from the accounts
of the German Chroniclers, including Otto of Bamberg,35 Helmold of Bosau,36
Arnold of Lübeck,37 and Henry of Latvia,38 as well as the account of the Dane
Saxo Grammaticus,39 seem to depict the actual processes and power struggles
of this era in a distorted manner given the complete absence of a consider-
ation for operations of power politics and for commercial issues within these
accounts. For instance, an expansion of the western Slavs could be rendered
plausible by the following archaeological evidence. The western Slavs erected
the fortified trading post, Bulverket in Tingstaede Traesk (Sea), on Gotland in
1133, and then settled near Riga in the Duna-Delta. Blomkvist even speaks (in
a slightly provocative fashion) of a “Slavic Hanse.”40 Furthermore, the prolif-
eration of Slavic ceramics, ceramics dominant on the Danish Islands (Eastern
Denmark including Southern Sweden, Oeland, and Gotland) between the first
half of the eleventh century and about 1200, demonstrates a strong cultural
influence that developed as a result of Slavic migrations through these areas.41
Written sources attest to Slavic settlement in Danish towns; such settlement
facilitated a permanent pipeline for the supply of goods originating from
the Slavic homeland on the southern Baltic coast. These goods, in particular
furs, wax, and honey, were in turn used by the Danes to satisfy the demands
35 Die Heiligenleben des Bischofs Otto von Bamberg, in Lorenz Weinrich, ed., Vitae sancto-
rum episcoporum Adalberti Pragensis et Ottonis Babenbergensis Historiam Germanicam
et Slavicam illustrantes, Ausgewählte Quellen zur deutschen Geschichte des Mittelalters,
vol. 25 (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2005), 120–493.
36 Helmold von Bosau, Slawenchronik, newly transcribed and explained by Heinz Stoob,
Ausgewählte Quellen zur deutschen Geschichte des Mittelalters, vol. 19 (Darmstadt:
Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1973).
37 Arnoldi Chronica Slavorum, ed. Georg Heinrich Pertz and Johann Martin Lappenberg,
mgh ss rer. Germ. 14 (Hannover: Hahn, 1868, new edition 1978).
38 Heinrici Chronicon Livoniae, ed. Von L. Arbusow and A. Bauer (Heinrich von Lettland,
Livländische Chronik, newly translated by Albert Bauer), Ausgewählte Quellen zur
deutschen Geschichte des Mittelalters, vol. 24 (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buch-
gesellschaft, 1975).
39 Saxo Grammaticus. Gesta Danorum. Danmarkshistorien, eds. Karsten Friis-Jensen and
Peter Zeeberg, vol. 1–2 (Copenhagen: Det Danske Sprog—og Litteraturselskap, 2005).
40 Blomkvist, Discovery, 322–324.
41 Mats Roslund, Guests in the House. Cultural Transmission between Slavs and Scandinavians
900 to 1300 a.d., The Northern World, vol. 33 (Leiden et al.: Brill, 2007), 472–530.