Eastphalian

The Eastphalians are the people of Eastphalia, eastern shires of the Saxon stem duchy between the Leine and Elbe, stretching from the Lüneburg Heath to the Harz. Eastphalia was one of four Saxon regions, and its name means the eastern plain.

In 775 under their leader Hessi they swore loyalty to Charlemagne on the Oker; the bishoprics of Halberstadt and Hildesheim, founded in 804 and 815, anchored its Christianization. The Harz was the hereditary land of Henry the Fowler, king from 919, and his Ottonian descendants, who built Romanesque abbeys such as Quedlinburg.

Bordering the Polabian Slavs beyond the Elbe, Eastphalia launched the Ostsiedlung, its northeast forming the Altmark march against Wendish tribes. After Frederick I deposed Henry the Lion in 1180, it dissolved into a mosaic of states, above all the Welf Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg and Magdeburg bishopric, whose people kept Eastphalian Low German.