Mecklenburg

The House of Mecklenburg, also called the Niklotings, descends from the Polabian Slavs of the Baltic coast, not a German comital family. Niklot, Obotrite prince from about 1131, held Schwerin and the Wendish lands against Saxon attack for nearly thirty years in the Wendish Crusade, until Henry the Lion of Saxony and Valdemar the Great of Denmark killed him at Werle in 1160.

His son Pribislav revolted in 1163, but Henry the Lion restored him in 1167 as first Prince of Mecklenburg, a Christian Saxon vassal; he founded Doberan Abbey in 1171. Under his descendants the Obotrite nobility gradually became Germanized.

A Werle appanage split off in 1235 and lasted to 1436. In 1337 the Niklotings still ruled their Wismar coastal principality as imperial princes; the main line won ducal rank in 1347 and soon split into Mecklenburg-Stargard and Mecklenburg-Schwerin. Duke Albert held the Swedish crown from 1364 to 1389, and partitions in 1701 created the Schwerin and Strelitz duchies.