Die Hagenhufendörfer Norddeutschlands Eine Strukturanalyse zum hochmittelalterlichen Landesausbau
The Hagenhufen-villages in North-Germany. An Analysis of the High Medieval Settlement Colonisation of the Landscape

Summary/Abstract: The study aims at analyzing the Hagenhufen-villages in northeastern Germany with regard to their capability of description of the high medieval expansion in the Slavic populated area. Hagenhufen-villages are particularly suited to this work, because their area of origin in West Germany is well examined. Furthermore the form of these settlements and of their fields always used to be an inseparable unit, reflecting the fields directly adjacent to the farms which were arrayed single-spaced (Fig. 1). As a result of the investigation it is shown that the function of the Hagenhufen-villages is especially the settlement of closed forest areas. Therefore they are located not only outside the late Slavic settlement area, but especially in inaccessible regions of the Endmoränenzüge (Fig. 2 and 3). The assumed defence function because of their concentrated, partly tape-like situation between the late-Slavonic settlement areas has to be rejected. Despite the major exclusion of the Slavic settlement area and Hagenhufen-villages, there are few examples of Hagenhufen-villages and villages of the late-Slavonic settlement area that are located close to another. In some cases late-Slavonic finds in or on the edge of newly created Hagenhufen-villages in conjunction with other sources indicate a Slavic participation in the foundation of new villages. This clearly shows the continuous transition from the late Slavic settlement to the high medieval expansion of the landscape. The new form of settlement of the Hagenhufen-villages is an example of intensive transfer of knowledge and technology, whereas the process itself is often borne by the indigenous population.

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