WEND

any member of a group of Slavic tribes that had settled in the area between the Oder River (on the east) and the Elbe and Saale rivers (on the west) by the 5th century AD, in what is now eastern Germany. The Wends occupied the eastern borders of the domain of the Franks and other Germanic peoples. From the 6th century the Franks warred sporadically against the Wends, and, under Charlemagne in the early 9th century, they began a campaign to subjugate the Wends and forcibly convert them to Christianity. German annexation of the Wendish territories began under Henry I in 929, but the Germans' control of the area east of the Elbe collapsed during a Wendish rebellion in 983. During their periodic rebellions against both Slavic and German overlords, the Wendish peasantry would also repudiate Christianity. The German expansion eastward into the Elbe-Oder region resumed under Emperor Lothair II in 1125, and in 1147 a German crusade led by Henry the Lion against the Wends was authorized by the Roman Catholic church. This crusade caused great loss of life among the Wends, and they consequently offered little opposition to German colonization of the Elbe-Oder region in the following centuries. German settlers established themselves in the former Wendish areas, and their towns became important commercial centres in northern Germany. The Wends themselves were enserfed and were gradually assimilated by the Germans, with the exception of a minority in the traditional region of Lusatia (q.v.), in present-day eastern Germany, who are now known as Sorbs.