Henry the Lion and the Founding of Lübeck
Henry the Lion (Heinrich der Löwe, c. 1129/30 – 6 August 1195), duke of Saxony and Bavaria, was one of the most powerful princes of the Holy Roman Empire in the twelfth century, and the founder of Lübeck, the city that became the model for all the Hanseatic cities of the Baltic. The story of Henry the Lion and the founding of Lübeck is, in many ways, the story of the origins of the Hanseatic League.
Early life and inheritance
Henry was born in Ravensburg in 1129 or 1130, the only son of Henry the Proud, duke of Saxony and Bavaria, and Gertrude of Süpplingenburg, the daughter of Emperor Lothar III. Henry the Proud died on 20 October 1139, and the young Henry inherited the duchy of Saxony; he was later granted Bavaria in 1156 by his uncle, the emperor Frederick Barbarossa. (Frederick was his uncle, not his cousin — a common error.) Henry’s career was marked by the consolidation of his vast duchies, the founding of new cities, and a long rivalry with the Hohenstaufen emperors that eventually led to his downfall.
The founding of Lübeck
Henry’s role in the founding of Lübeck began in 1143, when he led a campaign against the Slavic Obotrites, the Slavic people who inhabited the region east of Holstein. Henry defeated the Obotrites and captured the fortress of Liubice, the Slavic settlement on the site of modern-day Lübeck. Henry founded a new town on the site, and the new town was given the name of the old Slavic settlement.
The first town was small, and it was destroyed in 1147 in a Slavic counter-attack during the Wendish Crusade (a German crusade against the Slavic peoples that was largely a failure). Henry refounded the town in 1159, on a grander scale, and he invited Flemish and Dutch settlers to come and rebuild the town according to the urban traditions of the Low Countries. The Flemish and Dutch settlers brought with them the techniques of town planning, the institutions of municipal government, and the legal traditions of the Low Countries, and they applied these to the new town.
The refounding of Lübeck was a turning point in the history of northern Europe. The new town grew rapidly, and within a generation it was the most populous and prosperous city in northern Germany. The town’s success led, in the following decades, to the foundation of a chain of similar cities along the southern coast of the Baltic, and the chain of cities became the backbone of the Hanseatic League.
A note on the dating: the 1143 “founding” is conventionally cited because of a charter Henry is supposed to have issued in that year, but the actual charter is lost and the dating is contested. Most modern historians (e.g., the chapter on Lübeck in Rolf Hammel-Kiesow, Die Hanse, 4th ed., 2011) treat 1159 as the more reliable date. The 1143 date is preserved in the city’s Gründungsjahr, but it is partly a matter of convention.
The fall and the return
Henry’s power depended on his vast duchies and his close alliance with the emperor Frederick Barbarossa. In 1180, after a long political struggle, Barbarossa stripped Henry of his duchies of Saxony and Bavaria at the Hoftag of Gelnhausen and exiled him. Henry spent three years (1181–1185) in exile at the court of his father-in-law, Henry II of England, before being allowed to return to Germany. He retained the allodial lands of his family around Brunswick and Lüneburg, which were raised to the Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg in 1235, after his death.
Henry spent his last years in Brunswick, where he founded other towns (notably Munich in 1158) and where he built the famous Brunswick Lion statue (1166) as a symbol of his power. He died in Brunswick on 6 August 1195 and was buried in the cathedral he had founded there.
A lasting legacy
Henry the Lion was, in many ways, an accident of history. He was, in the first instance, a warrior and a politician, and his principal interest was in the politics of the Holy Roman Empire. The founding of Lübeck was, however, one of his most important achievements, and the founding of Lübeck was one of the most important events in the history of the Hanseatic League. The city that Henry founded continued to grow, and the city became, in time, the leading city of the League. The city’s success is, in many ways, the most enduring monument to Henry’s achievement.
A useful comparative: Henry the Lion is the only major political figure of the 12th century who is remembered primarily as a city-founder. Frederick Barbarossa is remembered for his Italian campaigns; the popes for the Investiture Controversy; the kings of France and England for their dynastic struggles. Henry, by contrast, is remembered for Lübeck — which is a striking testament to the durability of urban foundations.