ABSTRACT
In the twelfthcentury various forces contributed to the settlement of the Baltic area. From the late eleventh century the archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen had cultivated the idea of becoming patriarchs of the northern Church, while from the first decades of the twelfth century they sought to defend their primacy against the archbishops of Lund and Magdeburg, who advocated their missionary role in eastern Germany and the Baltic. The local nobility and the monarchy in Germany and Scandinavia supported these ambitions, considering the settlement of new lands as a means to gain new territories further east. Moreover, the merchants of the Mecklenburg coastal towns were eager to establish new colonies on the Baltic, where Danish and Swedish merchants were also active.1
