Thuringian

Habitation in Thuringia has been unbroken and continuous, so much so that the present Thuringians, first mentioned in AD 400, may be seen as direct descendants, both genetically and in name, of the Hermunduri, Elbe river Germans who settled in the area in the last century BC and who subsequently were little affected by the later folk-migrations. Of other tribes integrated into the group, the Varini and the Angles were the most important, the name of the latter being present even to this day in the fieldname Engelin 'of the Angles' and the north Thuringian placenames Fe/dengel, Kirchengel, Holzengel and Westerengel. Evidence suggests that Thuringian settlement eventually spread from the Ohre river north-east of the Harz as far south as the banks of the river Main. The tribe was, however, beaten decisively by the Franks and Saxons in AD 531, the lands north of the Unstrut river falling to the Saxons and those south of it to the Franks. For many centuries following, Low Saxon influence north of the Unstrut was extensive. More extensive than this, however, was Frankish colonization and influence, particularly south of the Thuringian Forest. This was strengthened even further by affiliation to the diocese of Wiirzburg (7 41) and by the territorial politics of the dukedoms on the upper Werra. The areas bordering the north belonged to the Archbishopric of Mainz, which, like the abbeys of Fulda and Hersfeld, commanded vast tracts of land. This three-way division has provided the most important and essential aspects of the present-day dialectal configurations. The western influence, brought by the ties to Mainz, Fulda and Hersfeld, reached its highest point between 1137 and 1264, when Thuringia and Hesse were

united into the Duchy of Thuringia. Slavonic influence was limited as early as the seventh century to the east of the Saale river; present-day placenames still illustrate this division, although from the tenth century onwards, military and ecclesiastical expansion, and later farming settlement, pushed this boundary much further to the east. As the dialects here reflect, many of the early colonizers came from Thuringian border settlements already in existence. On the extinction of the Ludowing dynasty, the Duchy of Thuringia fell in 1247 to the House of Wettin, whose members, both as Margraves of Meillen and the later ( 1423) electoral princes ( Kurfiirsten ), possessed extensive territories in the colonial east. Through favourable treaties, they established a permanent presence in South Thuringia (1553 Coburg, 1583 the larger parts of Henneberg), at the same time retaining well defined territories in Upper Saxony. The free cities of Nordhausen and Miihlhausen, as well as several secular and religious territories in Thuringia, did, however, manage to retain their independence. In 1485, the Electoral Territory was divided between the two brothers, Ernest and Albert. Albert took a strip of northern territory, which once more left the Unstrut as the boundary line, the force of which remained legal until the beginning of the twentieth century, although the territory itself passed through several hands. In 1815, however, at the Congress of Vienna, the northern strip was conceded to the Prussians, who had also received Eichsfeld and Erfurt from the Archbishopric of Mainz in 1803 and now additionally gained the free cities of Nordhausen and Miihlhausen. The territory which had been Ernest's was fragmented through inheritance; further bartering and rearrangement produced a proliferation of small states typical of Germany as a whole at this time. The Free State of Thuringia as it finally emerged in 1920 comprised all the former Saxon principalities and duchies hitherto belonging to it, while Saxe-Coburg, which had up to that time linked together the independent principalities and counties, itself opted to join Bavaria. The only larger external enclaves remaining were an administrative area of Kassel in northern Henneberg and an administrative area of Erfurt around Suhl. These enclaves and those around Erfurt which had belonged to the Prussian Province of Saxony were incorporated into Thuringia after World War II, final restructuring of the area on an economic basis coming in 1955, giving the present administrative districts of Erfurt, Suhl and Gera. The former Prussian land-strip north of the Helme and lower Unstrut has since that time been part of the administrative district of Halle, Altenberg and the surrounding area part of that of Leipzig. Fundamental change to labour patterns came after World War II, when in the interests of political economy the large industries were nationalized and agricultural cooperatives set up.