Burgward

A burgward or castellany

, the burgwards were composed of a central fortification (a burg) with a number of smaller, undefended villages, perhaps ten to twenty (the ward), dependent on it for protection and upon which it was dependent economically. The fortified site served as a place of refuge during attack and also as an administrative centre for tax collection, the Church, and the court system. It was given a garrison of cavalry, usually Slavic.

The first burgwards (civitates or Burgen) were

.

The burgwards were detested by the Slavs, but they were effective in their time. They converted the "tribute-paying peoples" into "census-paying peasants." The German reverses of 983, however, doomed the burgward structure and began a new epoch of Slavic independence in the region (until the 12th century).

References

Sources

• Reuter, Timothy. Germany in the Early Middle Ages 800–1056. New York: Longman, 1991. p 66.
• Bernhardt, John W. Itinerant Kingship and Royal Monasteries in Early Medieval Germany, c. 936–1075. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993.