Niklot
prince of the Slavic Obotrites
Niklot or Nyklot (died August 1160) was a chief or prince of the Slavic Obotrites and an ancestor of the House of Mecklenburg. He became chief of the Obotrite confederacy, including the Kissini and the Circipani, between the years 1130 and 1131. He remained in this position until his death in 1160. At the same time he was Lord of (Herr zu) Schwerin, Quetzin and Malchow. For nearly 30 years he resisted Saxon princes, especially Henry the Lion during the Wendish Crusade.
Resistance
Niklot began his open resistance when the German King (later Emperor) Lothar III granted the Obotrite realm to his Danish vassal Canute Lavard. Together with Pribislav of Wagria, son of Budivoj and nephew of Henry, Niklot fought Lothar and Canute. After the murder of Canute in 1131, Niklot and Pribislav partitioned the Obotrite territory, with Niklot receiving the eastern lands. In order to weaken Pribislav in the following years, Niklot allied with Saxon lords, especially Count Adolf II of Holstein, allowing Slavic pirates to attack the Danes.
Wendish Crusade
The prince's Saxon allies turned against him during the 1147 Wendish Crusade.
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This entry incorporates text from “Niklot” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.