Nakonids (Paperback)

High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Nakonids were the leading noble family of the Slavic peoples of the Elbe River from ca. 960 until 1129. They were themselves of Abodrite origin and engineered the formation of a Slavic principality in the region. They went extinct in the male line in the early 12th century. Their capital was Mecklenburg Castle. The Nakonids derive their name - a modern invention - from the earliest attestable ruler of the dynasty, Nako, who fought the expansionist tendencies of the German kingdom in the mid and late 10th century before being defeated and converted to Christianity. The Nakonid leaders alternated between being lapsed Christians (mali christiani) and ardent missionaries of the Slavs who were the prime movers of the Germanisation and Christianisation of the Polabian Slavs.