Struktur und Wandel im Früh- und Hochmittelalter: Eine Bestandsaufnahme aktuellerForschungen zur Germania Slavica by Christian LübkeReview by: Martyn RadyThe Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 77, No. 3 (Jul., 1999), p. 555Published by: the Modern Humanities Research Association and University College London, School ofSlavonic and East European StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4212928 .

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REVIEWS 555

would have corrected and checked, and applied an alert and fresh mind to the text. Nowadays, however, publishers' in-house editorial teams seem reluctant even to turn on the spell-check. The prodigious author of this book and his readership might reasonably have expected more.

School of Slavonic and East European Studies MARTYN RADY

University of London

Lubke, Christian (ed.). Struktur und Wandel im Friih- und Hochmittelalter: Eine Bestandsaufnahme aktueller Forschungen zur Germania Slavica. Forschungen zur Geschichte und Kultur des ostlichen Mitteleuropa, vol. v. Geisteswissen- schaftliches Zentrum Geschichte und Kultur Ostmitteleuropas. Franz Steiner, Stuttgart, I998. 380 pp. Maps. Tables. Illustrations. Indexes. DM I76.00: oS I285.00.

THE present volume contains thirty essays on the German settlement in Mecklenburg and Western Pomerania during the period from the eleventh to the fourteenth centuries. The collection is predictably arranged. It begins with essays which variously lament the political uses of Ostforschung, urge an awareness of the ethnic and cultural symbiosis which took place during the course of the German eastward movement, and go on to promote the use of a new term, in this case 'Germania Slavica'. The present reviewer is, however, unconvinced as to the value of this neologism, particularly since, according to the editor of the volume, it has two quite separate fields of reference: a 'Germania Slavica i', referring to the Slavonic regions of settlement west of the Oder, and a 'Germania Slavica 2', meaning East Brandenburg, Silesia, Pomerania and Prussia (p. 14).

These introductory essays are followed by short micro-historical studies relating to individual small regions of settlement. Many of these, being reports of research in progress, are concerned with problems of methodology and with the difficulties involved in bringing together multi-disciplinary tech- niques. Despite the avowed purpose of the recently-founded Geisteswissen- schaftliche Zentrum Geschichte und Kultur Ostmitteleuropas in Leipzig to advance research and comparative investigation in the whole region between the Baltic and the Adriatic, the contributions are confined in their geographical scope. They thus convey few of the insights of Peter Erlen's important comparative study, Europdischer Landesausbau und mittelalterliche deutsche Ostsied- lung. Ein struktureller Vergleich zwischen Suidwestfrankreich, den Niederlanden und dem Ordensland Preussen (Marburg/Lahn, I992). Nevertheless, several essays in the present volume reward reading. Three separate contributions on the Cister- cian house at Dargun, and a fourth on its sister foundation at Eldena, illustrate the significance of religious foundations in the Landesausbau. Michaela Scheibe importantly indicates the way in which new regional loyalties and identities were constructed in Mecklenburg and Pomerania out of the interaction of Germanic and Slavonic groups (pp. 333-40). Regrettably, the volume lacks a concluding essay which might serve both to establish its larger contribution to current research and to indicate possible new directions of scholarly enquiry.

School of Slavonic and East European Studies MARTYN RADY

University of London

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