These Slavic tribes were called by the Germans, Wenden, Lat. Venedi, for which we prefer in English the form of Vendes, rather than that of Wends.  It appears indeed that this name was formerly applied by the Germans indiscriminately to all the Slavic nations with which they came in contact; for the name Winden, Eng. Vindes, which is still, as we have seen, the German appellation for the Slovenzi, or the Slavic inhabitants of Southern Germany, is evidently the same in a slightly altered form.  The name of Wenden, Vendes, became, however, in the course of time, a specific appellation for the northern German-Slavic tribes; of which, at the present day, only a few meagre remnants are left.  They were nevertheless once a powerful nation.  Five independent branches must be distinguished among them.

We first name the Obotrites, the former inhabitants of the present duchies of Mecklenburg, and the adjacent country, west, north, and south.  They were divided into the Obotrites proper, the Wagrians in Holstein, and the Polabae and Linones on the banks of the Elbe and Leine; but were united under a common chief or king.  They and their eastern neighbours the Wiltzi, (Germ. Wilzen, Lat. Veletabae,) with whom they lived in perpetual warfare, were the most warlike and powerful among the Vendish tribes.  The Wiltzi or Pomeranians lived interspersed with the Kassubes, a Lekhish tribe, between the Oder and the Vistula, and were subjugated by the Obotrites in A.D. 782.  It was however only by the utmost exertions, that these latter could maintain their own independence against their western and southern neighbours, the Germans.  Conquered by Charlemagne, they regained their independence under his successors, and centuries passed away in constant and bloody conflicts and alternate fortunes.  In the middle of the twelfth century, however, they were completely subjugated by Henry the Lion, duke of Saxony and Bavaria.  He laid waste their whole country, destroyed most of the people, and compelled the few remaining inhabitants and their prince, to accept Christianity from his bloody hands.  In A.D. 1167 he restored to this latter, whose name was Pribislaus, a part of his kingdom, and gave his daughter Matilda in marriage to the son of Pribislaus, who, a few years later, was made a prince of the empire, and was thus gained over to the German cause.  His descendants are the present dukes of Mecklenburg; and it is a memorable fact, that these princes are at the present day the only sovereigns in Europe of the Slavic race.  German priests and German colonists introduced the German language; although we find that Bruno, the chief missionary among the Obotrites, preached before them in their own language.  The Slavic dialect spoken by them expired gradually; and probably without ever having been reduced to writing, except for the sake of curiosity when very near its extinction.  The only documents of it, which have come down to us, are a few incomplete vocabularies, compiled among the Polabae and Linones, i.e. the inhabitants adjacent to the Elbe, in Slavic Labe, and to the Leine, in Slavic Linac.