Kessinians

Their capital and name-giving stronghold was a gard near modern Kessin east of Rostock. Linguistically, they belonged to the Polabian Slavs. Since the Slavic settlement of the region in the 8th and 9th centuries, the area was inhabited by the Veleti. The area became part of the Billung march of the Holy Roman Empire's Duchy of Saxony in 936. In the course of a successful uprising in 983, the Veleti made a transition to the Lutician federation, an alliance of several tribes based in Radgosc (Rethra). The Kessinians emerged as the northernmost of four tribes constituting the core of the federation, with the other three being Circipanes, Redarians, and Tollensians. In 1056/57, the alliance broke apart due to internal struggles between these four tribes. The western neighbors of the Kessinians, the Obodrites, took advantage of the resulting civil war and subdued the Kessinians along with the Circipanes.