The Bardengau was a medieval

county A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesChambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...

('' Gau'') in the

Duchy of Saxony The Duchy of Saxony ( nds, Hartogdom Sassen, german: Herzogtum Sachsen) was originally the area settled by the Saxons in the late Early Middle Ages, when they were subdued by Charlemagne during the Saxon Wars from 772 and incorporated into the C ...

. Its main town was

Bardowick Bardowick (''Bewick'' in Low Saxon) is a municipality in the district of Lüneburg in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is three miles north of Lüneburg on the navigable river Ilmenau. Bardowick is also the seat of the ''Samtgemeinde'' ("collective muni ...

; other important towns were

Lüneburg Lüneburg (officially the ''Hanseatic City of Lüneburg'', German: ''Hansestadt Lüneburg'', , Low German ''Lümborg'', Latin ''Luneburgum'' or ''Lunaburgum'', Old High German ''Luneburc'', Old Saxon ''Hliuni'', Polabian ''Glain''), also calle ...

and Oldenstadt (today

Uelzen Uelzen (; officially the ''Hanseatic Town of Uelzen'', German: ''Hansestadt Uelzen'', , Low German ''Ülz’n'') is a town in northeast Lower Saxony, Germany, and capital of the county of Uelzen. It is part of the Hamburg Metropolitan Region, a ...

). Since the 10th century, members of the

House of Billung The House of Billung was a dynasty of Saxon noblemen in the 9th through 12th centuries. The first known member of the house was Count Wichmann, mentioned as a Billung in 811. Oda, the wife of Count Liudolf, oldest known member of the Liudol ...

have been recorded as counts of the Bardengau. Through their heirs, the

House of Welf The House of Welf (also Guelf or Guelph) is a European dynasty that has included many German and British monarchs from the 11th to 20th century and Emperor Ivan VI of Russia in the 18th century. The originally Franconia, Franconian family from ...

, the Bardengau eventually became part of the

Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg The Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg (german: Herzogtum Braunschweig und Lüneburg), or more properly the Duchy of Brunswick and Lüneburg, was a historical duchy that existed from the late Middle Ages to the Late Modern era within the Holy Roman ...

. The Bardengau was bordered by the Limes Saxonicus, the

Polabians Polabian Slavs ( dsb, Połobske słowjany, pl, Słowianie połabscy, cz, Polabští slované) is a collective term applied to a number of Lechitic ( West Slavic) tribes who lived scattered along the Elbe river in what is today eastern German ...

, the Drewani, the Gau

Osterwalde Osterwalde is a medieval shire ( Gau) in the Eastphalia region of the Duchy of Saxony. In present-day terms, it is located in northern Saxony-Anhalt. It was bordered by the River Ohre to the west and by the River Dumme to the north; its eastern bor ...

, the

Derlingau The Derlingau was an early medieval county ('' Gau'') of the Duchy of Saxony. Geography The Derlingau approximately consisted of the area between the river Oker in the west and the Lappwald forest in the east. It was bordered by (from the north, ...

, the Gau Gretinge, the Lohingau, the Gau Sturmi, the Gau Mosde, and the Gau Stormarn. It was part of

Eastphalia Eastphalia (german: Ostfalen; Eastphalian: ''Oostfalen'') is a historical region in northern Germany, encompassing the eastern ''Gaue'' (shires) of the historic stem duchy of Saxony, roughly confined by the River Leine in the west and the Elbe a ...

. The name of the

Heaðobards The Heaðobards (Old English: ''Heaðubeardan'', Old Low German: ''Headubarden'', "war-beards") were possibly a branch of the Langobards, and their name may be preserved in toponym Bardengau, in Lower Saxony, Germany. They are mentioned in both '' ...

(

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...

: ''Heaðubeardan'',

Old Low German Old Saxon, also known as Old Low German, was a Germanic language and the earliest recorded form of Low German (spoken nowadays in Northern Germany, the northeastern Netherlands, southern Denmark, the Americas and parts of Eastern Europe). It is ...

: ''Headubarden'', "war-beards") may be reflected in the toponym Bardengau.The article ''Hadubarder'' in ''Nordisk familjebok'' (1909).
/ref>

References

{{coord missing, Lower Saxony Carolingian counties Former states and territories of Lower Saxony