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Authors: William Urban
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substance by making expeditions into Samland – that prominent peninsula bounded by the Frisches Haff (Freshwater Bay) and the Kurisches Haff (Kurland Bay) – and other coastal provinces. Waldemar’s kidnapping by Count Heinrich of Schwerin in 1223 brought a sudden end to those prospects.
Duke Conrad of Masovia had a claim on the southern borderlands of Prussia because he was their closest Catholic neighbour, save only for Duke Sventopełk of Pomerellia (1212 – 66), whose lands lay on the western bank of the Vistula River. Conrad and Sventopełk were thus best situated to revive the Polish crusades of the mid-twelfth century that had failed to conquer and convert the pagans in Prussia. Although Duke Conrad tried to move down the east bank of the Vistula, he never succeeded in doing more than occupying briefly the territory of Culm, which was, like his own provinces just upriver (Płock and Dobrin), so much a battlefield that some areas were depopulated.
The Prussians were ethnically and linguistically different from the Poles, Scandinavians, and Rus’ians. They were neither Germanic nor Slavic. Like their neighbours to the east – the Lithuanians and some of the tribes of Livonia – they were Balts, descendants of Indo-Europeans who had not migrated elsewhere during the great movements of peoples and had held onto their own languages and customs with relatively little change over the centuries.
Prussian was part of a language group which included Lithuanian and Latvian, as well as the tongues of several smaller peoples such at the Jatwingians and Semgallians. This language group had once extended from Moscow to the Baltic Sea, but as prehistory became history the pressure of Slavic newcomers caused its domains to shrink drastically. Modern studies of the language that concentrate on the retention of native words in spite of centuries of intrusion and influence by larger language families reveal much about the speakers’ pre-Christian culture. Words relating to three important economic activities – bees, horses, and wagons – demonstrate that Baltic culture was far from primitive (though, undoubtedly, the lack of population limited the extent to which the Prussians could specialise or maximise their potential for producing wealth). But the study of other areas of activity illustrates that Prussian society was failing to keep pace with its neighbours’ progress in economic and governmental development. Institutions associated with feudalism were almost completely lacking. Consequently the Prussians had few prospects of unifying in ways that were necessary for an effective national defence, for promoting agriculture and commerce, and for sharing in the wider European culture.
The Prussian lands extended along the Baltic coast from the Nemunas (Memel) River in the north-east to the Vistula River in the south-west, and bordered Lithuania, Rus’ian Volhynia, Masovia, and Pomerellia. This meant that their neighbours spoke four different languages. Prussia was divided into eleven districts, each representing a major tribe: Culm, Pomesania, Pogesania, Warmia, Nattangia, Samland, Nadrovia, Scalovia, Sudovia, Galindia, and Bartia. According to the fourteenth-century chronicler Peter von Dusburg, one of the Teutonic Order’s most knowledgeable writers, the most powerful tribes were the Samlanders, who could raise 4,000 cavalry and 40,000 infantry, and the Sudovians, who had 6,000 horsemen and ‘an almost innumerable multitude of other warriors’. He estimated that the other tribes had about 2,000 horsemen each and an appropriate number of infantry, except for Culm and Galindia, which were largely depopulated – particularly Galindia, an interior province usually described as a wilderness. Galindia’s terrain was so rugged and wooded and filled with so many lakes and rivers that all armies avoided crossing it. Modern estimates place the total Prussian population at approximately 170,000, a figure considerably
Duke Conrad of Masovia had a claim on the southern borderlands of Prussia because he was their closest Catholic neighbour, save only for Duke Sventopełk of Pomerellia (1212 – 66), whose lands lay on the western bank of the Vistula River. Conrad and Sventopełk were thus best situated to revive the Polish crusades of the mid-twelfth century that had failed to conquer and convert the pagans in Prussia. Although Duke Conrad tried to move down the east bank of the Vistula, he never succeeded in doing more than occupying briefly the territory of Culm, which was, like his own provinces just upriver (Płock and Dobrin), so much a battlefield that some areas were depopulated.
The Prussians were ethnically and linguistically different from the Poles, Scandinavians, and Rus’ians. They were neither Germanic nor Slavic. Like their neighbours to the east – the Lithuanians and some of the tribes of Livonia – they were Balts, descendants of Indo-Europeans who had not migrated elsewhere during the great movements of peoples and had held onto their own languages and customs with relatively little change over the centuries.
Prussian was part of a language group which included Lithuanian and Latvian, as well as the tongues of several smaller peoples such at the Jatwingians and Semgallians. This language group had once extended from Moscow to the Baltic Sea, but as prehistory became history the pressure of Slavic newcomers caused its domains to shrink drastically. Modern studies of the language that concentrate on the retention of native words in spite of centuries of intrusion and influence by larger language families reveal much about the speakers’ pre-Christian culture. Words relating to three important economic activities – bees, horses, and wagons – demonstrate that Baltic culture was far from primitive (though, undoubtedly, the lack of population limited the extent to which the Prussians could specialise or maximise their potential for producing wealth). But the study of other areas of activity illustrates that Prussian society was failing to keep pace with its neighbours’ progress in economic and governmental development. Institutions associated with feudalism were almost completely lacking. Consequently the Prussians had few prospects of unifying in ways that were necessary for an effective national defence, for promoting agriculture and commerce, and for sharing in the wider European culture.
The Prussian lands extended along the Baltic coast from the Nemunas (Memel) River in the north-east to the Vistula River in the south-west, and bordered Lithuania, Rus’ian Volhynia, Masovia, and Pomerellia. This meant that their neighbours spoke four different languages. Prussia was divided into eleven districts, each representing a major tribe: Culm, Pomesania, Pogesania, Warmia, Nattangia, Samland, Nadrovia, Scalovia, Sudovia, Galindia, and Bartia. According to the fourteenth-century chronicler Peter von Dusburg, one of the Teutonic Order’s most knowledgeable writers, the most powerful tribes were the Samlanders, who could raise 4,000 cavalry and 40,000 infantry, and the Sudovians, who had 6,000 horsemen and ‘an almost innumerable multitude of other warriors’. He estimated that the other tribes had about 2,000 horsemen each and an appropriate number of infantry, except for Culm and Galindia, which were largely depopulated – particularly Galindia, an interior province usually described as a wilderness. Galindia’s terrain was so rugged and wooded and filled with so many lakes and rivers that all armies avoided crossing it. Modern estimates place the total Prussian population at approximately 170,000, a figure considerably
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