Old Prussians

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
"Pruteni" redirects here. For the commune in Făleşti district, Moldova, see
Pruteni, Făleşti
.
"Prussians" may also refer to citizens of the former German state Prussia. For other uses, see Prussia (disambiguation).

Prussians
Prūsai
The Old Prussians' territory in lime green, ca. 1200 AD. The boundaries are approximations.
History of Brandenburg and Prussia
Present

Old Prussians, Baltic Prussians or simply Prussians

Low German-speaking inhabitants of the region.[2][3][4]

The duchy of the

Kingdom of Poland, first attempted to conquer and baptize the Baltic tribes during the 10th century, but repeatedly encountered strong resistance. Not until the 13th century were the Old Prussians subjugated and their lands conquered by the Teutonic Order. The remaining Old Prussians were assimilated during the following two centuries. The Old Prussian language, documented only in a limited way, was effectively extinct by the 18th century.[5][6][7][8]

The original territory of the Old Prussians prior to the first clashes with the

Scalovians, a tribe related to the Prussians, Curonians and Eastern Balts.[4]

Etymology

The name of the Old Prussians has its origin in toponymy, as the word Prūsas (a Prussian) can be derived from the term for a body of water, an understandable convention in a coastal region dotted with thousands of lakes, streams and swamps (Masuria). To the south, the terrain runs into the vast wetlands of the Pripet Marshes at the headwaters of the Dnieper River, which has been an effective natural barrier throughout the millennia.[9]

Writing in 98 CE, Roman historian

Old Prussian and modern Lithuanian names for localities, such as the Vistula Lagoon, Aīstinmari and Aistmarės, respectively, also appear to derive from Aesti and mari ("lagoon" or "fresh-water bay"), which suggests that the area around the lagoon had links with the Aesti.[10]

The original settlers tended to name their assets after surrounding localities (streams, lakes, seas, forests, etc.). The clan or tribal entity into which their descendants later were organized continued to use the names. This source is perhaps the one used in the very name of Prusa (Prussia), for which an earlier Brus- is found in the map of the Bavarian Geographer. In Tacitus' Germania, the Lugii Buri are mentioned living within the eastern range of the Germans. Lugi may descend from Pokorny's *leug- (2), "black, swamp" (Page 686), while Buri is perhaps the root on which the toponym "Prussia" is based.[11]

The name of Pameddi, the (

Nadruvia may be a compound of the words na ("by" or "on") and drawē ("wood"). The name of the Bartians, a Prussian tribe, and the name of the Bārta river in Latvia are possibly cognates
.

In the second century AD, the geographer Claudius Ptolemy listed some Borusci living in European Sarmatia (in his Eighth Map of Europe), which was separated from Germania by the Vistula Flumen. His map is very confusing in that region, but the Borusci seem further east than the Prussians, which would have been under the Gythones (Goths) at the mouth of the Vistula. The Aesti recorded by Tacitus, were 450 years later recorded by Jordanes as part of the Gothic Empire.[13]

Organization

Political and tribal fragmentation of the 12th-century Old Prussians
Fragment of the Pomesanian statute book of 1340. The earliest attested document of the customary law of the Balts.

The original Old Prussian settlement area in the western Baltics, as well as that of the eastern Balts, was much larger than in historical times. The archaeological documentation and associated finds confirm uninterrupted presence from the Iron Age (fifth century BC) to the successive conquest by Slavic tribes, beginning in the Migration Period.[14][15][2]

Permanent recorded

Mieszko I and the Duchy of Greater Poland under his son Bolesław, as a number of border areas were eventually lost.[16][17]

Around the year 1,000 AD, the

Sudovians (sometimes considered a separate people, other times regarded as a Prussian tribe) to the east and south-east, the Skalvians to the north, and the Lithuanians
to the northeast.

The smallest social unit in Baltic lands was the laūks, a word attested in Old Prussian as "field", which were small family oriented settlements, households and the surrounding fields, only separated from one another by uninhabited areas of forest, swamp and marsh.[18][19] The word appears as a segment in Baltic settlement names, especially in Curonian,[20] and is found in Old Prussian placenames such as in Stablack, from stabs (stone) + laūks (field, thus stone field). The plural is not attested in Old Prussian, but the Lithuanian plural of laukas ("field") is laukai.

A laūks was also formed by a group of farms, that shared economic interests and a desire for safety, ruled by a male head of the family and centred on strongholds or hill forts.[18] The supreme power resided in general gatherings of all adult males, who discussed important matters concerning the community and elected the leader and chief; the leader was responsible for the supervision of the everyday matters, while the chief (the rikīs) was in charge of the road and watchtower building, and border defense, undertaken by Vidivarii.

The head of a household was the buttataws (literally, the house father, from buttan, meaning home, and taws, meaning father). Larger political and territorial organisations, called terrula in Latin (a small land), existed in the early 13th century in the territories which later comprised Prussia, Latvia and Lithuania and centred on strongholds or hill forts. Such a political territorial unit covered up to 300 km2 (120 sq mi) and could have up to 2,000 inhabitants. They were known as pulka, comprising a dozen or so laukses.[21]

Because the

Sudovians, etc. It is not known when and how the first general names came into being. This lack of unity weakened them severely, similar to the condition of Germany during the Middle Ages.[22]

According to Jan Długosz, the Prussians, Samogitians, and Lithuanians were the same tribe.[23]

The Prussian tribal structure is well attested in the Chronicon terrae Prussiae of contemporary author Peter of Dusburg, a chronicler of the Teutonic Order. The work is dated to 1326.[24] He lists eleven lands and ten tribes, which were named on a geographical basis. These were:

Latin German Polish modern
Lithuanian		 reconstructed
Prussian		 see also
1
Pomesania
 Pomesanien Pomezania Pamedė Pameddi Pomesanians
2 Varmia Ermland,
Warmien		 Warmia Varmė Wārmi Warmians
3
Pogesania
 Pogesanien Pogezania Pagudė Paguddi Pogesanians
4
Natangia
 Natangen Natangia Notanga Notangi Natangians
5
Sambia
 Samland Sambia Semba Semba Sambians
6 Nadrovia Nadrauen Nadrowia Nadruva Nadrāuwa Nadruvians
7 Bartia Barten Barcja Barta Barta Bartians
8 Scalovia Schalauen Skalowia Skalva Skallawa Skalvians
9 Sudovia Sudauen Sudawia Sūduva Sūdawa
Sudovians or Yotvingians
10 Galindia Galindien Galindia Galinda Galinda Galindians
11
Culm
 Kulmerland Chełmno Kulmas Kulmus

Culture, religion and customs

Anglo-Saxon) (English translation) describes a ninth century voyage by traveller and trader Wulfstan of Hedeby to the land of the Old Prussians. He observed their funeral
customs.

Customs

An engraving of a Prussian warrior with a club, Christoph Hartknoch's 1684 book "Old and New Prussia" (Alt- und Neues Preussen).

Characterized as a humble people, who dressed plainly, the Old Prussians were distinguished for their valor and great bodily strength.[25] They generally rejected luxury, yet were very hospitable, and enjoyed celebrating and drinking excessively, usually mead. Wulfstan of Hedeby, who visited the trading town of Truso at the Vistula Lagoon, observed that wealthy people drank fermented mare's milk kumis instead of mead. According to Adam of Bremen, the Samians are said to have consumed horse blood as well as horse milk. He also mentions that horse meat was eaten.[26]

Women held no powerful positions among the Old Prussians and, according to Peter von Dusburg, were treated like servants, forbidden to share the husband's table. Commercial marriage was widespread and after the husband's death, the widow fell to the son, like other inheritance. In addition, polygyny (up to three wives) was widespread. Adultery was a serious crime, punishable with death. After the submission, commercial marriage and polygyny were forbidden.[citation needed]

Burial customs

According to archaeological evidence, pre-Christian burial customs changed over the centuries.[14]

During the Iron Age (5th century BC – 1st century AD), the western Baltic kurgan and barrow culture was widespread among the Old Prussians. It was then that cremation in urns appeared. Grave mounds were raised over stone cells for up to 30 urns, or stone boxes for the urns were buried in Bronze Age style barrows.

During the early phase of imperial Rome, shallow graves appeared in which the corpse was buried in tree coffins. Cremation with urns spread from the third century onwards. Except for the Samians and Sudauers, where shallow grave fields existed until Christianization, cremation pits without urns increasingly became the only form of burials among the Prussians. However, different forms of burial could occur side by side at the same time.[27]

Stone babas

Prussian Hag – Old Prussian kurgan stelae

The

Christian influence."[28]

Old Prussian religion

Illustration of a Prussian goat sacrifice from the 16th century Sudovian Book

Because they did not know God, therefore, in their error, they worshipped every creature as divine, namely the sun, moon and stars, thunder, birds, even four-legged animals, even the toad. They also had forests, fields and bodies of water, which they held so sacred that they neither chopped wood nor dared to cultivate fields or fish in them.

— Peter of Dusburg: Chronicon terrae Prussiae III,5 ,53[29]

Baltic paganism has been described as a form of polydoxy, a belief in the sacredness of all natural forces and phenomena, not personified but possessing their own spirits and magical powers. They thought the world inhabited by a limitless number of spirits and demons, believed in a soul and an afterlife, and practiced ancestor worship. Some authors, by contrast, have argued for a well developed, sophisticated Old Prussian polytheism with a clearly defined pantheon of gods.[18]

The highest priest

Kriwe-Kriwajto was to be in permanent connection with the spirits of the dead ancestors. He lived in a sacred grove, the Romove, a place off limit for anyone but elite clergy. Each district was headed by its Kriwe, who also served as lawgiver and judge. The Kriwe-Kriwajto's next in rank, the Siggonen were expected to maintain the healthy spiritual connection with natural sacred sites, like springs and trees. The Wurskaiten – priests of lower rank – were supposed to superintend rites and ceremonies.[16]

Christianisation

With the submission to the

Sudauers. In the 16th century, the so-called Sudovian Book (Sudauerbüchlein) was created, which described a list of gods, "pagan" festivals and goat sanctification. However, researchers argue that this little book misinterpreted traditional folk customs as 'pagan' in the context of the Reformation.[30]

History

Medieval depiction of Prussians killing Saint Adalbert, the missionary bishop; part of the Gniezno Doors, c. 1175.

Cassiodorus' Variae, published in 537, contains a letter written by Cassiodorus in the name of Theodoric the Great, addressed to the Aesti:

It is gratifying to us to know that you have heard of our fame, and have sent ambassadors who have passed through so many strange nations to seek our friendship.
We have received the amber which you have sent us. You say that you gather this lightest of all substances from the shores of ocean, but how it comes thither you know not. But as an author named Cornelius (Tacitus) informs us, it is gathered in the innermost islands of the ocean, being formed originally of the juice of a tree (whence its name succinum), and gradually hardened by the heat of the sun. Thus it becomes an exuded metal, a transparent softness, sometimes blushing with the color of saffron, sometimes glowing with flame-like clearness. Then, gliding down to the margin of sea, and further purified by the rolling of the tides, it is at length transported to your shores to be cast upon them. We have thought it better to point this out to you, lest you should imagine that your supposed secrets have escaped our knowledge. We sent you some presents by our ambassadors, and shall be glad to receive further visits from you by the road which you have thus opened up, and to show you future favors.

The Old Prussians are called Brus by the Bavarian Geographer in the ninth century.

More extensive mention of the Old Prussians in historical sources is in connection with

Pomeranians and Wends as well.[32]

Beginning in 1147, the Polish duke

Frederick Barbarossa. In 1166 two Polish dukes, Bolesław IV and his younger brother Henry, came into Prussia, again over the Ossa River. The prepared Prussians led the Polish army, under the leadership of Henry, into an area of marshy morass. Whoever did not drown was felled by an arrow or by throwing clubs, and nearly all Polish troops perished. From 1191 to 1193 Casimir II the Just invaded Prussia, this time along the river Drewenz (Drwęca
). He forced some of the Prussian tribes to pay tribute and then withdrew.

Several attacks by

Culmerland, become the object of constant Prussian counter-raids. In response, Konrad I of Masovia called on the Pope for aid several times, and founded a military order (the Order of Dobrzyń) before calling on the Teutonic Order. The results were edicts calling for Northern Crusades
against the Prussians.

In 1224, Emperor

monastic state
in Prussia.

In 1230, following the

Konrad I of Masovia launched the Prussian Crusade
, a joint invasion of Prussia to Christianise the Baltic Old Prussians. The Order then created the independent Monastic State of the Teutonic Knights in the conquered territory and subsequently conquered Courland, Livonia, and Estonia. The Dukes of Poland accused the Order of holding lands illegally.

During an attack on Prussia in 1233, over 21,000 crusaders took part, of which the burggrave of Magdeburg brought 5,000 warriors, Duke Henry of

Sirgune
River and the Prussians suffered a decisive defeat. The Prussians took the Christian bishop and imprisoned him for several years.

Map of the Old Prussian tribes after the subjugation by the Teutonic Order in the 13th century. The indicated towns feature Teutonic fortifications or castles, built to facilitate the conquest.
A translation of catechisms into Old Prussian published in 1545 in Königsberg

Numerous knights from throughout Catholic Europe joined in the Prussian Crusades, which lasted sixty years. Many of the native Prussians from Sudovia who survived were resettled in Samland; Sudauer Winkel was named after them. Frequent revolts, including a major rebellion in 1286, were defeated by the Teutonic Knights. In 1283, according to the chronicler of the Teutonic Knights, Peter of Dusburg, the conquest of the Prussians ended and the war with the Lithuanians began.[33]

In 1243, papal legate

Bishopric of Riga. Prussians were baptised at the Archbishopric of Magdeburg, while Germans and Dutch settlers colonized the lands of the native Prussians; Poles and Lithuanians also settled in southern and eastern Prussia, respectively. Significant pockets of Old Prussians were left in a matrix of Germans throughout Prussia and in what is now the Kaliningrad Oblast.[18]

The monks and scholars of the Teutonic Order took an interest in the language spoken by the Prussians and tried to record it. In addition, missionaries needed to communicate with the Prussians in order to convert them. Records of the Old Prussian language therefore survive; along with little-known Galindian and better-known Sudovian, these records are all that remain of the West Baltic language group. As might be expected, it is a very archaic Baltic language.

Old Prussians resisted the Teutonic Knights and received help from the

Reformation, Lutheranism spread throughout the territories, officially in the Duchy of Prussia and unofficially in the Polish province of Royal Prussia, while Catholicism survived in the Prince-Bishopric of Warmia, the territory of secular rule comprising a third of the then Diocese of Warmia. With Protestantism came the use of the vernacular in church services instead of Latin, so Albert had the Catechisms
translated into Old Prussian.

Because of the conquest of the Old Prussians by Germans, the Old Prussian language probably became extinct in the beginning of the 18th century with the devastation of the rural population by plagues and the assimilation of the nobility and the larger population with Germans or Lithuanians.[citation needed] However, translations of the Bible, Old Prussian poems, and some other texts survived and have enabled scholars to reconstruct the language.

References

  1. Latin: Pruteni; Latvian: prūši; Lithuanian: prūsai; Polish: Prusowie; Kashubian
    : Prësowié)
  2. ^
    doi:10.1080/01629779300000171
    . Retrieved 1 October 2020.
  3. ISBN 978-0-674-42604-7
    .
  4. ^ a b James Cowles Prichard (1841). Ethnography of Europe. 3d ed. 1841. Houlston & Stoneman. pp. 449–.
  5. ^ "Old Prussian language". Encyclopædia Britannica.
  6. ^ "Baltic Odyssey" (PDF). Scientific Association "Pruthenia". Retrieved 30 September 2020.
  7. ^ United States Congressional Serial Set. U.S. Government Printing Office. 1919. pp. 1–.
  8. ISBN 978-90-272-8538-6
    .
  9. ^ Reinhold Trautmann (1910). Die altpreussischen Sprachdenkmäler: Einleitung, Texte, Grammatik, Wörterbuch. Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht.
  10. ^ Mikkels Klussis (2005–2006). "Dictionary of Revived Prussian". Institut Europeen des Minorites Ethniques Dispersees. Retrieved 30 September 2020.
  11. ^ S. Koncha. "Ukrainian Studies. 12. Bulletin of Taras Shevchenko – Bavarian Geographer on Slavic Tribes From Ukraine" (PDF). Kiev University. pp. 15–21. Retrieved 30 September 2020.
  12. ^ The nominalization 'the middle (one)' acquired, apparently via 'what is in the middle (between fields, villages or cultivated land in general)', the meaning 'border, boundary; balk (between fields); forest' in Balto-Slavic.
  13. ISBN 978-09-069-6702-7
    .
  14. ^
    ISBN 9788385824527
    . Retrieved 1 October 2020.
  15. ^ "Old Prussian Hags of Northern Pomerania – These rare statues are one of the few remaining material witnesses to Old Prussian culture". Atlas Obscura. Retrieved 1 October 2020.
  16. ^ a b Walter James Wyatt (1876). The history of Prussia: tracing the origin and development of her military organization p. 2.
  17. ^ Milosz Sosnowski. "Prussians as bees, Prussians as dogs': metaphors and the depiction of pagan society in the early hagiography of St. Adalbert of Prague" (PDF). University of Reading. Retrieved 1 October 2020.
  18. ^ a b c d Roman Zaroff. "Some aspects of pre-Christian Baltic religion". University of Queensland. Retrieved 1 October 2020.
  19. ^ "Lie – Mikkels Klussis" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 10 October 2010. Retrieved 20 September 2018.
  20. ^ It varies in spellings, including -laukas, -laukis, and lauks.
  21. ISBN 978-83-87643-95-9
    .
  22. ^ Jan Wendt. "Political Regionalization of Prussia". University of Danzig. Retrieved 1 October 2020.
  23. ^ Šorys, Juozas; Baranauskas, Tomas (14 October 2010). "Prūsų kraujo paveldėtojai". Alkas.lt (in Lithuanian). Retrieved 21 September 2021.
  24. ISBN 978-0-7546-6483-3
    .
  25. ^ "The Short Course About Prussians & Their Mythology". History & Culture Academy of Latgale.
  26. ISBN 978-0-50-002030-2
    .
  27. ISBN 978-90-04-38172-8
    .
  28. ^ Seweryn Szczepanski. "Old Prussian "Baba" Stones: An Overview of the History of Research and Reception. Pomesanian-Sasinian Case". Academia. Retrieved 1 October 2020.
  29. ^ Roman Shiroukhov. "Prussian graves in the Sambian peninsula with imports, arms and horse harnesses from the tenth to the 13th century: the question of warrior elite" (PDF). Klaipėda University. Retrieved 1 October 2020.
  30. ISBN 978-3050051215
    . Retrieved 1 October 2020.
  31. ^ Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "St. Adalbert (of Bohemia)" . Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
  32. ^ Recent Issues in Polish Historiography of the Crusades Archived 28 November 2007 at the Wayback Machine Darius von Güttner Sporzyński. 2005
  33. ^ Marius Ščavinskas. "The 13th-Century Conquest of Prussia Reconsidered" (PDF). Klaipėda University. Retrieved 1 October 2020.

External links

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