Last week we left the action after the Teutonic Knights had signed the peace of Christburg in 1249 to put an end to the first Prussian revolt. The local population had risen up with the help of duke Swantopolk of Pomerelia who feared for the commercial success of his main city, the city of Danzig/Gdansk. After 7 years of war and devastation the pope had forced both sides to the negotiating table and made them sign a peace agreement intended to be a long term settlement. It constrained the Teutonic Order and gave the converted Prussians civil rights on par with the settlers who had come from the German lands.

Things should therefore be calm and peaceful from here – well they weren’t. The fighting continued as the order expanded further north and inland and soon the Prussians and Pomerelains rose up again, and again…

For Book recommendations, go here: Book Recommendations • History of the Germans Podcast

The translation of Nicolaus of Jeroschin is here: Jeroschin N. The Chronicle of Prussia (2016), OCR.pdf

The music for the show is Flute Sonata in E-flat major, H.545 by Carl Phillip Emmanuel Bach (or some claim it as BWV 1031 Johann Sebastian Bach) performed and arranged by Michel Rondeau under Common Creative Licence 3.0.

As always:

Homepage with maps, photos, transcripts and blog: www.historyofthegermans.com

Facebook: @HOTGPod 

Twitter: @germanshistory

Instagram: history_of_the_germans

Reddit: u/historyofthegermans

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Historyofthegermans

Hello and welcome to the Teutonic Knights, a podcast by History of the Germans: Episode 4– The Conquest of Prussia (Part II)

Things should therefore be calm and peaceful from here – well they weren’t. The fighting continued as the order expanded further north and inland and soon the Prussians and Pomerelains rose up again, and again…

But before we start just a reminder. The History of the Germans Podcast is advertising free thanks to the generous support from patrons. And you can become a patron too and enjoy exclusive bonus episodes and other privileges from the price of a latte per month. All you have to do is sign up at patreon.com/historyofthegermans or on my website historyofthegermans.com/support. You find all the links in the show notes. And thanks a lot to our generous one-time contributors, Simon W., Nina R., Junie H and Edmund H.

Back to the show.

The territory that was highest up in the mind of the Teutonic Knights at that point was the Samland or sometimes called Sambia with an s, not a Z. The Samland is a peninsula that divided the two great lagoons, the Frisches Haff or Vistula Lagoon from the Kurische Haff or Curonian Lagoon. This area was of the utmost strategic importance as it controlled the main entrance to the Vistula Lagoon. To understand how significant this is, just look at what happens today when this area is part of Russia. To get to the harbour of the modern day Polish city of Elblag/Elbing, ships would have to go through the Russian controlled entrance to the Vistula Lagoon. Poland is now building a canal cutting through the sandspit to give Elblag direct access to the Baltic Sea.

The concern for the Teutonic knight was that Samland could be conquered by another crusading force. We have not mentioned this, but at the time the Teutonic Knights were busy subjugating Prussia, other forces were going around claiming land for themselves as crusader colonies. The Swedes had expanded into Finland since the middle of the 12th century, the Danes went into Estonia at the end of the 12th century and the Livonian Sword Brothers’ helped the bishops of Riga to conquer Latvia. In the peace of Christburg the Teutonic Knights had to promise not to interfere with a planned crusade by king Haakon of Norway into Samland.

That was a bit on an ambiguous clause. It did not explicitly ban the Teutonic knights from going to Samland, it only gave king Haakon IV first dips. But Haakon IV was a busy man involved in a dazzling number of foreign adventures whilst also held hostage by the Hanse cities which supplied most of the grain and controlled Norway’s main export, stockfish. To cut a long story short, King Haakon and his crusade never showed up, or more precisely did not show up on time.

Here is Nicolaus von Jeroschin, truly impressed by the man and his army:

Quote “King Ottokar of Bohemia marched into Prussia. He was skilled in warfare and laudably pious. Margrave Otto of Brandenburg came with him as his marshal on this campaign, a man of great courage, and also that bold, daring man, the prince of Austria and margrave of Moravia. These princes had many fighting men in their retinues. Bishops also arrived, very praiseworthy men: Bishop Heinrich of Kulm and a bishop of Warmia called Lord Anselm. Bishop Bruno of Olmütz arrived too. By their preaching these three good bishops had persuaded many men to become pilgrims for the honour of God. Many bold warriors, counts, knights and their squires arrived from the Rhineland, Saxony, Thuringia, Meissen and from many different lands. They all wanted to fight the heathens in God’s name and avenge the suffering of our Lord who was crucified for us. When all the battalions were assembled into one army you could estimate there were about sixty thousand fighting men there. I do not know how many wagons of weaponry and supplies there were; I can only guess there must have been a lot of them.” End quote

This army was put to good use. First Ottokar burned and pillaged the lands of a Sambian chieftain who had actually come across to the crusaders. Oops, so sorry for killing your people including your whole family, but next time make sure you have the right banner flying when we come down. Then the mighty Bohemian king quote “launched a surprise attack into Sambia, in the region of Medenau and killed many of the people there. He also took some prisoners and burned everything that flames could consume….. On the following day he departed for the region of Rudau, captured a castle there from the Sambians and persecuted and killed so many of the Sambian people that they offered hostages and begged the king graciously to accept them and not to wipe out their entire people in this terrible way….. After this the king handed the hostages over to the brothers and marched on to the hill where Königsberg now stands and advised the brothers to build a castle there for their own security and to protect the Christians….. With this he came to the end of the duties of his pilgrimage and the noble, merciful king marched joyfully back to his kingdom.” END QUOTE. So a jolly good time had been had by all, or almost all.

The story of this conquest is one of the most convoluted but also quite insightful ones. The first contact between the order and the Natangians was in 1239 when the crusaders established the fort of Balga on the Vistula lagoon, roughly halfway between modern day Elblag and Kaliningrad. The Natangians, together with the neighbouring Warmians and Barthians attacked the fort. As Nicolaus von Jeroschin recounts gleefully the brothers used a double agent to lure the Prussian army into a trap where they quote “so completely…..drown them in their own blood that they brought everlasting honour to the good Lord” end quote. Following that battle the Teutonic Knights erected the castle of Kreuzburg in the land of the Natangians, Bartenstein, Wiesenburg and Rösselin in the land of the Barthians and Braunsberg and Heilsberg in Warmia.

The fighting continued after the peace of Christburg. In 1250 the margrave of Brandenburg came up on Crusade and in 1251 Heinrich III, count of Schwarzburg fighting the length and breadth of the Prussian lands that still remained pagan. Quote “They did this repeatedly, taking prisoners, killing, plundering until they subdued the people in all parts of the land and compelled them to submit themselves to the brothers again and live according to their will. From this time the Pomesanians, Warmians, Barthians and Natangians completely gave up their insolence and fighting and submitted to the commands of the faith, as ordained by God, Christ our saviour, in whose divine hand is all power and the justice of all kingdoms.” end quote

That was why the Natangians did not stop king Ottokar of Bohemia from moving along the coast to the Samland. And they presumably had to let him pass on his way back home too. The Teutonic brothers then went about building a new castle on that hill in Samland king Ottokar had indicated and in his honour called it Königsberg, literally the King’s mount.

And here is a very important albeit brief comment from Nicolaus von Jeroschin that helps understanding what happens next: quote “When everything was ready, a great army was assembled, including all the Prussians who were loyal to the brothers, and they built a strong fortress on the hill where the old castle can still be seen.” end quote

This is the first mention of Prussian auxiliaries in the army of the Teutonic Knights. The occupation has now moved into a stage where the lands conquered in the first round, the Pogesanians and Pomesanians have reached the point where they have either embraced the Christian faith sufficiently or have been subjugated enough, or hated their neighbours enough that they were ready to serve in the order’s forces.

For the remaining pagan groups this was a very worrying development. As long as the invaders had remained largely foreigners, most of whom returned home after a year or less, there was hope that the Teutonic Knights would someday disappear to where they had come from. But if they established control of some tribes to the point that they supplied them with warriors and kept bringing in settlers, their disappearance became an ever diminishing hope.

Mindaugas pursued a complex strategy of alliances and religious conversions aimed at preserving his kingdom. In 1250 he had converted to Roman Catholicism which dramatically reduced the military pressure from the chivalric orders who weren’t allowed to attack Christians. This appeasement policy did work in as much that the order would not attack the Lithuanians directly.

If left unchallenged, these castles would allow the order to establish a land bridge between its Prussian and Livonian territories, at which point Lithuania would not only be cut of from the sea but surrounded by the order on three sides.

This defeat added to fear amongst the castle commanders that the converted Prussians weren’t quite as loyal as they had thought. Things got a bit out of hand when the commander of Natangia and Warmia invited the leaders of the neighbouring tribes to his castle at Lenzenburg for a meeting followed by a feast. Something triggered a bout of paranoia in this man so undeservedly called Volrad Mirabilis that he had his guests locked inside the dining hall and set fire to it.

And given they had served as auxiliaries in the Teutonic Knights’ armies these men were now well trained in Western European warfare and had the necessary modern equipment. And two more things worked in their favour. Firstly, they could count on the support from Mindaugas, the powerful ruler of the Lithuanians, and secondly, the Teutonic Knights had another theatre of war to worry about.

Here is Nicolaus von Jeroschin describing what the newly elected leaders of the Prussian tribes did quote “they agreed that they would meet, ready for battle, on an agreed day, and that they would destroy and brutally kill anyone who called themselves a Christian and acknowledged their faith. Sadly, that was what happened. They campaigned ferociously the length and breadth of the country, killing all the Christians they found outside the fortresses. Some they bound and took off into life-long slavery. In their frenzied hatred they also desecrated and burned down churches and chapels, consecrated or not.” End quote.

Thing went from bad to worse. One stronghold after the other fell. First Heilsberg was abandoned after its garrison had eaten all the food, including the meat of their horses. When that had run out they ate the horse leather which made their teeth fall out, at which point they fled. Then the garrison of Roessel decided to burn the castle and retreat before they get attacked. The same at Waistotepila. Balga was captured and looted, so were the castle and city of Braunsberg. In Wiesenburg the Prussians scored a full scale victory and destroyed the castle. Then they went after the big ones. Kreuzburg fell in 1263. The city of Christburg too was burned and the outer fortifications of the castle fell.

Bartenstein held a garrison of 400 knights and squires. The Barthians attacked with 1,300 men and built three huge siege engines. By now the Prussians had all the skills to build those as well as trebuchets and other equipment. There was one of the defenders, a man called Miligedo who was regarded as worth as much as half of the whole garrison. So the Prussians challenged him to come out for a duel. He was allowed to go to fight and stepped before the fort. The challenger instead of attacking, gave chase and Miligedo followed him into a pre-prepared trap. Multiple men jumped out of the bushes to kill him. But Miligedo was still running after the challenger, killed him and then outran his attackers, made a large turn to the left and ran back to the castle.

Miligedo however was killed in the end and the Prussians celebrated. The knights’ reaction was to hang 30 hostages on the gallows above the walls of Bartenstein to dampen the mood of the besiegers. After four years the garrison gave up and fled in the middle of the night, leaving one man behind to ring the bells every day, pretending the garrison was still there until the Prussians clocked it, came in, killed the man and burned the castle.

In 1264 an army of the Teutonic knights was again defeated and the Prussian master and his marshal died.

The following year things got even worse. Duke Swantopulk of Pomerelia had died and was succeeded by his son Mestwin. And Mestwin resumed his father’s previous policies and allied with the Prussians. Together they attacked the long pacified regions of Pomesania and even the Kulmerland. Marienwerder fell and even Rehden could not hold out. Kulm was besieged but held.

By now the situation was even worse than during the previous revolt. The Teutonic Knights held only a handful of castles, castles that were far away from each other and that the Prussians had proven they could take with their siege engines.

That turned the tide. Quote “In the year of our Lord 1273 the Sambians, Natangians, Warmians and Barthians wanted to submit and return to the faith.”

Of the previously subjugated and converted Prussians only the Pogesanians had appetite for revenge and cruelty left. In a skirmish with a force from Elbing, they pushed the Christians back until they had to take refuge in a mill. That mill they set on fire and burned them to death.

But by now the Pogesanians were on their own. Quote “The master and the brothers.….wanted to avenge this wrongdoing and the terrible anguish it had caused or die in the attempt. With this in mind they gathered together all the manpower they could and launched an attack on Pogesania, devastating the whole country, burning and looting, killing all the men they encountered and taking away horses, cattle, children and women as prisoners. During this campaign they also captured the castle at Heilsberg, which at that time had been under the control of the Pogesanians, and put all the men there to the sword; everything else was driven off. After this the threat of warfare was removed and Prussia remained at peace”.

What kind of peace though? This had been a brutal war, even by medieval standards. The chronicles describe literally dozens and dozens of sieges and battles and in none did I find the mention of any form of mercy. Prussians who were caught and refused to convert were killed. Christians caught by Prussians, were killed or sold as slaves.

There is a debate about whether the conquest of Prussia and the cruelty that followed led to the extinction of the original population and their replacement with German speaking settlers. That is probably not quite the case. It is true that the conquest of Prussia resulted in the killing of a horrifically large number of Prussians. Juergen Sarnovsky talks about a reduction in the Prussian population by almost 50%, which includes an element of emigration and assimilation. I am not sure what to make of this. Yes, they weren’t completely wiped out and had somewhat recovered by the 15th century. But on the other hand I am still horrified not only by the scale of the destruction but also by the attitude of the Teutonic Knights towards the Prussians.

Here are some things that Nicolaus von Jeroschin wrote and do not forget he is a priest member of the Teutonic Order who writes a hundred years later to instruct the brothers in what it means to be a member of a chivalric order:

Quote: “When the castles mentioned earlier were built and equipped with the help of Christ our Lord and in His praise and honour, and the peoples in the vicinity had bent their stiff necks to the yoke of faith and the brothers’ dominion, to which point they could not have been brought without slaughtering many”

Here is another one

“He caused them such misery and harried them, night and day, so ferociously that he reduced them to the point where they had to submit themselves to God and the brothers and receive Christianity”

And:

“So completely did they drown them in their own blood that they brought everlasting honour to the good Lord.” End quotes

We still have a few more episodes to get to know the Teutonic Knights a bit better so we do not have to make up our minds about them just yet. But hey…

Just to not end this section on this super distressing note. Here is another story about how the Teutonic nights convinced some Prussians in this case a chieftain from Samland of the superiority of their faith:

Quote: This same Sambian had also seen the brothers eating cabbage, which was something the Prussians did not do at that time. For that reason he thought it was grass. ‘I also saw them eating grass for nourishment, like horses,’ he said. ‘Who could stand up against men who can survive in the wilderness in this way and eat grass as food?

At the same time the order also conquered Scalovia, the territory north of Nadrovia, around modern day Kleipeda. Their main castle was Ragnit that featured a large fishpond within its walls that fed the garrison during sieges. That did not help though since according to our friend the chronicler, god changed all the fish into frogs, presumably the inedible kind. More castles were burned, women enslaved and fields devastated until the Scalovians saw how benign the new religion was. As the chronicler wrote, the land of Scalovia remained deserted for many years thereafter.

That leaves the Sudovians who under their leader Skumantas kept up their resistance. Most of their warfare was guerilla tactics, but at times they mustered large armies that pushed as far as the order’s heartlands around Kulm and Thorn. According to von Jeroschin, the Sudovian were the most powerful of the Prussian tribes. This war against the Sudovian lasted for almost a decade. There were rarely any open battles; it was mostly a series of raids, destroying villages and killing civilians. At that stage the Teutonic Knights barely used any more crusaders. Instead they employed Old Prussians from other tribes to attack and plunder the Sudovians.

Still the Sudovians prove to be hard to overcome, in part because they could retreat into Lithuania where they could rest, get fresh equipment and support. The order therefore resorted to a total scorched earth tactic, destroying every village that they came across, killing the men and taking away the women and children as per usual.

Finally the Sudovian leader, Skumantas gave up and converted. That broke the Sudovian resistance and many joined him. Those who did not want to give up their traditional beliefs and culture saw quote “that all the land around had been totally devastated and destroyed and realised beyond a shadow of doubt that [they] could no longer resist the brothers or endure such frequent attacks.” end quote. And so the remaining Sudovians took what was left of their possessions and emigrated to Lithuania.

The land of Sudovia was turned into an uninhabited wilderness that acted as a buffer zone against the Lithuanians.

The peace of Christburg in 1249 had guaranteed converted Prussians the same legal rights the German settlers enjoyed under the Kulmer Handfeste, the laws that Hermann Balk had issued in 1233 to attract colonists. But now after their rebellions, the Prussians were declared apostates and these rights were taken away from them. They lived under a separate and much less attractive legal framework in their villages. To escape these constrains, many adopted the German language and customs fully assimilating into the new society. Some held out into the early modern period and as late as 1700 a bible in the Prussian language was published.

We will come back to the way Prussia was organised and managed by the Teutonic Knights two episodes from now. Next time we will talk about the other lands the Teutonic Knights were active in, the Holy Land, Germany and most significantly, Livonia. That episode will feature the Battle on the Ice made famous in Sergej Eisenstein’s propaganda movie and that may have not been quite what Stalinist propaganda was making it out to be. I hope you will join us again.

And since it is this time of the year, let me wish you all a lovely Christmas remembering that much of what you heard here today has nothing to do with the content of the New Testament. And to all of you who observe different traditions or no traditions at all, enjoy the holidays and come back for more History of the Germans afterwards!