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From the moment that Prussia entered the world of the crusade movement and the zone of Western European external expansion in the thirteenth century, and was quickly dominated by the Teutonic Order, the new Prussian land created by the Order became a transitional area and a frontier country. A significant aspect of Prussia's character was ethnic diversity and a consequent multiculturalism.
This collective volume takes up the subject of ethnicity in Prussia between the 13th and 16th centuries and shows several other aspects of this phenomenon in a region on the outskirts of late medieval Europe. Lithuanians arriving from the east, Poles migrating from the south and Curonians living in the north-eastern peripheries come to light, but the volume also analyseS issues of interethnic relations, both in the so-called 'period of conquest' (13th century) and at the turn of the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period (15th/16th centuries). Also, the issue of linguistic differentiation among the predominantly German-speaking brothers of the Teutonic Order, previously unnoticed in historiography, although difficult to grasp, is presented.
Eight papers offer a new contribution to the subject of multiethnicity in late medieval Prussia. The book is partly the outcome of the panel
The Multiculturalism of Prussia in the Late Middle Ages: Ethnic Groups, Elites, Ideas organised in 2022 at the Congress of Polish Medievalists in Katowice, in connection with the implementation of the research project
The Historical-Geographical Dictionary of Prussia in the Middle Ages and at the Dawn of the Early Modern Period, vol. 1: Lower Prussia, vol. 2: Ermland, funded by the polish National Programme for the Development of the Humanities (no. 11H160151 84).
List of contents
Chapter 1Introduction
Krzysztof Kwiatkowski and Rados¿aw BiskupChapter 2The Chronicle of the Prussian Land as Evidence of Multiethnicity in 13th- and early 14th-Century Prussian Towns
Matthew Frank StevensChapter 3Old-Prussians as Co-Creators of Teutonic Order's Rulership and Members of the New Society in Late Medieval Prussia
Alicja DobrosielskaChapter 4Native Identities After the Crusades: The Archaeology of Ethnicity in Medieval Prussia
Aleksander Pluskowski, Maciej Karczewski, and Mägorzata KarczewskaChapter 5Curonians and the Teutonic Order: Settlement and Military Structures on the Outskirts of Late Medieval Prussia
Krzysztof KwiatkowskiChapter 6Migration of Rural Settlers (esp. Lithuanians) to Eastern Prussia in the 15th/16th Century
Grischa VercamerChapter 7Polish Nobility in Royal Prussia 1454¿1506: Status, Position, and Migrations
Sobies¿aw SzybkowskiChapter 8The Functioning of Mendicant Orders in Multi-Ethnic Communities in the Territory of the Teutonic Order in Prussia and in Royal Prussia until the Beginning of the 16th Century
Rafä KubickiChapter 9Teutonic Order and German Dialects under Special Consideration of the Prussian Branch in the Late Middle Ages
Piotr Gotówko
About the author
Krzysztof Kwiatkowski is associate professor in the Institute of History and Archival Studies at the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torü. His research interests include military and social history of the Middle Ages as well as the history of the Teutonic Order and history of Prussia. He publishes especially on topics related to the military affairs of Prussia and the Prussian branch of the Teutonic Order in the late Middle Ages. Since 2013, he has been a co-organizer of the biennial international conference "Ordines Militares. Colloquia Torunensia Historica" devoted to the military orders.
Rados¿aw Biskup is associate professor in the Institute of History and Archival Studies at the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torü. His research focuses on the history of the Baltic Zone in the Middle Ages, especially ecclesiastical developments in the Prussian branch of the Teutonic Order. A special priority in his research is given to editing sources for the ecclesiastical history of medieval Prussia. He is also chairman of the scientific council of the publishing series 'Ecclesia clerusque temporibus medii aevi'.
