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| #REDIRECT ] | |||
| ==Prussia's Ancient Roots== | |||
| The land extending from the south-eastern coast of the ] to the ] district was called "Prussia" by its Polish neighbours in the ] AD. People inhabiting those lands from at least the ] spoke a variety of languages belonging to the western branch of the ], whose modern representatives are ] and ]. | |||
| At the end of the 1st century the Prussian settlements were probably divided into tribal domains, separated from one another by uninhabitated areas of forest, swamp and marsh. A basic territorial community was perhaps called a *lauks, which is Indoeuropean and means at root "clearing". The singular, laucks, is attested in Old Prussian as "field", but this word appears as a segment in Baltic settlement names (especially Curonian) with various spellings: -laukas, -laukis. The Prussian plural is not attested, but then it is never used in the plural. The Lithuanian plural of laukas, "field", is laukai. | |||
| A *lauks was formed by a group of farms, which shared economic interests and the desire for safety. 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 was in charge of the road and watchtower building, and for border defence. | |||
| The term *lauks must have included the fortifications, if any, and the social superstructure, but the village itself went by another, more ancient name, descending from the Indoeuropean name for "village": Caymis, reconstructed as *kaims (Prussian Reconstructions). The root is *tkei-, "to settle", from which English home (American Heritage Dictionary). | |||
| In the natural course of competition and heredity, some chiefs must have become very powerful. They no doubt acquired various *lauks as subordinate entities or took over the control of additional *kaims. The Balts entered history in the early 2nd millenium BC organized into these larger social entities, one of which was termed a "duchy" by non-Baltic writers. | |||
| Because the ] inhabiting Prussia never formed a common political and territorial organisation (a state), they had no reason to adopt a common ethnic or national name. Instead they used the name of the region from which they came - ], ], ], ], ], ] and ]. It is not known when and how the first general names came into being. Some of them are known from ancient sources distributed in time over the entire 1st millenium. | |||
| ] | |||
| Parts of the ] retained wilderness areas for longer than almost anywhere else in Europe. ] may have been referring to peoples living in what was later East Prussia when, in AD ], he wrote of the ] people in his ''Germania''. These people may have been those later known as the Aesti-Prussi, who lived between the Vistula and ] rivers and spoke a Baltic rather than a ]. | |||
| ] histories of Prussia link the name of the "Prussai" or "Prussi," and thereby Prussia, to a place called "Prutenia". According to these histories, most likely based on heroic sagas, Pruteno (or Bruteno) was a priest king, brother of the legendary king ] or Waidewut, who lived in the late ]. The regions of Prussia and their peoples are said to bear Widewuto's sons' names. These peoples include the Yatvingians and Sudovians. In the first half of the ] bishop Christian of Prussia recorded the history of a much earlier era. ] mentions Prussians in ]. | |||
| For more information, see ]. | |||
| ==Prussia in the Middle Ages== | |||
| The foundation of the ] allowed the Ottonian Emperors the opportunity to continue to expand eastwards the holdings they had inherited from the East Frankish kingdom. They achieved this largely through continuing the ] policy of co-opting local Slavic chieftains or ambitious war-leaders into a system of mutual defence and allegiance. This policy not only bound former enemies to the Emperor, but also prevented any of the Emperor's West Frankish leading men from expanding their own power bases eastward. | |||
| It is not surprising, then, that when the Duchy of Poland was established (c.]), the Polish dukes attempted to increase their territory. Where expansion offered the opportunity to convert pagan peoples to ], the support of both Emperor and Pope was almost guaranteed. In ], ], then duke of Poland, gave military protection to ] when he went to convert the Prussians. The Prussians resisted these attempts at conversion, which have been seen as an attempt to weaken their independence. Like many other missionaries, Adalbert was martyred by those he wished to convert. | |||
| In ] ] commissioned the ] monk ] with the conversion of the still-pagan Prussians. Christian afterwards became the first bishop of Prussia. | |||
| In the beginning of the 13th century, the Polish province of Masovia was an object of constant Prussian invasion and raids. In reaction ] called on the pope and the emperor for a ]. The results were edicts calling for Crusades against the "marauding, heathen" Prussians. Many of Europe's knights joined in these Crusades, which lasted sixty years. In particular, the ] took control of much of the Baltic, establishing their own state the ]. | |||
| In ], the Papal legate ] divided Prussia into four bishoprics, ] (Ziemia Chelminska, Kulmerland), ], ] (Ermland), and ] under the ]. | |||
| ==Links== | |||
| * http://www.istorija.lt/la/arch18-09engZulkus.htm | |||
| * http://www.suduva.com/prussian/reconstructions.htm | |||
| ] | |||
| ] | |||
Latest revision as of 04:09, 24 December 2007
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