Between Commemoration and Living Memory: Symbolic Acts of the Teutonic Knights in Light of Cultural Theory

The present article investigates the function of ritual acts as a form of communication vis-à-vis cultural meaning in the life of the Teutonic Knights. As a condensed form of communal expression, rituals exhibit an acute potential to render present collective identity and shape the lives of the communities that practice them. Such potential is manifest in the institutional arrangement of the Teutonic Order in various forms with particular reference to their dual standing in society, insofar as they drew upon the societal models of the oratores and the bellatores. Particularly relevant to the current study, considerations of cultural historian and social analyst Jan Assmann regarding symbolic acts and collective living memory assist in creating the theoretical framework for the study’s deliberations. With Assmann’s insights in mind, ritual is understood as a communicative vector of cultural meaning – so to speak – of living memory. The analysis then turns to an examination of select representative examples from diverse scenarios in the existence of the Teutonic Knights, thereby taking into account internal, public, and participatory contexts of symbolic moments. The study thus explores how, while rituals can commemorate memorialised events from the past, they are also able to enact the living memory of a collective entity, ultimately claiming that the examined symbolic acts exhibited both communicative and transformative potential.

Nicolaus von Redewitz – ein Diplomat und Informant des Deutschen Ordens am Hof von Sigismund von Luxemburg

Nicolaus von Redewitz – the Teutonic Order’s diplomat and informant in the court of Sigismund of Luxembourg At the end of 1422, Sigismund of Luxembourg, King of Hungary and Holy Roman Emperor, allowed the Teutonic Order to have a permanent diplomatic representation in his court, in the person of Nicolaus von Redewitz. This was related to the fact that from the beginning of the 1420s, the Ottoman Empire posed an increasingly serious threat to the southern borders of Hungary again, and Sigismund wanted to win over the Order for the fight against the Turks. Arriving in the court of the king, von Redewitz kept the Grand Master of the order informed of Sigismund’s political plans, decisions, negotiations, military actions against the Turks, and all-important events. A recurring theme in his letters was the king’s urge that the Order take on the defence of the southern borders of the Hungarian Kingdom. In return, he first offered the Grand Master the Burzenland in Southern Transylvania, from where Andrew II, King of Hungary, expelled the Order in 1225, then the Banate of Severin by the lower Danube. Following long negotiations, at the end of July 1429, a few Teutonic Knights arrived in Hungary. These knights did not undertake the armed protection of the southern borders, only its organisation. Sigismund entrusted the management of twenty-one fortresses and military watch-posts to the Knights, who envisioned the reinforcement of the defence with the involvement of mercenaries. However, the Hungarian Treasury was unable to provide the expenses for this plan. When, at the end of the summer of 1432, the Turks launched an attack at the lower Danube, they managed to occupy three fortresses under the control of the Order. Recognising that the Order’s idea of the protection of the borders is impossible to finance, at the end of 1434, Sigismund agreed to the gradual return of the Teutonic Knights who had arrived in Hungary in 1429 to Prussia.

NADGOPLAŃSKI GRÓD SZARLEJ I JEGO WŁAŚCICIELE W ŚREDNIOWIECZU

The gord of Szarlej is located on a small peninsula on the south-western coast of Lake Szarlej at the mouth of the river Noteć. Gopło - a ribbon lake – reached that far in the late Middle Ages. The gord of Szarlej was established in the last decade of the first half of the 14th century on the initiative of Kazimierz Ziemomysłowic, a Kuyavian prince and the lord of Gniewkowo, or alternatively by his son and successor, Władysław the White. The gord in Szarlej was built following destruction of the previous ducal residence in Gniewkowo during an invasion of the Teutonic Knights in 1332. The stronghold was a favourite residence of Władysław the White, prince of Gniewkowo until 1363 when he placed a lien against it to Kazimierz the Great, king of Poland. Most probably, after 1382 another ruler of Kuyavia, prince Vladislav II of Opole, handed over the stronghold in Szarlej to the affluent Kuyavian Ostoja family. The first nobility owner of the Szarlej estate (encompassing the stronghold, the villages, Łojewo, Witowy and Karczyn), confirmed in the sources, was Mikołaj of Ściborze (†1457). He was a member of the political elite of late-medieval Kuyavia.

Battles in the History of Medieval Lithuania

Battles are defined as military encounters involving formations sufficient to act under their individual banners. These can be armies of individual dukes or counties or lands. The minimal threshold for a military encounter to be defined as a battle is that it should involve not fewer than 300 combatants on each side. Smaller encounters are defined as skirmishes. Historical significance of a battle should be assessed taking into account its impact on further military and political developments. Any battle having a significant impact on the context of the nearest decade should be viewed as decisive. In the history of Lithuania, the period of 1203–1435 was a time of great medieval battles. Their abundance was determined by two warfare fronts, namely, the Lithuanian war against the Teutonic Order and the expansion to the Ruthenian lands. Out of 45 battles of the above-mentioned period reviewed in this paper, 27 were fought against the Teutonic Knights and the Livonian Brothers of the Sword (four against the latter), fourteen in the Ruthenian lands and for the Ruthenian lands (against the Ruthenians and the Tatars), two against the Poles, and two were battles of domestic feuds. Incidentally, although the statistics of the Ruthenian front looks rather modest, the warfare was hardly less intense than the one with the Teutonic Knights, as the available source material on these fights is much more fragmentary. The paper outlines ten battles which can be identified as decisive. These are the battles of Saulė (1236), Durbe (1260), Aizkraukle or Ascheraden (1279), Garuoza (1287), Medininkai (1320), Strėva (1348), Blue Waters (1362), Vorskla (1399), Tannenberg (1410), and Pabaiskas (1435). Many of them have received a lot of attention in the historiography; however, the battles of Garuoza, Medininkai and, partly, even Aizkraukle are still neglected. Besides that, it should be admitted that the impact of certain battles is hard to evaluate due to the shortage of data . These are the battles of Ropaži (1205), Usvyaty (1226), Toropec-Usvyaty (1245), Protva-Zubtsov (1249 m.), and Irpen (1323 m.); they carry attributes of decisive battles, too. Although historiography tends to concentrate on victories, almost half of the reviewed battles (namely, twenty) were lost by the Lithuanians, including two decisive battles of Strėva and Vorskla. These two incurred a major damage to the situation of the Lithuanian state. Hence, although the Lithuanian state managed to maintain the upper hand in the fights of the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries, it was far from easy, and painful defeats were part of the deal (see Table 5). Eleven of the reviewed battles took place within the territory of modern Lithuania and may be subject to archaeological research. However, the precise location can be identified only in two cases (Pabaiskas in 1435 and Palanga in 1372) and, in two other cases (Strėva in 1348 and Rudamina in 1394), the locations can be established within a certain range of certainty. Regarding the locations of other battles, which so far have been identified only approximately and often inaccurately, hypotheses can be raised and proved or rejected using methods of archaeological research. As for the battles that took place outside Lithuania, archaeological research should probably concentrate on the ones that happened near or on the ice of well-identified lakes (Usvyaty in 1226 and 1245, Zhizhitsa in 1245, and Kotelno in 1426 in Russia, and Nebеl in 1262 in Ukraine), as such sites may preserve some sunk medieval munitions.

Visitationen, Visitatoren, Reformen und Änderungen im Konventsleben des Deutschen Ordens um die Wende zum 16. Jahrhundert, insbesondere in Preußen

Local inspections aiming to reform the Teutonic Order in Prussia, as well as the attempts at self-reform made by selected bailiwicks stood in opposition to the plans of the last two Grand Masters to transform the Order into Deutsche Adels in Prussen. Most Teutonic knights did not desire or no longer believed in the reform of the Order. The decentralization of the Teutonic State in Prussia and its administration led directly to the secularization of the Order, including the ideals and aspirations of Teutonic knights in the Baltic region