Prussia (Baltic)

Old Prussians, Baltic Prussians or simply Prussians (Old Prussian: ''prūsai''; german: Pruzzen or ''Prußen''; la, Pruteni; lv, prūši; lt, prūsai; pl, Prusowie; csb, Prësowié) were an indigenous tribe among the Baltic peoples that inhabited the region of Prussia, at the south-eastern shore of the Baltic Sea between the Vistula Lagoon to the west and the Curonian Lagoon to the east. The Old Prussians, who spoke an Indo-European language now known as Old Prussian and worshipped pre-Christian deities, lent their name, despite very few commonalities, to the later, predominantly Low German-speaking inhabitants of the region.

The duchy of the Polans under Mieszko I, which was the predecessor 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, largely undocumented, was effectively extinct by the 17th century.

The original territory of the Old Prussians prior to the first clashes with the Polans consisted of central and southern West and East Prussia, equivalent to parts of the modern areas of the Pomeranian Voivodeship and Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship in Poland, the Kaliningrad Oblast in Russia and the southern Klaipėda Region in Lithuania. The territory was also inhabited by Scalovians, a tribe related to the Prussians, Curonians and Eastern Balts.

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.

Writing in 98 CE, Roman historian Tacitus described the pagan ''Aesti'' who lived somewhere by the Baltic Sea coast and east of the Vistula estuary. It has been suggested that the name ''Aesti'' could be etymologically related to the modern toponym Estonians. On the other hand, the 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''.

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 "Prussian" root.

The name of ''Pameddi'', the (Pomesania) tribe is derived from the words ''pa'' ("by" or "near") and ''meddin'' ("forest") or ''meddu'' ("honey"), which can be traced to the Proto-Indo-European root ''*medhu-''. Nadruvia may be a compound of the words ''na'' ("by" or "on") and ''drawē'' ("wood") or ''nad'' ("above") and the root ''*reu-'' ("flow" or "river"). 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.

Organization

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.

Permanent recorded Baltic history begins in the 10th century with the failed Christianisation by Adalbert of Prague (997 CE.), the first conquest attempts at the expense of the Old Prussians by the duchy of the Polans under Mieszko I and the Duchy of Greater Poland under his son Bolesław, as a number of border areas were eventually lost.

Around the year 1,000 CE. to the West of the Old Prussians lived the Kashubians and Pomeranians, the Poles to the south, 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. The word appears as a segment in Baltic settlement names, especially in Curonian,It varies in spellings, including ''-laukas'', ''-laukis'', and ''lauks''. 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. 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 and could have up to 2,000 inhabitants. They were known as ''pulka'', comprising a dozen or so laukses.

Because the Baltic tribes inhabiting Prussia never formed a common political and territorial organisation, they had no reason to adopt a common ethnic or national name. Instead they used the name of the region from which they came — Galindians, Sambians, Bartians, Nadruvians, Natangians, Scalovians, 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.

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

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. He lists eleven lands and ten tribes, which were named on a geographical basis. These were:

Culture, religion and customs

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

Customs

Characterized as a humble people, who dressed plainly, the Old Prussians were ''distinguished for their valor and great bodily strength''. 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.

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.

Burial customs

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

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.

Stone babas

The Stone babas, found all over Old Prussia, have for centuries caused considerable speculation and dissent among scholars. Beginning with a lack of confirmation about their original location and context, all subsequent questions on their age, the chronology of the objects, an exact definition of their function, their provenance, pointing to which cultural influence have not been addressed until the late 19th century. A majority of past and present researchers agree the babas were created between the 8th and 13th centuries...as a ''result of a long cultural process among the population of early Iron Age area of the south-eastern Baltic coast, which was affected by both the early traditions of the local craft and inspirations from countries already under Christian influence.'' icref name=baba>

Old Prussian religion

''"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

Baltic paganism has been described as a form of ''polydoxy'' – a belief in the sacredness of all-natural forces and phenomena, not personified but possess their own spirits and magical powers. Practically, the world is inhabited by a limitless number of spirits and demons that includes a belief in the afterlife, the soul and worship of ancestors characterised by specific cults and their associated rituals. Other authors have argued for a well developed, sophisticated Old Prussian polytheism with a clearly defined pantheon of gods.

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.

Christianisation

With the submission to the Teutonic Order in 1231, the Old Prussians were Christianised. How long the old paganism lived on cannot be inferred from the sources. Pagan customs are said to have lasted the longest with the remote 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.

History

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

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 Adalbert of Prague, who was sent by Bolesław I of Poland. Adalbert was slain in 997 during a missionary effort to Christianize the Prussians. As soon as the first Polish dukes had been established with Mieszko I in 966, they undertook a number of conquests and crusades not only against Prussians and the closely related Sudovians, but against the Pomeranians and Wends as well.

Beginning in 1147, the Polish duke Bolesław IV the Curly (securing the help of Ruthenian troops) tried to subdue Prussia, supposedly as punishment for the close cooperation of Prussians with Władysław II the Exile. The only source is unclear about the results of his attempts, vaguely only mentioning that the Prussians were defeated. Whatever were the results, in 1157 some Prussian troops supported the Polish army in their fight against Emperor 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 Konrad of Masovia in the early 13th century were also successfully repelled by the Prussians. In 1209 Pope Innocent III commissioned the Cistercian monk Christian of Oliva

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