19

Prussia

As the Poles and Lithuanians wrangled at Brest in April 1454, events to the north launched a process that was to transform the union. By 1435 the Order’s glory days were over. The conversion of Lithuania, Tannenberg, and the challenge mounted at Constance posed serious questions about its role. While the Livonian Order could still claim some legitimacy for its struggle against the Orthodox of Pskov, Novgorod, and Muscovy, their Prussian superiors were swept from the moral heights at Constance.¹ As the supply of western volunteers dried up and mercenaries were hired to fight in their place, the Order turned to its subjects to meet its rising costs. It had encouraged settlers from Germany and Poland by offering land tenure with few obligations beyond military service, and by issuing generous privileges, including exemptions from tax and customs dues. For 150 years, and in particular during the six decades of peace with Poland after 1343, the Order flourished. Advanced techniques of government, carried out by its elite of several hundred brothers bound by the strict discipline of its rule, brought prosperity. Good roads encouraged trade; magnificent brick churches and municipal buildings turned towns across the Ordensstaat into beacons of sophisticated civilization among the largely wooden settlements of northeastern Europe.

Before Tannenberg the Order’s rule was broadly accepted. Military service was mostly undertaken abroad; volunteers were paid, and benefited from the booty they seized on raids into neighbouring lands. After Tannenberg conditions changed dramatically. Most of the fighting now took place within the Ordensstaat itself. The enemy regularly laid waste to the Prussian lands. The devastation made local elites increasingly unwilling or unable to fulfil their obligation to defend the realm, for which they were not paid. The Order faced a recruitment crisis, partly due to social change among the knightly class in north-west Germany that was starkly evident after the losses sustained at Tannenberg: the number of brothers declined from around 700 before 1409 to some 400 thereafter, while accusations of moral decline from the secular clergy, and even from within the Order’s own ranks, began to grow.² Prussia was no longer attractive for young Germans on the make.

The willingness of so many cities across the Ordensstaat to swear loyalty to Jagiełło in 1410 demonstrated that all was not well in relations between the Order and its subjects. After 1343 its brothers turned to trade despite their oaths to renounce worldly pursuits.³ In the harsher economic climate after the Black Death towns resented the competition. Complaints multiplied after 1400 as the Order, forced to raise money to sustain its military campaigns, developed what Burleigh terms a ‘grasping fiscality’. Even if the economic damage to the towns was not as great as the volume of complaints might suggest, the perception that competition from the Order was undermining trade soured relations: trade by Order officials was one of the nine reasons given by Danzig in 1453 to justify joining the Prussian Bund in 1440.⁴ Grasping fiscality was symbolized by the Pfundzoll, a Hanseatic levy first raised in 1361. In 1389 the Prussian estates, which owed the Order money, collected it without Hanse sanction, but with the grand master’s permission; from 1395 it was raised permanently. The cities used it for their own purposes, but in 1403 the Order began syphoning off one-third of the proceeds. Opposition flared, and the Order defeated an attempt to abolish it in 1407. Tension grew after 1409, when the Order raised its share to two-thirds despite fierce resistance.⁵

The Order’s exemption from taxation gave bite to urban complaints about unfair competition. It was no better in the countryside. Nobles were told to forget their military obligations and remain on their estates in wartime, while the Order taxed them to support mercenary armies. Grants of land on Culm law became infrequent; instead they were made on Magdeburg—or even Polish—law, since these were less favourable to landholders: the Order could secure control of estates without a male heir in the direct line, which was resented since it prevented local families from consolidating their holdings through inheritance from collateral lines, or through marrying heiresses. Burdens on the peasantry increased, and restrictions on their freedom of movement provoked a spate of peasant flight.⁶

That the Order was an alien, non-hereditary elite bound by oaths of chastity and in need of constant refreshment from outside had not mattered in the prosperous years before 1400. The sharp change in its fortunes meant that its diminishing core of knights was detached from the native and settler families that constituted the local elites, who resented the grip of southern German families on the Order’s hierarchy.⁷ As discontent grew, the Prussian estates, comprising prelates and representatives of the nobility and the cities, which had been called occasionally before 1409, began to matter. At an assembly in Osterode in 1411 Heinrich von Plauen forced through taxes against fierce opposition to pay the reparations decreed by the Thorn peace.⁸ When his brother, the komtur of Danzig—also Heinrich—met opposition from the city council, he executed the mayor, Konrad Letzkau, and two councillors without trial, along with five Culm nobles; their bodies were thrown into the castle ditch to rot.⁹

This was shocking to elites accustomed to the rule of law and possessing extensive privileges granted by the Order itself, including a form of habeas corpus conceded to the Culm nobility as recently as 1409.¹⁰ The first concerted opposition came in 1397 with the formation of the Eidechsengesellschaft (Lizard League) in the Culm lands, where there was a substantial petty nobility of Polish descent. Its charter contained no overt political demands, calling instead for mutual support and assistance tomembers in trouble, but despite the innocuous phrasing its formation had strong political overtones.¹¹ It was tolerated by the Order, but was treated with suspicion after its founder, Nikolaus von Rynes, paid homage to Jagiełło on the battlefield after Tannenberg, and later sought refuge in Poland. Another member, Johann von Pulkau, occupied Schönsee on behalf of the Poles in 1410.¹²

The Order had to call the estates regularly after 1411. Between 1414 and 1422, grand master Küchmeister was careful to secure their agreement for his foreign policy, but his successors were less accommodating, and the estates protested at a lack of consultation. Their overriding desire was to keep the peace. They were outraged at Rusdorf’s support of Švitrigaila in 1432 and the three years of war that followed, during which Polish armies devastated the Prussian lands: in some areas surveys claimed that abandoned farms constituted 70–80 per cent of the cultivated land.¹³ In 1432 the estates sought a written guarantee of their participation in decisions over taxation and internal affairs; in 1434 they demanded that the Order should not mount raids, declare war, or make alliances without their agreement. The commonality of Thorn declared its neutrality in any war against Poland.¹⁴

Defeat shifted the balance between the Order and the estates. Following lobbying from the estates, clauses were inserted into the peace treaties of Melno (1422) and Brześć (1435) allowing the Order’s subjects to withdraw their obedience should it break their terms.¹⁵ Although the 1435 treaty was not particularly harsh considering the abject performance of the Order’s armies during the war, the Order’s grand master in the Empire attempted to depose Rusdorf for accepting it. Albert II refused to recognize it, and in 1438 tried to persuade the Order to declare war following the Polish intervention in Bohemia. In February 1440 divisions within the Order provoked an attempted coup. Rusdorf was forced to accept the elevation of one of the plotters, Konrad von Erlichshausen, to the position of grand marshal. Discontent simmered as the Order ratcheted up its demands to pay reparations imposed at Brześć, and continued its assault on the rights of nobles under Culm law. Its rejection of demands for a high court containing members of the estates gave little hope that cases involving it would be favourably judged. Resistance spread after demands for the abolition of the Pfundzoll were rejected in March 1439. In Elbing on 21 February 1440 a meeting of nobles and urban representatives from Culm, Elbing, Osterode, Christburg, Pomerelia and Ermland agreed to form a Prussian union (Preussischer Bund) to secure internal peace and justice. The Bund was formally established at a meeting of fifty-three nobles and representatives of nineteen towns on 14 March in Marienwerder, where the Order had no castle and therefore no garrison to interfere.¹⁶

A Bund delegation assured Rusdorf of its loyalty and requested that he uphold the privileges of the estates.¹⁷ Its charter, however, was a blunt warning of the possible consequences if he did not. It began with a statement of its desire to serve the common good, and of loyalty to the Order and the ecclesiastical lords under whose jurisdiction the signatories lived. That loyalty, however, was conditional: the signatories pledged to fulfil their obligations so long as they accorded with their privileges, liberties, and rights. Their overlords were warned that they must respect their agreements with the Prussians and their ancestors, and not seek to lay new obligations upon them. If these agreements were breached, and if the injured party secured no redress—the document rhetorically, dutifully, and implausibly stated that the signatories believed this to be unlikely—then the matter should be put before a court, which was to meet annually to consider such cases. If the court did not dispense justice, then the knights and cities of Culm and Thorn would summon the Bund to judge the matter. If after a formal hearing the Bund decided that the complaint was justified, they would demand the plaintiff’s restoration to his honour and rights, and use their best efforts to secure such an outcome.¹⁸

Quite what these best efforts might entail was not spelt out. For all its careful language of obedience the message was clear. The Order understood, as its strenuous efforts to suppress the Bund demonstrate. Over the next decade, however, the Bund made little progress in its attempts to persuade the Order to institute more acceptable forms of governance, including a court with the power to judge abuses by Order officials, which was rejected on the grounds that canon law did not permit hybrid institutions.¹⁹ Erlichshausen, who succeeded Rusdorf in 1441, proved an able politician, restoring a measure of calm with minor concessions, and a strategy of dividing the towns from the nobles; he was helped by Władysław III’s lack of interest in Prussia.²⁰

Erlichshausen’s conciliatory approach was undermined by the Prussian bishops, who attacked the Bund, claiming that it breached canon law. Franz Kuhschmalz, bishop of Ermland, defended the liberties of the church, arguing that no subject could bind his ruler through statute.²¹ A measure of calm held until Erlichshausen’s death in September 1449. He was succeeded in March 1450 by his nephew, Ludwik von Erlichshausen, a choleric, tactless man dominated by his hard-line uncle, Heinrich Reuss von Plauen.²² He summoned only representatives of the great cities and a handful of nobles to his inauguration, demanding that they swear oaths of homage to whose wording the estates took exception. As discontent grew, Erlichshausen asked that a papal legate be sent to Prussia to adjudicate.

The arrival of the Portuguese Louis Perez, bishop of Silves, in November 1450 merely heightened the tension. With his encouragement the Order argued that the Bund was illegal and should be dissolved, threatening excommunication if it refused.²³ In autumn 1452 Nicholas V agreed to a hearing in Rome in response to Bund embassies requesting adjudication from him and from Emperor Frederick III. The Bund buttressed its arguments with copious biblical citations concerning the right to resist tyrants, but it became obvious that it could not expect favourable verdicts from pope or emperor.²⁴ As the church closed ranks, Frederick delivered a damning verdict on 5 December 1453. The Bund was to be dissolved forthwith, and swingeing fines were levied on its leaders. Three hundred of its members were condemned to death. This was annihilation, not arbitration.²⁵

Both sides prepared for war. The Bund’s secret council, led by Hans von Baysen, a former member of the grand master’s council, sat in permanent session in its headquarters in the Thorn Altstadt. In February 1453 the Order’s representatives met envoys from Brandenburg and Saxony in Marburg, where they were promised troops, but at a significant cost. After Frederick’s verdict Wilhelm Jordan, Danzig’s envoy in Vienna, hitherto a supporter of compromise, asked whether he should recruit troops in Bohemia. The Bund was already recruiting in the Empire, while volunteers began arriving in Thorn of their own accord. The Order reinforced its castles and Erik of Pomerania sent 1,000 men.²⁶

Aware that the Order wished to delay hostilities until after the harvest, the Bund struck. An act withdrawing obedience was handed to Erlichshausen in the Marienburg on the evening of 6 February, the day that simultaneous attacks were launched on many of the Order’s castles. Most garrisons, lacking the will or means to fight, capitulated. Thorn fell on 8 February; Elbing and Danzig soon followed. Within three weeks all important castles and major cities were in rebel hands except the elaborately fortified Marienburg, and Stuhm, which resisted until 8 August. Thorn and Elbing castles were destroyed by the burghers, determined never to allow the Order to dominate them again.²⁷ The Ermland chapter joined the rebellion in Kuhschmalz’s absence, showing that attitudes within the church were divided. Both sides sought foreign aid. The Bohemian noble Mikulas Skalski of Valdštejn and Johann IV the duke of Oświęcim blocked the Order’s attempts to raise 3,000 men, recruiting 12,000 themselves for the Bund.²⁸ Yet as its leaders knew, they could not stand alone. From the moment Frederick delivered his verdict, they sought Polish support.

It was not an easy step to take. Despite strong economic links between the Prussian lands and their vast Polish hinterland, there were economic rivalries as well as economic cooperation. Although there were cultural and family links, in particular between the Culm nobility and their counterparts—and frequently relatives—across the border in Wielkopolska and Cujavia, relations had been scarred by war. Yet by 1454 there were few realistic options open to the Bund. It had already contacted leading Wielkopolskan and Cujavian families, including the Górkas, the Oporowskis, and the Szarlejskis. In 1452–3 Mikołaj Szarlejski, palatine of Brześć, acted as an intermediary between the Bund and Sonka’s party, led by Koniecpolski. The Małopolskan opposition, led by the disaffected Oleśnicki and still licking its Volhynian wounds, was uninterested in Prussia. Oleśnicki had an expert knowledge of relations with the Order gleaned while serving in the royal chancery. Although in favour of reclaiming the lands lost in 1308–9, he opposed any offer of military support to the Bund, which, he argued, would contravene the Brześć treaty.²⁹

A considerable party, led by Oleśnicki’s rival Oporowski and including Sonka, Koniecpolski, and bishop Jan Gruszczyński of Cujavia, favoured intervention. Casimir was nevertheless cautious; his meetings with Erlichshausen in Nieszawa and Thorn in July 1452 were cordial enough, but his mediation offer in July 1453 was rejected.³⁰ In the autumn, as it became clear that Frederick’s verdict was likely to be negative, Baysen tried again, negotiating discreetly with Szarlejski and the Polish treasurer, Hincza of Rogów, who held the border starosties of Inowrocław and Nieszawa.³¹ Events moved swiftly after Frederick’s verdict. On 19 January 1454 an embassy led by Rutger von Birken and Baysen’s brother Gabriel arrived in Sandomierz, where Casimir was staying, and offered to place the Prussian lands under the Polish crown. It is unclear whether they received encouragement or promises of assistance, but on 21 February Hans von Baysen arrived in Cracow. He invited Casimir to accept the inhabitants of Prussia and Pomerelia as his subjects in perpetuity, and to restore to the Polish crown the lands torn away in 1308–9. The next day Casimir formally accepted the offer; on 6 March the Prussians declared that they were incorporating their lands into the kingdom of Poland and the chancery issued a ceremonial act embodying that incorporation. Three days later Hans von Baysen was named governor of Prussia; on 15 April, the Prussian estates ratified the agreement in Thorn.³²

On 4 February 1454 the claim to a right of resistance was embodied in the Bund’s formal withdrawal of obedience to the Order. It was a short document. After observing that they had willingly sworn oaths of obedience, the signatories stated that obedience was conditional upon respect for the privileges, rights, and liberties outlined in the charter. It listed 65 breaches of those privileges since 1410 that constituted the justification for its action.³³ This was a revolutionary act which drew on Polish political thought. The Bund’s leaders were aware of the controversy over the limits of obedience that had dominated Polish politics in the 1420s, when Jagiełło fought to exclude the right de non praestando oboedientiae from the privileges he was forced to grant after 1422. The Bund knew it could not resist the Order alone. It might, however, find a more acceptable home within a decentralized, multinational union state with a political culture that venerated consensus, respect for the law, and resistance to tyrannical authority. Since independence was not a realistic option, union with such a polity was preferable to continuing under the Order’s theocratic rule, in which canon law was used to justify arbitrary actions by an elite detached from the political community over which it ruled.

The Prussians bargained fiercely. Unlike the Lithuanian boyars in 1386, they walked into union with their eyes wide open. The negotiations in Cracow in February and March 1454 were complex.³⁴ It is difficult to gauge exactly what was discussed, since Długosz, the most detailed source, opposed the union, and lets it show. The plenipotentiary powers given to the Bund’s envoys have not survived, although two different versions of a speech delivered by Hans von Baysen during the ceremonial welcoming of the delegation, probably on 21 February 1454, were published by Długosz and, in 1592, by Caspar Schütz.³⁵

Górski suggests that the latter was composed by Schütz, not von Baysen. Vetulani argues more convincingly that the texts are of two different speeches given at different stages of the negotiations, although the circumstantial evidence he produces to suggest that the texts, at least that of the Schütz version, was prepared with the help of the royal chancery is not so persuasive.³⁶ There is no reason to suppose that the speeches were not Baysen’s own work, although he may drafted them following discussions with Poles favourable to the Bund.

Both begin by stressing that much of the territory under the Order’s rule was once part of the kingdom of Poland, and had been illegally occupied.³⁷ In the Długosz version the stress is on how these lands were torn away from Poland (‘a Regno Poloniae abstraxerunt’), while in the Schütz version it is stated that they belonged to the forebears of Casimir, who is named as their hereditary lord (Erbherr). This may indicate that the speeches were given to different audiences, with the second delivered before Casimir. Both speeches—with different emphases—catalogue the Order’s sins: the Długosz version concentrates on the international context, condemning the Order’s support for Švitrigaila, while the Schütz version stresses its domestic crimes, accusing it of rapine, whoring, and ignoring the privileges, liberties, and rights of its subjects. Both justify the Bund’s formation as the only way to protect and preserve these rights, with the Długosz version complaining at the ‘perpetual servitude’ imposed by the Order.³⁸

That the Schütz version was delivered later is plausible. Casimir was told that he should uphold local law codes, whether Culm law, Lübeck law, or Prussian law, and respect local privileges, liberties, and rights. He was not to rebuild any ruined castles, and he was respectfully reminded that it was the Bund, not the Poles, that had seized control of the Ordensstaat.³⁹ Only part of it—Pomerelia, Culm, and Michelow—had formerly been under Polish rule; if all of Prussia were to come under the Polish crown, it was made clear that loyalty was to be conditional. Baysen invited Casimir to take the Ordensstaat under his protection in the language of union: he spoke of ‘annexing’ (‘annectere’) and ‘uniting’ (‘unire’) them to the Polish crown.⁴⁰ The Danzig envoys, led by Wilhelm Jordan, were particularly hardheaded; it was not until 3 March that they finally agreed terms. Later that day conciliatory proposals arrived from Erlichshausen. Jordan expressed his regret that they had not arrived earlier, as he might not have agreed to submit to Poland.⁴¹ Three days later two documents were issued by the royal chancery: an act of submission by the Bund, and an incorporation privilege issued by Casimir. The envoys swore an oath of loyalty that was ratified by the Prussian estates in Thorn on 15 April.⁴² A new union had been born.

What was its nature? As with the Polish-Lithuanian union, hindsight has influenced interpretations. In his 1722 history of Royal Prussia, Gottfried Lengnich argued that the link was purely personal: from 1454 the Prussian lands shared ‘nothing more in common than the [person of] the king’, and were only joined to the kingdom of Poland ‘by a form of alliance; otherwise, however, they formed a separate state’.⁴³ This interpretation was repeated by Caro, while Bobrzyński argued that it was a ‘dynastic’ union. German scholarship before 1945 enthusiastically concurred.⁴⁴ This interpretation is unpersuasive. Lengnich was advancing a position that suited the purposes of certain circles in Danzig after the Great Northern War, during which the city was occupied by enemy armies, at a time when Poland-Lithuania was suffering economic decline, was struggling to recover from the devastation of war, and appeared to be subsiding into political anarchy. To argue that the relationship constituted a purely personal union takes no account of the documents on which it was based, which, according to Górski, are ‘clear . . . and unambiguous’.⁴⁵

They are certainly clear, if not entirely unambiguous. The act of incorporation, after summarizing the reasons for withdrawing obedience to the Order, addressed Casimir as ‘King of Poland, Grand Duke of Lithuania, and hereditary ruler of the lands of Ruthenia and Pomerania’, designating him the true heir and patron—in the sense of legal protector—and lord of all the Prussian lands. The Prussians took Casimir as their lord, hereditary ruler, defender, and king of all the aforesaid lands in perpetuity, though this was made subject to certain conditions.⁴⁶

It explicitly stated that the Prussian lands were to be incorporated into the kingdom of Poland, using several synonyms. As in the Horodło treaty both the perfect and present tenses were used:

assumpsimus et terras nostras et nos ipsos regno Polonie invisceravimus imperpetuum, univimus, integravimus et incorporavimus ac presentibus unimus, integramus, incorporamus et invisceramus coniunctim et indivisum,⁴⁷

The use of the perfect tense here bears a rather different message. At Horodło, it was Jagiełło and Vytautas who had employed it to clarify the consequences of Krewo. Here it was used by the Prussian envoys to declare that the Prussian lands had originally been incorporated into the kingdom of Poland as the result of an act of will on the part of their inhabitants, who were now publicly reincorporating them, after a period in which they had freely given their loyalty to a different suzerain. They, not Casimir or the Polish kingdom, were the subjects of the sentence. After rehearsing the Order’s crimes and the path that had led to the withdrawal of obedience, they declared that the Prussians were submitting to Casimir of their own free will and in perpetuity as their only legal and legitimate ruler, and reintegrating their lands into the crown of Poland.⁴⁸

This was not the language of personal union. Although the Prussians were to retain their own laws, customs, privileges, and rights, the negotiators stressed that they expected to share fully in the privileges, rights, and liberties of citizens of the Polish crown, including the right to participate in royal elections, a concession confirmed in the incorporation privilege.⁴⁹ This was a real, not a personal union. Prussia was to be part of the Polish kingdom, not a separate realm subject to its own ruling council under the king. If Polish rights, liberties, and privileges were to be extended to the Prussian elites, then they would have to be defended in Prussian as well as Polish courts. In participating in royal elections, the Prussian elites would publicly join with the Polish community of the realm in performing the most important act that it collectively undertook. Otherwise the Prussians would have deprived themselves of a say in who was to rule over them.

There are other indications in the document that this was no simple personal union. Casimir incorporated the Prussian territories into his titles in a formulation that was different from that used in the submission:

Nos, Casimirus Dei gratia Rex Poloniae, necnon Cracoviae, Sandomiriae, Siradiae, Lanciciae, Cujaviae, M.D.Lithv., Russiae, Prussiaeque, Culmensis, Kynsburgensis, Elbingensis et Pomeraniae Terrarum Dominus et Haeres.⁵⁰

Hejnosz claims that this iteration of all the individual territories was redundant, yet it was necessary to make it clear that Casimir was claiming lordship over all the Prussian lands, not just those taken from Poland in 1308–1309; to this end, the constituent territories of the crown of Poland were also listed, although this was unusual.⁵¹ The titles were not in the traditional form—Michelow was omitted—instead the document lists what, by a later decree, were to become four new palatinates on the Polish pattern: Culm, Pomerelia, Elbing, and Königsberg. Prussia’s administrative structure was to be reorganized on Polish lines more completely than had been the case in Lithuania. It was necessary to replace the Order’s system of government, but the Prussians were not to be left to their own devices. As in Lithuania, this extension of Polish structures ensured that Polish political, administrative, and judicial culture would penetrate the Prussian lands.

In the incorporation document Casimir presented himself and the kingdom of Poland as providing a refuge for those suffering from calamity, oppression, and tyranny. He stressed that it was the whole Prussian community of the realm that had approached him with a request to help them preserve its privileges, rights, and liberties, and to support the Bund, formed to protect them.⁵² After rehearsing the history of the Order’s oppression of their subjects, the document described how, in the light of the Order’s disdain for their privileges, rights, and immunities, the Prussians had been deprived of hope and realized that bound as they were by divine and human law, their rulers could no longer expect obedience.⁵³

Casimir stressed that the Prussians, having asked him to protect the Bund, had invited him to take them under his protection as their legitimate and hereditary lord. After further consideration of the Order’s perfidy and tyranny, he stated that, with his council’s agreement, he had agreed. The terms reflected the language of the Bund’s submission. It was stated that the Prussians accepted their reintegration into the Polish crown ‘not by error or recklessly, but with our certain knowledge and according to our will, in God’s name’. The synonyms were again stacked high: reintegramus, reunimus, invisceramus et incorporamus.⁵⁴

Although Casimir was very much the subject of this sentence, after pledging that the Prussian elites would share in the privileges, liberties, and rights enjoyed by the Polish nobility, the rest of the document, by specifying in great detail the privileges, rights, and liberties that Casimir and the Polish kingdom swore to uphold, indicated that whatever else the Prussians were inviscerating themselves into, it was not a unitary state. This was an incorporating union minus plena. The Prussian lands were granted considerable autonomy within the union. Their law codes—Culm law, Magdeburg law, Prussian law, and Polish law as instituted before 1454—were to be respected. The ius indigenatus, by which only natives could be appointed to public office, was confirmed. The Pfundzoll was abolished and Prussia was freed from all tolls on land and sea levied by ‘old or new custom’. No decisions were to be taken concerning the Prussian lands without consultation with the Prussian council. Prussia’s 1454 borders were to be maintained intact. Danzig, Elbing, Thorn, and Königsberg were to retain the right to mint coins, although these were to bear the image of Casimir and his successors. Assurances were given to merchants plying their wares across the kingdom concerning their security and freedom from tolls.⁵⁵

Baysen’s speeches and the incorporation documents reveal a common conceptualization of politics that underpinned the new union. As in the Horodło treaty, careful distinctions were made between the regnum and the corona regni, or the corpus regni. Thus Baysen stressed that Pomerelia had been torn away from the Polish regnum by the Order’s treacherous actions; describing its violent removal from the ‘body of the kingdom’; he asked that Casimir accept the Prussians back under his rule, returning them to ‘the body of the kingdom’ (ad corpus Regni).⁵⁶ Thus he was aware of the subtle political distinctions between the regnum as a legal subject and political actor on the international stage, and the corpus regni or corona regni—the body or crown of the kingdom. As he stressed, the Bund had, through its own actions, liberated the Prussian lands from the Order’s rule, and was asking for this reunification—unification for those lands not previously part of the Polish kingdom—of its own free will. Thus it was appropriate to stress that, despite the wide-ranging autonomy they demanded and were granted in the incorporation privilege, and despite their realization that the legal basis of this act in terms of the international Christian community was precisely that the ‘Pomeranian’ lands had once formed part of the Polish kingdom they were also joining the community of the Polish realm. It was for this reason that they asked for—and received—the assurances that they would partake of all the privileges of other members of that realm, including the right to participate in royal elections.

In appealing to the concept of the corona regni the Bund recognized that Prussia would form one of the several lands of the Polish crown.⁵⁷ Yet the term corona also embodied a sense of political community, the communitas regni; it was the idea that political authority was rooted in, and depended upon, the consent of the citizens that had animated resistance to the Order, and it was that idea that the Bund saw embodied by the Polish system. These formulations recur in the ratification and oath of homage sworn by the Prussian estates on 15 April 1454, the Reciproca sponsio, whose text was substantially based on the 6 March submission.⁵⁸ The key phrases were similar: it protested at the violation of the territory of the Polish regnum by the Order, and talked of how the Bund in taking its case to the Emperor deplored the Order’s wars against the ‘king and kingdom of Poland.⁵⁹ It reiterated that the Prussian lands were to be reintegrated into, and reunited with, the corona, and were to enjoy all the privileges, rights, and liberties enjoyed by inhabitants of the Polish kingdom.⁶⁰

The Prussian envoys knew what they wanted, and they secured their essential demands. Their position within the union was buttressed by the rights, privileges, and liberties recognized by Casimir and the Poles. With their own estates body, whose structure and composition was institutionalized several decades before the establishment of the bicameral Polish sejm in the 1490s, the Prussians were able to keep their political distance, refusing to participate in Polish assemblies—except for royal elections—and to claim that they were only subject to the king’s personal authority. Yet if the Prussian estates after 1466 maintained a similar position to the Lithuanians who fought so pugnaciously against the idea that the grand duchy had been incorporated into Poland, in practice the ground on which they stood was not as firm. Lithuania had its grand dukes, and even when—as under Casimir after 1447—the grand duke and the king of Poland were the same person, the Lithuanians could legitimately maintain that the union was personal in nature. There had been no independent Prussian principality before 1454, however, and therefore no king or prince of Prussia to form a personal union with Poland: the 1454 act was based on the idea that the bulk of the Prussian lands had been part of the Polish kingdom, from which they had been illegally torn away. Thus if the Prussians emphasized that they were not Polish subjects, they had no qualms about being considered citizens of the wider Polish community of the realm, albeit ones with substantial legal and political autonomy, and they did not contest declarations such as that made by Casimir in 1485 that they had become ‘together with us inhabitants of the kingdom, one crown, and one dominion.⁶¹ The Prussian lands were inhabited by a mixed population: in the early fifteenth century it is estimated that the balance was roughly 140,000 native Prussians—related to the Lithuanians—about the same number of Poles, and some 200,000 Germans.⁶² Although a common Prussian identity formed after 1454, it could not call upon a tradition of independent statehood. Although, as in the case of Lithuania, the Poles respected, on the whole, Prussian autonomy, and although the Prussians possessed in their estates far more developed political institutions to defend that autonomy, they were in a weaker position than the Lithuanians when demands for closer integration with Poland emerged in the sixteenth century.

1 Biskup and Labuda, Dzieje, 379–80.

2 Biskup and Labuda, Dzieje, 380–1.

3 Karol Górski, Państwo krzyżackie w Prusach (Gdańsk/Bydgoszcz, 1946), 120–6. The best account of the Order’s economic activity is Jürgen Sarnowsky, Die Wirtschaftsführung des Deutschen Ordens in Preußen (1382–1454) (Cologne, 1993).

4 Michael Burleigh, Prussian Society and the German Order (Cambridge, 1984), 141; Sarnowsky, Wirtschaftsführung, 294; Roman Czaja, ‘Związki gospodarcze wielkich szafarzy zakonu krzyżackiego z miastami pruskimi na początku XV wieku’, in Zenon Nowak (ed.), Zakon krzyżacki a społeczeństwo państwa w Prusach, Roczniki Towarzystwa Naukowego w Toruniu, 86/3 (Toruń, 1995), 29–31; Roman Czaja, ‘Der Handel des Deutschen Ordens und der preußischen Städte—Wirtschaft zwischen Zusammenarbeit und Rivalität’, in Zenon Nowak (ed.), Ritterorden und Region: Politische, soziale und wirtschaftliche Verbindungen im Mittelalter (Toruń, 1995), 118–19; Josef Lienz, ‘Die Ursachen des Abfalls Danzigs vom Deutschen Orden: Unter Besonderer Berücksichtigung der Nationalen Frage’, Jahrbuch der Geschichte Ost- und Mitteldeutschlands, 13–14 (1965), 2.

5 Jürgen Sarnowsky, ‘Zölle und Steuern im Ordensland Preußen (1403–1454)’, in Nowak (ed.), Ritterorden, 68–72; Burleigh, Prussian Society, 106.

6 Burleigh, Prussian Society, 94–6; Biskup and Labuda, Dzieje, 390, 384–6.

7 Burleigh, Prussian Society, 141.

8 Górski, Państwo, 147.

9 Annales, x/xi, 188, 287; Leinz, ‘Ursachen’, 2–4.

10 Henryk Samsonowicz, ‘Der Deutsche Orden in seinem Verhältniss zur Gesellschaft Polens unter kultur- und verwaltungsgeschichtlichen Aspekten’, in Nowak (ed.), Ritterorden, 102.

11 For the founding charter, see Karol Górski (ed.), Związek pruski a poddanie się Prus Polsce: Zbiór tekstów źródłwowych (Poznań, 1949), no. 1, 117–18.

12 Biskup and Labuda, Dzieje, 340–1; Górski, Państwo, 150.

13 Biskup and Labuda, Dzieje, 383; Burleigh, Prussian Society, 87–8. For war damage, see Burleigh’s appendix 2, 181–5.

14 Biskup and Labuda, Dzieje, 395; Klaus Neitmann, ‘Die preussischen Stände und die Aussenpolitik des Deutschen Ordens vom I. Thorner Frieden bis zum Abfall des Preussischen Bundes (1411–1454)’, in Klaus Conrad et al. (eds), Ordensherrschaft Stände und Stadtpolitik: Zur Entwicklung des Preußenlandes im 14. und 15. Jahrhundert (Lüneburg, 1985), 35, 37; Burleigh, Prussian Society, 144.

15 Neitmann, ‘Stände’, 34–5; Edith Lüdecke, ‘Der Rechtskampf des Deutschen Ordens gegen dem Bund der preussischen Stände, 1440–1453’, AF, 12 (1935), 3; Biskup, ‘Do genezy inkorporacji Prus’, PZ, 7/8 (1954), 294; Górski, Państwo, 164, 168.

16 Górski, Państwo, 169–76; Biskup and Labuda, Dzieje, 398; Burleigh, Prussian Society, 147–57.

17 Górski, Państwo, 174–5.

18 Górski (ed.), Związek, ii, 119–26.

19 Górski, Państwo, 177.

20 Górski, Państwo, 178; Burleigh, Prussian Society, 152–7.

21 Górski, Państwo, 188; Lüdicke, ‘Rechtskampf’, 15–22.

22 Górski, Państwo, 194; Burleigh, Prussian Society, 158.

23 Burleigh, Prussian Society, 162–3; Lüdicke, ‘Rechtskampf’, 178.

24 Lüdicke, ‘Rechtskampf’, 187–92.

25 Górski, Państwo, 214–15; Lüdicke, ‘Rechtskampf’, 183; Biskup and Labuda, Dzieje, 400–1.

26 Biskup, Trzynastoletnia wojna z Zakonem Krzyżackim 1454–1466 (Warsaw, 1967), 99–104; Górski (ed.), Związek, 256 n. 11.

27 Tadeusz Nowak, ‘Walki obronne z agresją Brandenburgii i Zakonu Krzyżackiego w latach 1308–1521’, in Janusz Sikorski (ed.), Polskie tradycje wojskowe, i (Warsaw, 1990), 109–11.

28 Biskup and Labuda, Dzieje, 404; Górski, Państwo, 216–19.

29 Dariusz Wróbel, ‘Zbigniew Oleśnicki a kwestia pruska i krzyżacka’, in Kiryk and Noga (eds), Oleśnicki, 85–101.

30 Zawitkowska, W służbie, 236, 240–1. 31 Biskup and Labuda, Dzieje, 403.

32 Biskup, Trzynastoletnia Wojna, 105, 110, 171; Biskup, ‘Geneza’, 304; Wojciech Hejnosz, ‘Prawnopaństwowy stosunek Prus do korony w świetle aktu inkorporacyjnego z r. 1454’, PZ, 10 (1954), 312.

33 Górski (ed.), Związek, no. v, 131–44; no. vi, 145–6.

34 The best account is Adam Vetulani, ‘Rokowanie krakowskie z r. 1454 i zjednoczenie ziem pruskich z Polską’, PH, 45 (1954), 188–236.

35 Annales, xii/i, 180–3; Kasper Schütz, Historia rerum prussicarum (Leipzig, 1599), 198–200; Górski, Związek, nos vii–viii, 147–58.

36 Górski, Związek, nos lxi; Vetulani, ‘Rokowanie’, 202–11.

37 Annales, xii/i, 180; Górski, Związek, no. vii, 152.

38 Annales, xii/i, 181.

39 Górski, Związek, no. viii, 156, 157; Vetulani, ‘Rokowanie’, 222–3.

40 Górski, Związek, no. viii, 157; Annales, xii/i, 183.

41 Górski, Państwo, 220.

42 Conpactatio et incorporatio terrarum Prussie etc. Regno Polonie et corone eius temporibus perpetuis incorporatarum etc.: Górski, Związek, no. x, 163–71; Incorporation terrarum Prusie, in Górski, Związek, no. x, 172–82; Górski prints the 6 March oath and the oath of the Culm nobility and cities (28 May), but not the ratification: Górski, Związek, no. xiii, 189–93. The incorporation and ratification documents are printed in VL, i, 78–3, from which the citations are taken; apart from minor differences in spelling and punctuation, the incorporation privilege matches the version in Hejnosz, ‘Stosunek’, dodatek, 325–30, based on a photographic reproduction of the original, which disappeared during World War II. Górski’s version contains transcription errors: Górski, Związek, 314 n. 26.

43 Gottfried Lengnich, Geschichte der Preussischen Lande: Königlich-Polnischen Antheils seit dem Jahr 1526 biß auf dem Todt Königes Sigismundi I (Danzig, 1722), 5.

44 For example Ernst Turowski, Die innenpolitische Entwicklung Polnisch-Preußens und seine staatsrechtliche Stellung zu Polen vom 2. Thorner Frieden bis zum Reichstag von Lublin (1466–1569) (Berlin, 1937), 36. Cf. Hejnosz, ‘Stosunek’, 307–8 and Janusz Małłek, ‘Stany Prus Królewskich a Rzeczpospolita Polska w latach 1526–1660’, in Małłek, Dwie części Prus: Studia z dziejów Prus Książęcych i Prus Królewskich w XVI i XVII wieku (Olsztyn, 1987), 72.

45 Karol Górski, ‘The Royal Prussia estates in the second half of the 15th century and their relation to the Crown of Poland’, in Górski, Communitas, princeps, corona regni (Warsaw, 1976), 42.

46 Górski, Związek, no. x, 164.

47 Górski, Związek, no. x, 164.

48 ‘dedimus et subiiecimus et presentibus voluntarie et spontanee perpetue damus et subiicimus ipsumque dominum Kazimirum regem Polonie pro unico, iusto et legittimo domino et herede suscipimus, recipimus et acceptamus ac nos et terras predictas in ius, sortem, proprietatem et titulem corone Polonie reintegramus, reunimus, incorporamus et invisceramus’: Górski, Związek, 169.

49 ‘omnium privilegiorum, libertatum et prerogativarum regni Polonie usum et participacionem et signanter comunem cum aliis regnicolis futurorum regum eleccionem et coronacionem habituri’: Górski, Związek, 169; VL, i, 80.

50 VL, i, 78.

51 Hejnosz, ‘Stosunek’, 317.

52 VL, i, 78.

53 VL, i, 79.

54 VL, i, 80.

55 VL, i, 80–1.

56 Annales, xii/i, 183.

57 Erich Weise, ‘Zur Kritik des Vertrages zwischen dem Preußischen Bund und dem König von Polen vom 6. März 1454’, AF, 18 (1941), 251.

58 VL, i, 81–3.

59 VL, i, 82.

60 VL, i, 83.

61 ‘ir mit yn geworden seyt eyne crone und hirschaft’. Quoted by Górski, ‘Prussian estates’, 42. I have preferred ‘dominion’ to Górski’s rendering of ‘Herrschaft’ as ‘state’.

62 Janusz Małłek, ‘Powstanie poczucia krajowej odrębności w Prusach i jej rozwój w XV I XVI wieku’, in Małłek, Dwie części Prus, 10.