Klaipėdos universitetas

The article explores the changes in the gathering, processing and use of amber on the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea at the end of the Viking Age and in the 12th to 16th century. In the pagan sacral space, works in amber reflected mythological elements, and later they were transformed and adapted to Christian practice, at the same time as maintaining the commercial value of amber as a material. Archaeological material from the above-mentioned period illustrates the gradual diffusion of Christian elements in the pagan territories. Their expression is visible in new forms of amber works.

The conditions and the environment of the mendicant religious orders (Dominicans, Franciscan Conventuals, Franciscan Observants, Carmelites, and Augustinians) in the holdings of the Teutonic Order in Prussia differed from those in Western Europe. In newly built castles and newly founded cities, German and Polish-speaking communities predominated; while Prussians, unfamiliar with the basics of Christianity, prevailed in rural territories. The network of parish churches declined towards the eastern and northern boundaries of the state. Therefore, the mendicant orders operated there on a different model. An examination of its characteristics is carried out by means of an analysis of the stages, development and dynamics of the settlement of mendicant orders in Prussia. An attempt is made to identify the organisation of their provision and the supporting milieu. Particular attention is paid to the impact of mendicant orders on the deepening of the faith of the local Prussian population in the eastern part of the Teutonic Order’s holdings.

This paper presents a comparative, diachronic study of the faunal assemblages recovered from two key political, cultural and commercial centres in the medieval Polish-Prussian borderlands: Kałdus in the Kulmerland, and Gdańsk in Pomerania. Both centres were situated in a region which was incorporated into the Teutonic Order’s state following the Crusades against the Prussian tribes in the 13th century. Although comparative trends are noticeable between the two centres which can be linked to the development of the Polish (Piast) state, the variation reflects specific local ecological and cultural contexts. Due to the constraints of space, this study focuses on the relative representation of different species of mammals, birds and fish, demonstrating how diachronic trends can be linked to the marked historical phases associated with the cultural and environmental transformation of this frontier, from one dominated by the Piast state to the later Teutonic Order’s polity.

This paper focuses on a number of examples of cut marks on animal bones from a range of sites associated with the cultural transformations in the eastern Baltic following the Crusades in the 13th century. Recorded observational and interpretational characteristics are quantified and explained through more detailed selected case studies. The study represents a pilot project, the foundation for a more detailed and systematic survey of a larger dataset within the framework of the ecology of Crusading project. Relatively clear differences between sites are observable on the basis of the cut marks; however, the initial trends do not suggest a straightforward connection between butchery technology and colonisation in the east Baltic region.

The reception of the ideology of the 13th–14th c. Crusades on the Eastern coast of the Baltic Sea, the ideological imperatives of the Holy War, and their reflections in the Chronicle of Peter of Dusburg, one of the most famous chroniclers of the conquest of the Baltic tribes, are analyzed in the article. Even though lately the said Chronicle has been paid great attention to in foreign historiography, in Lithuanian historiography the rhetoric of the Holy War, related to the particular example of the Battle of Durbė, has not been analyzed so far. Moreover, the assessment of the spread of Christian missions in the contexts of the battle of Durbė, as well as its activeness, dynamics, and the relation to the Crusades, have not been analyzed, either.

This article discusses the development of relations between Žemaitijan society and societies in neighbouring territories, which formed the thirteenth-century Lithuanian state. The starting point for this discussion is the question of whether we can detect an early negative stance on the part of Žemaitijans towards the Lithuanian dukes. This issue was raised in E. Saviščevas’ 2009 article on Žemaitijan self-rule in the thirteenth-seventeenth centuries, which claims that given the bellicose state of affairs with the Teutonic Order at the end of the thirteenth century a tendency developed among Žemaitijans and their Semigallian and perhaps Skalvian allies to regard Lithuanians as enemies, as well as the Teutonic Order.

Built in 1252 by the Livonian Order and later passed over to the Teutonic Order, the Klaipėda castle (German – Memelburg) was the northernmost castle of the Order in Prussia. For both geographical and political reasons, it was separated from the hinterlands of the Order’s state, making its survival strategy here specific. This article analyses the zooarchaeological material found during the 1997-1999 archaeological excavations and dated to the 14th-17th centuries. The analysis of the historical data and zooarchaeological material showed that in the 14th-17th centuries, the inhabitants of the Klaipėda castle (the Order’s brothers, their servants, the outwork’s artisans, and the townspeople who hid in the outwork) reared and slaughtered domesticated animals, hunted large game and consumed its meat, processed cheese, ground grain, drank mead and ale. The bulk of the meat consisted of beef, mutton, and pork, as well as goats’ meat starting 1434. An examination of the species and number of bones of domestic and wild animals in Klaipėda’s castle shows that in all of the Klaipėda castle time periods analysed, differences were found between the historical source information and the zooarchaeological collection. Domestic animal bones dominated in the latter, especially that of ruminants (cattle, sheep, goats); pigs comprised the second group according to quantity. The growing quantity of small ruminants (sheep, goats) starting 1434 also is reflected in the zooarchaeological material; from the 16th to 17th centuries, the number of bones of these animals doubled. The amount of riding horses markedly grows in the inventory books starting the middle of the 15th century, and this also is confirmed by zooarchaeological material. When comparing the results of the zooarchaeological material’s analysis with the known 14th-16th century inventories of Klaipėda’s castle in which there are data regarding the domestic animals (cattle, sheep/ goats, horses, pigs) reared for the castle’s needs and the food eaten by the castle’s inhabitants, changes are observed in the faunal species and amounts of the zooarchaeological material that post-date 1521, when 31.25% consists of pig (Sus suis) bones, while the number of species and bone counts of large wild animals (aurochs/ European bison, elk, red deer) and fur-bearing animals (beaver, bear) grows significantly (from 5.5% to 22.92%). Various kinds of fish caught in the sea near Klaipėda and in the Curonian Lagoon held an important place in the diet of the castle’s garrison. Fowl comprised only a small part of the food.

The article analyzes polysemous phenomenon of the history of European law and historical culture of European cities, the part of which is granting the privileges of the Lübeck and Kulm Law to Klaipėda in the Middle Ages. The development of the Lübeck and Magdeburg Law and the modification of the latter, the Kulm Law, is researched by historians, law and culture history experts of many European countries in various aspects, however, this phenomenon has not been systematically presented in the Lithuanian research literature. Therefore, basing the present investigation on the generalized analyses of the researchers working in Germany and in other countries, the article introduces the features of the historical development of the Lübeck, Magdeburg and Kulm Law. This article accords a particular attention to the analysis of the genesis of the medieval German towns’ laws, as well as the reasons and ways of their dispersion. The article also investigates the historical circumstances and factors which determined the expansion of the Lübeck and Magdeburg Law in the Middle Europe and to the East of Europe during the Middle and the Early New Ages. The ways, chronology, and area of the transfer eastwards of these laws are introduced. The sources and transformations of these laws are also analyzed in the article. The historical context of the emergence of the Kulm Law is discussed. The significance of these laws in the Middle and East Europe is presented in general outline in the article.

Curonian Spit played a key role in medieval transport for Teutonic Order in 13th – 16th C. It ought to be presented again, since last essays about this subject originate from before the Second World War. The given term ‘infrastructure’ should be explained as castles or hostels (German: nachtleger) and other important points of military activity and thus all problems that refer to their functionality. Those subjects cannot be properly described without referring to written administration sources. Also organization of the Church on Curonian Spit will be presented, as it will contribute greatly to final conclusions. This work does not cover Lithuanian achievements in this field of interest, with exclusion of Nijole Strakauskaites’ recent work about the Spit (2004), which however isn’t about this subject. It is not a widespread subject of scholarship nowadays and it is also hardly known in Poland. This article is also a leap to create a monograph about Curonian Lagoon and it’s similarities to Vistula Lagoon as well as Hel Peninsula in the future.