Klaipėdos universitetas

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 study uses letters, tax records and other sources to study the maintenance of Lutheran clergy in Prussia between 1540 and 1570, concentrating on the example of the material life of the Ragnit pastor Martynas Mažvydas, namely his clothes, landholding, his parish and personal property, the sources of his income, his expenditure, his economic life, and his close and more distant personal connections. The example of this father of Lithuanian-language literature reveals the domestic aspect of the everyday life of Prussian Lutheran clergy.

The paper analyses the techniques and methods of creating propaganda narratives about Lutherans in the chronicle of Dominican monk Simon Grunau (the early 16th c.). It examines how, during the Reformation, in the debates of the propaganda character between its supporters and opponents, narratives or their complexes were used with the intention to belittle the image and the arguments of the opponents. It also explains how the Dominicans’ common European experience of the fight against the spreading Reformation was used in the stories of Grunau’s chronicle about the Reformation gaining a foothold in Prussia.

On the basis of an analysis of legal documents, the article reviews the reglamentation of funeral rites in Prussia in the 16th to the 18th c. with the aim of disclosing the content of the legal orders and the intensity of reglamentation in the field of funeral. On the other hand, the regulation implemented by the Church and the state is sought to be reviewed as one of the components and consequences of the process of confessionalization.

Authors present problems connected with horse sacrifices in Early Middle Ages in Prussia. Discoveries nearby Poganowo site IV hill-fort, create new possibilities to discuss about Prussian religion in Early Middle Ages. Stone statue, cairns, hearths and remains of sacrificed horses have similarities to numerous cult places in Europe and in Asia.