Acta Historica Universitatis Klaipedensis

The aim of the article is symbolic-functional analysis of development judicial awareness. This paper analyses the transition period from the traditional political theology of the main political structures in the Middle East to the reflecting political thought of Ancient Greece. In order to elaborate this idea, two independent but closely related phenomena of civilization – force (warriors) and the law (priests) – were chosen and the analysis of their history of interaction was given. The principles of law and justice were constructed theo-politically based on two different conceptions of order. According to this, it is possible to concider the geo-cultural habitats of Mesopotamia and Egypt as two independently developed civilisational platforms or laboratories of social construct. Their heritage of political justice and practice of the political was successfully inhereted and peculiarly transformed by the developing polis system of Ancient Greece.

This article discussed the effect of the theological thought of Duns Scotus on the outlook and activities of Lithuanian Franciscans. In Franciscan theology the Creation, the Incarnation, and the Resurrection of Our Lord are linked closely together. The idea of the Divine Omnipotence is essential for understanding Godʼs actions. After describing Scotusʼ life we examine his works and insights in theology and philosophy. His teaching was based on the spirit of the Orderʼs founder, St Francis. Scotism found disciples in Lithuania who fostered the Franciscan spirit in the country and sponsored the spread of Scotist heritage there.

Bishop Martin III (Johannis) of Medininkai is the first Žemaitijan ordinary of whose activities we know more than merely a few facts. Unfortunately most of what is written about him is false: he did not have a surname (Lintfari is a scribal error for Lituani); he did not hold canonries in Liège, Louvain or Poznań, let alone ‘work’ in Flanders or Poland. This article reviews diverse known sources for Martin’s life and career and provides new information from the Gniezno Consistory Court record and other manuscripts which reveals how his career formed in the Roman Curia before he returned to Lithuania as bishop of Medininkai and reflects his concerns for the affairs of Church and State. An appendix provides five new sources from manuscripts in Cracow and Gniezno along with a new edition of Martin’s will from the earliest surviving copy.

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.

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 deals with the issue of land-ownership formation in the early 16th – late 17th centuries by the newly-arrived noblemen elite in Samogitia, given the local communication network and the directions of the commercial market areas. The principal Samogitian land and water routes are overviewed that could have made an impact on the potential of the formed holdings. The land holding formation of four families of Evangelical noblemen and church funders, i.e. those of Skaševskis, Radziminskis, Stabrovskis, and Gruževskis, is analysed. As proved by the research findings, the newly arrived nobility formed their holdings not only on the previously recorded Samogitian axis of the southwest-the centre-the northwest. The families worked consistently and intentionally, arranging their holdings in accordance with the communications with commercial markets and the formed land and water routes.

The following three aspects of European noble journeys will be presented in this report: peregrinatio majores, peregrinatio academica and the Grand Tour. Chronology, form and function of noble journeys in the Late Middle Ages are examined from different scientific view points and represent the focus of this report.

This article studies the coats of arms of seven small northern Lithuanian towns which depict Christian symbols. A town‘s heraldry comprises a coat of arms, an heraldic flag and an heraldic seal. The coat of arms forms the basis for both flag and seal. The heraldic device has a certain meaning and gives information about its owner. It also reflects what was important for those who obtained the arms and it should be important too for modern inhabitants of the towns. Therefore the study attempts not only to present a concise account of how urbam coats of arms were formed but also to examine what such coats of arms mean to townsfolk today. Can coats of arms with Christian devices occupy an important place in the cultural memory of people in small towns? What efforts should be made to ensure that such coats of arms are not forgotten or misunderstood?