Pomerania Between Poland and Prussia: Lordship, Ethnicity, Territoriality, and Memory
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CHAPTER FIVE POMERANIA BETWEEN POLAND AND PRUSSIA: LORDSHIP, ETHNICITY, TERRITORIALITY, AND MEMORY This chapter analyzes how the 1320 and 1339 trials helped to clarify what the kingdom of Poland was—or at least what different individuals and groups believed or wanted it to be. In particular, it examines the argu- ments advanced about the historical and political affiliation between the duchy of Pomerania and the kingdom of Poland as memories of thir- teenth-century Pomerania changed during the course of the early four- teenth century in response to the conflicts between the Teutonic Knights and Poland. In addition to considering how the disputants changed their strategies of argumentation in the two trials to deal with changing political exigencies, it also explores how these political narratives fit into the narratives constructed by smaller social groups, especially the fam- ily histories of the dukes of Kujawy (who were descendants of both the Pomeranian ducal dynasty and the Polish royal Piast dynasty) and the secular and regular religious communities who held lands in Pomera- nia, particularly the bishop of Kujawy and the Cistercians at Oliwa. By exploring these ‘nested identities,’1 we can better examine the extent to which the witnesses bought into the royal lawyers’ views of history, territoriality, and sovereignty, and to what extent the witnesses took these arguments and made them their own. Finally, I will draw upon the royal arguments and witnesses’ testimonies concerning some of the other disputed lands, particularly Chełmno—the Knights’ foundation grant in Prussia—to help illuminate where contemporaries believed the boundar- ies of Poland lay and who should be included within and excluded from those boundaries. As will be demonstrated below, the mental maps of the litigants, judges, and witnesses were often not coterminous. 1 The process of group identity formation worked in both directions in the Middle Ages. States tried both to carve a separate collective identity out of the broader concept of Latin Christendom and to incorporate the collective identities of familial, secular, and religious communities into the state. For the concept of ‘nested identity’ and analyses of how these processes work in the modern world, see Guntram H. Herb and David H. Kaplan, Nested Identities: Nationalism, Territory, and Scale (Lanham, MD: Rowan and Littlefield, 1999); Juan Díez Medrano and Paula Gutiérrez, “Nested Identities: National and European Iden- tity in Spain,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 24 (2001), 753–778. pomerania between poland and prussia 197 Competing Claims of Succession in the Years between the Conquest of Pomerania in 1308–1309 and the Inowrocław-Brześć Trial in 1320–1321 Before analyzing the trial records, it is first necessary to address the issue of the ‘better right’ to Pomerania, which has dominated modern historiog- raphy on this topic. While the Knights were trying to defend themselves in Avignon and Riga against accusations of perpetrating a massacre in Gdańsk, they were also trying to secure the rights to their conquests in Pomerania through negotiations with the two original competitors for this land—Duke Władysław of Poland and the margraves of Brandenburg. Earlier scholars—both Polish and German—viewed the Teutonic Knights as foreign invaders, who were long desirous of the lands at the mouth of the Vistula and so used Władysław’s appeal for aid as a pretext to real- ize their previously formulated goals of connecting their state with ‘Ger- many.’ As explained in the previous two chapters, there is little evidence to support such claims. In 1301 (in a situation very similar to the one in 1308), King Václav II of Bohemia and Poland asked the Knights to help defend Gdańsk from an invading west Pomeranian duke. Gerard Labuda calls this assistance an ‘occupation,’ but he seems to be trying too hard to present this event as a precedent for the Knights’ conquest of Gdańsk in 1308.2 By the time Władysław asked for their assistance, the Knights already possessed vast estates in Pomerania and so had a vested interest in who had superior lordship over this land.3 They also were well aware of the history of the land and knew that there were many people with at least some claim to this duchy after the death of Václav III in 1306.4 If we look at the position of the Knights in this light, it could be argued that they set themselves up as armed mediators or judges demanding a fee for the resolution of the dispute between Władysław and the margraves of Brandenburg. In addition, there was also the matter of the expenses they had incurred guarding the town. As mentioned in the previous chap- ter, the fact that the Knights had been Władysław’s allies [amici] up to 2 Despite this point of view, Labuda admits that Václav rewarded the Knights for their service with substantial possessions in Pomerania (Labuda, HP I/1, 538). See also PlUB #634, which is a confirmation by Václav II’s son, Václav III, of his father’s grants to the Knights for their service. 3 For the development of the Knights’ acquisitions in Pomerania before the conquest, see Paweł Czaplewski, “Co posiadali Krzyżacy na Pomorzu przed jego zajęciem w r. 1308– 1309?” Zapiski Historyczne 10 (1936), 273–287. 4 See chapter three for an analysis of their negotiations with the various claimants to Pomerania..