Teutonic Knights

by William Urban

  Just as the Piast dynasty seemed to be dying out, so was the line of Pomerellian dukes. Dukes Sambor (1204 – 78) and Racibor (? – 1275/6) had no male children, and they hated their nephew Mestwin (duke 1266 – 94) so much that they tried to deprive him of his inheritance by every means possible. Duke Racibor willed most of his lands to the Teutonic Knights and other religious bodies, and Sambor did the same. Duke Mestwin was able to nullify Racibor’s bequests by seizing his lands and then defending them against the claims of the Brandenburg dukes, but Sambor was able to deliver Mewe – a key position near the Vistula – to the Teutonic Knights, establishing them firmly on the left bank of the great river. This was a safer area for settling immigrants than in Prussia. Consequently Mewe quickly developed into a valuable German-speaking possession.

  Mestwin had no surviving male children and had taken a vow of chastity, so the dynasty would end with his death. He could live with that prospect, but he still wanted to prevent the duchy, or even Mewe, from falling into the possession of his bitterest enemies, the Teutonic Knights. Much better to give it all to Piast relatives, as he did in a will dated 1282.

  The Teutonic Knights must have given considerable thought to this, as they sat around their tables, eating and discussing politics among themselves and with their many visitors; but they apparently did nothing about it except talk. Talk and diplomacy. Their duty was the crusade, not the acquisition of Christian lands. Although the crusade could be carried on better if the order had more resources, demanding the lands willed to them by Racibor would have involved war with Poland. Crusaders were not supposed to make war on Christians (though the example of crusaders in the Holy Land demonstrated that they could); but, more important, the Prussian master could not afford to alienate powerful rulers in their rear. For now little could be done about Pomerellia. The Teutonic Knights had to concentrate on the war in the east.

  War in Sudovia was principally a contest of small war-parties. The Teutonic Knights lacked the troops for large-scale offensives after 1279, because a serious defeat in Livonia required the master to send his reserves to that endangered front. The Livonian master had perished, and when Master Conrad von Thierberg died of natural causes later that same year Grand Master Hartmann von Heldrungen and the grand chapter that met in Marburg saw an opportunity to combine the command of the two regions so as to co-ordinate attacks on rebellious Semgallia and unconquered Samogitia. Those operations were to be given top priority again. That meant that only nuisance raids were to be conducted against the Sudovians. The new master, Conrad von Feuchtwangen, hurried to the Baltic. His experience in the Holy Land had persuaded him that the order’s future was in its wars against pagans, not against Moslems; and he saw clearly that this future was in danger too. His was not an easy task. The enemy seemed to be everywhere and nowhere. He could smash almost any force he could locate, but locating the foe was not easy.

  When Prussians attacked a mill in Elbing where the local populace had taken refuge, they behaved with such bad faith that in the future Christians would be unwilling to surrender. When the master led an army into Warmia to capture the fort that became the future site of Heilsberg, the Prussians struck back in Culm, capturing castles and burning villages. Vast areas became a no-man’s-land, and neither side had the strength at the moment to occupy and settle the wilderness.

  Nor was there any help to be had from the Poles, who had been so helpful in past campaigns by fighting in Volhynia, a land now almost completely in disorder. The Lithuanians, who were beginning to think of the southern Rus’ian lands as already theirs, committed so many resources to this many-sided struggle for hegemony that they had few men available to assist the Sudovians. The complexity of this desperate war on the frontier can be seen in 1280, when Lev of Galicia made an arrangement with the Tatar khan to borrow steppe warriors for an attack on Cracow. While the southern Piasts met the invaders, dukes Leszek and Casimir of Masovia attacked Lev’s rear, leading their men into Volhynia. The lesson was that Poles had to watch their south-eastern steppe frontier before taking care of the north-eastern forest frontier.

  Of course, what was true for Poles was equally so for Lithuanians – the big prizes were in Rus’, not in the Prussian forests. Lithuanian ambitions to occupy Volhynia left the last independent Prussian pagans vulnerable to small-scale raids by their relatives who were now subjects of the Teutonic Order. While the crusaders’ attacks in these years did not merit being called offensive operations, they wore the pagans down.

  Guerrilla Warfare

  Conrad von Feuchtwangen had never been in the Baltic region before, and, as it turned out, he did not like the country or the weather. Nevertheless, he performed his duties responsibly and won everyone’s respect by his thoughtful plans for breaking the military stalemate. The knights were especially pleased by the large number of reinforcements he had brought with him from Germany, though they must have been puzzled about his not sending them immediately into combat. Instead, he reviewed the situation, asking for advice lest he make serious errors out of ignorance; then he called a chapter meeting in Elbing. After all the castellans were assembled, he explained the new strategy that he had been ordered to implement – to first end the rebellions in Livonia, then deal with Prussian problems. His officers were sceptical at first, but in the end they, too, concluded that Prussia was in no serious danger. The delegates then approved sending the reinforcements overland to Livonia. Until more troops arrived, Master Conrad would limit operations in Prussia to those of a guerrilla nature.

  Among the prominent figures in this border warfare with Sudovia was Martin von Golin. He was called a ‘freebooter’ even by the Christian chroniclers, who usually reserved such terms for the pagans. Alternatively, he was known as a helde (hero) or a latrunculos (a bold thief). He was no longer a young man.

  This Martin attacked a certain village in Sudovia with four Germans and eleven Prussians, killing or capturing the people. And on the long return trip he came to a place where he sat eating with his friends, resting fearlessly after their labours, when the enemy burst among them. They killed his four German comrades while the others fled, leaving there all their arms and food. The Sudovians rejoiced greatly over this. Meanwhile, Martin angrily circled in the woods and brought together his surviving comrades. Since they had lost all their weapons, he slipped among the enemy while they slept and stole their swords, shields, and spears; and when he had them, he went to his hidden companions, and they quietly killed all those they found, except one who tried to flee, and Martin killed him. Then they took up their original booty and the arms and other things that the pagans had brought with them and returned home.

  There were a few large-scale raids led by Marshal Conrad the Younger, among which was a particularly devastating one in the winter of 1280 that penetrated over the ice to regions that no Christian army had ever reached before. By that time there was a new master in Prussia, Mangold von Sternberg. In early 1280 Conrad von Feuchtwangen had concluded that the idea of uniting the command of Livonia and Prussia was not a good one, at least not under his leadership. He petitioned to be relieved of his duties and was refused permission. Then he left authority in Prussia to Master Mangold and sailed to Livonia with a force of thirty knights. There he directed operations in Semgallia for a while, then again requested permission to leave his uncomfortable northern post. This time his plea was heeded, and the command was again temporarily united under Master Mangold.

  At first Mangold was no more able to press the war on the Sudovian front than his predecessor. The Lithuanians and Sudovians invaded Samland in such force that they raided freely for ten days, burning every settlement and farmhouse that lay outside fortified walls. Even so, the crusaders were making significant gains, particularly in the guerrilla war inside Sudovia, where individual nobles were surrendering one after another. The master ordered these men and their families baptised, then issued them grants guaranteeing them the same rights to hold lands and serfs and be immune from taxes that the nati
ve Prussian knights had.

  The order’s strategy was clearly wearing the Sudovians down. In February 1281 Mangold penetrated to the fortress inhabited by Scumand and killed 150 men and women. The operation was not a total success, since Scumand was able to ambush a party of raiders that had branched off from the main force, and killed an almost legendary warrior, the commander of Tapiau, but it was becoming clear that the Teutonic Order could capture almost any fort it decided to commit its resources to taking, while the Prussians remained master only of the forests. That was not a winning strategy for Scumand, however courageous and skilful he might be in guerrilla operations.

  We know more about Scumand than we do about other Prussian war chiefs because he captured a young knight who lived to tell of his adventure, leaving us one of the few eyewitness accounts of life among the Sudovians. Peter von Dusburg retold it in these words:

  This brother Louis von Leibenzelle was born of noble family and was trained in arms from youth . . . and when he fell into the hands of the foe, he was brought in bonds to Scumand and told that he had been selected to fight against an opponent equal to him. Scumand meant this to be humorous and kept Louis near him. One day it happened that Scumand went to a carouse, where the noble Sudovians assembled, as was the custom, and took Louis with him in a friendly way even though he was a prisoner. And in the drinking there arose such a quarrel that a mighty noble, a Sudovian, angered Louis with his sharp words that he was using in an insulting and threatening way. So Louis spoke to Scumand, ‘Did you bring me here with the intention of having him use such evil words, so he can insult me and threaten me?’ And Scumand said, ‘You shall see that I am sorry that he is bothering you. If you have the courage to revenge your wrong, I will stand by you no matter what.’ And when he heard this, Louis pulled out his sword in anger and cut down that Sudovian in front of them all, so that he died. Later Louis was cut free from his bonds by a youth who was a member of Scumand’s retinue and led away to the brothers.

  Not long afterward Leszek the Black led an immense army into Sudovia and Lithuania. Within a few weeks he defeated two pagan armies, thrashing each so soundly that the Polish frontier was not menaced for several years thereafter. In that same year, 1282, Scumand and his followers abandoned their ancestral land and withdrew into Lithuanian-occupied Rus’, probably to nearby Black Russia, but perhaps as far away as Pinsk or Minsk.

  The conclusion of the Sudovian war was not far off once Scumand had withdrawn from it; and it seems only just that, at that moment, command in Prussia was given to Conrad von Thierberg the Younger, who had served as marshal throughout the long struggle. When a grand chapter was called in Acre to elect a successor to Hartmann von Heldrungen, the last of the long Thuringian ‘dynasty’ that had dominated the Teutonic Order, Master Mangold had sailed to the Holy Land to cast his vote, then had died at sea on his return. The new grand master was a Swiss, Burchard von Schwanden, who had never been to the Baltic region. Wanting an experienced man in command in Prussia, he inquired of the membership for advice, and hearing good reports about Conrad von Thierberg the Younger presented his name to the grand chapter, which approved.

  The End of the Crusade in Prussia

  The Prussian Crusade came to an end in the summer of 1283. When Master Conrad led a large army into the enemy heartland, he found few Sudovians offering resistance. Louis von Leibenzelle arranged for the peaceful surrender of the 1,600 people in the clan that had befriended him, after which these ‘converts’ were sent west with all their belongings and given new lands upon which to live. The next day Master Conrad besieged the last important stronghold and forced its garrison to surrender.

  Master Conrad, knowing that he lacked the resources to protect such a vast area from Lithuanian or Rus’ian attack, and that he would soon have to commit his troops to the war against the Samogitians, moved the remaining Sudovians from their homeland to other parts of Prussia, some to Pogesania and some to Samland. Even Scumand, now an old and tired warrior, surrendered. He was forgiven his past hostility and given lands in the vicinity of Balga, where, according to Christian witnesses, he died a pious death a few years later. A giant figure to contemporaries, admired by Christians and pagans alike, the description of Scumand’s valiant deeds was passed down to future generations largely in the chronicles composed by priests of the Teutonic Order. History may be written by the victors, but it is not always one-sided.

  Sudovia was left unpopulated. The people disappeared from history as an organised entity, and the country became a heavily wooded desert, part of the great wilderness that separated Prussia, Masovia, and northern Volhynia from Lithuania. This wilderness had existed before, but as the rulers on all sides built log forts on its edges as bases for scouts and raiders, they soon eradicated whatever settlements remained in the forests and eroded the populated areas around the others’ castles. The Grosse Wildnis grew into a formidable barrier.

  The Teutonic Knights had too few resources to conduct an effective holy war across this wilderness; moreover, the disorders in Poland and Pomerellia threatened their lifeline to Germany, potentially making the route unsafe for crusaders. For Master Conrad securing the rear took priority over further advances to the east. Later, in 1308, when the opportunity came to occupy Danzig and Pomerellia, the Prussian master took it. The result was several decades of conflict with Poland, during which the Lithuanian grand princes consolidated their hold over several nearby Rus’ian states and staked a claim to Galicia-Volhynia. When serious military expeditions against the pagans were once again possible, both sides were much stronger and self-confident than before.

  6

  The Crusade in Livonia

  Paganism and Orthodoxy

  To the north, on the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea, there was a crusade already three decades old when the Teutonic Order arrived in Prussia. In the course of time this Livonian crusade shifted its emphasis from an armed struggle against paganism to an aggressive/defensive war with Orthodoxy. This conflict – or, better said, series of conflicts – illustrates well the complexity of the human mind, the ways that individuals and groups can hold multiple goals dearly and from time to time subordinate one goal to another or discard old policies to make room for new endeavours.

  Many of the crusaders who participated in the first armed invasions of Livonia before 1200 were merchants from Gotland who wanted to eliminate pirate and robber bases, and it is unlikely that any of them had a thought about Orthodoxy being involved in their little war. They were angry about recent raids by Estonian and Kurish (Courlander) freebooters on what is today southern Sweden, and of attacks on merchant ships making their way to Novgorod via the Gulf of Finland. A century later, the merchants were still concerned with the safety of maritime and overland commerce, but by then the robbers were often under the protection of Rus’ian states which had guaranteed safe-passage to western merchants. Some of these Rus’ian states, in fact, were by 1300 governed by Lithuanian princes whose anti-crusader policies found considerable support among the populace of their cities.

  Prior to 1200, before the arrival of Germans and Scandinavians in Livonia, Orthodox princes had exercised a loose sovereignty over the pagan tribes there – very loose over the Livs on the coast, who were too far away to reach conveniently, and none at all over the even more distant Kurs and maritime Estonians. In contrast, the princes could easily send troops to collect tribute from the Letts along the Daugava (Düna, Dvina), the Estonians closest to Pskov, and the Chud people living on the eastern shores of the Gulf of Finland. These armies, however, then quickly returned home, leaving no governors or churchmen to represent their authority until the next payment of tribute was due. Efforts at conversion were minimal. Apparently bitter experience with pagans to the north of Kievan Rus’ and on the steppe had persuaded rulers and churchmen alike that little good would come of forceful measures; moreover, they seem to have concluded that even peaceful conversions would only result in a bastardised form of Christianity appearing, one that might
even be dangerous to the true believers at home.

  If the Rus’ians considered pagans bad, they believed that Roman Catholics were worse; they believed that the doctrine proclaiming the pope the head of the Church was a very dangerous heresy indeed. Consequently the princes and merchants of the northern cities watched the approach of Western churchmen with horror. Thus, since the northern Rus’ian states had both secular and theological reasons to oppose the German efforts to conquer Livonia, they made periodic efforts to drive the crusaders out. Sometimes Novgorod, Pskov and Polotsk sent armies, sometimes they encouraged and armed rebels, but most often they let the practical need to trade with German merchants determine their policies. It would be a mistake to view German-Rus’ian relations as either eternally hostile or dependably friendly.

  The pagans in Livonia had one primary goal – to remain independent. To this end they played one great power off against another, sometimes very skilfully. To imagine the tribal elders as helpless witnesses of their own destruction is a mistake. The pagans’second goal was to use the great powers to destroy or cripple traditional rivals; this was a difficult balancing act, because one’s ally could easily become one’s master. Thus revenge and ambition were important in the decisions of the weaker groups to become allies with the crusaders, and in the determination of traditionally dominant regional powers to fight for the status quo. As the native peoples fought out ancient rivalries, they did so according to particularly brutal rules.