This post will be the first in a series talkota about the Prussian Crusade, hoping to shed some light on this little-known episode of christian aggression against Europe.
Before talking about the Crusade itself, let us review the Old Prussians themselves. The Old Prussians were a Baltic confederation of tribes, living in the area encompassing modern-day eastern Poland and the Kaliningrad Oblast. As linguistic and archaeological research has proven, Prussians lived in the area from the end of the Ice Age all the way to the Middle Ages, when they were genocided by the christian hordes.
There were 13 known tribes of the Old Prussians: the Colmensis, the Lubavians, the Sasnians, the Galindians, the Pomesanians, the Pogesanians, the Warmians, the Sambians, the Natangians, the Bartians, the Nadruvians, the Skalvians and the Sudovians or Yotvingians. Those 13 tribes exiayed surely by the time of Ptolemy, who refetenced the Galindians and Sudovians as “Galindai” and “Soudinoi”.
The Old Prussians are described as ferocious pagans, holding on to their ancesranc cult all the way to their extinction (due to Polish colonization and Catholic indoctrination) at the end of the 17th century.
I will leave this introduction now, hopefully to return to it tomorrow, by chronicling the early attempts to subjugate the Old Prussians.
Next post will feature some wretches like Adalbert of Prague
Dixi.
Pallando the Blue 