De populacione territorii Pograude.
Frederick's Devastating Raid on Pograude
Brother Frederick of Wildenberg exploits the moment of Prussian vulnerability after the king's withdrawal, launching a brutal raid on Pograude that kills, plunders, and devastates the territory so thoroughly it cannot recover for many years.
As soon as the king and his army had withdrawn, Brother Frederick of Wildenberg, commander of Königsberg, came marching along the same road the king had taken, with a large force. He arrived at the very moment when the king's men had returned home and were resting from the weariness of the march, giving thanks to their gods for the favors they'd been shown in this war. Frederick entered the territory of Pograude and carried out a great slaughter among the people, killing and plundering.12 He devastated this territory so thoroughly that for many years afterward it was unable to recover its former strength.3
Read the original Latin
Statim post recessum regis et exercitus sui frater Fridericus de Wildenbergk commendator deKunigsbergk cum magno exercitu incedens per eandem viam, per quam dictus rex precesserat, venit illo tempore, quo homines dicti exercitus fuerunt ad propria reversi, et post fatigacionem itineris quiescerent, gracias diis suis referentes de beneficiis sibi exhibitis in hoc bello, et intravit territoriumPograude et magnam stragem fecit in populo, occidendo et rapiendo. Adeo destruxit hoc territorium, quod infra multos annos non potuit resumere vires primas.
Notes
- 1 ↩gracias diis suis referentes: the chronicler records the pagans' own thanksgiving to their gods, not endorsing it; the tone is descriptive, not devotional.
- 2 ↩Toponymic forms Wildenbergk / deKunigsbergk / territoriumPograude normalized from manuscript spelling; exact modern identifications remain uncertain.
- 3 ↩quod as resultative conjunction ('so that') rather than relative pronoun; rendered as 'so thoroughly that' to capture the consequential force.
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