De subjugacione Sambitarum.
The Gathering of the Crusader Host
Christ inspires King Ottokar of Bohemia and a vast multinational crusading army, exceeding sixty thousand fighters, to set out to subdue the still-unconverted Sambians.
After the peoples mentioned above had been brought to the unity of the faith, the Sambians still remained unsubdued. To subdue them, Christ, in the year of His incarnation 1254, sent Ottokar, king of Bohemia — a man truly devoted to God and skilled in arms — along with Otto, margrave of Brandenburg, who served as his marshal on this pilgrimage, the duke of Austria, the margrave of Moravia, Henry, bishop of Colmense, Anselm, bishop of Warmia, and the bishop of Olmütz, together with a vast multitude of pilgrims from Saxony, Thuringia, Meissen, Austria, and the Rhineland. Also from other parts of Germany came barons, knights, and nobles, whose spirits were inflamed to avenge the injury done to the Lord crucified. So great was the size of this army that it exceeded sixty thousand fighters; as for the carts and four-horse wagons carrying arms and supplies, I have not heard their number.
Discord at the Mill and the Sambian Elder's Counsel
The devil sows a dangerous quarrel among the crusaders at a mill, which the bishop of Olmütz pacifies; then the king consults the Sambian elder Gedune, who judges the army sufficient only when its full force has assembled, and receives the king's banners for protection.
So this army arrived in winter at Eibing. The enemy of the human race, the devil, sought to obstruct the work of faith that God in His providence had arranged for salvation. For he arranged that between one man from Saxony and another from Austria at a certain mill, so great a quarrel arose over which of them should grind first that not only the soldiers and the common people, but even the king and other leaders, took up arms to fight. But the man of God, the bishop of Olmütz, a lover of peace, cut off the source of this discord and restored the former peace. Once peace was made, the king of Bohemia led his army forward to the castle of Balge, where by the brothers' arrangement he found a certain old man called Gedune, the father of Wissegaudi of Medenow, from the people called the Candeym, who knew fully the entire military strength of the Sambians. When the king asked him — having seen only the first, small part of the army — whether he could accomplish anything with so many armed men, he answered that he could not. Then a force twice as large arrived; when he saw it, he answered as before. A third time the army came, now three times larger, and still it was not enough for him. At last the entire remaining part of the army arrived, covering the ice like locusts cover the ground. And when the king asked whether he could accomplish anything in the land of Sambia with so great a force, he answered: 'It is enough. Go wherever you wish, and you will obtain whatever you desire.'✦ After this was done, the king gave him his banners to plant over his own estates and dwellings and those of his relatives, and once the king's standard was seen, no one harassed him.
The Devastation of Sambia and the Submission of Its Peoples
Gedune's delay costs him dearly; the king ravages Medenow and Rudowie, accepts hostages from the terrified Sambian territories, plans the castle of Königsberg with the brothers, and returns safely to his kingdom.
He himself, however, waited far too long, not knowing how fierce the Germans were in battle; and so, when he finally turned to go home, he found his own and his people's dwellings burned, his own and his kinsmen's households destroyed, his brother Ringel killed, and all his blood relatives slain. The king therefore entered Sambia with his army around the territory called Medenow, and after burning everything that could be consumed by fire, and after capturing and killing many people, he camped there for the night. The next day he came to the territory of Rudowie and forcefully stormed the castle there, and such a slaughter of the Sambian people took place that the nobles offered the king hostages, begging him to deign to receive them into his grace and not to destroy the entire population. After that he came to the territories of Quedenow, Waldow, Caym, and Tapiow, and lest he inflict as great a slaughter on them as on the others, each one offered his own sons as hostages, binding themselves under penalty of their own lives to obey humbly the commands of the faith and of the brothers. Once all this had been duly carried out, the king assigned the aforementioned hostages to the brothers, advancing to the mountain on which the castle of Königsberg now stands, and consulting with the brothers that they should establish a castle there for the defense of the faith, leaving them magnificent and royal gifts to aid in its construction. Having therefore completed the labor of his expedition, the king returned to his kingdom without great harm to his own people.
The Founding of Königsberg Castle
The master and brothers build the castle of Königsberg (Tuwangste) in 1255 on the site of the Old Castle, garrison it, and later relocate and fortify it with two walls and nine stone towers.
On the building of the castle of Königsberg, or Tuwangste. After the departure of the lord king from Bohemia, the master and brothers gradually prepared what was needed for the building, and taking with them their loyal Prussians, they came with a great army in the year of our Lord 1255, and on the site now called the Old Castle they built the castle of Königsberg, naming it, out of reverence for the king of Bohemia, the Castle of the King (among the Prussians it is called Tuwangste, from the name of the forest that stood in that place), leaving a brother there as garrison.1 Afterward this fortified place was moved to the spot where it now stands on the same mountain, and it is fortified with two walls and nine stone towers.
Read the original Latin
Beversis ad fidei unitatem gentibus supradictis, restabant adhuc Sambite, ad quorum subjugacionem Cristus anno incarnacionis sue mccliiii misit Othacarumc regem Bohemie, virum utique deo devotum, et exercitatum in armis, Ottonem marchionem de Brandenburgk, qui in itinere hujus peregrinacionis marscalcus ejus fuit, ducem Austrie, marchionem Moravie, Henricum episcopum Colmensena, Anselmumb episcopum Warmiensem, et episcopum Olmacensem, cum ingenti multitudine peregrinorum, et de Saxonia, Thuringia, Misna, Austria et Reno, et. aliis Alemanie partibus barones, milites et nohiles, quorum animus accensus fuit ad vindicandam injuriam domini crucifixi. Tanta fuit multitudo hujus exercitus, quod excedebat numerum lx milium pugnatorum; curruum et quadrigarum, ducencium arma et victualia, numerum non audivi. Venit itaque exercitus iste tempore hyemali in Eibingum, et negocium fidei, quod deus in sui providencia disposuit ad salutem, inimicus humani generis diabolus voluit impedire; ordinavit enim quod inter unura virum de Saxonia et alterum de Austria in quodam molendino tanta fuit orta altercacio, quis eorum primus deberet molere, quod non solum militares et communis populusc, verum eciam rex et alii principes arma ad pugnandumd induissent, sed vir dei Olmacensis episcopus, pacis amator, hujusmodi dissensionis materiam amputavit, et pacem pristinam reformavit. Facta ergo concordia, rex Bohemie precessit exercitum suum usque ad castrum Balge, ubi ex ordinacione fratrum invenit quendam senem virum, dictum Gedune, patrem Wissegaudi de Medenow, de gente illo— rum, qui dicuntur Candeym, qui omnem virtutem bellatorum de Sambia plene novit. A quo dum rex quereret, visa prima parte exercitus modica, utrum cum tot armatis aliquid posset agere, respondit, quod non. Deinde supervenit ex ercitus duplo major, quo viso respondit ut prius; tercio venit exercitus in triplo major, nec adhuc suffecit ei; tandem supervenit tota residua pars exercitus, qui operuit glaciem, sicut locuste operiunt terramf, et dum rex quereret, utrum ali quid posset agere in terra Sambie cum tanto exercitu, respondit: sufficit, vade quocunque tibi placet, et quodg volueris, impetrabis. Hoc facto rex dedit ei vexilla sua, ut figeret ea super predia et habitaciones suas et parentum suorum, et viso signo regis nullus eum molestaret.
Ipse vero nimis tardabat, nesciens quam impetuosi essent Theutonici in bello, unde dum rediret ad propria, inve nit suam et suorum habitaciones exustas, familias suas et suorum et fratrem suum, dictum Ringelum, et omnes de suo sanguine interfectos. Intravit itaque rex Sambiam cum exercitu suo circa territorium, dictum Medenow, et exustis omnibus, que igne consumi poterant, captisque et occisis multis hominibus, ibidem pernoctavit. Sequenti die venit ad territorium Rudowie, et castrum ibi dem potenter expugnavit, tantaque facta fuit 2 ibi strages in populo Sambitarum, ut nobiles obferrent regi obsides, supplicantes, ut eos ad graciamk suscipere dignaretur, et totum populum non deleret. Posthec venit ad territoria Quedenow, Waldow, Caym, et Tapiow, et ne tantam stragem faceret in eis si cut in aliis, optulerunt singuli filios suos in obsides, obligantes se sub pena capitum suorum mandatis fidei et fratrum humiliter obedire. Hiis omnibus rite peractis, rex obsides predictos fratribus assignavit, procedens usque ad montem, in quo nunc situm est castrum Kunigsbergk"1, consulens fratribus, ut ibi castrum pro defensione fidei instaurarent, relinquens ipsis magnifica et regia dona in subsidium edificii ejus. Consummato ergo peregrinacionis sue labore, reversus est rex ad regnum suum sine magno prejudicio gentis sue. 72 <71) De edificacione castri Kunigsbergk vel Tuwangste.' Post recessum domini regis de Bohemia, magister et fratres preparabant ea successive, que ad edificacionem fuerunt necessaria, et assumptis sibi fidelibus suis Pruthenis cum magno exercitu venerunt anno domini mcclv, et in eo loco, qui nunc dicitur castrum antiquum, edificaverunt castrum Kunigsbergk 2, vocantes illud ob reverenciam regis de Bohemia castrum regis (apud Pruthenos di citur Tuwangste a nomine silve, que fuit in dicto loco), relinquentesb ibi fratrem ris.
Postea translatum fuit hoc castrum ad eum locum, ubi nunc est situm in eodem monte, et duobus muris et ix turribus lapideis est vallatum.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Exod.10.15;Rev.9.3 — They covered the face of the whole land, and the land was darkened; and they ate all the plants of the land and all the fruit of the trees that the hail had left; and not a green thing remained in the trees or in the plants of the field throughout all the land of Egypt. Rev.9.3 — And out of the smoke came locusts upon the earth, and they were given authority, like the scorpions of the earth have authority.
Notes
- 1 ↩The source text contains apparent scribal errors and unclear readings (e.g., 'relinquentesb ibi fratrem ris'); the translation renders the most plausible intended sense: a brother was left behind as garrison.
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