Initially, the Duchy of Pomerania constituted a patrimonial monarchy governed by ducal law. During the thirteenth century, with colonization and the adoption of Western models (colonization under German law), the duchy transformed into a feudal monarchy, with relations based on feudal law and estate privileges. Following a period of feudal dependence on Polish dukes, the…
The colonization under German law in Pomerania during the thirteenth century introduced a new form of organization for the population engaged in non-agricultural occupations. In place of strongholds and their adjacent trading settlements (suburbia), towns chartered under Magdeburg or Lübeck law emerged in accordance with Western models. They constituted self-governing communes, with their own administrative…
On May 23, 1618, the Second (according to some researchers, the Third) Defenestration of Prague took place in Prague. Two imperial governors and their secretary were thrown out of the windows of Prague Castle (Hradčany), which triggered one of the bloodiest conflicts in early modern Europe, known as the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648). This was…
Oto tłumaczenie na język angielski: The driving force behind the urban economy at the turn of the 15th and 16th centuries was international trade and the development of banking operations, which allowed the wealthiest burghers to dynamically multiply their fortunes. The patricians held both economic and political power in the cities, serving as councillors, bankers,…
A coat of arms is a graphic symbol placed on the field of a shield, created according to specific rules, symbolically representing its owner. However, we can only call such a graphic sign a coat of arms when it becomes hereditary, when a given person, family, clan, or city uses it continuously without changing it…
When Bogislaw X succeeded in uniting Pomerania in 1478, the ducal estates were in a deplorable condition. Severely diminished, they were almost entirely in the hands of land vogts (stewards), who remitted only a small portion of the income derived from peasant labor to the ducal treasury. In this situation, Bogislaw X decided to…
The Economy of Pomerania in the Ducal Period (16th – early 17th century) In the 16th and early 17th centuries, agriculture was the main branch of the Pomeranian economy, even though the region’s soils were not among the most fertile. Medium- and low-quality soils dominated, while the more fertile black earths and brown soils were…
The total population of Pomerania in the 16th and early 17th centuries is very difficult to calculate precisely. We have only estimates, which indicate that in the first decades of the 16th century about 350,000 people lived in Pomeranian lands. Around 100 years later (before the catastrophe of the Thirty Years’ War), the population of…
Martin Luther’s appearance in 1517 caused great upheaval throughout the Empire. It did not yet mean a break with the Catholic Church; nevertheless, it could not pass without a reaction, both from the ecclesiastical hierarchy and from the emperor himself (from 1519 – Charles V). By “diagnosing” the state of the Church and the role…
