History of Prussia

NOW OUT OF PRINT 

Title: Prussian Napoleonic Landwehr Infantry and Cavalry 1813-15: Landsturm, Volunteer Cavalry and Streifkorps
Publisher: Partizan Press
Pages: 224 pages and over 380 colour illustrations.

This is the companion volume to the successful two volumes on the Prussian Infantry 1808-1840.

The Landwehr and volunteers were essential in the success of the Prussian Army during the Wars of Liberation (1813-1815) against Napoleon. Their participation permitted the army to quadruple in size by August 1813 and become the cutting edge of the Allied Armies.

This unique work is the companion to the author’s two volume reference on the Prussian Infantry 1808-1840. It documents the campaign history, organisation, uniforms, horse furniture and their commanders, whether Landwehr (infantry and cavalry), Landsturm, Civil Guard, National Cavalry or Volunteers (Freiwilliger Jäger, Freikorps, and Streifkorps). For the first time in one volume the great diversity of their uniforms are lavishly illustrated and explored in detail, not previously attempted even in German.

The work draws upon all the essential sources on Prussian uniforms, including the contemporary works of Elberfeld and Genty. The 380+ colour illustrations include 331 of uniforms after Hans, Brauer, Woldemar Friedrich, Herbert Knötel, Richard Knötel, Bob Marrion, Carl Röchling and Moritz Ruhl plus 18 tables, 12 order of battles, 110 uniform details, saddlecloths and lance pennants.

In der St.-Joseph-Kirche in Charbrow bei Leba ist ein einzigartiges Ensemble von zwölf Sargbeschlägen erhalten geblieben, die ursprünglich eine Sargausschmückung der Mitglieder der Familie von Somnitz bildeten. Der Bestattungsort der Familie war eine Krypta, die sich unter dem Altarraum der Kirche befand. Eben von den Särgen, die sich in dieser Grabstätte befanden, wurden die Sargbeschläge entfernt. Es hing mit der Tatsache zusammen, daß das Grabmal aufgeräumt und geschlossen wurde, da kein Platz für weitere Bestattungen vorhanden war, was sich zeitlich mit dem Anfang 19. Jahrhundert erlassenen Verbot zusammen el, die Toten in den Kirchen zu bestatten. Die Sargbeschläge wurden dann an Holztafeln im Inneren der Kirche angebracht.

In der deutschen Vorkriegsliteratur erscheinen die Sargbeschläge nur selten. In vielen Fällen wies ihre Ausführung ein niedriges Niveau auf und sie stammten meistens aus einer Zeit, die im Augenblick der Inventarisierung nicht weit zurück gelegen war. In der polnischen Literatur blieben derartige Objekte, obwohl sie wahrgenommen wurden, kaum im Interessensbereich der Forscher und erschienen somit  nur gelegentlich. Die einzige längere Erwähnung der Sargbeschläge von Charbrow kann man in der Inventarisation von Hugo Lemcke  finden.

Es ist nicht gelungen, den Herstellungsort der Sargbeschläge von Charbrow festzustellen. Da sie ein hohes künstlerisches Niveau aufweisen, kann man lediglich vermuten, daß sie in Danzig bestellt worden waren, das noch im 18. Jahrhundert ein dynamisches  Handwerkszentrum war. Es ist zu bezweifeln, daß die mit einer derartigen Fertigkeit ausgeführten Objekte des Metallhandwerks in einem anderen Zentrum, wie etwa das nahe gelegene Lauenburg oder das etwas mehr entfernte Stolp, entstehen sein konnten. Es scheint um so weniger möglich, daß die östlichen Gebiete Hinterpommerns in der ersten Hälfte des 18. Jahrhunderts unter dem Einfluß der Danziger Werkstätten standen, und daß es auf dem lokalen Markt an Handwerkern fehlte, die sich in der Metallbearbeitung spezialisiert hätten, vor allem in der Herstellung von Luxusgegenständen – und die Sargbeschläge zählen zweifelsohne dazu. Über ihre Hersteller in Danzig sind recht wenige Informationen erhalten geblieben. In den Danziger Archivalien aus den Jahren 1753-1782 wurden die Namen von Handwerkern gefunden, die sich mit ihrer Herstellung beschädigten. Sie gehörten der Zunft, die als „Riemer, Sattler und Gürtler Gewerk” bezeichnet wurde, an. Aufgrund einer Zusammenstellung aus dem Jahre 1763 wissen wir, daß sie außer den vergoldeten und versilberten Sargbeschlägen sowie der Sargausschmückung auch mindestens fünf Arten von Schmucknägeln, Möbelbeschläge, gegossene und versilberte Pferdegeschirrteile, Schnallen und versilberte Blaker herstellten.

Abstract

Rafał Kubicki
The inhabitants of Elbląg and the Dominican monastery since 13th century to the early 16th century

This article endeavours to characterise the relationship between the inhabitants of Elbląg and the Dominican monastery during the times of the Protestant Reformation. In the attempt to strengthen the bond with the local community, the monastery reached out to all the strata of the society: guilds and the ruling elite - counsellors and merchants. Contacts with guilds did not only concern their religious activity but were also of economic and social character. The evidence supporting close ties between confraternities and guilds’ and the monastery lies in prayer obligations taken up by the Dominicans and the right given to confraternities and guilds to use their own altars in the monastery’s church. The guilds cooperating with the Dominicans included fishermen, bakers, lightermen from the River Vistula, and shoemakers. The most affluent professions such as bakers and bricklayers owned their altars in the Dominicans’ church. Numerous last wills indicate contacts between burgesses and the monastery; usually small dispositions used to be given to cover the cost of the construction in the church taking place in the second half of 15th century. In addition, one can also identify cases with individual distributions made to the same purpose where the beneficiary assumed the obligation of performing special prayers for the benefactor (Bartholomew Fehrman’s document dated 1472). The attention that the inhabitants of the city paid to the Dominicans’ material needs was yet again confirmed in 1514 when the monastery was damaged by fire. In the second half of 16th century, despite these strong links, the Dominicans finally left the city in which they had lived and worked for more than 300 years. It seems that the initially authentic and strong relationships with the local community were forged mainly due to the active engagement of the monks and gradually became more formal and based barely on custom and tradition. The weakness of these ties turned out to be even more evident by the crisis in the Catholic Church, towards which the Reformation became a reaction. This article encloses the two aforementioned documents issued by the Dominicans in 1472 and 1514.

Zusammenfassung

Rafał Kubicki
Die Einwohner Elbings im Verhältnis zum Dominikanerkloster vom 13. bis zum Anfang des 16. Jahrhunderts

In diesem Beitrag wird der Versuch unternommen, die Beziehungen der Einwohner Elbings zum Dominikanerkloster bis zum Ausgang der Reformationszeit zu schildern. In seinem Streben nach einer Verstärkung der Verbindungen zur städtischen Gemeinschaft, bemühte sich das Kloster, alle Bevölkerungsschichten, sowohl Zünfte als auch Machteliten (Ratsherren und Kaufleute), zu erreichen. Im Bezug auf die Zünfte beschränkten sich diese Kontakte nicht nur auf das religiöse Leben, sondern umfassten auch wirtschaftliche und gesellschaftliche Bindungen. Ein Beweis für die engen Beziehungen der Brüderschaften und Zünfte zum Kloster sind Gebetsverpflichtungen der Dominikaner, einschließlich des Anspruchs von Bruderschaften und Zünften auf die Nutzung eigener Altäre in der Klosterkirche. Zu den mit den Elbinger Dominikanern kooperierenden Zünften gehörten Fischer, Bäcker, Maurer, Weichselflößer und Schuhmacher. Von den wohlhabenden Zünften der Alten Stadt Elbing besaßen Bäcker und Maurer Altäre in der Dominikanerkirche. Kontakte der Bürger mit den Mönchen sind darüber hinaus durch zahlreiche Vermächtnisse bestätigt – es waren meistens kleine Geldsummen, die zur Deckung der Kosten der in der zweiten Hälfte des 15. Jahrhunderts in der Kirche durchgeführten Bauarbeiten bestimmt waren. Daneben gab es Fälle von individuellen Vermächtnissen zu diesem Zwecke, bei denen sich die Dominikaner zu einer Gegenleistung in Form spezieller Gebete für den Spender verpflichteten (Urkunde von Bartholomäus Fehrmann vom Jahre 1472). Die Sorge der Einwohner um materielle Bedürfnisse der Dominikaner wird auch durch die von ihnen geleistete Hilfe bei der Beseitigung von Brandschäden 1514 bestätigt. Trotz dieser Naheverhältnisse verließen die Dominikaner Mitte des 16. Jahrhunderts die Stadt, in der sie langer als 300 Jahre tätig gewesen waren. Es ist anzunehmen, dass die – anfangs starken und engen – Verbindungen des Ordens mit der städtischen Gemeinschaft, die hauptsachlich von den Mönchen initiiert wurden, im Laufe der Zeit immer formeller und nur durch Tradition und Sitte aufrechterhalten wurden. Ihre Schwäche kam gänzlich durch die Krise der kirchlichen Strukturen zum Vorschein, die die Reformationsbewegung zur Folge hatte. Dem Artikel sind Editionen der beiden erwähnten, von den Dominikanern ausgestellten Urkunden aus den Jahren 1472 und 1514 beigefügt.

In 1576, a map of Prussia “Prussiae Das ist des Landes zu Preussen Welches das herrlichste Theil ist Sarmatiae Europeae, Eigentliche und warhafftige Beschreibung” was published in Konigsberg. Its dimensions were 88.3 x 98.5 cm, and the scale 1:370 000. It was a wall map. Its initiator, organizer and performer of the most important work was a Prussian Lutheran pastor, historian and cartographer Kaspar Henneberger (1529–1600). The map was created innovatively, thoroughly and was very informative. This shows the symbols, abbreviations and historical and geographical entries in separate boxes. For the first time the lands of the Balts were shown on it: there were written their names and in Theilung der Alten dieses Landes Preussen were described their boundaries. It is a geographical and historical map of Prussia. It was printed in Konigsberg in 1576, 1595, 1629, 1638, 1639, 1656 and 1679. Unfortunately, it is a rare map as not many copies of it have remained.

El propósito de este artículo es analizar, contrastando obras de época con estudios actuales, el surgimiento de Prusia como potencia militar en las décadas centrales del  siglo XVIII. Para ello, es necesario poner el foco de nuestra investigación en la figura de Federico II, rey de Prusia, aunque no será nuestro objetivo sumergirnos en profundidad en su vida y personalidad, sino estudiar su política militar, la estructura y organización de sus ejércitos y sus hechos de armas más destacados, con la idea de que éstos nos sirvan de evidencia para comprender el calado de la aplicación de sus decisiones. Este texto, asimismo, pretende estudiar el funcionamiento práctico del ejército prusiano, al tiempo que tiene como inquietud secundaria explorar los posibles nexos entre los ejércitos prusiano y español en el marco político europeo de la centuria que estudiamos.

The article is devoted to the state of Prussian chiefs, who were at the had of Great rebellion against Teutonic Order (1242-1283). The goal of research consists in the determination of their structure and functions. These leaders represented the social organization that was an alternative to the system of Teutonic state and was a catalyst for the development of his relation with local popu-lation. To research this problem little studied in historiography was made the list of Prussian chiefs mentioned in chronicles and historical works of the XIVth–XVth centuries. The list was created by using of prosopographical analysis, comparative-historical and typological methods. On its base were made following conclusions. Leadership of rebellious was formed by three groups: chiefs of several tribes, leaders of one tribe and chiefs of separate regions. All of them, as traditional military leaders, were obliged to command troops from land or districts. Other functions of them differed by belonging to one of groups: development of the general strategy in campaigns (chiefs of one or sev-eral tribes) and solving of local military tasks (leaders of separate lands). Designation of these groups by single terms testified to crystallization of their state to the mid-XIIIth century. This pro-cess has occurred in the terms of social–property differentiation, that manifested in appearance of the group of retinues at the chief. All of these factors prepared transition of Prussian under power of one leader. However this opportunity was never realized because the change of Prussian chiefs to the administration of Teutonic state.

ABSTRACT in English (résumé en français ci-après):
This article (as all my other articles on Clausewitz) isn’t a discussion “around” the thoughts of Clausewitz, which would be first based on Clausewitz – an attractive name! – in order to speak thereafter in a prospective manner, as we see quite often. My article is an analysis focussed on what Clausewitz actually wrote in his lectures on the “kleinen Krieg” [I would say here “small war” to be short, even if I don’t like this translation]. The aim is, first, making a synthesis of the thoughts of Clausewitz on the relations between the “kleinen Krieg” and insurrectional wars; and, second, explaining the context of that days which underlain his thoughts, in order to better understand them: the context related to 1) the wars on which Clausewitz bases his speech, 2) the military culture of the officers of that days (and also the military culture of Clausewitz) and 3) the reflection of his time on the “kleinen Krieg” and on insurrectional wars.

Indeed, Prussia's military defeats in 1806 led in this country to a reflection on national defence, on the question of armed citizens, and on the “petite guerre” as the appropriate tactic for popular uprisings. The lecture upon the “petite guerre” that Clausewitz delivered at the War College in Berlin between 1810 and 1812 is part of this framework. Moreover, the Revolutionary War, which was an insurrection against the British homeland, is one of the examples Clausewitz did choose to feed his thinking, just like the Wars of the Vendée and the Tyrolean events during the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars – which were other uprisings with insurrectional characteristics. In his lecture, Clausewitz doesn’t distinguish between the two words and the two realities of “petite guerre” and “guerrilla warfare”; however, he shows from time to time the particularities of the civil wars and of the wars with armed citizens. Our article studies the lecture on the “petite guerre” from Clausewitz with a new point of view, in order to point out the parts which are related to the popular wars and to the insurrections; indeed, as Raymond Aron expresses it, the thinking of Clausewitz has been built on watching how the extreme violence of passions could not be separated from people's wars.

RESUME en français :
Cet article (comme tous mes autres articles sur Clausewitz) n’est pas une discussion « autour » de la pensée de Clausewitz, qui partirait de Clausewitz – un nom porteur ! – pour parler de façon prospective, comme on le voit souvent. C’est une analyse centrée exclusivement sur ce que Clausewitz a écrit dans son "Cours sur la petite guerre". L’objectif est, premièrement, de saisir et de synthétiser la pensée de Clausewitz sur les rapports entre petite guerre et guerre insurrectionnelle ; et, deuxièmement, d’expliciter le contexte de l’époque qui a nourri cette réflexion, pour mieux la comprendre : le contexte concernant 1) les guerres sur lesquelles Clausewitz appuie son discours, 2) la culture militaire des officiers de ce temps (donc la sienne) et 3) la réflexion de son temps sur la petite guerre et la guerre insurrectionnelle.

Les défaites subies en 1806 engendrèrent en effet, en Prusse, une réflexion sur la défense nationale, sur l’armement du peuple, et sur la petite guerre comme tactique du peuple soulevé. Le « Cours sur la petite guerre » donné par Clausewitz à l’École supérieure de guerre de Berlin, entre 1810 et 1812, s’inscrit entres autres dans le fil de cette impulsion. Au reste, la guerre d’Indépendance américaine, insurrection contre la métropole anglaise, est au nombre des exemples choisis par Clausewitz pour alimenter sa réflexion, comme les guerres de Vendée et les épisodes tyroliens de la Révolution et de l’Empire, autres soulèvements à caractère insurrectionnel. Si Clausewitz n’opère pas pour ses auditeurs la distinction entre « petite guerre » et « guérilla », il pointe de temps à autre les particularismes des guerres civiles et des contextes guerriers avec armement du peuple. Cet article revisite le Cours sur la petite guerre de Clausewitz pour y relever la part redevable aux guerres populaires et aux insurrections, si tant est que, comme l’exprime Raymond Aron, la pensée de Clausewitz sur la guerre s’est construite en considérant le déchaînement des passions inhérent aux guerres populaires.

The paper focuses on the withrawal of the Lithuanians  by examinig previous battles and contemporary Latin and German sources also.  My goal was to prove that the feigned withdrawal was a common and efficient maneuvre of the Lithuanians and thus offer an insight into the Baltic warfare

""This paper aims to explore Sparta’s significance as a paradigm in Prussian military thought – a subject which has thus far received little scholarly attention. Analysis and discussion of a variety of sources – ranging from speeches given in Officers’ Clubs to stenographic reports of parliamentary sessions (or even turn-of-the-twentieth-century antimilitarist literature, in the form of Arthur Zapp’s Antimilitärischetendenznovellen), shows that ancient Spartan history and mores, and in particular the Spartan art of war, were often portrayed as providing useful precedents for the Prussian military. Commentators frequently saw the Officer-Corps as embodying a type of ‘new Sparta’ in Prussia, recreating a similarly militaristic and socially exclusive society in contemporary terms.

It is suggested that we can see this idealisation of and identification with Sparta in military circles as constituting a specifically military application of that philhellenism which had already become so prevalent in Prusso-German culture since the age of Winckelmann. Here, far from its habitual preserves of salon and study, Schwärmerei for Greek ideals could be usefully applied to the practical problems of barracks and battlefield.""

Frederick the Great's (1712-1786) ambitions to make Prussia a great power were not established through war and ceremonial alone. Like Louis XIV, he shaped perceptions of Prussia through his patronage of the sciences and arts, including music. Alongside chamber music and opera buffa, opera seria was central to his creation of a Prussian musical profile. By establishing at the Royal Opera House a fixed repertoire of almost exclusively opera seria in an Italian manner by Carl Heinrich Graun and Johann Adolph Hasse, Frederick II promoted the "ächte, große Oper" of the Germans – and the efficacy of this policy can be seen in the nostalgia for Italian opera in Berlin between 1787 and 1797. However, upon his accession to the throne, Frederick William II (1744-1797) was confronted with the competing desires for Italian opera seria on the one hand and for "german" musical representation on the other. He attempted to satisfy these antithetical requirements of the nobility and the Bürgertum by a double strategy: he subsidized the Royal National Theatre, and divided the position of the Kapellmeister at the Royal Opera House between an Italian and a German. Nevertheless the debates about nationality, national genre and national identity continued, as expressed some critics in their preference for the operas of "our" "German" composer, Johann Friedrich Reichardt, over those of Felice Alessandri. At the same time, hopes of a "große deutsche Oper" were not fulfilled at the National Theatre by the dominance of "Singspiele" translated from opéras comiques.
My paper aims to bring our narratives of nineteenth-century German musical identity into dialogue with earlier musical nation-building attempts in eighteenth-century Prussia. Such a dialogue does not merely rely on the ambiguity of the terms ‘nation' and ‘fatherland' in the German-speaking context. In contrast to existing accounts focussing on public discourse, I examine the role that the royal courts played in constructing the musical identity of the wider population, arguing that, particularly in the case of the musical policy of Frederick William II, there are significant continuities as well as conflicts between the emerging ideas of Prussian and German musical identity.

The critical edition of The Principal Navigations is under contract with Oxford University Press in 14 volumes. It will provide an unparalleled resource for researchers and teachers working on early modern travel, trade and colonialism. The individual volumes will cover:

Vol 1. Medieval Voyages
Vol 2. Medieval Voyages and the English in Muscovy
Vol 3. Muscovy and Persian Travel
Vol 4. Russia, Iceland and Anglo-Spanish Relations
Vol 5. Medieval Travel and the Early Levant Trade
Vol 6. Levant Travels, South Asia, and Anglo-Ottoman Diplomacy
Vol 7. Travels to Africa and the Far East, and the Anglo-Spanish War
Vol 8. Maritime War with Spain, the Northwest Passage, and West Africa
Vol 9. The Northwest Passage, Travels to Newfoundland, and the Gulf of St Lawrence
Vol 10. Voyages to New France, Roanoke, and Florida
Vol 11. Voyages to New Mexico, California, and New Spain
Vol 12. West Indies Voyages
Vol 13. Travels to Guiana, Brazil, and the River Plate
Vol 14. The South Seas, Far East, and Spanish Trade and Navigation

The memory of the French Revolution often refers to the victory of the Nation. The Revolution created the nation state, but also the standing army of citizen-soldiers, thus rejecting mercenary enterprise and the use of foreign troops. However, the reality is quite different, since the armies of the Revolution and of the many French Republic all had foreign contingents, the most famous being the French Foreign Legion. Even today, the use of private enterprise in warfare is again booming.
During the warring period from 1740 to 1763, which saw two great European wars —the Austrian Succession (1740-1748) and the Seven Years (1756-1763) wars—become world wars, the use of foreign troops increased in the kingdom of France. It was not solely the case in the armies of the Rois Très-Chrétiens: foreigners served in all European armies, notably in those of England, Spain, Prussia, Austria and Russia. They were not only used to inflate the ranks of the armies, but also to seek expertise in military knowledge. In the middle of the 18th century, the Prussian model was in fashion and was introduced to France by the German standing foreign regiments.
This phenomenon has been neglected by the literature and by the military history (except regarding Swiss and Irish troops). This research seeks to fill this gap. Using social and cultural history, as well as the history of representations, it aims at understanding who these foreign soldiers were, where they came from, and what were their motivations to serve for France. Ultimately, this thesis examines the German and the French military cultures in the 18th century and highlights the role of German foreign regiments in cultural and warfare transfers.

Résumé

La mémoire de la Révolution française renvoie souvent à la victoire de la Nation. Avec celle-ci serait né l’État-nation, mais également l’armée permanente formée de soldats-citoyens, marquant la fin du mercenariat et de l’usage des troupes étrangères. Cependant, la réalité est tout autre. Que ce soit pendant ou après la Révolution, l’armée française conserve des contingents étrangers, le plus célèbre étant bien sûr la Légion étrangère. Encore aujourd’hui, le recours à l’entreprise privée dans le domaine de la guerre reste particulièrement important.
Durant la période de 1740 à 1763, qui voit deux grandes guerres européennes devenir mondiales, celles de la Succession d’Autriche (1740-1748) et de Sept Ans (1756-1763), on constate une recrudescence de l’usage des troupes étrangères dans le royaume de France. Cette pratique ne se réduit alors pas d’ailleurs aux armées des Rois Très-Chrétiens : des étrangers servent dans toutes les armées européennes, notamment anglaises, espagnoles, prussiennes, autrichiennes et russes. Ces soldats servent non seulement à gonfler les rangs, mais à renforcer l’expertise et les savoir-faire militaires locaux. Au milieu du XVIIIe siècle, le modèle en vogue est prussien, introduit en France par les régiments étrangers sur pied allemands.
L’étude des régiments étrangers s’est pourtant focalisée d’abord sur les soldats suisses et irlandais, au détriment des soldats de nation allemande. Lacune que ce mémoire cherche ainsi à combler. Grâce aux travaux de l’histoire sociale et culturelle et de l’histoire des représentations, il nous sera possible de comprendre qui sont ces hommes, d’où ils proviennent et quelles sont leurs motivations pour le service de la France. Finalement, ce sont les cultures de guerre, allemande et française, au sein des débats qui les entourent au XVIIIe siècle, qui seront étudiées; elles feront ainsi ressortir l’importance des régiments étrangers allemands dans ces transferts militaires et culturels.

This paper was presented to the conference "Balkan Worlds III: Power Networks in the Imperial and Post-Imperial Balkans (18th - 20th c.)" held in Thessaloniki by the University of Macedonia (6-8 October 2016).

The Prussian diplomacy attempted to create a network of agents and intelligence in Constantinople during the second half of the 18th century. This was the common policy of all the European embassies in the Ottoman Empire. Although the representation of the Prussian king to the Sublime Porte was neither continuous nor often formal, the Prussian envoys tried to construct an intelligence network. In order to establish it, they spent a lot of money and shared a lot of information concerning the European and eventually Prussian affairs. They hired, those they could hire from the Phanariots and they bribed those they could bribe from the Divan. In fact, the most important and influential agents ended up to belong to two families, a Greek-Orthodox and a Muslim one, consisting of what one can characterise as typical middle upper class officials: the Greek family was that of John Fragopoulos, first dragoman of the Prussian embassy for nearly thirty years, and his son in law Constantine Karatzas, whereas the Muslim family was that of Ahmed Resmi and his nephew Ahmed Azmi. The network was proven mutually beneficial and bared very strong bonds between its members. Its success was so great, that it survived even of the catalysis of the Prussian state.

The oeuvre of the goldsmiths active in Elbląg has been destroyed or substantially dispersed due to WW II. This is why it is extremely important to gather the information about these antiquities, which are preserved both in public and museum collections.

In the early modern period, a few goldsmiths distinguished themselves. Undeniably we can include here three masters named Tolckemit, coming from the family who rendered great services to the town.

The first from the mentioned trio to start his work was Alexander Tolckemit, (b. 1640, d. 1682), then came Sigismund Tolckemit I (b. 1662, d. ca 1730), and finally, Sigismund Tolckmeit II (b. 1697, d. after 1775).

The first two goldsmiths were adept craftsmen, but it is currently difficult to judge their whole artistic output. Only 8 items created in their workshops are known to exist. As for Sigismund Tolckemit II’s workshop, it is possible to identify about 50 both sacred and secular pieces which have only been partially preserved. Apparently, he must have been one of the most active and most important goldsmiths in Elbląg.

The Prussian Jewish Nobility

Different European states had different attitudes towards Jews and their social standing. In the Habsburg monarchy, several hundred people of the Jewish faith were ennobled between 1789 and 1918 (both in Austria and later in Hungary), while Jews were granted equal social status in 1867. In Prussia the social status of Jews had improved since the rule of Frederick II and in 1812 they were able to become Prussian citizens. However, Jewish emancipation reached a high point in July 1869 when a law on equal religious rights was declared in Prussia as well as in all the states of the North German Confederation. However, in Prussia the issue of granting aristocratic titles to people of the Jewish faith or of Jewish origin was, of course, more vexed and the ennoblement of these people was very rare.

Streszczenie Obecnie w Polsce kolejowy ruch pasażerski jest obsługiwany przez około 600 dworców. Wiele z nich to obiekty zabytkowe, które wieloletnie zaniedbania doprowadziły do katastrofalnego stanu. Od kilku lat można jednak zaobserwować tendencję odwracającą proces degradacji. Spółka PKP S.A. stara się podejmować działania mające na celu ochronę wartości kultu-rowych i sentymentalnych związanych z funkcjonowaniem kolei. W artykule przedstawiono dwa przykłady rewitalizacji historycznych dworców, należących niegdyś do jednego zarządu, starając się przybliżyć problematykę adaptacji zabytko-wych obiektów do wciąż zachodzących zmian funkcjonalnych, technologicznych i cywilizacyjnych przy równoczesnym poszanowaniu tradycji.

The Chronica Polonorum, written by Bishop Vincentius of Cracow (c.1150–1223), influenced the way Polish history was written by presenting a specific memory of the participation of the Piast dynasty in wars against the Prussians. This article presents the three major references to these wars against heathen tribes of the North in 1147, 1166 and 1192. Vincentius' account gave meaning to the Piast expeditions as holy wars and influenced court tradition by establishing the image of individual Piasts as well as their dynasty as a whole. These accounts shaped how their participants were remembered in specific historical contexts and influenced the future participation of the Poles in crusading. The article reveals the use of the term ‘Saladinistas’, not found anywhere else in the surviving twelfth-century sources. The memory created by Vincentius became inseparable from the cultural heritage of the nation for whom he was the first native historian.