PRUSSIA 



465 



more than 10,000 Walloons, using the French 

 language ; intermixed in its generally German 

 'population Silesia has 55,000 Czechs or Bohemians; 

 sleswick-Holstein, 140,000 Danes making in all 

 about 3 millions who do not use the German lan- 

 guage, or who employ it only as secondary to their 

 native tongues. 



Hanks, Classes. Three distinct hereditary classes 

 are recognised in Prussia viz. nobles, burghers, 

 and peasants. To the first belong nearly 200,000 

 persons, including the higher officials of the state, 

 although that number does not comprise the various 

 mediatised houses, of whicli sixteen are Prussian, 

 and others l>elonging to different states, but con- 

 nected with Prussia by still existing, or former 

 territorial possessions. The burgher class includes, 

 in its higher branches, all public office-bearers, pro- 

 fessional men, artists, and merchants ; while the 

 peasantry to which belong all persons engaged in 

 agricultural pursuits are divided into classes, de- 

 pending on the number of horses employed on the 

 land, &c. 



History. The lands bounded by the Baltic, 

 which now form part of Prussia, were early occupied 

 ly Slavonic tril>es, nearly allied to the Letts and 

 Lithuanians. It is conjectured that they were 

 -visited by Phoenician navigators in the 4th century 

 B.C. ; but, beyond the fact of their having come 

 into temporary conflict with the Goths and other 

 Teutonic hordes prior to the great exodus of the 

 latter from their northern homes, little is known 

 of the people till the 10th century, when they first 

 appear in history under the name of Borussi, or 

 Prussians. In 997 Bishop Adalbert of Prague suf- 

 fered martyrdom at their hands while endeavour- 

 ing to convert the people to Christianity. Boleslas, 

 Duke of Poland, succeeded, however, alxmt 1018, in 

 compelling them to submit to baptism and subjec- 

 tion. After many futile attempts on the part of 

 the people to throw off the yoke of Christianity and 

 foreign domination, they finally made a successful 

 stand against Boleslas IV. of Poland in 1161, and 

 for a time maintained a rude and savage kind 

 of independence, which the disturbed condition of 

 Poland prevented its rulers from breaking down. 

 The fear of losing their freedom if they adopted 

 Christianity made the Prussians ol>stinately resist 

 every effort for their conversion ; and it was not 

 till the middle of the 13th century, when the 

 knights of the Teutonic order l>egan their ' famous ' 

 crusade against them (see TEUTONIC KNIGHTS), 

 that the Christian faith was established among 

 them. The inroads of the pagan Prussians on the 

 territories of their Christian neighbours, and their 

 advance into Pornerania, were the exciting causes 

 of this important movement. The knights of the 

 order, when appealed to by Conrad, Duke of 

 Masovia, to aid in the subjection of the heathen, 

 gladly promised their services on condition of lieing 

 permitted to retain possession of the lands which 

 they might conquer ; and, having entered the 

 Prussian territories in considerable numbers, they 

 entrenched themselves in Vogelsang and Nessau 

 in 1230, and at once entered upon the conquest 

 of Prussia. For half a century the lielligerent 

 brotherhood were engaged in war with the people 

 winning lands and souls by hard fighting until at 

 length in 1283 they found themselves undisputed 

 masters of the country, which they had both civilised 

 And Christianised after a fashion that is to say, 

 by almost exterminating the pagan population. 

 During this period of struggle the Knights founded 

 the cities of Thorn, Knlm, Marjenwerder, Memel, 

 and Konigsberg, repeopled the country with Ger- 

 man colonists, encouraged agriculture and trade, 

 and laid the foundation of a well-ordered, pros- 

 perous state. The unhappy wars between the 

 knights and the Poles and Lithuanians, together 

 394 



with the moral degeneracy of the order, led, in the 

 14th and 15th centuries, to the gradual decline of 

 their supremacy. In 1454 the municipal and noble 

 classes, with the co-operation of Poland, rose in open 

 rebellion against the knights, who were finally 

 compelled to seek peace at any cost, and obliged 

 in 1466 to accept the terms offered to them by the 

 treaty of Thorn, by which West Prussia and 

 Ermland were ceded by them unconditionally to 

 Poland, and the remainder of their territories 

 declared to be tiefs of that kingdom. In 1511 the 

 knights elected as their grand-master the Markgraf 

 Albert of Anspach and Baireuth, a kinsman of the 

 king of Poland, and a scion of the Prankish line of 

 the Hohenzollern family. Although his election 

 did not immediately result, as the knights had 

 hoped, in securing them allies powerful enough to 

 aid them in emancipating themselves from Polish 

 domination, it was fraught with important con- 

 sequences to Germany at large, no less than to 

 the order itself. In 1525 the grand-master was 

 acknowledged Duke of Prussia, which was con- 

 verted into a secular duchy (afterwards known as 

 East Prussia), and renounced the Roman Catholic 

 religion for Lutheranism, his example being fol- 

 lowed by many of the knights. The country made 

 rapid advances under the rule of Albert, who 

 improved the mode of administering the law, 

 restored some order to the finances of the state, 

 established schools, founded the university of 

 Konigsberg (1544), and caused the Bible to be 

 translated into Polish, and several books of instruc- 

 tion to be printed in German, Polish, and Lithu- 

 anian. His son and successor, Albert Frederick, 

 having become insane, a regency was appointed. 

 Several of his kinsmen in turn enjoyed the dignity 

 of regent, and finally his son-in-law, Johann Sigis- 

 iiiunil, elector of Brandenburg, after having held 

 the administration of affairs in his hands for some 

 years, was, on the death of the duke in 1618, recog- 

 nised as his successor, both by the people and by 

 the king of Poland, from whom he received the 

 investiture of the duchy of Prussia, which, since 

 that period, has been governed by the Hohenzollern- 

 Brandenburg House. 



Here it will be necessary to retrace our steps in 

 order briefly to consider the political and dynastic 

 relations of the other parts of the Prussian state. 

 In 1134 the North Mark, afterwards called the 

 Altmark, a district in the west of the Elbe and 

 north-east of the Harz, was bestowed upon Albert 

 the Bear of Lu xembourg, who extended his dominion 

 over the marshy region near Brandenburg and 

 Berlin (the Mittelmark), and assumed the title of 

 Markgraf of Brandenburg. During the next two 

 or three centuries his immediate descendants 

 advanced still farther eastward, beyond the Oder into 

 Farther Pomerania. On the extinction of this line, 

 known as the Ascanian House, in 1319, a century of 

 strife and disorder followed, until finally Frederick 

 VI., count of Hohenzollern, and markgraf of Nurem- 

 berg, became possessed, partly by purchase and 

 partly by investiture from the Emperor Sigismund, 

 of the Brandenburg lands, which, in his favour, 

 were constituted into an electorate. This prince, 

 known as the Elector Frederick I., received his 

 investiture in 1417. He united under his rule, in 

 addition to his hereditary Franconian lands of 

 Anspach and Baireuth, a territory of more than 

 11,000 so,, m. His reign was disturbed by the 

 insubordination of the nobles, and the constant 

 incursions of his Prussian and Polish neighbours, 

 but by his firmness and resolution he restored order 

 at home and enlarged his boundaries. Under 

 Frederick's successors the Brandenburg territory 

 was augmented by the addition of many new 

 acquisitions, although the system of granting 

 appanages to the younger members of the reigning 



