A Peripheral Patron Saint of Prussia? St Adalbert of Prague and the Teutonic Order
The Christianization of Prussia is often linked with the centuries’ long presence of the Teutonic Order. Arriving in 1230 to defend the borderlands of Konrad, Duke of Mazovia, the Order flourished (and declined) in the region until the secularization of the territory in 1525.
However, prior contacts with Christianity existed centuries before the Order’s arrival. In 997, St Adalbert/Wojtech, Bishop of Prague, undertook a mission to the non-Christian tribes of Prussia. He was sponsored by Bolesław I Chrobry (the Brave) and, on 23 April 997, received the martyr’s crown at the hands of the Prussians, perhaps due to his entering a sacred grove. The link between Prussia and Adalbert remained an important part of Polish memory in the High Middle Ages. He has been depicted as a “national” saint by some scholars.
Moreover, his appearance in the texts of the Teutonic Order remains scant, at best. Nicolaus von Jeroschin, a priest brother in the Order, wrote a Middle High German vita of Adalbert. Near the castle of Lochstedt, the seat of the Ambermeister, there was a shrine patronized by the Marshal of the Order, Ludwig von Lansee, in the 15th century. It seems that the memory of Adalbert remained part of the Order’s local history, for later requests for a vicarage at the church, in addition to a rest for visiting the shrine “in the diocese of Sambia by the sea” survive among the contents of the Order’s main archive in Berlin-Dahelm.
Before the Battle of Tannenberg/Grunwald on 15 July 1410, Jan Długosz noted that the army under the leadership of Władysław Jagiełło performed the Bogurodzica, a text attributed to Adalbert. The Order, on the other hand, performed the liturgical hymn of Christ ist erstanden. Why the Order did not adopt the saint with such explicit connections to Prussia is an interesting mystery, especially when it appears that its enemy in the fourteenth century (the Kingdom of Poland) relegated Adalbert to a peripheral figure.
Text: G. Leighton
Pictures: 1) St. Adalbert on the Václavské náměstí in Prague (Wenceslas Square Prague); CC BY-SA 3.0; photo taken by Arkadiy Etumyan; https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adalbert_von_Prag#/media/Datei:Adalbert_of_Prague.jpg;
2) Berlin, GStA PK, XX. HA, Handschriften Nr. 34, Bd. 1: Nicolaus von Jeroschin’s Adalbert-Legende. Link: https://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/diglit/gsta-pk_XX.ha_handschriften_nr_34_bd_1/0001
3) Berlin, GStA PK, XX. HA, OBA nr. 28701: Requests for a perpetual vicarage for the St Adalbert’s church in Lochstedt. Undated.