Indigenous Resistance, Possession, and Power in Later Medieval Prussia, c. 1260–1330

This article examines patterns of status, legal rights, and property possession among the indigenous Baltic population living under Christian rule in Prussia during the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. After arriving in the region in the 1230s, the Teutonic crusading order had begun stabilising its rule by the 1280s. The Order undertook a mass effort to oversee the settlement or resettlement of a heterogeneous population of western (mainly German-speaking) migrants and native Balts. Narrative chronicles and charter records reveal a spectrum of relations between Teutonic colonisers and indigenous subjects, from violent resistance to close collaboration. This study draws on postcolonial and Indigenous scholarship to argue that even as many Baltic elites secured their social status and legal privileges under Christian rule in accordance with ecclesiastical ideals of parity and liberty, colonial fear of native resistance structurally disadvantaged native Balts as naturally, or even racially, predisposed to treachery and apostasy.