„Król się ślini na myśl o Gdańsku…” – cztery odsłony walki o symbole między miastem a władzą zwierzchnią z zamkiem krzyżackim w tle
Authors: Torbus Tomasz 
Published: January 2021

I draw the historical background with the question of how the city has for centuries been communicating with visual signs with its so different external sovereigns. After general remarks, I focus on the ruler’s relationship with the city during the Teutonic Knights’ era, as the example serving the Teutonic castle in Gdansk, from the beginning of its construction to the story of its demolition.

The Teutonic castle was built, according to the message of Wigand of Marburg, during the time of Grand Master Dietrich von Altenburg around 1340. Unlike the dating, its form disappears in the darkness of history. Archaeologists have proven the existence of a castle complex consisting of the main castle and two baileys on the site of the former castle of the Pomeranian dynasty of Samborids. The convent house: a square with sides of about 53 m, had four residential wings grouped around the courtyard, three towers at the corners, and a high guard tower.

The article then deals with the castle as a kind of a protagonist of the drama in the war for symbols, developing in four scenes. The first took place after the Battle of Grunwald in 1410, when the town paid homage to Polish King Władysław Jagiello, but in the autumn of 1410 it returned to the rule of the Teutonic Order. In the following months, the city authorities reacted negatively to the attempt of the Grand Master Henry von Plauen to raise taxes. Mayors and members of the City Council: Konrad Letzkau, Arnold Hecht, and Bartholomew (Bartholomäus) Gross, were invited to the Teutonic Knights’ Castle in spring 1411 under the pretext of negotiations, and there they were murdered in unclear circumstances. The town responded by burying both mayors, and probably Gross as well, in the ambulatory of St Mary’s Church, (possibly) in St Hedwig’s Chapel belonging to the Letzkau family. The tombstone (nowadays destructed after the fire of 1734), which preserved anti–Teutonic sentiments, became an attraction for visitors, and was excluded from the normal burial practice of St Mary’s Church in the early modern times.

Another part of our dispute occurred in 1453, when the Gdansk delegates complained at the Reich’s conciliatory assembly in Vienna about the Gdansk Commander forbidding to continue the construction of the tower of St John’s Church. On this basis, Olaf Asendorf constructed a theory on the general prohibition of building high towers in the Teutonic state, the so-called turmverbote. However, we have no proof that such a ban existed in any form, and apart from two other messages from Elbląg and Kaliningrad, former Königsberg, we cannot trace this kind of regulation in the written sources. On the other hand, none of the towers dominating the panorama of Gdansk was built before 1457. It was only after the transition to Polish sovereignty that the construction of the towers of St John’s Church, St Catherine’s Church, St Mary’s Church, and the Town Hall tower continued. The case from 1453 fits the hypothesis of fighting with the Order with the use of the city’s symbol, but this is rather a hysterical reaction of the economically and politically weakened corporation, which tries to enforce the city’s obedience by prohibiting the further construction of the tower of St John’s Church.

The events of the Thirteen Years’ War (1454–1466): Gdansk was to throw off the yoke of the Teutonic Knights’ power and voluntarily surrender to the power of the Polish monarchy together with the guarantee of maximum privileges, are the backdrop to the next stage of our battle with the use of symbols. Most probably in February 1454, a decision was made to demolish the fortress, which could potentially become the seat of the new ruler, thus threatening the autonomy of the city. During the negotiations between the Gdansk envoys and Casimir IV Jagiello in February and March 1454 in Cracow, the delegates secretly sent the following letter to the City Council: ‘ Those of the seats [castles of the Teutonic knights] that were demolished are to remain destroyed, but we are not [allowed] to continue the demolition of these castles without consulting or informing the Lord King and the Estates. Hence, good friends, if you have not destroyed them, we advise you in all your power that you are to dismantle them the sooner the better, before we are back home, because the Lord King is “drooling” at the thought of Gdansk’. In the original hern conynge henget de lunge sere up Danczik is an idiomatic Lower German term, literally meaning King hangs his lung [to occupy the castle], so he cares a lot about it. This is what happened. Just like in Elbląg, Toruń and Bartoszyce and partly in Królewiec, the municipal authorities thoroughly demolished the Teutonic Castle.

As early as in 1857, August Lobegott Randt noted, without mentioning the source, that when the star vaults over the main hall of the Artus Manor were unfastened in 1478–1481, pillars from the Teutonic Castle were used; this theory was taken up by almost all later literature. A whole range of other relics in various places in Gdansk made of sandstone or granite, together with the latest finding in St Mary’s Church from 2020, are now connected with the Castle. This theory fits perfectly with the considerations of political iconography. In the Artus Court, the first monumental building completed after the Grand Permit of 1457, architectural details from the former seat of the supreme authority are placed, since it is where the elites of the new republic meet.

Together with the demolition of the Castle, the knowledge of its silhouette was lost. Only indirectly does the image give us a fascinating iconographic message, which for me is the fourth episode of the ‘battle with the use of images’. In the painting ‘The Ship of the Church’ from the Artus Manor, destroyed in 1945: a representation of a ship armed with cannons symbolizing the community of Gdansk, in one corner rather a small depiction of a castle can be seen. It shows the main tower, the evidence of which was proven by the 2002 archaeological researches. Its unusual spire evokes obvious associations with the Flemish–Brabantine belfry towers: free–standing towers or towers inscribed in town halls or cloth halls being symbols of urban self–government. What is the function of the representation of the Teutonic castle in the painting? Who was its author and fundator? According to Adam Labuda’s interpretation, it is the pendant to the painting ‘Siege of Malbork’, lost in 1945 – of almost identical dimensions, stylistically similar – and seems to be the work of the same painter. Together with the latter, it conveys the story of the battle for the gained independence of Gdansk, a powerful and rich city, united in religion and under the sceptre of the King. It is possible that the paintings were executed in connection with the would–be visit to the city of Jan Olbracht in 1501, or another entry of Alexander I in 1504. But what remains a puzzle is the function of a Teutonic castle with a Flemish helmet in the painting. Was it only related to the possible Dutch origin of the artist, or was it a political message, wishful thinking of the founders: an allusion to Gdansk as an independent city?

The article on its first level interprets a non–existent building which has become the protagonist, the pretext, and the background of the multi–act drama of ‘the battle with the use of images’. More generally, it states the entanglement of Gdansk art and architecture in politics as a characteristic feature of this metropolis through all epochs. Yet above all, I would like to thank Małgorzata Omilanowska, the one to whom we dedicate this volume, because without her initiative I would never have started teaching in this fascinating city and thus researching its art history.