page_title: Old Prussians
section_title: Organization
hierarchical_section_title: Old Prussians / Organization
caption_attribution_description: Map of Prussian clans during the 13th century. Areas shaded in grey reached further south than shown on this map. Prussian clans of Galindians, Sudovians, Sasna and Lubavia as well as Kulmerland had become subjected to numerous incursions and conquests by recently arriving Slavs.
context_page_description: Old Prussians, Baltic Prussians or simply Prussians were the indigenous peoples from a cluster of Baltic tribes that inhabited the region of Prussia. This region lent its name to the later state of Prussia. It was located on the south-eastern shore of the Baltic Sea between the Vistula Lagoon to the west and the Curonian Lagoon to the east. The people spoke a language now known as Old Prussian and followed pagan Prussian mythology.
  During the 13th century, the Old Prussians were conquered by the Teutonic Order. The former German state of Prussia took its name from the Baltic Prussians, although it was led by Germans. The Teutonic Knights and their troops transferred the Baltic Prussians from southern Prussia to northern Prussia. Many Old Prussians were also killed in crusades requested by Poland and the popes, while others were assimilated and converted to Christianity. The old Prussian language was extinct by the 17th or early 18th century. Many Old Prussians emigrated due to Teutonic crusades.
  The land of the Old Prussians was larger before the arrival of the Polans, consisting of central and southern East Prussia and West Prussia.
context_section_description: At the beginning of Baltic history, the Old Prussians were bordered by the Vistula and the Memel – earlier Mimmel – river, which outside of Prussia is called Neman, with a southern depth to about Thorn at the Vistula river, which was Prussian, and the line of the river Narew. The Kashubians and Pomeranians were by the year AD 1000 on the west, the Poles on the south, the Sudovians (sometimes considered a separate people, other times regarded as a Prussian tribe) on the east and further south, the Skalvians on the north, and the Lithuanians on the northeast. The Sudovians began at about Suwałki.
  At the end of the 1st century, Prussian settlements were probably divided into tribal domains, separated from one another by uninhabited areas of forest, swamp and marsh. A basic territorial community was perhaps called a laūks, a word attested in Old Prussian as "field". This word appears as a segment in Baltic settlement names, especially Curonian, and it is found in Old Prussian placenames such as Stablack, from stabs (stone) + laūks (field, thus stone field). The plural is not attested in Old Prussian, but the Lithuanian plural of laukas ("field") is laukai.
  A laūks was formed by a group of farms, which shared economic interests and a desire for safety. The supreme power resided in general gatherings of all adult males, who discussed important matters concerning the community and elected the leader and chief; the leader was responsible for the supervision of the everyday matters, while the chief (the rikīs) was in charge of the road and watchtower building, and border defense, undertaken by Vidivarii.
  The term laūks must have included the fortifications, if any, and the social superstructure, but the village itself went by another name: kāims. The head of a household was the buttataws (literally, the house father, from buttan, meaning home, and taws, meaning father).
  Because the Baltic tribes inhabiting Prussia never formed a common political and territorial organisation, they had no reason to adopt a common ethnic or national name. Instead they used the name of the region from which they came — Galindians, Sambians, Bartians, Nadruvians, Natangians, Scalovians, Sudovians, etc. It is not known when and how the first general names came into being. This lack of unity weakened them severely, similar to the condition of Germany during the Middle Ages.
  The Prussian tribal structure is most fully attested in the Chronicon terrae Prussiae of Peter of Dusburg, a priest of the Teutonic Order. The work is dated to 1326. He lists eleven lands and ten tribes, which were named on a geographical basis. These were:
  The Voyages of Ohthere and Wulfstan (in Anglo-Saxon) (English translation) describes a voyage by a Norseman called Wulfstan to the land of the Old Prussians, to the area around Elbing; he describes their funeral customs.
caption: Map of Prussian tribes in the 13th century. The indicated cities/castles were built by the Teutonic Knights to facilitate the conquest.
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