1.
Poland
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Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe, situated between the Baltic Sea in the north and two mountain ranges in the south. Bordered by Germany to the west, the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south, Ukraine and Belarus to the east, the total area of Poland is 312,679 square kilometres, making it the 69th largest country in the world and the 9th largest in Europe. With a population of over 38.5 million people, Poland is the 34th most populous country in the world, the 8th most populous country in Europe, Poland is a unitary state divided into 16 administrative subdivisions, and its capital and largest city is Warsaw. Other metropolises include Kraków, Wrocław, Poznań, Gdańsk and Szczecin, the establishment of a Polish state can be traced back to 966, when Mieszko I, ruler of a territory roughly coextensive with that of present-day Poland, converted to Christianity. The Kingdom of Poland was founded in 1025, and in 1569 it cemented a political association with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania by signing the Union of Lublin. This union formed the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, one of the largest and most populous countries of 16th and 17th century Europe, Poland regained its independence in 1918 at the end of World War I, reconstituting much of its historical territory as the Second Polish Republic. In September 1939, World War II started with the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany, followed thereafter by invasion by the Soviet Union. More than six million Polish citizens died in the war, after the war, Polands borders were shifted westwards under the terms of the Potsdam Conference. With the backing of the Soviet Union, a communist puppet government was formed, and after a referendum in 1946. During the Revolutions of 1989 Polands Communist government was overthrown and Poland adopted a new constitution establishing itself as a democracy, informally called the Third Polish Republic. Since the early 1990s, when the transition to a primarily market-based economy began, Poland has achieved a high ranking on the Human Development Index. Poland is a country, which was categorised by the World Bank as having a high-income economy. Furthermore, it is visited by approximately 16 million tourists every year, Poland is the eighth largest economy in the European Union and was the 6th fastest growing economy on the continent between 2010 and 2015. According to the Global Peace Index for 2014, Poland is ranked 19th in the list of the safest countries in the world to live in. The origin of the name Poland derives from a West Slavic tribe of Polans that inhabited the Warta River basin of the historic Greater Poland region in the 8th century, the origin of the name Polanie itself derives from the western Slavic word pole. In some foreign languages such as Hungarian, Lithuanian, Persian and Turkish the exonym for Poland is Lechites, historians have postulated that throughout Late Antiquity, many distinct ethnic groups populated the regions of what is now Poland. The most famous archaeological find from the prehistory and protohistory of Poland is the Biskupin fortified settlement, dating from the Lusatian culture of the early Iron Age, the Slavic groups who would form Poland migrated to these areas in the second half of the 5th century AD. With the Baptism of Poland the Polish rulers accepted Christianity and the authority of the Roman Church
2.
Voivodeships of Poland
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A województwo is the highest-level administrative subdivision of Poland, corresponding to a province in many other countries. The term województwo has been in use since the 14th century, the word województwo is also rendered as voivodeship or a variant spelling. The Polish local government reforms adopted in 1998, which went into effect on 1 January 1999 and these replaced the 49 former voivodeships that had existed from 1 July 1975. Todays voivodeships are mostly named after historical and geographical regions, while prior to 1998 generally took their names from the cities on which they were centered. The new units range in area from under 10,000 km2 to over 35,000 km2, voivodeships are further divided into powiats and gminas, see Administrative divisions of Poland. Competences and powers at voivodeship level are shared between the voivode, the sejmik and the marshal. In most cases these institutions are all based in one city, but in Kuyavian-Pomeranian and Lubusz Voivodeship the voivodes offices are in a different city from those of the executive, Voivodeship capitals are listed in the table below. The voivode is appointed by the Prime Minister and is the representative of the central government. The voivodes offices collectively are known as the urząd wojewódzki, the sejmik is elected every four years, at the same time as the local authorities at powiat and gmina level. It passes bylaws, including the development strategies and budget. It also elects the marszałek and other members of the executive, the marshals offices are collectively known as the urząd marszałkowski. According to 2014 Eurostat data, the GDP per capita of Polish voivodeships varies notably, Administrative division of Poland between 1979 and 1998 included 49 voivodeships upheld after the establishment of the Third Polish Republic in 1989 for another decade. This reorganization of administrative division of Poland was mainly a result of government reform acts of 1973–1975. In place of the administrative division, a new two-level administrative division was introduced. The three smallest voivodeships – Warsaw, Kraków and Łódź – had the status of municipal voivodeship. After World War II, the new division of the country within the new national borders was based on the prewar one and included 14 voivodeships. The voivodeships in the east that had not been annexed by the Soviet Union had their borders left almost unchanged. The newly acquired territories in the west and north were organized into the new voivodeships of Szczecin, Wrocław and Olsztyn, two cities were granted voivodeship status, Warsaw and Łódź
3.
West Pomeranian Voivodeship
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West Pomeranian Voivodeship or West Pomerania Province, is a voivodeship in northwestern Poland. Its capital and largest city is Szczecin and it is named for the historical region of Pomerania. In spite of the name, the voivoideship does not include the most westerly parts of historical Pomerania, the name Pomerania comes from the Slavic po more, meaning Land by the Sea. West Pomeranian Voivodeship is the fifth largest voivodeship of Poland in terms of area, among the largest cities, of the region, are the capital Szczecin, as well as Koszalin, Stargard, and Świnoujście. This is a region of the Baltic Sea coast, with many beaches, lakes. Szczecin, Świnoujście and Police are important ports, other major seaside towns include Międzyzdroje, Dziwnów, Kołobrzeg, and Mielno. West Pomerania is considered one of the greenest regions of Poland and it is characterized by incredible diversity of the landscape, beaches, hundreds of lakes, and forests full of wildlife, spreading mainly up the hills of the glacial lakes areas. West Pomerania is also rich in forms and styles of architecture that were built during the Middle Ages as well as the Gothic, Baroque. There is a repertoire of theaters, festivals, museums. During a few-day long annual Sea Festival in Szczecin, a number of free concerts take place. In Świnoujście during the summer, the FAMA Academic Youth Arts Festival takes place – an event with several years of tradition, in Międzyzdroje, there is a Festival Of The Stars, which draws many popular actors. In Wolin, a Viking Festival takes place, which draws Vikings from all across Europe, another draw to the area is a wide array of health resorts. Brine and peloid, discovered in the 19th century, together with water resources, are popular attractions in Świnoujście, Kamień Pomorski. The voivodeship contains 64 cities and towns, so overall, about 1 million people live in the historical region of Western Pomerania today, while the Szczecin agglomeration reaches even further. West Pomeranian Voivodeship is divided into 21 counties,3 city counties and 18 land counties and these are further divided into 114 gminas. The counties are listed in the following table ), Protected areas in West Pomeranian Voivodeship include two National Parks and seven Landscape Parks, after World War II the region was placed under Polish administration by the Potsdam Agreement under territorial changes demanded by the Soviet Union. Most Germans fled or were expelled and replaced with Poles expelled from the Polish areas annexed by the Soviet Union, in 194867 percent of the populace originated from Central Poland, Greater Poland and Pomeralia while 25 percent came from the Polish areas annexed by the Soviet Union. Another 6 percent returned to Poland from Western Europe, about 50,000 Ukrainians were forcefully resettled to West Pomerania in the Operation Vistula in 1947
4.
Powiat
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A powiat is the second-level unit of local government and administration in Poland, equivalent to a county, district or prefecture in other countries. The term powiat is most often translated into English as county, a powiat is part of a larger unit, the voivodeship or province. A powiat is usually subdivided into gminas, major towns and cities, however, function as separate counties in their own right, without subdivision into gminas. They are termed city counties and have roughly the same status as county boroughs in the UK. The other type of powiats are termed land counties, as of 2008, there were 379 powiat-level entities,314 land counties, and 65 city counties. For a complete listing, see List of Polish counties. For tables of counties by voivodeship, see the articles on the individual voivodeships, the history of Polish powiats goes back to the second half of the 14th century. They remained the basic unit of organization in Poland, then in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. After Poland regained independence in 1918, the powiats were again the territorial units. Powiats were abolished in 1975 in favor of a number of voivodeships. This reform also created 16 larger voivodeships, legislative power within a powiat is vested in an elected council, while local executive power is vested in the starosta, who is elected by that council. The administrative offices headed by the starosta are called the starostwo, however, in city counties these institutions do not exist separately – their powers and functions are exercised by the city council, the directly elected mayor, and the city offices. In some cases a powiat has its seat outside its own territory, for example, Poznań County has its offices in Poznań, although Poznań is itself a city county, and is therefore not part of Poznań County. Powiats have relatively limited powers, since many local and regional matters are dealt with either at gmina or voivodeship level, the Polish the name of an county, in the administrative sense, consists of the word powiat followed by a masculine-gender adjective. In most cases, this is the formed from the name of the town or city where the county has its seat. Thus the county with its seat at the town of Kutno is named powiat kutnowski, if the name of the seat comprises a noun followed by an adjective, as in Maków Mazowiecki, the adjective will generally be formed from the noun only. There are also a few counties whose names are derived from the names of two towns, from the name of a city and an adjective, or a mountain range. There is more one way to render such names into English
5.
Gmina
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The gmina is the principal unit of the administrative division of Poland, similar to a commune or municipality. As of 2010 there were 2,478 gminy throughout the country, the word gmina derives from the German word Gemeinde, meaning community. The gmina has been the unit of territorial division in Poland since 1974. Some rural gminy have their seat in a town which is outside the gminas division, for example, the rural Gmina Augustów is administered from the town of Augustów, but does not include the town, as Augustów is an urban type gmina in its own right. The legislative and controlling body of each gmina is the municipal council, or in a town. A gmina may create auxiliary units, which play an administrative role. In rural areas these are called sołectwa, in towns they may be dzielnice or osiedla and in an urban-rural gmina, for a complete listing of all the gminy in Poland, see List of Polish gminas. Each gmina carries out two types of tasks, its own tasks and commissioned ones, own tasks are public tasks exercised by self-government, which serve to satisfy the needs of the community. Commissioned tasks cover the remaining public tasks resulting from legitimate needs of the state, the tasks are handed over on the basis of statutory by-laws, charters and regulations, or by way of agreements between the self-government units and central-government administration. Official report from the Central Statistical Office of Poland dated January 1,2006
6.
Polish language
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Polish is a West Slavic language spoken primarily in Poland and is the native language of the Poles. It belongs to the Lechitic subgroup of the West Slavic languages, Polish is the official language of Poland, but it is also used throughout the world by Polish minorities in other countries. It is one of the languages of the European Union. Its written standard is the Polish alphabet, which has 9 additions to the letters of the basic Latin script, Polish is closely related to Kashubian, Silesian, Upper Sorbian, Lower Sorbian, Czech and Slovak. It is also the second most widely spoken Slavic language, after Russian, in history, Polish is known to be an important language, both diplomatically and academically in Central and Eastern Europe. Today, Polish is spoken by over 38.5 million people as their first language in Poland. It is also spoken as a language in western parts of Belarus and Ukraine, west and central Lithuania, as well as the northern parts of the Czech Republic. There are 55 million Polish language speakers around the world, Polish began to emerge as a distinct language around the 10th century, the process largely triggered by the establishment and development of the Polish state. With Christianity, Poland also adopted the Latin alphabet, which made it possible to write down Polish, the precursor to modern Polish is the Old Polish language. Ultimately, Polish is thought to descend from the unattested Proto-Slavic language, Poland is the most linguistically homogeneous European country, nearly 97% of Polands citizens declare Polish as their first language. Elsewhere, Poles constitute large minorities in Lithuania, Belarus, Polish is the most widely used minority language in Lithuanias Vilnius County and is found elsewhere in southeastern Lithuania. There are significant numbers of Polish speakers among Polish emigrants and their descendants in many other countries, in the United States, Polish Americans number more than 11 million but most of them cannot speak Polish fluently. The largest concentrations of Polish speakers reported in the census were found in three states, Illinois, New York, and New Jersey. Enough people in these areas speak Polish that PNC Financial Services offer services available in Polish at all of their machines in addition to English and Spanish. According to the 2011 census there are now over 500,000 people in England, in Canada, there is a significant Polish Canadian population, There are 242,885 speakers of Polish according to the 2006 census, with a particular concentration in Toronto and Montreal. The geographical distribution of the Polish language was affected by the territorial changes of Poland immediately after World War II. Poles settled in the Recovered Territories in the west and north and this tendency toward a homogeneity also stems from the vertically integrated nature of the authoritarian Polish Peoples Republic. The inhabitants of different regions of Poland still speak standard Polish somewhat differently, first-language speakers of Polish have no trouble understanding each other, and non-native speakers may have difficulty distinguishing regional variations
7.
German language
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German is a West Germanic language that is mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, South Tyrol, the German-speaking Community of Belgium and it is also one of the three official languages of Luxembourg. Major languages which are most similar to German include other members of the West Germanic language branch, such as Afrikaans, Dutch, English, Luxembourgish and it is the second most widely spoken Germanic language, after English. One of the languages of the world, German is the first language of about 95 million people worldwide. The German speaking countries are ranked fifth in terms of publication of new books. German derives most of its vocabulary from the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family, a portion of German words are derived from Latin and Greek, and fewer are borrowed from French and English. With slightly different standardized variants, German is a pluricentric language, like English, German is also notable for its broad spectrum of dialects, with many unique varieties existing in Europe and also other parts of the world. The history of the German language begins with the High German consonant shift during the migration period, when Martin Luther translated the Bible, he based his translation primarily on the standard bureaucratic language used in Saxony, also known as Meißner Deutsch. Copies of Luthers Bible featured a long list of glosses for each region that translated words which were unknown in the region into the regional dialect. Roman Catholics initially rejected Luthers translation, and tried to create their own Catholic standard of the German language – the difference in relation to Protestant German was minimal. It was not until the middle of the 18th century that a widely accepted standard was created, until about 1800, standard German was mainly a written language, in urban northern Germany, the local Low German dialects were spoken. Standard German, which was different, was often learned as a foreign language with uncertain pronunciation. Northern German pronunciation was considered the standard in prescriptive pronunciation guides though, however, German was the language of commerce and government in the Habsburg Empire, which encompassed a large area of Central and Eastern Europe. Until the mid-19th century, it was essentially the language of townspeople throughout most of the Empire and its use indicated that the speaker was a merchant or someone from an urban area, regardless of nationality. Some cities, such as Prague and Budapest, were gradually Germanized in the years after their incorporation into the Habsburg domain, others, such as Pozsony, were originally settled during the Habsburg period, and were primarily German at that time. Prague, Budapest and Bratislava as well as cities like Zagreb, the most comprehensive guide to the vocabulary of the German language is found within the Deutsches Wörterbuch. This dictionary was created by the Brothers Grimm and is composed of 16 parts which were issued between 1852 and 1860, in 1872, grammatical and orthographic rules first appeared in the Duden Handbook. In 1901, the 2nd Orthographical Conference ended with a standardization of the German language in its written form
8.
Baltic Sea
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The Baltic Sea is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean, enclosed by Scandinavia, Finland, the Baltic countries, and the North European Plain. It includes the Gulf of Bothnia, the Bay of Bothnia, the Gulf of Finland, the Gulf of Riga, the sea stretches from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 10°E to 30°E longitude. The Baltic Sea is connected by waterways to the White Sea via the White Sea Canal. Traffic history Historically, the Kingdom of Denmark collected Sound Dues from ships at the border between the ocean and the land-locked Baltic Sea and they were collected in the Øresund at Kronborg castle near Helsingør, in the Great Belt at Nyborg. In the Little Belt, the site of intake was moved to Fredericia, the narrowest part of Little Belt is the Middelfart Sund near Middelfart. Oceanography Geographers widely agree that the physical border of the Baltic is a line drawn through the southern Danish islands, Drogden-Sill. The Drogden Sill is situated north of Køge Bugt and connects Dragør in the south of Copenhagen to Malmö, it is used by the Øresund Bridge, including the Drogden Tunnel. By this definition, the Danish Straits are part of the entrance, but the Bay of Mecklenburg, another usual border is the line between Falsterbo, Sweden and Stevns Klint, Denmark, as this is the southern border of Øresund. Its also the border between the shallow southern Øresund and notably deeper water, hydrography and biology Drogden Sill sets a limit to Øresund and Darss Sill, and a limit to the Belt Sea. The shallow sills are obstacles to the flow of salt water from the Kattegat into the basins around Bornholm. The Kattegat and the southwestern Baltic Sea are well oxygenated and have a rich biology, the remainder of the Sea is brackish, poor in oxygen and in species. While Tacitus called it Mare Suebicum after the Germanic people called the Suebi, the origin of the latter name is speculative. Adam of Bremen himself compared the sea with a belt, stating that it is so named because it stretches through the land as a belt and he might also have been influenced by the name of a legendary island mentioned in the Natural History of Pliny the Elder. Pliny mentions an island named Baltia with reference to accounts of Pytheas and it is possible that Pliny refers to an island named Basilia in On the Ocean by Pytheas. Baltia also might be derived from belt and mean near belt of sea, meanwhile, others have suggested that the name of the island originates from the Proto-Indo-European root *bhel meaning white, fair. This root and its meaning were retained in both Lithuanian and Latvian. On this basis, a related hypothesis holds that the name originated from this Indo-European root via a Baltic language such as Lithuanian, yet another explanation is that the name originally meant enclosed sea, bay as opposed to open sea. Some Swedish historians believe the name derives from the god Balder of Nordic mythology, in the Middle Ages the sea was known by variety of names
9.
History of Poland during the Piast dynasty
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The period of rule by the Piast dynasty between the 10th and 14th centuries is the first major stage of the history of the Polish nation. The dynasty was founded by a series of dukes listed by the chronicler Gallus Anonymous in the early 12th century, (Siemowit, Lestek and it was Mieszko I, the son of Siemomysł, who is now considered the proper founder of the Polish state at about 960 AD. The ruling house then remained in power in the Polish lands until 1370, Mieszko converted to Christianity of the Western Latin Rite in an event known as the Baptism of Poland in 966, which established a major cultural boundary in Europe based on religion. He also completed a unification of the West Slavic tribal lands that was fundamental to the existence of the new country of Poland. Mieszkos son Bolesław I Chrobry established a Roman Catholic Archdiocese in Gniezno, the first Piast monarchy collapsed with the death of Mieszko II Lambert in 1034, followed by its restoration under Casimir I in 1042. In the process, the dignity for Polish rulers was forfeited. Bolesław III, the last duke of the period, succeeded in defending his country. Upon his death in 1138, Poland was divided among his sons, the resulting internal fragmentation eroded the initial Piast monarchical structure in the 12th and 13th centuries and caused fundamental and lasting changes. Konrad I of Masovia invited the Teutonic Knights to help him fight the Baltic Prussian pagans, which led to centuries of Polands warfare with the Knights and the German Prussian state. In 1320, the kingdom was restored under Władysław I the Elbow-high, the western provinces of Silesia and Pomerania were lost after the fragmentation, and Poland began expanding to the east. The period ended with the reigns of two members of the Capetian House of Anjou between 1370 and 1384, the consolidation in the 14th century laid the base for the new powerful kingdom of Poland that was to follow. Accelerated rebuilding of old tribal fortified settlements, construction of new ones. The Polish state developed from these roots in the second half of the century. According to the 12th-century chronicler Gallus Anonymus, the Polans were ruled at this time by the Piast dynasty, in existing sources from the 10th century, Piast ruler Mieszko I was first mentioned by Widukind of Corvey in his Res gestae saxonicae, a chronicle of events in Germany. Widukind reported that Mieszkos forces were defeated in 963 by the Veleti tribes acting in cooperation with the Saxon exile Wichmann the Younger. Under Mieszkos rule, his tribal state accepted Christianity and became the Polish state, the viability of the Mieszkos emerging state was assured by the persistent territorial expansion of the early Piast rulers. Beginning with a small area around Gniezno, the Piast expansion lasted throughout most of the 10th century. The Polanie tribe conquered and merged with other Slavic tribes and first formed a tribal federation, after the addition of Lesser Poland, the country of the Vistulans, and of Silesia, Mieszkos state reached its mature form, including the main regions regarded as ethnically Polish
10.
Roman Empire
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Civil wars and executions continued, culminating in the victory of Octavian, Caesars adopted son, over Mark Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC and the annexation of Egypt. Octavians power was then unassailable and in 27 BC the Roman Senate formally granted him overarching power, the imperial period of Rome lasted approximately 1,500 years compared to the 500 years of the Republican era. The first two centuries of the empires existence were a period of unprecedented political stability and prosperity known as the Pax Romana, following Octavians victory, the size of the empire was dramatically increased. After the assassination of Caligula in 41, the senate briefly considered restoring the republic, under Claudius, the empire invaded Britannia, its first major expansion since Augustus. Vespasian emerged triumphant in 69, establishing the Flavian dynasty, before being succeeded by his son Titus and his short reign was followed by the long reign of his brother Domitian, who was eventually assassinated. The senate then appointed the first of the Five Good Emperors, the empire reached its greatest extent under Trajan, the second in this line. A period of increasing trouble and decline began with the reign of Commodus, Commodus assassination in 192 triggered the Year of the Five Emperors, of which Septimius Severus emerged victorious. The assassination of Alexander Severus in 235 led to the Crisis of the Third Century in which 26 men were declared emperor by the Roman Senate over a time span. It was not until the reign of Diocletian that the empire was fully stabilized with the introduction of the Tetrarchy, which saw four emperors rule the empire at once. This arrangement was unsuccessful, leading to a civil war that was finally ended by Constantine I. Constantine subsequently shifted the capital to Byzantium, which was renamed Constantinople in his honour and it remained the capital of the east until its demise. Constantine also adopted Christianity which later became the state religion of the empire. However, Augustulus was never recognized by his Eastern colleague, and separate rule in the Western part of the empire ceased to exist upon the death of Julius Nepos. The Eastern Roman Empire endured for another millennium, eventually falling to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, the Roman Empire was among the most powerful economic, cultural, political and military forces in the world of its time. It was one of the largest empires in world history, at its height under Trajan, it covered 5 million square kilometres. It held sway over an estimated 70 million people, at that time 21% of the entire population. Throughout the European medieval period, attempts were made to establish successors to the Roman Empire, including the Empire of Romania, a Crusader state. Rome had begun expanding shortly after the founding of the republic in the 6th century BC, then, it was an empire long before it had an emperor
11.
Amber Road
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The Amber Road was an ancient trade route for the transfer of amber from coastal areas of the North Sea and the Baltic Sea to the Mediterranean Sea. Prehistoric trade routes between Northern and Southern Europe were defined by the amber trade, from at least the sixteenth century BC amber was moved from Northern Europe to the Mediterranean area. The breast ornament of the Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamen contains large Baltic amber beads Heinrich Schliemann found Baltic amber beads at Mycenae, the quantity of amber in the Royal Tomb of Qatna, Syria, is unparalleled for known second millennium BC sites in the Levant and the Ancient Near East. Amber was sent from the North Sea to the temple of Apollo at Delphi as an offering, from the Black Sea, trade could continue to Asia along the Silk Road, another ancient trade route. In Roman times, a main route ran south from the Baltic coast through the land of the Boii to the head of the Adriatic Sea, the Old Prussian towns of Kaup and Truso on the Baltic were the starting points of the route to the south. In Scandinavia the amber road probably gave rise to the thriving Nordic Bronze Age culture, sometimes the Kaliningrad Oblast is called the Янтарный край, which means the amber area. Several roads connected the North Sea and Baltic Sea, especially the city of Hamburg to the Brenner Pass, proceeding southwards to Brindisi and Ambracia. The Swiss region indicates a number of roads, concentrating around the capital city Bern and probably originating from the borders of the Rhône River. A small section, including Baarn, Barneveld, Amersfoort and Amerongen, a small section led southwards from Antwerp and Bruges to the towns Braine-l’Alleud and Braine-le-Comte, both originally named Brennia-Brenna. The route continued by following the Meuse River towards Bern in Switzerland, three routes may be identified leading from an amber finding region or delta at the mouth of the River Openia towards Bresse and Bern, crossing the Alps to Switzerland and Italy. Routes connecting amber finding locations at Ambares, leading to Béarn, Routes connecting the amber finding locations in northern Spain and in the Pyrenees were a trading route to the Mediterranean Sea. There is a tourist route stretching along the Baltic coast from Kaliningrad to Latvia called Amber Road, in Poland a north–south motorway A1 is officially named Amber Highway. OWTRAD-scientific description of the road in Poland Old World Traditional Trade Routes Project Joannes Richter - Die Bernsteinroute bei Backnang
12.
Hanseatic League
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The Hanseatic League was a commercial and defensive confederation of merchant guilds and their market towns. Growing from a few North German towns in the late 1100s and it stretched from the Baltic to the North Sea and inland during the Late Middle Ages and early modern period. Hanse, later spelled as Hansa, was the Middle Low German word for a convoy, the League was created to protect the guilds economic interests and diplomatic privileges in their affiliated cities and countries, as well as along the trade routes the merchants visited. The Hanseatic cities had their own system and furnished their own armies for mutual protection. The hegemony of Lübeck peaked during the 15th century, Lübeck became a base for merchants from Saxony and Westphalia trading eastward and northward. This area was a source of timber, wax, amber, resins, the towns raised their own armies, with each guild required to provide levies when needed. The Hanseatic cities came to the aid of one another, and commercial ships often had to be used to carry soldiers, Visby functioned as the leading centre in the Baltic before the Hansa. Sailing east, Visby merchants established a trading post at Novgorod called Gutagard in 1080, Merchants from northern Germany also stayed in the early period of the Gotlander settlement. Later they established their own trading station in Novgorod, known as Peterhof, in 1229, German merchants at Novgorod were granted certain privileges that made their position more secure. Hansa societies worked to remove restrictions to trade for their members, before the official foundation of the League in 1356, the word Hanse did not occur in the Baltic language. The earliest remaining documentary mention, although without a name, of a specific German commercial federation is from London 1157. That year, the merchants of the Hansa in Cologne convinced Henry II, King of England, to them from all tolls in London. The allied cities gained control over most of the trade, especially the Scania Market. In 1266, Henry III of England granted the Lübeck and Hamburg Hansa a charter for operations in England, much of the drive for this co-operation came from the fragmented nature of existing territorial government, which failed to provide security for trade. Over the next 50 years the Hansa itself emerged with formal agreements for confederation and co-operation covering the west and east trade routes. The principal city and linchpin remained Lübeck, with the first general Diet of the Hansa held there in 1356, other such alliances formed throughout the Holy Roman Empire. Yet the League never became a closely managed formal organisation, over the period, a network of alliances grew to include a flexible roster of 70 to 170 cities. The league succeeded in establishing additional Kontors in Bruges, Bergen and these trading posts became significant enclaves
13.
Normandy
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Normandy is one of the regions of France, roughly corresponding to the historical Duchy of Normandy. Administratively, Normandy is divided into five departments, Calvados, Eure, Manche, Orne and it covers 30,627 km², forming roughly 5% of the territory of France. Its population of 3.37 million accounts for around 5% of the population of France, Normans is the name given to the inhabitants of Normandy, and the region is the homeland of the Norman language. The historical region of Normandy comprised the region of Normandy, as well as small areas now part of the départements, or departments of Mayenne. For a century and a following the Norman conquest of England in 1066, Normandy and England were linked by Norman. Archaeological finds, such as paintings, prove that humans were present in the region in prehistoric times. Celts invaded Normandy in successive waves from the 4th to the 3rd century BC, when Julius Caesar invaded Gaul, there were nine different Celtic tribes living in Normandy. The Romanisation of Normandy was achieved by the methods, Roman roads. Classicists have knowledge of many Gallo-Roman villas in Normandy, in the late 3rd century, barbarian raids devastated Normandy. Coastal settlements were raided by Saxon pirates, Christianity also began to enter the area during this period. In 406, Germanic tribes began invading from the east, while the Saxons subjugated the Norman coast, the Roman Emperor withdrew from most of Normandy. As early as 487, the area between the River Somme and the River Loire came under the control of the Frankish lord Clovis, the Vikings started to raid the Seine Valley during the middle of the 9th century. As early as 841, a Viking fleet appeared at the mouth of the Seine, after attacking and destroying monasteries, including one at Jumièges, they took advantage of the power vacuum created by the disintegration of Charlemagnes empire to take northern France. The fiefdom of Normandy was created for the Norwegian Viking leader Hrólfr Ragnvaldsson, Rollo had besieged Paris but in 911 entered vassalage to the king of the West Franks, Charles the Simple, through the Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte. In exchange for his homage and fealty, Rollo legally gained the territory which he, the name Normandy reflects Rollos Viking origins. The descendants of Rollo and his followers adopted the local Gallo-Romance language and they became the Normans – a Norman-speaking mixture of Saxons and indigenous Franks and Celts. Besides the Norman conquest of England and the subsequent conquests of Wales and Ireland, Norman families, such as that of Tancred of Hauteville, Rainulf Drengot and Guimond de Moulins played important parts in the Norman conquest of southern Italy and Crusades. They also carved out a place for themselves and their descendants in the Crusader states of Asia Minor, the 14th century Norman explorer Jean de Béthencourt established a kingdom in the Canary Islands
14.
Spain
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By population, Spain is the sixth largest in Europe and the fifth in the European Union. Spains capital and largest city is Madrid, other urban areas include Barcelona, Valencia, Seville, Bilbao. Modern humans first arrived in the Iberian Peninsula around 35,000 years ago, in the Middle Ages, the area was conquered by Germanic tribes and later by the Moors. Spain is a democracy organised in the form of a government under a constitutional monarchy. It is a power and a major developed country with the worlds fourteenth largest economy by nominal GDP. Jesús Luis Cunchillos argues that the root of the span is the Phoenician word spy. Therefore, i-spn-ya would mean the land where metals are forged, two 15th-century Spanish Jewish scholars, Don Isaac Abravanel and Solomon ibn Verga, gave an explanation now considered folkloric. Both men wrote in two different published works that the first Jews to reach Spain were brought by ship by Phiros who was confederate with the king of Babylon when he laid siege to Jerusalem. This man was a Grecian by birth, but who had given a kingdom in Spain. He became related by marriage to Espan, the nephew of king Heracles, Heracles later renounced his throne in preference for his native Greece, leaving his kingdom to his nephew, Espan, from whom the country of España took its name. Based upon their testimonies, this eponym would have already been in use in Spain by c.350 BCE, Iberia enters written records as a land populated largely by the Iberians, Basques and Celts. Early on its coastal areas were settled by Phoenicians who founded Western Europe´s most ancient cities Cadiz, Phoenician influence expanded as much of the Peninsula was eventually incorporated into the Carthaginian Empire, becoming a major theater of the Punic Wars against the expanding Roman Empire. After an arduous conquest, the peninsula came fully under Roman Rule, during the early Middle Ages it came under Germanic rule but later, much of it was conquered by Moorish invaders from North Africa. In a process took centuries, the small Christian kingdoms in the north gradually regained control of the peninsula. The last Moorish kingdom fell in the same year Columbus reached the Americas, a global empire began which saw Spain become the strongest kingdom in Europe, the leading world power for a century and a half, and the largest overseas empire for three centuries. Continued wars and other problems led to a diminished status. The Napoleonic invasions of Spain led to chaos, triggering independence movements that tore apart most of the empire, eventually democracy was peacefully restored in the form of a parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Spain joined the European Union, experiencing a renaissance and steady economic growth
15.
Szczecin
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Szczecin is the capital city of the West Pomeranian Voivodeship in Poland. Located near the Baltic Sea, it is a major seaport, as of June 2011, the population was 407,811. Szczecin is located on the Oder, south of the Szczecin Lagoon, the city is situated along the southwestern shore of Dąbie Lake, on both sides of the Oder and on several large islands between the western and eastern branches of the river. The citys recorded history began in the 8th century as a Slavic Pomeranian stronghold, in the 12th century, when Szczecin had become one of Pomeranias main urban centres, it lost its independence to Piast Poland, the Duchy of Saxony, the Holy Roman Empire and Denmark. At the same time, the House of Griffins established themselves as rulers, the population was Christianized. The native Slavic population was subjected to discrimination and Germanization in the following centuries, between 1237 and 1243, the town was rebuilt, granted extensive autonomy rights and eventually joined the Hanseatic League. After the Treaty of Stettin in 1630, the town came under the control of the Swedish Empire, in the late-19th century Stettin became an industrial town, vastly increasing in size and population, and served as a major port for Berlin. During the Nazi era, opposition groups and minorities were persecuted and treated as enemies, by the end of World War II Stettins status was in doubt, and the Soviet occupation authorities at first appointed officials from the citys almost entirely German pre-war population. In July 1945, however, Polish authorities were permitted to take power, Stettin was renamed Szczecin and became part of the newly established the Polish Peoples Republic, and from 1989 the Republic of Poland. From 1999 onwards, Szczecin has served as the site of the headquarters of NATOs Multinational Corps Northeast, the names Szczecin and Stettin are of Slavic origin, though the exact etymology is the subject of ongoing research. Other medieval names for the town are Burstaborg and Burstenburgh and these names, which literally mean brush burgh, are likely derived from the translation of the citys Slavic name. The recorded history of Szczecin began in the century, when West Slavs settled Pomerania. Since the 9th century, the stronghold was fortified and expanded toward the Oder bank, Mieszko I of Poland took control of Pomerania between 960 and 967, and the region with the city of Szczecin became part of Poland in 967. Subsequent Polish rulers, the Holy Roman Empire, and the Liutician federation all aimed to control the territory, after the decline of the neighbouring regional centre Wolin in the 12th century, the city became one of the more important and powerful seaports of the Baltic Sea. In a campaign in the winter of 1121–1122, Bolesław III Wrymouth, the inhabitants were Christianized by two missions of Bishop Otto of Bamberg in 1124 and 1128. At this time, the first Christian church of Saints Peter, Polish minted coins were commonly used in trade in this period. The population of the city at that time is estimated to be at around 5, Polish rule ended with Boleslaws death in 1138. There, a Polish contingent supplied by Mieszko III the Old joined the crusaders, however, the citizens had placed crosses around the fortifications, indicating they already had been Christianised
16.
World War II
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World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, although related conflicts began earlier. It involved the vast majority of the worlds countries—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing alliances, the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, and directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. Marked by mass deaths of civilians, including the Holocaust and the bombing of industrial and population centres. These made World War II the deadliest conflict in human history, from late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, and formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan. Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territories of their European neighbours, Poland, Finland, Romania and the Baltic states. In December 1941, Japan attacked the United States and European colonies in the Pacific Ocean, and quickly conquered much of the Western Pacific. The Axis advance halted in 1942 when Japan lost the critical Battle of Midway, near Hawaii, in 1944, the Western Allies invaded German-occupied France, while the Soviet Union regained all of its territorial losses and invaded Germany and its allies. During 1944 and 1945 the Japanese suffered major reverses in mainland Asia in South Central China and Burma, while the Allies crippled the Japanese Navy, thus ended the war in Asia, cementing the total victory of the Allies. World War II altered the political alignment and social structure of the world, the United Nations was established to foster international co-operation and prevent future conflicts. The victorious great powers—the United States, the Soviet Union, China, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War, which lasted for the next 46 years. Meanwhile, the influence of European great powers waned, while the decolonisation of Asia, most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery. Political integration, especially in Europe, emerged as an effort to end pre-war enmities, the start of the war in Europe is generally held to be 1 September 1939, beginning with the German invasion of Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later. The dates for the beginning of war in the Pacific include the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War on 7 July 1937, or even the Japanese invasion of Manchuria on 19 September 1931. Others follow the British historian A. J. P. Taylor, who held that the Sino-Japanese War and war in Europe and its colonies occurred simultaneously and this article uses the conventional dating. Other starting dates sometimes used for World War II include the Italian invasion of Abyssinia on 3 October 1935. The British historian Antony Beevor views the beginning of World War II as the Battles of Khalkhin Gol fought between Japan and the forces of Mongolia and the Soviet Union from May to September 1939, the exact date of the wars end is also not universally agreed upon. It was generally accepted at the time that the war ended with the armistice of 14 August 1945, rather than the formal surrender of Japan
17.
Schwerer Gustav
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Schwerer Gustav was the name of a German 80 cm railway gun. It was developed in the late 1930s by Krupp as siege artillery for the purpose of destroying the main forts of the French Maginot Line. The fully assembled gun weighed nearly 1,350 tonnes, Gustav was later employed in the Soviet Union at the siege of Sevastopol during Operation Barbarossa, where among other things, it destroyed a munitions depot buried in the bedrock under a bay. The gun was moved to Leningrad, and may have intended to be used in the Warsaw Uprising like other German heavy siege pieces. Gustav was destroyed by the Germans near the end of the war in 1945 to avoid capture by the Red Army. It was the largest-calibre rifled weapon ever used in combat, the heaviest mobile artillery piece ever built in terms of overall weight and it is only surpassed in calibre by the unused British Mallets Mortar and the American Little David bomb-testing mortar. In 1934, the German Army High Command commissioned Krupp of Essen to design a gun to destroy the forts of the French Maginot Line that were nearing completion. The guns shells had to punch through seven metres of reinforced concrete or one full metre of steel armour plate, from beyond the range of French artillery. Krupp engineer Erich Müller calculated that the task would require a weapon with a calibre of around 80 cm, the weapon would have a weight of over 1000 tonnes. The size and weight meant that to be at all movable it would need to be supported on sets of railway tracks. Krupp prepared plans for calibres of 70 cm,80 cm,85 cm, nothing further happened until March 1936 when, during a visit to Essen, Adolf Hitler inquired as to the giant guns feasibility. No definite commitment was given by Hitler, but design work began on an 80 cm model, the resulting plans were completed in early 1937 and approved. Fabrication of the first gun started in mid-1937, technical complications in the forging of such massive pieces of steel made it apparent that the original completion date of early 1940 could not be met. Krupp built a test model in late 1939 and sent it to the Hillersleben firing range for testing, penetration was tested on this occasion. Firing at high elevation, the 7.1 tonne shell was able to penetrate the specified seven metres of concrete, when the tests were completed in mid-1940 the complex carriage was further developed. Alfried Krupp, after whose father the gun was named, personally hosted Hitler at the Rügenwalde Proving Ground during the acceptance trials of the Gustav Gun in early 1941. The first round was test-fired from the gun barrel on 10 September 1941 from a makeshift gun carriage on the Hillersleben firing range. In November 1941, the barrel was taken to Rügenwalde, where eight further firing tests were carried out using the 7,100 kilogram armour-piercing shell out to a range of 37,210 metres
18.
Eric of Pomerania
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Eric of Pomerania KG was King Eric III of Norway, King Eric VII of Denmark, and King Eric XIII of Sweden, in all three known mainly as Erik af/av Pommern. He was the first King of the Nordic Kalmar Union, succeeding his adoptive mother Margaret I of Denmark, and was also Duke Eric I of Pomerania. Referring to Eric of Pomerania as King Eric XIII of Sweden is an invention, counting backwards from Eric XIV. Going back into prehistory, it is not known how many Swedish monarchs were named Eric before this one, born Boguslaw, he was the son of Wartislaw VII, Duke of Pomerania, and Maria of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. Erics paternal grandparents were Boguslaw V, Duke of Pomerania and his second wife Adelheid of Brunswick-Grubenhagen and his maternal grandparents were Henry III, Duke of Mecklenburg and Ingeborg of Denmark, Duchess of Mecklenburg. Their son Albert was a rival of Olaf Haakonsson in regard to the Danish succession in 1375, Ingeborg was a daughter of Valdemar IV of Denmark and his Queen consort Heilwig of Schleswig. Eric was born in 1382 in Rügenwalde, initially named Boguslaw, he was son to the only surviving grandson of Valdemar IV of Denmark and also a descendant of Magnus III of Sweden and Haakon V of Norway. On 2 August 1387, Olav Håkonsson, King of Denmark since he was five years old and King of Norway since the death of his father, died unexpectedly at seventeen years of age. His mother the Dowager Queen of Norway had added the phrase the true heir of Sweden to Boguslaws list of titles at his coronation, Boguslaws claim to the Swedish throne came through his great-granduncle, Magnus IV of Sweden, who was forced to abdicate by the Swedish nobles. After the abdication, the Swedish nobles, led by Bo Jonsson, had invited Duke Albert of Mecklenburg to take the Swedish throne, however, when Albert attempted to introduce reduction of their large estates, they quickly turned against him. The Rigsråd elected Queen Margaret as all powerful lady and mistress, just a year later, the Norwegians proclaimed Margaret the reigning queen and Albert of Sweden fought off an incursion from Norway. His respite was temporary — the Swedish nobility soon enlisted the Danish regents help to remove Albert from the Swedish throne, in 1388, several of the Swedish nobles wrote secretly to Margaret telling her that if she could rid them of Albert, they would make her Regent. Margaret lost no time and sent an army into Sweden to attack Albert while the Swedish nobles raised their own army to him out of the country. In 1389, Alberts forces were defeated at the Battle of Falköping in Västergötland, Albert and his son Erik were captured when their horses became mired in mud so deep they could not escape. They were put into chains and sent by Queen Margaret to Scania and it took until 1395 for Margaret to force Alberts supporters out of Stockholm. She made provisions for the three kingdoms in the event of her death and she wanted the kingdoms to be unified and peaceful and hence, chose the son of her fathers surviving granddaughter, Boguslaw, to be named heir. Young Boguslaw was the grandson of Margarets sister, in 1389 he was brought to Denmark to be brought up by Queen Margaret. His name was changed to the more Nordic-sounding Erik, on 8 September 1389, he was hailed as King of Norway at the Ting in Trondheim
19.
King of Denmark
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The Monarchy of Denmark, colloquially known as the Danish Monarchy, is a constitutional institution and a historic office of the Kingdom of Denmark. The Kingdom includes not only Denmark, but the regions of Greenland. The Kingdom of Denmark were already consolidated in the late 8th century, originally an elective monarchy, it became hereditary only in the 17th century during the reign of Frederick III. A decisive transition to a constitutional monarchy occurred in 1849 with the writing of the first Constitution, the current Royal House is a branch of the princely family of Glücksburg, originally from Schleswig-Holstein in Germany, the same royal house as the Norwegian and former Greek royal families. The Danish Monarchy is constitutional and as such, the role of the monarch is defined and limited by the Constitution of Denmark, the monarch is, in practice, limited to non-partisan functions such as bestowing honours and appointing the Prime Minister. The monarch and his or her immediate family undertake various official, ceremonial, diplomatic, Queen Margrethe II ascended the throne on the death of her father, King Frederick IX, on 14 January 1972. On her accession, Queen Margrethe II became the first female monarch of Denmark since Margrethe I, ruler of the Scandinavian countries in 1375‒1412, during the Kalmar Union. Danish regnal names have traditionally alternated between Frederick and Christian, Margrethe has taken the place of a Christian, and accordingly her heir apparent is Crown Prince Frederik. The modern Kingdom of Denmark dates back to Harthacnuts son, Gorm the Old, the first King of a united Scotland was King Kenneth MacAlpin who died around 80 years before Gorm the Old was born. The Danes were united and officially Christianized in 965 CE by Harald Bluetooth, furthermore, the Jelling stones attests that Harald had also won Norway. The son of Harald, Sweyn Forkbeard, mounted a series of wars of conquest against England, the reign of Cnut represented the peak of the Danish Viking age, his North Sea Empire included Denmark, Norway, England and held strong influence over the north-eastern coast of Germany. The last monarch descended from Valdemar IV, Christopher III of Denmark, Count Christian of Oldenburg, descendant of Valdemar IVs aunt Richeza, was chosen as his successor and became the next monarch of Denmark, ruling under the name Christian I. Originally the Danish monarchy was elective, but in practice the eldest son of the monarch was elected. Later a Coronation Charter was signed by the king to restrict the powers of the Danish monarch, in 1657, during the Second Northern War, King Frederick III launched a war of revenge against Sweden which turned into a complete disaster. The war became a disaster for two reasons, Primarily, because Denmarks new powerful ally, the Netherlands, remained neutral as Denmark was the aggressor and Sweden the defender. Secondly, the Belts froze over in an occurrence during the winter of 1657-1658. In the following Treaty of Roskilde, Denmark–Norway capitulated and gave up all of Eastern Denmark, in addition to the counties of Bohuslän, but the Second Northern War was not yet over. Three months after the treaty was signed, Charles X Gustav held a council of war where he decided to simply wipe Denmark from the map
20.
Monarchy of Sweden
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The Monarchy of Sweden concerns the monarchical head of state of Sweden, which is a constitutional and hereditary monarchy with a parliamentary system. The Kingdom of Sweden has been a monarchy since time immemorial, Sweden in the present day is a representative democracy in a parliamentary system based on popular sovereignty, as defined in the current Instrument of Government. The monarch and the members of the Royal Family undertake a variety of official, unofficial and other duties within Sweden. Carl XVI Gustaf became King on 15 September 1973 on the death of his grandfather, Sweden has been a kingdom since prehistoric times. Originally, the Swedish king had combined powers limited to that of a war chief, a judge, the Royal Court of Sweden, however, does count Olofs father as Swedens first king. The king was elected from a favored dynasty at the Stones of Mora. The ceremonial stones were destroyed around 1515 and that dynasty formed a pre-Kalmar Union Sweden into a strong state, and finally king Magnus IV even ruled Norway and Scania. Following the Black Death, the union was weakened, and Scania was reunited with Denmark. In 1397, after the Black Death and domestic power struggles, Queen Margaret I of Denmark united Sweden, Denmark, continual tension within each country and the union led to open conflict between the Swedes and the Danes in the 15th century. The unions final disintegration in the early 16th century led to prolonged rivalry between Denmark-Norway and Sweden for centuries to come. Catholic bishops had supported the King of Denmark, Christian II, Gustav Vasa was elected King of Sweden by the Estates of the Realm, assembled in Strängnäs on 6 June 1523. Inspired by the teachings of Martin Luther, Gustav I used the Protestant Reformation to curb the power of the Roman Catholic Church. In 1527 he persuaded the Estates of the Realm, assembled in the city of Västerås, to church lands. At the same time, he broke with the papacy and established a state church. Legally Sweden has only been a monarchy since 1544 when the Riksdag of the Estates, through Västerås arvförening. Crown tax revenues increased, but more importantly the new system was perceived as fairer, a war with Lübeck in 1535 resulted in the expulsion of the Hanseatic traders, who previously had had a monopoly on foreign trade. With its own burghers in charge, Swedens economic strength grew rapidly, Sweden now built the first modern army in Europe, supported by a sophisticated tax system and an efficient bureaucracy. At the death of King Gustav I in 1560, he was succeeded by his oldest son Eric XIV and his reign was marked by Swedens entrance into the Livonian War and the Northern Seven Years War
21.
King of Norway
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The Norwegian monarch is the monarchical head of state of Norway, which is a constitutional and hereditary monarchy with a parliamentary system. The present monarch is King Harald V, who has reigned since 17 January 1991, succeeding his father, the heir apparent is his only son, Crown Prince Haakon. The crown prince undertakes various public functions, as does the kings wife. The crown prince also acts as regent in the kings absence, there are several other members of the Royal Family, including the kings daughter, grandchildren and siblings. Whilst the Constitution of Norway grants important executive powers to the King, formally the King appoints the government according to his own judgement, but parliamentary practice has been in place since 1884. Constitutional practice has replaced the meaning of the word King in most articles of the constitution from the king personally to the elected government. The powers vested in the monarch are significant, but are treated only as reserve powers, the King does not, by convention, have direct participation in government. He ratifies laws and royal resolutions, receives and sends envoys from and to foreign countries and he has a more tangible influence as the symbol of national unity. The annual New Years Eve speech is one occasion when the King traditionally raises negative issues, the King is also Supreme Commander of the Norwegian Armed Forces and Grand Master of the Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav and of the Royal Norwegian Order of Merit. The King has no role in the Church of Norway. The position of King of Norway has been in existence since the unification of Norway in 872. In recent years members of the Socialist Left party have proposed the abolition of the monarchy during each new session of parliament and this gives the Norwegian monarchy the unique status of being a popularly elected royal family and receiving regular formal confirmations of support from the Storting. Prior to and in the phase of the Viking Age Norway was divided into several smaller kingdoms. Harald Fairhair was the first king of Norway, the boundaries of Fairhairs kingdom were not identical to those of present-day Norway, and upon his death the kingship was shared among his sons. Some historians emphasise the actual control over the country and assert that Olaf II, alias Saint Olaf. Olaf is generally held to have been the force behind Norways final conversion to Christianity. In the 12th and 13th centuries the Norwegian kingdom was at its geographical and cultural peak, the kingdom included Norway, Iceland, the Faroe Islands, Greenland, Shetland, Orkney and other smaller areas in the British Isles. The king had diplomatic relations with most of the European kingdoms and formed alliances with Scotland and Castile, large castles such as Haakons Hall and cathedrals, the foremost being Nidaros Cathedral, were built
22.
Ice age
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An ice age is a period of long-term reduction in the temperature of Earths surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Within a long-term ice age, individual pulses of cold climate are termed glacial periods, in the terminology of glaciology, ice age implies the presence of extensive ice sheets in both northern and southern hemispheres. In 1742 Pierre Martel, an engineer and geographer living in Geneva, two years later he published an account of his journey. He reported that the inhabitants of that valley attributed the dispersal of erratic boulders to the glaciers, later similar explanations were reported from other regions of the Alps. In 1815 the carpenter and chamois hunter Jean-Pierre Perraudin explained erratic boulders in the Val de Bagnes in the Swiss canton of Valais as being due to glaciers previously extending further. An unknown woodcutter from Meiringen in the Bernese Oberland advocated a similar idea in a discussion with the Swiss-German geologist Jean de Charpentier in 1834, comparable explanations are also known from the Val de Ferret in the Valais and the Seeland in western Switzerland and in Goethes scientific work. Such explanations could also be found in parts of the world. When the Bavarian naturalist Ernst von Bibra visited the Chilean Andes in 1849–1850, meanwhile, European scholars had begun to wonder what had caused the dispersal of erratic material. From the middle of the 18th century, some discussed ice as a means of transport, the Swedish mining expert Daniel Tilas was, in 1742, the first person to suggest drifting sea ice in order to explain the presence of erratic boulders in the Scandinavian and Baltic regions. In 1795, the Scottish philosopher and gentleman naturalist, James Hutton, two decades later, in 1818, the Swedish botanist Göran Wahlenberg published his theory of a glaciation of the Scandinavian peninsula. He regarded glaciation as a regional phenomenon, only a few years later, the Danish-Norwegian geologist Jens Esmark argued a sequence of worldwide ice ages. In a paper published in 1824, Esmark proposed changes in climate as the cause of those glaciations and he attempted to show that they originated from changes in Earths orbit. During the following years, Esmarks ideas were discussed and taken over in parts by Swedish, Scottish, at the University of Edinburgh Robert Jameson seemed to be relatively open to Esmarks ideas, as reviewed by Norwegian professor of glaciology Bjørn G. Andersen. Jamesons remarks about ancient glaciers in Scotland were most probably prompted by Esmark, in Germany, Albrecht Reinhard Bernhardi, a geologist and professor of forestry at an academy in Dreissigacker, since incorporated in the southern Thuringian city of Meiningen, adopted Esmarks theory. In a paper published in 1832, Bernhardi speculated about former polar ice caps reaching as far as the zones of the globe. When he read his paper before the Schweizerische Naturforschende Gesellschaft, most scientists remained sceptical, finally, Venetz convinced his friend Jean de Charpentier. De Charpentier transformed Venetzs idea into a theory with a limited to the Alps. In fact, both men shared the same volcanistic, or in de Charpentiers case rather plutonistic assumptions, about the Earths history, in 1834, de Charpentier presented his paper before the Schweizerische Naturforschende Gesellschaft
23.
Early history of Pomerania
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After the glaciers of the Ice Age in the Early Stone Age withdrew from the area, which since about 1000 AD is called Pomerania, in what are now northern Germany and Poland, they left a tundra. First humans appeared, hunting reindeer in the summer, a climate change in 8000 BC allowed hunters and foragers of the Ertebølle-Ellerbek culture to continuously inhabit the area. These people became influenced by farmers of the Linear Pottery culture who settled in southern Pomerania, the hunters of the Ertebølle-Ellerbek culture became farmers of the Funnelbeaker culture in 3000 BC. The Havelland culture dominated in the Uckermark from 2500 to 2000 BC, in 2400 BC, the Corded Ware culture reached Pomerania and introduced the domestic horse. Both Linear Pottery and Corded Ware culture have been associated with Indo-Europeans, except for Western Pomerania, the Funnelbeaker culture was replaced by the Globular Amphora culture a thousand years later. During the Bronze Age, Western Pomerania was part of the Nordic Bronze Age cultures, while the Jastorf culture is usually associated with Germanic peoples, the ethnic category of the Lusatian culture and its successors is debated. Veneti, Germanic peoples like Goths, Rugians, and Gepids, from the 3rd century onwards, many settlements were abandoned, marking the beginning of the migration period in Pomerania. The name Pomerania comes from Slavic po more, which means by the sea, at the site of the later Baltic Sea was the cold, saline Yoldia Sea, which was succeeded by the fresh water Ancylus Lake. Hamburgian reindeer hunters were the first humans to occupy the plains freed from the glaciers in north-central Europe. Though finds resembling Hamburgian typology were made in Tanowo, these finds likely stem from a later era, the Federmesser and related Bromme techno-complexes are archaeologically traceable in Pomerania, but finds are sparse. About 8000 BC, the climate started to change, and the subarctic tundra was transformed into woodlands. About 7,500 years ago, the Litorina Sea, a predecessor of the Baltic Sea evolved, the paleolithic Ahrensburg culture was succeeded by the early mesolithic Maglemosian culture, whose members were not only hunters, but also foragers and fishermen. According to their tools, they are grouped as first belonging to the Komornica and Duvensee culture and they settled the dunes and used flint stone microliths. Flintstone tools of hunters and foragers from the Mesolithic Age were found at various sites, most of the artefacts date back to the late Mesolithic Age. They belong to the Ertebølle-Ellerbek culture, a culture that settled the coastline, while primarily hunters, it is assumed that the mesolithic people were also foraging, fishing, and even farming on a most primitive scale. They also knew how to build dugout canoes, and with these they travelled down the rivers into the hinterlands, the starting point for these expeditions often was Rügen. The move from Middle to Late Stone Age is marked by the change in the way of life from hunting and foraging to farming and this was not a sudden change, but took place over a long period. The people of the Ertebølle culture were thereby inspired by the Middle German Linear Pottery culture, from 3000 to 1900 BC Pomerania was settled by farmers and herders of the Funnelbeaker culture, that had evolved from the previous Mesolithic cultures and Linear Pottery culture influence
24.
Denmark
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The term Danish Realm refers to the relationship between Denmark proper, the Faroe Islands and Greenland—three countries constituting the Kingdom of Denmark. The legal nature of the Kingdom of Denmark is fundamentally one of a sovereign state. The Faroe Islands and Greenland have been part of the Crown of Denmark since 1397 when the Kalmar Union was ratified, legal matters in The Danish Realm are subject to the Danish Constitution. Beginning in 1953, state law issues within The Danish Realm has been governed by The Unity of the Realm, a less formal name for The Unity of the Realm is the Commonwealth of the Realm. In 1978, The Unity of The Realm was for the first time referred to as rigsfællesskabet. The name caught on and since the 1990s, both The Unity of The Realm and The Danish Realm itself has increasingly been referred to as simply rigsfællesskabet in daily parlance. The Danish Constitution stipulates that the foreign and security interests for all parts of the Danish Realm are the responsibility of the Danish government, the Faroes received home rule in 1948 and Greenland did so in 1979. In 2005, the Faroes received a self-government arrangement, and in 2009 Greenland received self rule, the Danish Realms unique state of internal affairs is acted out in the principle of The Unity of the Realm. This principle is derived from Article 1 of the Danish Constitution which specifies that constitutional law applies equally to all areas of the Danish Realm, the Constitutional Act specifies that sovereignty is to continue to be exclusively with the authorities of the Realm. The language of Denmark is Danish, and the Danish state authorities are based in Denmark, the Kingdom of Denmarks parliament, with its 179 members, is located in the capital, Copenhagen. Two of the members are elected in each of Greenland and the Faroe Islands. The Government ministries are located in Copenhagen, as is the highest court, in principle, the Danish Realm constitutes a unified sovereign state, with equal status between its constituent parts. Devolution differs from federalism in that the powers of the subnational authority ultimately reside in central government. The Self-Government Arrangements devolves political competence and responsibility from the Danish political authorities to the Faroese, the Faroese and Greenlandic authorities administer the tasks taken over from the state, enact legislation in these specific fields and have the economic responsibility for solving these tasks. The Danish government provides a grant to the Faroese and the Greenlandic authorities to cover the costs of these devolved areas. The 1948 Home Rule Act of the Faroe Islands sets out the terms of Faroese home rule, the Act states. the Faroe Islands shall constitute a self-governing community within the State of Denmark. It establishes the government of the Faroe Islands and the Faroese parliament. The Faroe Islands were previously administered as a Danish county, the Home Rule Act abolished the post of Amtmand and these powers were expanded in a 2005 Act, which named the Faroese home government as an equal partner with the Danish government
25.
Lands of Schlawe and Stolp
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The Lands of Schlawe and Stolp or Land of Słupsk-Sławno are a historical region in Pomerania, centered on the towns of Sławno and Słupsk in Farther Pomerania, in present-day Poland. Ruled by the Samboride dukes of Pomerelia from 1227 and conquered by Margrave Waldemar of Brandenburg-Stendal in 1309, the small region comprises the easternmost lands of historic Farther Pomerania, where the Wieprza and Słupia Rivers empty into the Baltic Sea. The area laid beyond the territory of the Prince-Bishops of Cammin, with the running along the Unieść creek, Lake Jamno. In the east, the Łeba River marked the border with Lauenburg. Since World War II and the implementation of the Oder-Neisse line in 1945, part of the larger Szczecin Voivodeship from 1945, the powiats of Sławno and Słupsk in 1950 were incorporated into Koszalin Voivodeship and from 1975 belonged to the smaller Słupsk Voivodeship. Since the 1998 administrative reform the Lands of Schlawe-Stolp are divided between West Pomeranian Voivodeship and Pomeranian Voivodeship, in the early 12th century, the Pomeranian lands had been again subdued by the Polish prince Bolesław III Wrymouth. Nevertheless, all Pomerania was under Danish occupation from the 1180s to 1227, the last member of the Ratiborides branch of the Griffins, Ratibor II, died in 1223. This led to a dispute between the Pomeranian Griffins and the Samborides dukes of neighbouring Pomerelia, vassals of the Piast Kingdom of Poland. As Ratibor II had died during the Danish period, Denmark administered the area until she had to withdraw after the lost Battle of Bornhöved in 1227, in the 1250s, the Pomeranian dukes mounted an unsuccessful campaign to regain the area. However, the Griffins had to cope with the rising Margraves of Brandenburg, finally on 3 September 1273 the Lands of Schlawe and Stolp became a fief under the Imperial Margraviate of Brandenburg. In 1283, Mestwin II of Pomerelia finally took over, with his death in 1294 the Samborides dynasty became extinct. Przemysł II was crowned King of Poland in 1295 and assumed the rule over the Pomerelian lands with Schlawe-Stolp. The death of King Przemysł II of Poland in 1296, a conflict over his succession broke out between his Piast cousin Władysław I the Elbow-high and the Bohemian king Wenceslaus II. According to a chronic of 1652 by M. Merian, the Schlawe-Stolp lands were taken over by Vitslav of Rügen. In 1301 Vitslavs son Prince Sambor of Rügen enfeoffed his castellan Matthew in Schlawe with his domains in the surroundings of Schlawe, Rügenwalde and Stolp. The Pomeranian dukes, acting under the sovereignty of Brandenburg, were forced out and had to withdraw at about 1301 and he inserted a Polish administrator in the lands of Schlawe and Stolp, Frederic of Čachovice, a Czech noble, who appeared in Schlawe in December 1302. After both King Wenceslaus II and his successor, Wenceslaus III, had died, Duke Władysław I could reconquer large parts of the Polish territories. In 1305 the Brandenburg margraves had returned to the lands of Schlawe, Rügenwalde, in 1307 they launched from the region a campaign against the fortified castle of Gdańsk in Pomerelia
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Tenement
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The term tenement originally referred to tenancy and therefore to any rented accommodation. In Scotland, it continues to be the most common word for a multiple-occupancy building, late 19th-century social reformers in the U. S. were hostile to both tenements and apartment houses. The adapted buildings were known as rookeries, and were a particular concern as they were prone to collapse. Mulberry Bend and Five Points were the sites of notorious rookeries that the city worked for decades to clear, in both rookeries and purpose-built tenements, communal water taps and water closets were squeezed into what open space there was between buildings. In parts of the Lower East Side, buildings were older and had courtyards, generally occupied by shops, stables. Prior to the 1867 law, tenements often covered more than 90 percent of the lot, were five or six stories high, yards were a few feet wide and filled with privies where they had not been entirely eliminated. Early housing reformers urged the construction of tenements to replace cellars, and beginning in 1859 the number of people living in cellars began to decline. This was amended by the Tenement House Act of 1879, known as the Old Law, which required lot coverage of no more than 65 percent. ”The New York City Board of Health, empowered to enforce the regulations, declined to do so. As a compromise, the Old Law tenement became the standard, this had a shape, with air and light shafts on either side in the center. Public concern about New York tenements was stirred by the publication in 1890 of Jacob Riis How the Other Half Lives and it used both charts and photographs, the first such official use of photographs. Together with the publication in 1895 by the U. S and these rules are still the basis of New York City law on low-rise buildings, and made single-lot development uneconomical. The Lower East Side Tenement Museum, a brick former tenement building in Manhattan that is a National Historic Site, is a museum devoted to tenements in the Lower East Side. Tenements make up a percentage of the housing stock of Edinburgh. Edinburghs tenements are much older, dating from the 17th century onwards, and some were up to 15 storeys high when first built, which made them among the tallest houses in the world at that time. Glasgow tenements were built no taller than the width of the street on which they were located, therefore. Virtually all Glasgow tenements were constructed using red or blonde sandstone, a large number of the tenements in Edinburgh and Glasgow were demolished in the 1960s and 1970s because of slum conditions, overcrowding and poor maintenance of the buildings. The Gorbals is a small area and at one time had an estimated 90,000 people living in its tenements, leading to very poor living conditions. However, the many remaining tenements in areas of both cities have experienced a resurgence in popularity due to their large rooms, high ceilings
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Mestwin II, Duke of Pomerania
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Mestwin II was a Duke of Pomerelia, member of the Samborides dynasty. He ruled Pomerelia as a ruler from 1273 to 1294. Mestwin II was the son of Swietopelk II and the Přemyslid dynasty princess Eufrozyna and he fought his younger brother and uncles until he emerged victorious and finally became the principal Pomerelia prince and sole ruler in 1273. He united all the lands of Pomerelia (after the death of his uncles, Sambor II, prince of Lubiszewo and Racibor Białogardzki, prince of Białogarda. Mestwins brother Wratislaw II of Pomerania, principal Pomerelian duke and ruler of Gdańsk, was forced out of his duchy by Mestwin II and this action resulted in Wratislaw II and Sambor II military action against Mestwin II, and his own knights and nobles rebelled against him. Defeated Wartislaw II found refuge with Ziemomysł of Kuyavia, the duke of Inowrocław and sought assistance from the Order, both uncles died in the 1270s leaving Mestwin II the sole ruler of all unified Duchy of Pomerelia. Now he was faced with challenges from Brandenburg, the Order, Pomeranian and these pressures forced Mestwin II to tighten his alliance with Greater Polands Bolesław and his successor Przemysł II. Mestwin II and Przemysl II, new duke of Greater Poland and future king of Poland, the treaty, confirmed by magnates and nobles of both duchies, made both Mestwin and Przemysł II either a successor per donatio inter vivos or successor in all his possessions. It is known that Mestwin II remained the Pomerelia ruler until his death in 1294 and it seems that the treaty of Kępno in fact unified Pomerelia and Greater Poland, starting the long process of reunification of Polish principalities by the Piast dynasts. During the life of Mestwin II nobles and magnates of Greater Poland received grants and appointments to Pomerelian offices and estates, in 1287 both princes entered into another successor treaty in Słupsk, and there they included in their succession treaty another Western Slavic prince, Bogusław IV of Szczecin. This treaty was confirmed and arrangement made public in Nakło, in 1291 and these treaties resulted directly from aggressive polices of March of Brandenburg and the Teutonic Order against the territories of these Slavic duchies and provinces. He had two daughters, Katarzyna, who married Pribislaw II, and Eufemia, eventually married to a Slavic or German prince and he died in Gdańsk and was buried in the Cistercian Oliwa monastery. His own sarcophagus did not survive, most likely having been destroyed when the army of Gdańsk burned down the abbey during their rebellious war against king Stephen Báthory in 1577. However, the cumulative sepulcher of the Samboride dynasty still remains, founded in 1615 by one of the Oliwa abbots, Dawid Konarski
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Margraviate of Brandenburg
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The Margraviate of Brandenburg was a major principality of the Holy Roman Empire from 1157 to 1806. Also known as the March of Brandenburg, it played a role in the history of Germany. Brandenburg developed out of the Northern March founded in the territory of the Slavic Wends and its ruling margraves were established as prestigious prince-electors in the Golden Bull of 1356, allowing them to vote in the election of the Holy Roman Emperor. The state thus became known as Electoral Brandenburg or the Electorate of Brandenburg. The House of Hohenzollern came to the throne of Brandenburg in 1415, under Hohenzollern leadership, Brandenburg grew rapidly in power during the 17th century and inherited the Duchy of Prussia. The resulting Brandenburg-Prussia was the predecessor of the Kingdom of Prussia, although the electors highest title was King in/of Prussia, their power base remained in Brandenburg and its capital Berlin. Although the Margraviate of Brandenburg ended with the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, despite its meager beginnings in the Holy Roman Empire, the Hohenzollern Kingdom of Prussia achieved the unification of Germany and the creation of the German Empire in 1871. The Mark Brandenburg is still used today to refer to the federal state of Brandenburg in the Federal Republic of Germany. The territory of the margraviate, commonly known as the Mark Brandenburg, lies in present-day eastern Germany. Geographically it encompassed the majority of the present-day German states Brandenburg and Berlin, the Altmark, parts of the present-day federal state Brandenburg, such as Lower Lusatia and territory which had been Saxon until 1815, were not parts of the Mark. Colloquially but not accurately, the federal state Brandenburg is sometimes identified as the Mark or Mark Brandenburg, the region was formed during the ice age and characterized by moraines, glacial valleys, and numerous lakes. The territory is known as a Mark or march because it was a county of the Holy Roman Empire. The Mark is defined by two uplands and two depressions, the depressions are taken up by rivers and chains of lakes with marsh and boggy soil along the shores, once used for peat collection, the riverbanks are now mostly drained and dry. The Northern or Baltic Uplands of the Mecklenburg Lake Plateau have only minor extensions into Brandenburg, the southern depression is generally to the north of this ridge and appears strikingly in the Spreewald. Between these two depressions is a low plateau that extends from the Poznań area westward to Brandenburg through Torzym, the Spree plateau, the region is predominantly marked by dry, sandy soil, wide stretches of which have pine trees and erica plants, or heath. However, the soil is loamy in the uplands and plateaus and, Mark Brandenburg has a cool, continental climate, with temperatures averaging near 0 °C in January and February and near 18 °C in July and August. Precipitation averages between 500 mm and 600 mm annually, with a modest summer maximum, by the 8th century, Slavic Wends, such as the Sprevjane and Hevelli, started to move into the Brandenburg area. They intermarried with Saxons and Bohemians, the Bishoprics of Brandenburg and Havelberg were established at the beginning of the 10th century
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Duchy of Pomerania
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The Duchy of Pomerania was a duchy in Pomerania on the southern coast of the Baltic Sea, ruled by dukes of the House of Pomerania. During the High Middle Ages, it comprised the northern Neumark and Uckermark areas as well as Circipania. Most of the time, the duchy was ruled by several Griffin dukes in common, after the last Griffin duke had died during the Thirty Years War in 1637, the duchy was partitioned between Brandenburg-Prussia and Sweden. The Kings of Sweden and the Margraves of Brandenburg, later Kings of Prussia, the name Pomerania comes from Slavic po more, which means Land by the Sea. In the 12th century, Poland, the Holy Roman Empires Duchy of Saxony and Denmark variously conquered Pomerania, the Stolp and Schlawe areas were ruled by Ratibor I and his descendants until the Danish occupation and extinction of the Ratiboride branch in 1227. The areas stretching from Kolberg to Stettin were ruled by Ratibors brother Wartislaw I, the terms of surrender after the Polish conquest were that Wartislaw had to accept Polish sovereignty, convert his people to Christianity, and pay an annual tribute to the Polish duke. In several expeditions mounted between 1102 and 1121, most of Pomerania had been invaded by the Polish duke Bolesław III Wrymouth, from 1102 to 1109, Boleslaw campaigned in the Netze and Persante area. The Pomeranian residence in Belgard was taken already in 1102, from 1112 to 1116, Boleslaw subdued all of Pomerelia. From 1119 to 1122, the area towards the Oder were subdued, Stettin was taken in the winter of 1121–1122. The conquest resulted in a death toll and devastation of vast areas of Pomerania. Polands influence vanished in the next decade, in 1135, Boleslaw had accepted overlordship of Holy Roman Emperor Lothair III and in turn received his Pomeranian gains as well as the still undefeated Principality of Rügen as a fief. Wartislaw I also accepted the Emperor as his overlord, with Boleslaws death in 1138, Polish overlordship ended, triggering competition of the Holy Roman Empire and Denmark for the area. Already in 1120, he had expanded west into the areas near the Oder Lagoon, most notably Demmin, the Principality of Gützkow and Wolgast were conquered in the following years. The major stage of the expansion into Lutici territory occurred between Otto of Bambergs two missions,1124 and 1128. In 1128, Demmin, the County of Gützkow and Wolgast were already incorporated into Wartislaw Is realm, captured Lutici and other war loot, including livestock, money, and clothes were apportioned among the victorious. These gains were not subject to Polish over lordship, but were placed under over lordship of Nordmark margrave Albrecht the Bear a dedicated enemy of Slavs, by Lothair III, thus, the western territories contributed to making Wartislaw significantly independent from the Polish dukes. Wartislaw was not the only one campaigning in these areas, the Polish duke Boleslaw III, during his Pomeranian campaign launched an expedition into the Müritz area in 1120–21, before he turned back to subdue Wartislaw. The later Holy Roman Emperor Lothair III in 1114 initiated massive campaigns against the local Lutici tribes resulting in their defeat in 1228
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Bogislaw V, Duke of Pomerania
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Bogislaw V was a Duke of Pomerania. Eldest son of Duke Wartislaw IV and Elisabeth of Lindow-Ruppin, Bogislaw had two brothers, Barnim IV and Wartislaw V, the brothers were joint rulers from their fathers death in 1326. They allied with King Casimir III of Poland, whose daughter Elisabeth married Bogislaw, Elisabeth died in 1361, in 1362 Bogislaw married Adelheid Welf, daughter of Ernest I, Duke of Brunswick-Grubenhagen. Bogislaw received most of the Farther Pomeranian parts of Pomerania-Wolgast, thence Pomerania-Stolp, Wartislaw received the Neustettin area, and the sons of Barnim received North-Western Pomerania with Rügen and Usedom. Bogislaws daughter Elisabeth married the Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV, King of Bohemia in 1363, on 28 February 1343, Bogislaw married his first wife Elisabeth of Poland. She was a daughter of Casimir III of Poland and his first wife Aldona of Lithuania and they had two children, Elizabeth of Pomerania. She married Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor, in 1362, Bogislaw V married his second wife Adelheid of Brunswick-Grubenhagen. She was a daughter of Ernest I, Duke of Brunswick-Grubenhagen and they had four children, Wartislaw VII of Pomerania. The project involves extracting and analysing detailed information from sources, including contemporary chronicles, cartularies, necrologies
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House of Griffins
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The House of Griffins or House of Pomerania, also known as House of Greifen, was a dynasty of dukes ruling the Duchy of Pomerania from the 12th century until 1637. The name Griffins was used by the dynasty after the 15th century and had taken from the ducal coat of arms. Wartislaw I was the first historical ruler of the Duchy of Pomerania, the most prominent Griffin was Eric of Pomerania, who became king of the Kalmar Union in 1397, thus ruling Denmark, Sweden and Norway. The last Griffin duke of Pomerania was Bogislaw XIV, who died during the Thirty Years War, duchess Anna von Croy, daughter of Duke Bogislaw XIII and the last Griffin, died in 1660. The name Pomerania comes from Slavic po more, which means along the sea, the origins of the Griffins are not clear. Most theories derive them from either local Slavic nobility or a branch of Polish house of Piasts. In the 17th century, the Griffins derived their roots from legendary beings from Sorbs mythology called Gryphus or Baltus, the first known members of the Griffins were the brothers Wartislaw I and Ratibor I. The first known member of the Swantiborides branch of the Griffins, ∞ Sophia, daughter of Bolesław IV. of Poland Bogislaw II. ∞ Sophia, daughter Bogislaw IX of Pomerania-Stolp Bogislaw X Casimir VII, a daughter of Mieszko III of Poland Bogislaw, ∞ another daughter of Mieszko III of Poland Ratibor II The Swantiborides were related to the Griffins, but the link remains unclear. Probably they descend from Swantibor, a Pomeranian duke overthrown in a rebellion and this Swantibor might have been a cousin of Swantopolk, a Pomeranian duke defeated by Boleslaw III of Poland in a campaign of 1111/12. Yet, these assumptions all remain speculative, daughter 3 ∞ Czyrnek, Castellan of Kolberg Eric of Pomerania, son of Wartislaw VII, was King of Norway, elected King of Denmark, and of Sweden. He was the first king of the Nordic Kalmar Union, euphemia of Pomerania, daughter of Bogislaw IV, married Christopher II of Denmark and became queen of Denmark. Elizabeth of Pomerania, daughter of Bogislaw V, was the fourth and last wife of Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor and her daughter Anne of Bohemia, of Luxembourg and of Pomerania became Queen of England as a wife of King Richard II of England. She was known as Good Queen Anne, sophie of Pomerania, daughter of Bogislaw X, married King Frederick I of Denmark and became Queen of Denmark and Norway. Edward Rymar, Rodowód książąt pomorskich, Szczecin 1995, martin Wehrmann, Genealogie des pommerschen Fürstenhauses. Veröffentlichungen the landesgeschichtlichen Forschungsstelle für Pommern, Reihe 1, Bd.5, martin Wehrmann, Geschichte von Pommern. genemaas. net/Pommern. htm Rulers of Pomerania Greifen, Herzöge von Pommern
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Casimir III the Great
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Casimir III the Great reigned as the King of Poland from 1333 to 1370. He was the son of King Władysław I and Duchess Hedwig of Kalisz, Kazimierz inherited a kingdom weakened by war and made it prosperous and wealthy. He reformed the Polish army and doubled the size of the kingdom and he reformed the judicial system and introduced a legal code, gaining the title the Polish Justinian. Kazimierz built extensively and founded the University of Kraków, the oldest Polish university and he also confirmed privileges and protections previously granted to Jews and encouraged them to settle in Poland in great numbers. Kazimierz left no male heir to his throne, producing only daughters. When Kazimierz died in 1370 from an injury received while hunting, his nephew, King Louis I of Hungary, when Kazimierz attained the throne in 1333, his position was in danger, as his neighbours did not recognise his title and instead called him king of Kraków. The kingdom was depopulated and exhausted by war, and the economy was ruined, in 1335, in the Treaty of Trentschin, Casimir was forced to relinquish his claims to Silesia in perpetuity. Kazimierz rebuilt and his kingdom prosperous and wealthy, with great prospects for the future. He waged many wars and doubled the size of the kingdom. He founded the University of Kraków, the oldest Polish University, Kazimierz is the only king in Polish history to both receive and retain the title of Great. In 1355, in Buda, Kazimierz designated his nephew Louis I of Hungary as his successor should he produce no male heir, in exchange Kazimierz gained Hungarian favourable attitude, needed in disputes with the hostile Teutonic Order and Kingdom of Bohemia. Kazimierz at the time was still in his years and having a son did not seem to be a problem. Kazimierz left no son, however, bearing five daughters instead. He tried to adopt his grandson, Casimir IV, Duke of Pomerania, the child had been born to his second daughter, Elisabeth, Duchess of Pomerania, in 1351. This part of the testament was invalidated by Louis I of Hungary, however, thus King Louis I of Hungary became successor in Poland. Louis was proclaimed king upon Kazimierzs death in 1370, though Kazimierzs sister Elisabeth held much of the power until her death in 1380. Casimir was facetiously named the Peasants King and he introduced the codes of law of Greater and Lesser Poland as an attempt to end the overwhelming superiority of the nobility. During his reign all three major classes — the nobility, priesthood, and bourgeoisie — were more or less counterbalanced and he was known for siding with the weak when the law did not protect them from nobles and clergymen
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Pomerania-Stolp
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Pomerania-Stolp was one of the partitions of the Duchy of Pomerania. In 1474, it was merged to the partition of Bogislaw X, Duke of Pomerania, the Duchy of Pomerania was partitioned several times to satisfy the claims of the male members of the ruling House of Pomerania dynasty. The partitions were named after the residences, Pomerania-Barth, -Demmin, -Rügenwalde, -Stettin, -Stolp. None of the partitions had a character, the members of the House of Pomerania inherited the duchy in common. The duchy thus continued to exist as a whole despite its division, on May 25,1368, a compromise was negotiated in Anklam, which was made a formal treaty on June 8,1372 in Stargard, and resulted in a partition of Pomerania-Wolgast. Bogislaw V received most of the Farther Pomeranian parts, excepted was the land of Neustettin, which was to be ruled by his brother Wartislaw V, and was integrated into Bogislaws part-duchy only after his death in 1390. This eastern partition became known as Pomerania-Stolp, the situation of the descendants of Bogislaw V, who ruled Pomerania-Stolp, differed somewhat from the situation of their western counterparts. The area was sparsely settled and dominated by powerful noble families. On the other hand, the Stolpian branch of the House of Pomerania had relatives among the houses of Denmark. Casimir IV and Elisabeth, the children of Bogislaw V and his first wife Elisabeth, the daughter of Casimir III of Poland, Elisabeth would become Holy Roman Empress after her marriage with Charles IV, and Casimir was adopted by and designated heir of his grandfather. Yet, his ambitions were thwarted when Ludwig of Hungary overruled the testament of Casimir of Poland in 1370, during the Polish–Teutonic wars, the Pomeranian dukes changed sides between Poland and the knights very frequently. Wartislaw VII and Barnim V allied with the Teutonic Order, scholars offer somewhat different interpretations of the treaty of Pyzdry. Czacharowski says it was an alliance and refers to Naklo being held as a Polish fief, with respect to the discourse in Polish historiography, Branig and Buchholz say that however the treaty is interpreted, it did not have any significance for the future. Eric II of Pomerania-Stolp, grand-grandchild of Danish king Valdemar IV in contrast became king of the Kalmar Union in 1397, Eric however failed in his most ambitious plan, to make Bogislaw IX Of Pomerania-Stolp king of both the Kalmar Union and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Eric had to leave Denmark in 1449 and ruled Pomerania-Rügenwalde, a partition of Pomerania-Stolp. Pomerania-Stolp was a point in the knights land supply route. For his aid, he was granted the Lauenburg and Bütow areas and others, Eric II of Pomerania--Stolp allied with the Polish king Casimir IV in his Thirteen Years War against the Teutonic Knights. On January 3,1455, he in turn was granted the Lauenburg, when Lauenburg was retaken by the knights in 1459, the Polish king was upset and ravaged the Stolp area
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Poland
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Hässleholm, Sweden
Nexø, Denmark
Gardelegen, Germany
Starý Hrozenkov, Czech Republic
Saint-Doulchard, France
