Prussian uprisings
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The Prussian uprisings were two major and three smaller uprisings by the Old Prussians, one of the Baltic tribes, against the Teutonic Knights that took place in the 13th century during the Prussian Crusade. The crusading military order, supported by the Popes and Christian Europe, sought to conquer and convert the pagan Prussians. In the first ten years of the crusade, five of the seven major Prussian clans fell under the control of the less numerous Teutonic Knights. However, the Prussians rose against their conquerors on five occasions.
Ruins of the Teutonic castle in Rehden (today Radzyń Chełmiński Castle). It was one of five castles not captured by the Prussians.
Statue for Swantopolk II of Pomerania in a park in Oliwa
Pope Urban IV (1261–1264) was especially supportive of the Teutonic cause in Prussia. He served as a papal prelate negotiating the Treaty of Christburg after the first Prussian uprising.
A non-contemporary illustration of Teutonic triumph in Prussia: a native Prussian man is crushed by the victorious Teutonic Knights (Christoph Hartknoch, 1684)
Old Prussians
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Old Prussians, Baltic Prussians or simply Prussians were a Baltic people that inhabited the region of Prussia, on the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea between the Vistula Lagoon to the west and the Curonian Lagoon to the east. As Balts, they spoke an Indo-European language of the Baltic branch now known as Old Prussian and worshipped pre-Christian deities. Their ethnonym was later adopted by predominantly Low German-speaking inhabitants of the region.
Political and tribal fragmentation of the 12th-century Old Prussians
Fragment of the Pomesanian statute book of 1340. The earliest attested document of the customary law of the Balts.
An engraving of a Prussian warrior with a club, Christoph Hartknoch's 1684 book "Old and New Prussia" (Alt- und Neues Preussen).
Prussian Hag – Old Prussian kurgan stelae