Simon Grunaus Preussische Chronik, volume 1, eds Perlbach, M., Philippi, R., and Wagner, P., Duncker and Humblot, 1876, Leipzig.
Transcriptions and translations are encoded in XML conforming to TEI (P5) guidelines. The original-language text is contained within <lem> tags and translations within <rdg> tags.
Texts are translated into modern American English with maximum fidelity to the original text, except where it would impair comprehension or good style. Archaisms are preserved where they do not conflict with the aesthetic of the original text. Scribal errors and creative translation choices are marked and discussed in the critical notes.
The printed edition from which this translation has been produced is a critical composition of several manuscripts of Grunau’s chronicle, some of which are no longer extant. Trust has been placed in the edition, due to both the editorial methods employed, and comparison with a sixteenth century copy of the autograph manuscript for fidelity. The use of multiple manuscript copies for the edition provides more confidence with regards to copying errors, and where inconsistencies between the manuscripts appear, editorial footnotes have been made. There are around ten remaining copies or partial copies of the manuscript, although the autograph manuscript is believed to have been lost when Königsberg State and University Library was destroyed during the Second World War. The number of copies and their varied locations (including Stockholm, Toruń, Berlin, Dresden, Vilnius and Gdańsk) is suggestive of a broad textual transmission, and there were claims that Grunau’s narratives were still widely circulating into the nineteenth century.
For the translation itself several dictionaries were consulted, such as the Frühneuhochdeutsches Wörterbuch by Oskar Reichmann and the Kleines Frühneuhochdeutsches Wörterbuch by Christa Baufeld. To maintain fidelity with the original, proper nouns have remained untranslated and with their original spellings, and where possible syntax has been preserved; occasionally it was necessary to modify this to make the English translation more readable.
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In the sense of worshipped, or venerated.
A more literal translation might be ‘to honour these gods, they conquered their neighbours and they [then] had to consider them as almighty gods.’ However, the multiple indefinite pronouns are less clear in English.
More literally ‘most superior’, but in the sense of most senior or highest.
According to the author Simon Grunau, Rickoiot (or Rickoyot, the spelling varies) was the most important site of worship for the ancient Prussians, comprised principally of a huge oak tree and the images of the Prussian gods. The site was a pseudo-monastery where priests, priestesses and the high priest both resided, worshipped and served the gods. However, there is little evidence for the existence of an exact site of Rickoiot, and in creating his Rickoiot, Grunau almost certainly combined elements of Peter von Dusburg’s ‘Romovia’ and descriptions of other religious sites such as Adam of Bremen’s description of a sacred tree at Uppsala.
Bekargen → to live a poor and meagre life.
The meaning of this particular clause is not clear; one interpretation is that once identified or named, one would not delay in coming to Rickoiot to give the appropriate veneration.
Literally ‘cut a wound on his arm’.
The issue of not having performed adequate worship should be settled, in the sense of ‘usually this would be enough to resolve matters’.
Mosze → Mose or Mosse → Masse
The switch to the singular here may simply be to keep the focus on Patollo; whilst both Patollo and Potrimppo have the lust for human blood, Grunau has already discussed the worship of Potrimppo and thus this particular reference is reserved for Patollo.
This phrase seems to be borrowed from an early Latvian language, loosely translating to ‘God Perkuno, have mercy on us’. See Putelis, A., ‘Historical Sources for the Study of Latvian Mythology’, in Lyle, E. eds, Cosmos: the Journal of the Traditional Cosmology Society, Vol. 19, 1, 2003, p. 78.
Presumably the implication here is out of their love for him, and desire that he should remain with them in some form.
The Duchy of Masovia lay to the south of Prussia, and from the middle of the fourteenth century was formally a fief of the Polish crown. Aleks Pluskowski discusses some of the archaeological evidence for a cult of Curcho and his or her worship in his book Holy War and Colonisation: The Archaeology of the Prussian Crusade, (London, 2012), pp 70-4.
There is still a town at this location, called Mamonovo, in the Kaliningrad Oblast. The name Heiligenbeil means ‘Holy Axe’ and William Urban attributes this name to a legend claiming that a group of missionaries used an axe to cut down a nearby tree which had been worshipped by the Prussians (See Urban, W., The Samogitian Crusade, (Chicago, 2006), pp 158-9. Wigand von Marburg (A chronicler of the Teutonic Order) narrates that there was an Augustinian Monastery founded there around 1370 (Chronica nova Prutenica).
According to Grunau, Hockerland(e) was a previous name of Pogesania, a region of Prussia. In his narrative Hockerland was named after its ruler ‘Hoggo’, and its enduring name of Pogesania was derived from his daughter.
In the sense of worshipped, or venerated.
A more literal translation might be ‘to honour these gods, they conquered their neighbours and they [then] had to consider them as almighty gods.’ However, the multiple indefinite pronouns are less clear in English.
More literally ‘most superior’, but in the sense of most senior or highest.
According to the author Simon Grunau, Rickoiot (or Rickoyot, the spelling varies) was the most important site of worship for the ancient Prussians, comprised principally of a huge oak tree and the images of the Prussian gods. The site was a pseudo-monastery where priests, priestesses and the high priest both resided, worshipped and served the gods. However, there is little evidence for the existence of an exact site of Rickoiot, and in creating his Rickoiot, Grunau almost certainly combined elements of Peter von Dusburg’s ‘Romovia’ and descriptions of other religious sites such as Adam of Bremen’s description of a sacred tree at Uppsala.
Bekargen → to live a poor and meagre life.
The meaning of this particular clause is not clear; one interpretation is that once identified or named, one would not delay in coming to Rickoiot to give the appropriate veneration.
Literally ‘cut a wound on his arm’.
The issue of not having performed adequate worship should be settled, in the sense of ‘usually this would be enough to resolve matters’.
Mosze → Mose or Mosse → Masse
The switch to the singular here may simply be to keep the focus on Patollo; whilst both Patollo and Potrimppo have the lust for human blood, Grunau has already discussed the worship of Potrimppo and thus this particular reference is reserved for Patollo.
This phrase seems to be borrowed from an early Latvian language, loosely translating to ‘God Perkuno, have mercy on us’. See Putelis, A., ‘Historical Sources for the Study of Latvian Mythology’, in Lyle, E. eds, Cosmos: the Journal of the Traditional Cosmology Society, Vol. 19, 1, 2003, p. 78.
Presumably the implication here is out of their love for him, and desire that he should remain with them in some form.
The Duchy of Masovia lay to the south of Prussia, and from the middle of the fourteenth century was formally a fief of the Polish crown. Aleks Pluskowski discusses some of the archaeological evidence for a cult of Curcho and his or her worship in his book Holy War and Colonisation: The Archaeology of the Prussian Crusade, (London, 2012), pp 70-4.
There is still a town at this location, called Mamonovo, in the Kaliningrad Oblast. The name Heiligenbeil means ‘Holy Axe’ and William Urban attributes this name to a legend claiming that a group of missionaries used an axe to cut down a nearby tree which had been worshipped by the Prussians (See Urban, W., The Samogitian Crusade, (Chicago, 2006), pp 158-9. Wigand von Marburg (A chronicler of the Teutonic Order) narrates that there was an Augustinian Monastery founded there around 1370 (Chronica nova Prutenica).
According to Grunau, Hockerland(e) was a previous name of Pogesania, a region of Prussia. In his narrative Hockerland was named after its ruler ‘Hoggo’, and its enduring name of Pogesania was derived from his daughter.
In the sense of worshipped, or venerated.
A more literal translation might be ‘to honour these gods, they conquered their neighbours and they [then] had to consider them as almighty gods.’ However, the multiple indefinite pronouns are less clear in English.
More literally ‘most superior’, but in the sense of most senior or highest.
According to the author Simon Grunau, Rickoiot (or Rickoyot, the spelling varies) was the most important site of worship for the ancient Prussians, comprised principally of a huge oak tree and the images of the Prussian gods. The site was a pseudo-monastery where priests, priestesses and the high priest both resided, worshipped and served the gods. However, there is little evidence for the existence of an exact site of Rickoiot, and in creating his Rickoiot, Grunau almost certainly combined elements of Peter von Dusburg’s ‘Romovia’ and descriptions of other religious sites such as Adam of Bremen’s description of a sacred tree at Uppsala.
Bekargen → to live a poor and meagre life.
The meaning of this particular clause is not clear; one interpretation is that once identified or named, one would not delay in coming to Rickoiot to give the appropriate veneration.
Literally ‘cut a wound on his arm’.
The issue of not having performed adequate worship should be settled, in the sense of ‘usually this would be enough to resolve matters’.
Mosze → Mose or Mosse → Masse
The switch to the singular here may simply be to keep the focus on Patollo; whilst both Patollo and Potrimppo have the lust for human blood, Grunau has already discussed the worship of Potrimppo and thus this particular reference is reserved for Patollo.
This phrase seems to be borrowed from an early Latvian language, loosely translating to ‘God Perkuno, have mercy on us’. See Putelis, A., ‘Historical Sources for the Study of Latvian Mythology’, in Lyle, E. eds, Cosmos: the Journal of the Traditional Cosmology Society, Vol. 19, 1, 2003, p. 78.
Presumably the implication here is out of their love for him, and desire that he should remain with them in some form.
The Duchy of Masovia lay to the south of Prussia, and from the middle of the fourteenth century was formally a fief of the Polish crown. Aleks Pluskowski discusses some of the archaeological evidence for a cult of Curcho and his or her worship in his book Holy War and Colonisation: The Archaeology of the Prussian Crusade, (London, 2012), pp 70-4.
There is still a town at this location, called Mamonovo, in the Kaliningrad Oblast. The name Heiligenbeil means ‘Holy Axe’ and William Urban attributes this name to a legend claiming that a group of missionaries used an axe to cut down a nearby tree which had been worshipped by the Prussians (See Urban, W., The Samogitian Crusade, (Chicago, 2006), pp 158-9. Wigand von Marburg (A chronicler of the Teutonic Order) narrates that there was an Augustinian Monastery founded there around 1370 (Chronica nova Prutenica).
According to Grunau, Hockerland(e) was a previous name of Pogesania, a region of Prussia. In his narrative Hockerland was named after its ruler ‘Hoggo’, and its enduring name of Pogesania was derived from his daughter.