Abstracts History

Representations of Prussian life and history in the Preussische Chronik of Simon Grunau

by Thomas Hewitt

Simon Grunau (c. 1455/1470-1530) wrote his *Preussische Chronik* between 1517 and 1526, with additions until around 1530. It delineates many aspects of Prussian customs, culture and history, from humanistic ethnogenesis in pre-Teutonic times, through the Teutonic conquest and subsequently into both daily life and political events in Prussia during his lifetime. Accordingly, Grunau deals with themes of many natures; religious, social, economic and political. Much of the previous historiographical analysis of Grunau’s work has principally dismissed Grunau’s work as being fictitious and unworthy of study, on the basis of the exaggerations and inventions he included as part of his narrative. However, medieval approaches to truth and narrative histories diverge from modern definitions and thus it is a mistake to analyse Grunau’s chronicle solely from the premise of identifying veracity as we might understand it. It is certainly true that as a whole, Grunau’s narrative cannot be taken as factually accurate; but the same can be said for almost all medieval narrative sources. This thesis posits that Grunau’s narrative and representations of Prussia must be analysed and contextualised in order to identify Grunau’s own aims, how he attempted to pursue them and how they reflected trends in Prussia in the early sixteenth century. Above all, it argues that Grunau’s Chronicle represents a valuable source for the study of early sixteenth-century attitudes to Prussian history. It should be understood in part as an ethnogenesis, in part as an exposition of the life of the peasants and urban poor in Prussia, and in part as a piece of propaganda aimed at arresting the spread of Lutheranism, within Royal Prussia above all.