DANZIG
Return to POLAND

According to archaeologists, the Gdansk stronghold was built in the 980s by Mieszko I of Poland, after a series of local wars against the inhabiting pagans. In 1997, the year 997 was celebrated by Poland as the date of the foundation of the city, this being the year when Saint Adalbert of Prague (sent by the Polish king Boleslaus the Brave) baptized the inhabitants of Gdansk (urbs Gyddanyzc). Gdansk soon became the main centre of a Polish splinter duchy known as Pomerelia ruled by the Dukes of Pomerania. The most famous of them, Swietopelk II, granted the local autonomy charter to the city in ca. 1235, which at the time had about 2,000 inhabitants. Eleven years prior, in 1224, the town had already developed a city charter similar to that of Lübeck which obtained its municipal constitution (Lübisches Stadtrecht) in 1226. Polish governors of Pomerelia gradually gained more and more power and evolved into semi-independent dukes, who ruled the duchy until 1294. The official language of Gdansk was the language of its ruling family and their own administrative body. By 1308 the city had became a flourishing trading city with some 10,000 inhabitants, but on November 13, 1308, it was occupied and demolished by the Teutonic Knights. This led to a series of wars between the Knights and Poland, ending with the Peace of Kalisz in 1343 when the Knights acknowledged that they would hold Pomerania as an alm from the Polish king. Although it left the legal basis of their possession of the province in some doubt, the agreement permitted the foundation of the municipality in 1343 and the development of increased export of grain from Poland via the Vistula river trading routes. While under the control of the Knights, the city and its trade prospered, German migration increased, and the city's name continued to show up in various forms. The city became a full member of the Hanseatic League in 1361, and its city seal showed, similar to that of Lübeck, a "Hansekogge" ship, with the inscription SIGILLUM BURGENSIUM DANTZIKE (approx. Seal of the Citizens of Dantzik). A new war broke out in 1409, ending with the Battle of Grunwald (1410), and the city briefly came under the direct overlordship of the Polish king. A year later, with the Peace of Torun (Thorn) in 1411, it returned to the Teutonic Knights' administration. In 1440 Danzig participated in the foundation of the Prussian Union which eventually led to the Thirteen Years War (1454-1466) and the incorporation of Royal Prussia by the crown of Poland, with the prerequisite of autonomy for western Prussia.

Like other Hanseatic cities, Danzig became a city republic with self-government in 1457. Recognized by the royal charters granted by King Casimir IV the Jagiellonian and the free access to all Polish markets, Danzig became a large and prosperous seaport and city. The 16th and 17th centuries were a Golden Age for trade and culture of the city. Beside the German majority, there were a variety of minorities that made up the population - Poles, Jews, and Dutch, who were the largest minority. In addition, a number of Scotsmen took refuge or immigrated to and received citizenship in Danzig and other Prussian cities and also, through trade, all over the Baltic region. During the Protestant Reformation, the German inhabitants adopted Lutheranism, which later became the predominant faith in the Kingdom of Prussia. The city suffered a slow economic decline due to the wars in the 18th century, when it was taken by the Russians after the Siege of Danzig in 1734. Danzig was annexed to Prussia in 1793 and remained a part of Prussia - later within Germany - until 1919. The exception was for several years, from 1807-1815, when it was the Free City of Danzig, as arranged by France amidst the Napoleonic Wars. As part of Prussia, its longest serving Regierungspräsident was Robert von Blumenthal, who held office from 1841, before the troubles of 1848, until 1863. Danzig became part of the German Empire in 1871.

Sigismund I (1506-1548)

Sigismund I the Old of the Jagiellon dynasty reigned as King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania from 1506 to his death at age 81 in 1548. Before that, Sigismund had already been invested as Duke of Silesia. Sigismund I owed allegiance to the Imperial Habsburgs as a member of the Order of the Golden Fleece. The son of King Casimir IV Jagiellon and Elisabeth of Austria Habsburg, Sigismund followed his brothers John I of Poland and Alexander I of Poland to the Polish throne. Their elder brother Ladislaus II of Hungary and Bohemia became king of Hungary and Bohemia. Sigismund was christened the namesake of his mother's maternal grandfather, Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund, who had died in 1437.

Sigismund faced the challenge of consolidating internal power in order to face external threats to the country. During Alexander's reign, the law Nihil novi had been instituted, which forbade Kings of Poland from enacting laws without the consent of the Sejm. This proved crippling to Sigismund's dealings with the szlachta and magnates. Despite this Achilles heel, he established (1527) a conscription army and the bureaucracy needed to finance it. Intermittently at war with Vasily III of Muscovy, starting in 1507 (before his army was fully under his command), 1514 marked the fall of Smolensk (under Polish domination) to the Muscovite forces (which lent force to his arguments for the necessity of a standing army). Those conflicts formed part of the Muscovite wars. 1515 he entered an alliance with the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I. In return for Maximilian lending weight to the provisions of the Second Peace of Thorn, Sigismund consented to the marriage of the children of Vladislaus II of Bohemia and Hungary, his brother, to the grandchildren of Maximilian. Through this double marriage contract, Bohemia and Hungary passed to the House of Habsburg in 1526, on the death of Sigismund's nephew, Louis II. The Polish wars against the Teutonic Knights ended in 1525, when Albert of Brandenburg, their marshal (and Sigismund's nephew), converted to Lutheranism, secularized the order, and paid homage to Sigismund. In return, he was given the domains of the Order, as the First Duke of Prussia. This was called the Prussian Homage.

In other matters of policy, Sigismund sought peaceful coexistence with the Khanate of Crimea, but was unable to completely end border skirmishes. Sigismund was a Humanist. He and his third consort, Bona Sforza, daughter of Gian Galeazzo Sforza of Milan, were both patrons of Renaissance culture, which under them began to flourish in Poland and in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

Groschen
Two designs of groschens were struck in Sigismund's reign dated from 1530-1548. One shows a younger portrait, this example is the older.