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Not to be confused with Chełm land. See also Kulmerland (ship).

Kulmerland (Culmerland, Culm land, Template:Lang-pl, Template:Audio-de) is a German name of a historical region Prussia, (now Poland) bounded by the Vistula and Drwęca rivers.

It is named after the city of Culm (Kulm, now Chełmno. The largest cities in the region are Toruń, Grudziądz, Chełmno, and Chełmża.

Kulmerland was one of the four bishoprics of Prussia. Also spelled Culmerland or Kulmer Land, it was in Latin named Culmigeria (Holmrugier), referring to the ancient people of the Baltic Sea. Culmigerier was one of the names of the Prussians in general.

It is located on the right bank of the Vistula river, from the mouth of the Drewenz Drwęca river to Chełmno. Where the Vistula river takes a sharp turn northward, the Drwęca forms the eastern border of the region, while its southern and western border is the Vistula river.

History

By the 10th century Prussia people came under conquest attacks by the Polans who had spread and with the first duke Mieszko I sought to conquer numerous peoples. Culmigeria being closest to the Polans came to be populated by the Lechitic Kuyavian and Masovian tribes as well. The Masovians were lead by Masos, who left the Polish duke Boleslaw I and sought refuge with the Prussians. When this area was partially subdued by the rulers of the Polans Chełmno became a local centre of administration (kasztelania). Attempts by Poles to subdue Prussia (Chełmno) Kulmer Land under guise of Christianisation in the 11th century and thereafter, were multiple times repelled by Prussians.

According to the will of Duke Boleslaus III of Poland, who was a lienholder of the Holy Roman Empire, territory after his death in 1137 became a part of the duchy governed by his son Boleslaus IV the Curly and his descendants during the feudal fragmentation of Poland. The Prussians as well as the Pomeranians many times managed to regain their freedom from subjugation by the expanding Polish dukes.

By the 13th century the territory was subject to raids by Prussians, who sacked Chełmno, the province's main town, in 1216. In 1220 Conrad I of Masovia, with the participation of the other princes of Poland, led a partial reconquest of the province, but the project of establishing a Polish defense of the province failed due to conflicts between the princes. He brought the crusading Knights of Dobrin to Masovia, where they built a castle at Dobrin an der Weichsel (Dobrzyń) in 1224 as a base for attacks against the Prussians. There were about a handfull Brothers of Dobrin, which nearly all perished.

As a result of a number of attacks by Poles and Masovians the borderland of Prussia to Masovia was sacked and devastated, as well as by counter raids by Prussians. It led to much depopulation of the provinces, when Prussians sought to use safety further inland.

Being involved in dynastic struggles elsewhere and too weak to deal with the Prussians alone, Conrad needed to safeguard and establish borders against the heathen Old Prussians, because his territory of Masovia was also in danger after the Prussians sieged Płock. Conrad, who had tried to conquer Kulmerland, but failed, awarded the already devastated Land to the Teutonic Knights, giving them Nieszawa at first.

In 1226 Duke Conrad I of Masovia enlisted the aid of the Teutonic Order to protect Masovia and help convert the Prussians to Christianity. Conrad also brought in German settlers to Płock.

The Teutonic Order did not go in without safegards, but obtained official support by Imperial Bull from Emperor Frederick II a the Papal Bull of Rieti, before going to Prussia. Because much of the territory of Kulmerland already belonged to Christian of Prussia and the pope requested Conrad of Masovia to furnish the Teutonic Order, the grant was officially given to them. Some Polish sources, wanting to keep Prussian land, allege the grant to have been a forgery.

The imperial and papal bulls constituted the base for the rule of Prussia by the Monastic State of the Teutonic Knights, and its later conquest of eastern Prussia (East Prussia), continuing the natural trade expansion of German traders of the Hanseatic League, which had begun building cities along the Baltic Sea coast in the late 1100s. 19th and 20th century sarted to refer to that as the German Ostsiedlung.

In 1243 the papal legate William of Modena divided Prussia into four dioceses under the archbishop of Riga, one of which was Kulmer Land (Chełmno Land), the other Pomesania, Pogesania and Samland (Sambia).

After the Thirteen Years War, civil wars between the German Prussian cities and the Teutonic Knights ended with the Second Peace of Thorn (1466), western Prussia came under Polish crown protection as a part of autonomous West Prussia, since the 1700s also referredto as Royal Prussia (see Chełmno Voivodship).

As a result of breaking apart of the multiple countries, formerly formed by Grand Dukes of Lithuania as Kings of Poland, in 1772 and referred to as First Partition of Poland, Kulmer Land (with the exception of Toruń) was united with the eastern parts of Prussia (East Prussia) by the Kingdom of Prussia. Between 1807 and 1815 Kulmer Land Chełmno Land was a part of the Duchy of Warsaw. In 1815 it become part of Posen Grand Duchy of Poznań, but in 1817 Kulmer Land was included in West Prussia.

Following the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, large parts of West Prussia were severed from Germany and given to Poland, (as Ziemia Chełmińska) in January 1920. In first days of September 1939 Kulmerland again became part of Germany, October 1939 annexed, January 1945 captured by Soviet Army and by Stalin given to Poland.

References

• Ziemia Chełmińska w przeszłości: wybór tekstów źródłowych , ed. by Marian Biskup. Toruń 1961 (digital copy)

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External links

• 1500s Map of Old Prussian Land (Altpreussen) with Culmerland, Sassen, Galindia (Michelau and Löbau) on the Border to Masovia to the south of Prussia, before arrival of Teutonic Knights

• History of Prussia
• Polish historical regions
• German-speaking ex-regions
• Regions of Poland