The Reception of Kazimierz Jagiellończyk’s Prussian Privilege of Incorporation in Gdańsk in the Second Half of the Fifteenth Century

Abstract

In 1454, King Kazimierz IV Jagiellończyk incorporated Prussia intothe Kingdom of Poland. This act became the direct cause of the Thirteen Years’ War with the Teutonic Order. The privilege of incorporation (Privilegium incorporationis) of March 6, 1454, granted to representatives of the Prussian states at that time, became the most important source of rights that created the legal basis for the autonomy of Royal Prussia within the Polish‑Lithuanian Commonwealth. The original of the document was kept in the Toruń archives. Numerous copies from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries testify to a considerable interest in issues relating to the autonomy of Royal Prussia. This resulted from the actions of the Commonwealth of Poland aimed at limiting the political separateness of Prussia. The subject of the article is the question of knowledge of the content of the incorporation privilege in Gdańsk in the period immediately after the end of the Thirteen Years’ War (after 1466). In 1470, Gdańsk obtained a copy of the privilege (which has not survived to this day), sent from Toruń. A second copy is in a manuscript drawn up in 1485 in connection with the participation of envoys from Gdańsk in the congress of Prussian states in Toruń. During this congress, King Kazimierz Jagiellończyk demanded the levying of new taxes in Prussia to meet the needs of royal policy. This met with opposition from the Prussian states and led to a dispute with the King. Central to the matter were the rights of the Prussian states set out in the Privilegium incorporationis of 1454. It is to be assumed that the Gdańsk sources presented in the article are among the oldest identified copies of the incorporation privilege.