The Wilderness

Samuel Kiechel mentioned that a dense forest covered the landscape he travelled through from Königsberg to Grodno. In sources from the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, the area is described as a ‘wilderness’.¹ According to the sources, it was a densely forested, marshy region interspersed with open meadows. Many small rivers and streams flowed through it. It was the last primaeval forest of ancient Europe. Initially, the area was dotted with small settlements and hillforts of the Prussian tribes, but it was depopulated during the protracted conflict between the Teutonic Order and Lithuania, as the constant threat of raids or of whole armies passing through made life untenable. The Knights began to establish a network of castles in the wilderness as forward bases, watchposts and early defences against Lithuanian raids.²

Sources from the Middle Ages and the first century of the early modern period are not particularly known for detailed and accurate landscape descriptions. Traveller’s journals focused mostly on the settled places and largely omitted the spaces between them.³ Kiechel is already something of an exception for writing about his time on the road. But his descriptions of the landscapes barely go beyond noting whether they were pleasant, beautiful or desolate.

So how do we know about the wilderness?

Historical background

The Teutonic Order was founded in 1198 in Acre, in the aftermath of the Third Crusade. In 1226, Duke Konrad of Masovia (1187-1247) called upon the Order to fight the heathen Prussians, a conglomerate of tribes living along the Baltic coast between the Vistula and Neman Rivers. The Knights agreed and secured their position in the region by asking Emperor Frederik II (1194-1250) to grant them all the Prussian territory they conquered (Golden Bull of Rimini, 1226). They established their own territorial domain in Prussia and expanded into Livonia in 1237 after the Brothers of the Sword, another Christian order, were defeated by the Lithuanians and incorporated into the Teutonic Order.⁴

After the Prussians were finally subjugated in 1283, the Teutonic Knights turned their attention to Lithuania. However, Lithuania had been unified by the Gediminid dynasty in the early fourteenth century and had expanded eastward into the territories of the former Kyivan Rus’. Protected by a wide belt of swampy wilderness, the Lithuanians offered far greater resistance to the Teutonic Knights’ attacks than the Prussian tribes. Lithuania remained the last pagan empire until its Union with Poland in 1585/86, when the Lithuanian Duke Jogaila (1352-1434) became the Polish King Władysław II Jagiełło.⁵

In their war with the Lithuanians, the Teutonic Order organised regular military campaigns from Königsberg to Samogitia (Lower Lithuania, the land north of the Memel between Kaunas and the Baltic Sea) and to Lithuania. Although often stylised as crusades against heathens, the sources clearly suggest that many of those campaigns were just raids. However, a marshy wilderness was not the ideal ground for heavily armoured knights, so speed and surprise were of the essence. The Knights had to get through the wilderness quickly, before the Lithuanians could organise a defence or, worse, lay ambushes. As in military campaigns today, intelligence was key. The Knights sent out scouts to mark routes through the wilderness and identify worthwhile targets in Samogitia and Lithuania for an attack.⁶

Scouting the Wilderness

The Teutonic Order was a medieval model of bureaucracy. The scouts, upon returning from their missions, reported their findings. Slips of paper, so-called ‘czedelln’⁷ or ‘czedelichen’⁸, were a common way to communicate information and news within the Order. They were used similarly to notepaper and occasionally reused. The slips of paper would be enclosed in a letter and then sent off. The scout’s reports were written on such slips of paper and sent to Königsberg, the seat of the Marshal of the Teutonic Order, where the campaigns were organised. With the help of those reports, routes and targets were chosen. But many of the reports were also copied into the knights’ ledgers, and 101 of them have survived.⁹

The scout’s reports cover an area that, in modern terms, stretches from the coast of the Baltic Sea (around Klaipėda and the Curonian Lagoon) in the north-west to Novogrudok in Belarus in the south-east. The reports are matter-of-fact. They name waypoints, places for possible campsites, mention the distances between them and the landscape and obstacles, as well as the work needed to clear them. The waypoints in the wilderness are usually rivers and brooks, and the distances are guesswork. The reports contain the names of over 100 streams, lakes, swamps, meadows and stretches of woodland and over 200 villages, farmsteads and fortifications. The settlements and fortifications were usually in Samogitia and Lithuania.¹⁰

The obstacles and the work required to clear them provide a clear indication of the landscape’s character. Advice such as clearing undergrowth for a certain number of miles, building a bridge across a stream, or constructing a simple log road to cross a swamp is regularly found in the reports. The scouts also noted whether the ground was solid enough to support the weight of a war party with all its armour and baggage, or too soft and dangerous.¹¹

The Wilderness in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries

The wilderness, a focal point of the long conflict between the Order and Lithuania, became, with the treaty, a periphery. While there was interest in opening up the region economically, building settlements and pushing roads through, the necessary financial resources were not readily available. In addition, the waves of settlers that had moved east in the Middle Ages had dried up.¹⁴

The continued existence of large stretches of wilderness in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is evident on Caspar Henneberger’s map and on Swedish sketch maps from the mid-seventeenth century. While most of the wilderness has disappeared today, the Białowieża Forest on the border between modern Poland and Belarus is the last remaining stretch of this ancient forest.

Through Prussia

Kiechel spent one day in Elbing and left on 8 June, travelling by carriage with a Prussian man and two men from Silesia. At noon, they arrived in Braunsberg (Braniewo) and in the evening in the village of Brandenburg (Ushakovo). The road was good and flat, passing through pleasant countryside. Kiechel wrote that Braunsberg was still in Prussia, whereas Brandenburg belonged to the Margrave of Brandenburg and Ansbach.

Both Braunsberg and Brandenburg were actually in Prussia. However, the Prussian territory had been divided in 1525. The western part came under the direct rule of the King of Poland, whereas the eastern parts formed the Duchy of Prussia.

Samuel Kiechel and his companions spent the night in Brandenburg and continued the following day to Königsberg (Kaliningrad), arriving around lunchtime.

Königsberg in the 1580s

Our traveller described Königsberg as a large but not heavily fortified city. It has three parts: the Old Town, Kneiphof and Löbenicht. Each part of the city has its own council and jurisdiction. The river Pregel (Pregolya) flows through Königsberg. It comes from Lithuania, and much grain arrives on it. But the amount cannot be compared to the grain trade in Danzig. A few miles from Königsberg, the Pregel flows into the Baltic Sea. Ships can sail up the river to the city to load and unload, but the ships that arrive are not very large.¹

A bird’s-eye view of Königsberg appears in volume three of the Civitates Orbis Terrarum. As Kiechel wrote, the city is presented as a sprawling place with numerous suburbs but almost no fortifications. Of the three parts of Königsberg, Kneiphof is on the island at the centre of the view. The cathedral of Königsberg is on the upper-right edge of the island.

The Old Town lies directly north (above) of Kneiphof, on the other side of the river, and Löbenicht is the eastern part (right side) of the city, around the Church of St. Barbara. The Pregel River flows through the city, and the many ships depicted on it underscore the importance of Königsberg as a regional trading port.

The view of Königsberg is very informative. Not only are the important buildings identified by name, but also the bridges across the river, streets and various other parts of the city (such as meadows and a lake).

The Duke of Prussia was Albrecht Friedrich (1553-1618), who had financed Caspar Henneberger’s map. But Albrecht Friedrich increasingly suffered from depression and mental disorders and was declared unfit to rule. His next male of kin (cousins), Margrave Georg Friedrich of Brandenburg-Ansbach (1539-1603), took over the administration of Prussia. In 1578, the Polish King Stephen Báthory (1533-1586), as feudal overlord, granted him the province of Prussia as a fief.

An epitaph is an inscription on a tomb or gravestone. Because Samuel Kiechel explicitly mentioned an epitaph for the current margrave, who was still alive at the time, our traveller may have mistaken the coat of arms he had seen for an epitaph. In the Middle Ages, the cathedral of Königsberg was renowned for the many coats of arms painted on its walls. As the starting point for many of the Teutonic Orders’ military campaigns against the then-still-heathen Lithuanians, Königsberg attracted many Christian knights from across Europe who wanted to participate. Their coats of arms were painted in the cathedral to commemorate their visits. The second epitaph Kiechel mentioned likely belonged to Albrecht von Brandenburg-Ansbach, the last Grand Master of the Teutonic Order in Prussia and founder of the Duchy.

Samuel Kiechel also noted that amber is found along the Baltic coast around Königsberg. The amber is washed up to the shore by the sea, and all pieces found belong to the margrave. No one is allowed to collect amber under threat of corporal punishment, except the people appointed to do so. The trade in amber is very lucrative, particularly with Turkey (the Ottoman Empire).³

Amber was a highly profitable trade commodity in Prussia, and the area has been renowned for it since ancient times. Tacitus wrote in his Germania in the first century AD that a tribe called the Aesti lived on the right shore of the Baltic Sea (Mare Suebicum) and collected and traded amber.⁴

Departure

Samuel Kiechel spent eleven days in Königsberg. The inn where he stayed was called “Golden Crown”, an unpleasant place with bad food. A fair was held in the city at the time, and Kiechel noted that he could not find companions until it was over.

During his stay in Königsberg, our traveller fell ill. He wrote that he felt unwell and cold, and that he thought he had a fever. Samuel had to lie down, but luckily felt better the next day.

Eventually, he met a Lithuanian merchant who was on his way back to Grodno (Hrodna) and together, they left Königsberg on 21 June.

Making a Map — Caspar Henneberger’s Prussiae Map

To help with this aspect, I would like to introduce Caspar Henneberger. Henneberger (1529-1600) was a contemporary of our traveller; he was a Protestant theologian who served as a pastor in the village of Mühlhausen in Prussia, not far from Danzig. He also produced two maps of Prussia. The first was published in 1576, and the second, a revised version, in 1595. Both maps depict the Duchy of Prussia, the regions of Warmia and Chełmno and the area around Danzig.²

Caspar Henneberger was neither an artist nor a professional mapmaker. As far as we know, he was a self-taught cartographer. According to his own account, Henneberger developed an interest in cartography while studying theology in Königsberg (Kaliningrad). He began collecting maps of Prussia and comparing them with what he knew about the land, what he had read, and what he had heard from reliable sources.³

In addition to his maps, Henneberger published a book to explain them to his readers (Ercleru[n]g der Preüssischen grössern Landtaffel oder Mappen).⁴ This was not unusual. As we have seen, the Swedish cartographer Olaus Magnus did so. Like Magnus, Henneberger collected information about towns, cities, castles and other notable places. He arranged them alphabetically for ease of use. At the end of the book, he added a section listing all the rivers and lakes of Prussia.

But this did not deter Henneberger. He had a clear idea of his map’s purpose. He wanted to present Prussia as a whole, allowing the observer to see all its places, including cities and towns, castles, forests and rivers, and to show how much the Lord had blessed this land. In short, Henneberger was making a representational map for those educated enough to study and enjoy it.⁶

He even dedicated a section of his book to advising readers how to use the map. As mentioned, he ordered the places in his book alphabetically and added a letter and a number to each place. This was a simple set of coordinates. Along the two vertical edges of his map, he placed letters, and the numbers were along the horizontal edges. Henneberger advised his reader to use two pieces of string to connect the appropriate letter mentioned for a specific place, and to do the same with the number. Where the two pieces of string intersected, the reader would find the place mentioned in the book.⁷ The whole system is similar to modern city plans.

One person who was supposed to enjoy the finished map was Duke Albrecht Friedrich of Prussia. He supported Henneberger’s project financially and even directed people in the districts of Prussia to help by providing information on the lay of the land and geographical features, such as rivers and borders.⁸

Caspar Henneberger set out to make his map and, between 1570 and 1576, undertook several journeys through Prussia to survey the land and gather information from locals in towns and villages.⁹ The surveys were limited to local measurements, as conducting large-scale surveys was beyond the capabilities of a single person.

In addition to his journeys, Henneberger consulted Prussian chronicles and other documents and spoke to knowledgeable local people throughout the Duchy. Aware of the risk of misinformation, Henneberger noted that he always collected reports from multiple people about an area and wrote them down for later consultation.¹⁰

However, at this point, Henneberger’s desire to create an accurate map of Prussia collided with the reality of everyday spaces. After returning home to Mühlhausen from his journeys, he compared the collected reports with one another and with his own observations and measurements, and quickly noted an increasing number of contradictions. He wrote that a single report could throw everything out of order and that he was sometimes so frustrated and annoyed that he threw everything down and left the room to continue later.¹¹

Henneberger described how he argued with local people when he told them that their reports were contradictory. Even when he drew for them what he had measured and seen, they refused to give in. Sometimes they would leave the room in a fury and never talk to him again.¹²

It’s easy to see why the local people were annoyed with him. They reported on their everyday surroundings, the areas where they had spent most, if not all, of their lives and knew intimately. Henneberger now told them they were wrong. There were misunderstandings about distances and directions, the shapes of lakes and the names of rivers, but for the most part, each person had their own understanding of their surroundings, and these varied slightly. In a way, Prussia was a conglomerate of small, local spaces. People knew their home, the neighbouring villages and their territorial lord.

But there were further difficulties. Henneberger mentioned that he consulted old chronicles and other documents to learn about Prussia.¹³ Many of these documents were two to three centuries old, dating from the period when the Teutonic Order settled in the Baltic and fought the Prussian tribes and the Lithuanians. Many geographical names, such as rivers, settlements and administrative districts established by the Order, originated in the Old Prussian language and remained in use during the Teutonic Knights’ reign. Prussia was a multicultural and multilingual territory, with German, Old Prussian, Lithuanian and Polish as the main languages. People migrated to Prussia or resettled within the territory, and with them, the language boundaries shifted. Place names began to change or were pronounced differently. After a long decline, the Order was secularised in 1525, and its former territory was partitioned. Within the newly formed Duchy of Prussia, an administrative reform introduced new districts, rendering the old names fully obsolete. In short, many of the names in the chronicles were no longer used and, in part, forgotten.¹⁴

Caspar Henneberger noted that he devoted considerable effort to reconstructing the locations of the old districts and to identifying the rivers whose names he had read in the chronicles and related documents. He gave an example of the river that flowed through Mühlhausen, the town where Henneberger had lived for twenty-nine years. He wrote that no one in the town knew the river’s old name. The townsfolk called it the Mühlhausian River. Moreover, the river changed its name every few kilometres. In each town or village it flowed through, it took the name of that settlement.¹⁷

The various issues Caspar Henneberger encountered while working on the map stemmed from a discrepancy between the perception of local geography as people experience it daily and the descriptive approach of a map, which aims to standardise spatial knowledge. In the sixteenth century, as today, each person has their own take on the spatial properties of everyday life, shaped by daily routines, social networks and radius of activity. But thanks to modern education, we are familiar with the descriptive nature of maps for acquiring or communicating geographical knowledge. The names of rivers, mountains and landscapes are standardised and easy to look up.¹⁸ Mühlhausen is now called Młynary, and the river that flows through the town is the Bauda.

After these experiences, Henneberger, who had first written that he wanted to make a map showing all the blessings bestowed on Prussia, now remarked that he sometimes could not understand how the Lord could make such a difficult land.¹⁹ However, he persevered, and his map eventually gained widespread popularity, replacing the old map in all later editions of Theatrum Orbis Terrarum and in other atlases.

As an example of how a map could standardise geographic knowledge, Henneberger used the old names for the districts of Prussia, dating back to the time of the Teutonic Order and drawn from the names of the native Prussian tribes. What was, at the time of publication, an anachronistic use of outdated territorial names on a modern map became, thanks to the success and popularity of Henneberger’s map, copied and reused by other mapmakers for centuries, thereby keeping those names in circulation.²⁰

About Danzig

Danzig is one of Poland’s oldest cities and has long been a centre of trade and commerce thanks to its location at the mouth of the Vistula River. The city was a member of the Hanseatic League and a major Baltic port. Politically, Danzig came under the rule of the Teutonic Order in 1308. Founded in 1190 in Acre, the Teutonic Knights established themselves in Prussia on the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea after the loss of the Holy Land. The Order’s rule led to repeated political tensions and revolts in the city. The citizens resented the lack of political autonomy and increasing tax burdens, especially in the fifteenth century, when the Teutonic Order was in decline and consistently needed money to pay its mercenaries. The Order also sought to curtail Danzig’s trade and to establish itself as a commercial power.

In 1440, Danzig and other Prussian cities, backed by noble families, formed the Prussian Confederation to oppose the Knights’ oppressive and arbitrary rule. The Confederation sought the protection of the King of Poland. This confrontation led to the Thirteen Years’ War (1454–1466) and the Order’s defeat. In the Second Peace of Thorn in 1466, the Teutonic Order was compelled to relinquish its western territories: part of Pomerania with Danzig, the Kulmerland (Chełmno Land) and Ermland (Warmia). Danzig became part of the Kingdom of Poland and, having supported the Polish Crown during the war, received far-reaching privileges. Apart from acknowledging the Polish king as its sovereign, the city finally achieved autonomy comparable to that of a free city in the Holy Roman Empire.

The Protestant Reformation first took hold in Danzig in 1518, but attempts to establish the new creed were halted by King Sigismund I (1467-1548) in 1526. Only gradually did Protestants receive permission to establish their own parishes. In 1557, St. Mary’s and the other churches stopped celebrating Catholic masses and became Protestant (St. Mary’s became a Catholic church again after 1945).

A view of Danzig appears in volume two of the Civitates Orbis Terrarum. The city is shown in a low-profile view within its surrounding landscape. In the foreground, various people are dressed in local attire, while in the background, on the left, the Vistula flows into the Baltic Sea. Many ships are depicted at sea and on the river. Danzig itself is presented as a large and impressive city. The churches and gates are named on the map. St. Mary’s Church stands out. It is the largest brick church in Europe and is still a popular destination for visitors today.

However, because the view has a broad scope that encompasses much of the surrounding landscape, the city itself is somewhat indistinct. In addition, the depictions of people in local dress occupy almost half of the lower part of the image, so Danzig becomes more of a backdrop than the actual focus.

A more intriguing depiction of the city is a 1615 bird’s-eye view held by the National Archives of Sweden. The view appears to be a preliminary sketch, as it is in pen and ink and has two empty cartouches in the upper corners where the title, artist or a legend would have been added later. The view is an exceptionally detailed depiction of the city. St. Mary’s Church and the town hall are easy to pick out, as is the busy harbour with many ships of different sizes. The large, square complex of buildings just north of St. Mary’s is the Basilica of St. Nicolas and the connected Dominican monastery. The large church to the east of both, close to the harbour, is St. John’s.

The Siege of Danzig

The siege Kiechel mentioned took place in 1577. Stephen Báthory (1533-1586) had been elected King of Poland in 1576. But Danzig had supported his rival, Emperor Maximilian II, and now refused to acknowledge Báthory as its new King.

The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was established by the Treaty of Lublin in 1569. It was an elective monarchy, with the nobility of both Poland and Lithuania selecting their next king. The first elected king of the Commonwealth was Henry of Valois (1551-1589), the brother of Charles IX, King of France. He arrived in Poland in 1574 but left the same year again upon hearing that his brother had died. For Henry, the crown of France was far more prestigious, and his power as king of France was not tied to noble approval. A pro-Habsburg faction in the Commonwealth suggested Emperor Maximilian II (1527-1576) as the new king. But many other nobles feared that picking such a powerful monarch might end the Commonwealth. Instead, Stephen Báthory, the Voivode of Transylvania, was elected and crowned in 1576.

However, Báthory’s position was not safe, and he needed to establish his power quickly. Within the Commonwealth were still many who sympathised with Maximilian and even after his death later the same year, refused to accept Báthory as king, Danzig, for example.

To force Danzig into submission, Stephen Báthory assembled an army and marched north. His Polish-Hungarian troops defeated Danzig’s forces and besieged the city. However, despite heavy bombardment, the fortifications proved too strong, and Báthory’s army failed to capture it.

A contributing factor to the siege’s failure was the inability of the Polish army to seal off the city’s access to the sea. The defensive structure at the mouth of the Vistula, which Kiechel mentioned, was a stone tower fortified with gun positions. As our traveller noted, its role was to guard access to Danzig’s harbour, but the tower also served as a lighthouse to guide ships into the river. Between 1562 and the beginning of the siege in 1577, the towers’ fortifications were extended, and new bulwarks and gun emplacements were added. During the siege, it was badly damaged, but the Polish troops could not take the tower and thereby failed to gain control of the Vistula.⁷ As with many other sieges, a failure to cut off its supply lines meant that the city could not be starved into submission.

A compromise to resolve the conflict was reached fairly quickly in December 1577. The citizens of Danzig acknowledged Báthory as king and paid reparations. At the same time, Stephen Báthory agreed to restore the city’s many privileges, thereby granting it the quasi-autonomous status it had held since 1466.

Spending Time in Danzig

It appears that Samuel Kiechel enjoyed his time in the city. He noted that Danzig is an entertaining and pleasant place. It is set in a nice landscape, with summer houses and fine estates nearby. Of the population of Danzig, the men are brave, and the women wear graceful clothing in keeping with current fashion. Ships arrive daily in the summer months, always bringing news and stories.¹⁰

Furthermore, our traveller wrote that Danzig has a splendid fraternity that meets daily in a place called “der hoof” (the yard), a building beside the market square with a large, beautiful hall. Membership in this fraternity can be acquired for a Gulden (gold coin, Guilder) by any man, whether a citizen or foreigner, young or old, provided he is an honest man. In the fraternity hall, various benches are named after specific places, such as the Lübeck Bench, the Hamburg Bench and others.

When someone becomes a member of the fraternity, they can go there every day and sit where they like. Drinks are served from two o’clock in the afternoon until six o’clock in the evening, and again after dinner from eight to ten. Everyone can drink as much beer as they want and pay two Polish Groschen (small silver coin), which is equivalent to about four Kreuzer (a small coin in southern Germany). When a member of the fraternity dies but does not leave enough money for an appropriate funeral, the fraternity will pay for it.¹¹

The place Kiechel described was the Artus Court (Artushof, Dwór Artusa), a building still open to visitors today. At the Artus Court, nobles, wealthy merchants and foreign guests met and spent their time. As was the custom at the time, members had to be male and, as Kiechel indicated, possess a certain social rank or wealth to be admitted. A gold coin was not an amount of money everyone could afford. Many cities in the Baltic Sea region had an Artus Court or a similar meeting place (such as the House of the Blackheads in Riga).

However, in contrast to Kiechel’s description, the Artus Court was not home to a single fraternity but rather the meeting place for members of several local fraternities. Fraternities in the Middle Ages and early modern period were initially religiously inspired societies of men from certain professional backgrounds, e.g. merchants or ship owners. With the dangers involved in long-distance trade, the fraternities offered a form of social security, a community away from home and salvation. Kiechel mentioned that the fraternity would cover the funeral costs of fraternity members. But with membership strictly limited to aristocrats, wealthy merchants and the occasional visitor, they also held considerable political influence.

The names of the benches in the main hall of the Artus Court in Danzig, Kiechel mentioned, were tied to the various fraternities that met there. The names indicate that they were merchant fraternities engaged in trade with the particular place their bench was named after.

Kiechel seemed to have been able to afford the admission fee, as he wrote about drinking in the Artus Court. Since we are on the topic of alcoholic beverages, Samuel also noted that the beer brewed in Danzig was the best among the Hanseatic cities. In particular, he liked a type of Altbier (old beer) sold in the city. It was many years old, thick and sticky, and called “preüssen” (Prussia). But there was also a wide variety of imported beers available in the city during the summer. Kiechel’s host told him that about twenty different varieties of beer would then be for sale.¹²

After exploring Danzig for twelve days and drinking in the Artus Court, Samuel Kiechel left the city on 6 June, continuing his journey eastward.

Stralsund

The coach carrying Kiechel and the other passengers arrived in the village of Carimi (Karnin?) in Pomerania in the evening, where they spent the night. The following morning, they continued eastward and reached Stralsund at lunchtime.

Kiechel wrote that Stralsund is a port city under the rule of Ernst Ludwig (1545-1592), Duke of Pomerania. The Duke has his court in the nearby town of Wolgast. Stralsund is large, well-fortified, abundant in water, and set within a beautiful landscape. Fish is sold in the city at reasonable prices. A pike weighing three pounds can be bought for a little more than two Kreuzer. Except for wine, food and drink are quite affordable in Stralsund. Kiechel noted that he spent six days in the city, and it cost him no more than one Reichsthaler.²

Stralsund lies on the southern coast of the Baltic Sea, opposite the large island of Rügen. In the Middle Ages and early modern period, the city was a member of the Hanseatic League and a major trading port. Its main exports were agricultural products from the surrounding area and beer. Stralsund’s merchants also engaged in intermediary trade in foreign commodities, maintaining profitable connections with Scandinavian and Livonian cities, as well as with Novgorod in Russia. The Protestant Reformation took hold in the city in the early 1520s, and the first Protestant Church Order in Germany was drawn up in Stralsund in 1525.

Although never achieving the status of a free city, Stralsund had been largely autonomous, enjoying a wide range of privileges granted by the Dukes of Pomerania. However, as with other northern German cities in the sixteenth century, the increasing centralisation of territorial domains and the Hanseatic League’s waning influence and internal divisions curbed Stralsund’s ambitions for independence. At the time of Kiechel’s visit, Duke Ernst Ludwig shared rule of the Duchy of Pomerania with his brother Johann Friedrich. Ernst Ludwig ruled Pomerania-Wolgast, while his brother ruled Pomerania-Stettin.

We have already heard about recreational areas outside the city walls. The Haarlemer Woods were such a popular destination outside Haarlem that they became a common motif for many artists. Stralsund was, as Kiechel wrote, in a beautiful location. The city was on the sea, and to the landward side, three large lakes surrounded it. The lakes still exist today, but the woodland Kiechel described has long since disappeared.

Stettin

Kiechel described Stettin as the capital of Pomerania, and Duke Johann Friedrich (1542-1600) had his court here. The city is not very large but well fortified, and the Oder River flows through its centre. Seventeen miles downstream from Stettin, the Oder flows into the Baltic Sea, allowing ships to reach the city and anchor there. The houses of Stettin look well built, and the city itself is an enjoyable place to stay and not too expensive.⁵

Rostock in the Sixteenth Century

The Civitates Orbis Terrarum contains two views of Rostock. Both depict the city in profile from the east, with the Warnow River in the foreground. The first appears in volume one of the Civitates, first published in 1572. It is on a page with three other images. The view is mistakenly titled Wismaria (Wismar), the city Kiechel was actually travelling to when he left Copenhagen before the weather forced him to change plans. The engravers of the plates for Rostock and Wismar presumably mixed up the images.

The view shows Rostock as a large port city with many church towers. The river and harbour are busy with ships of various sizes. Compared with the second image, published in volume five in 1598, the first lacks detail and appears to be a copy of an older woodcut. While Rostock’s silhouette is clearly recognisable, it looks rather generic. The second view contains much more detail, from the names of various buildings to the distinct shapes of the town hall (Curia) and St. Mary’s Church (D. Mariae) to the busy quayside with people and cargo.

During Samuel Kiechel’s visit to Rostock, the city was experiencing rapid economic growth after a period of decline and political turbulence.

Compared with other cities along the Baltic Sea coast, where the Protestant Reformation had already taken hold in the 1520s, Rostock adopted it only in 1531, after resistance from the city council and the university. In addition, a conflict was brewing in Rostock between the council’s magistrates and the general population. Over time, it had become a rule to allow only members of Rostock’s patrician families to serve on the council. Everyone else was excluded. As a result, the majority of Rostock’s population had no representatives to speak on their behalf. They demanded that a second chamber be established, particularly to give craftsmen and artisans a voice.²

Rostock’s territorial lord, Johann Albrecht I (1525-1576), Duke of Mecklenburg, became involved in the growing conflict on the side of the old city council and eventually occupied the city in 1565. Attempts by the populace to establish a second representative body to counter patrician influence were thwarted. The Duke ordered the city walls to be torn down to prevent resistance.³ Samuel Kiechel noted that the city was not heavily fortified.

In two subsequent treaties in 1573 and 1584, Rostock came under the Duke’s full control. The struggle for autonomy was typical of German cities in the late medieval and early modern periods. Some cities, like Ulm, Hamburg and Regensburg, managed to maintain their freedom, while others, like Rostock, lost their autonomy and became subjects of their territorial lord. However, with the loss of autonomy, tensions within the city eased, laying the foundation for Rostock’s second economic boom.⁴

Samuel Kiechel noted that high-quality beer was produced in Rostock. Beer was a key product in the city’s economy in the late sixteenth century. The right to brew beer and trade in the necessary ingredients (barley, hops and malt) was strictly regulated. A seventeenth-century property register lists about 250 houses where beer was brewed.⁵ Many of those houses were private residences rather than commercial breweries. Beer brewing was therefore not confined to a specific part of Rostock, unlike other trades, but was found throughout the city.⁶ In private residences, beer was produced for daily consumption and also exported. The beer trade was lucrative, and professional brewers were among the city’s wealthy elite.⁷

Samuel Kiechel in Rostock

Samuel Kiechel wrote that Rostock has a university, and that some of the noblemen who studied there had their meals at the inn where Kiechel stayed. During his time in the city, other noblemen visited the house to see the students, and together with our traveller, they enjoyed two entertaining days of eating, drinking, dancing and other activities.¹⁴

This comment concludes with Kiechel referring to a letter he wrote. It is the only point in the journal where he mentions writing letters home. While the revelation that Samuel communicated his experiences to his family in Ulm should not surprise us, it seems odd that there are no other references to it. We do not know how many letters he wrote or how often, and none of them has survived.

In the journal, Kiechel continues that one morning some of the university’s professors were outside the inn in the market square. When the noblemen in Kiechel’s accommodation saw them, they grabbed some of the innkeeper’s books and threw them out the window into the street. Kiechel assumed they did this to honour the professors, a somewhat strange conclusion.

As usual, Samuel Kiechel wrote little about his stay in Rostock. I went to the city’s archive hoping to find additional information. Unfortunately, neither the name of Kiechel’s innkeeper, Niclas Bergman, nor the inn itself was mentioned in the sources I consulted.

While life in the Regentien-houses had been strictly regulated, the growing number of noble students meant that regulations were relaxed. Wealthy students increasingly stayed in private accommodation, and students’ lives grew closer to what we might consider today.²⁰ Samuel Kiechel wrote that he spent a few relaxed days with students, eating, drinking and dancing. As for the students throwing books out of the inn’s windows when they spotted their professors in the market square, I doubt Kiechel’s explanation that this was done to honour the professors.

Our traveller spent five days in Rostock to recuperate from his previous endeavours. He left the city in a coach on 5 May 1586, heading east along the Baltic Sea.

Reprovisioning

By the time the barge anchored below the chalk cliffs of Møn, Samuel Kiechel had already spent four days at sea and had run out of provisions. He wrote that he had brought only bread worth about two Kreuzer (a small German coin). Other passengers were also running low on provisions, so they asked the vessel’s owner to be brought ashore to buy food. The barge carried a small rowing boat for this purpose.

The difficulty in buying bread may have been that, compared with other foods on offer, it had to be baked regularly and did not keep very well. The inhabitants of the hamlet presumably made enough bread for their own consumption and no more, to avoid it going mouldy. The other foodstuffs were either preserved or readily available from the farm animals (eggs, milk). According to Kiechel, everyone bought as much food as needed. Our traveller wrote that he particularly enjoyed the fresh milk.

Afterwards, the group walked back to the boat. But when they reached the shore, Kiechel saw, to his horror, that the owner of their ship had set sail. During their absence, the wind had turned westward, making it too dangerous to anchor in this spot, as the ship would be driven into the cliffs. To allow his passengers to catch up, the sailors had set only the smallest sail. The boat they had arrived in was still on the shore, and everyone hurried towards it.

The passengers had to wade through the surf to reach the boat. When Kiechel saw everyone hurrying towards it, he did not want to be the last. He had bought some eggs and used his hat to carry them back. Now, in his hurry and to have his hands free while wading through the waves, Samuel threw his hat with the eggs into the boat. The eggs probably did not survive this treatment. The wind grew stronger, and the passengers had to row for half an hour to reach the ship.

Better to Travel on Foot

On 25 April, the wind had still not changed direction. Kiechel had run out of food again and asked the ship’s owner whether he would sell him some bread. The owner refused, saying he had only three days’ worth of food left for himself and his crew. Kiechel wrote that this supposed crew consisted of a single sailor, just a boy, who knew as much about sailing as our traveller.

Hungry and with no sign of a change in the wind, Samuel Kiechel decided not to wait any longer. He had spent eight days and nights on the ship and made little progress. Kiechel asked to be put ashore, where he would continue his journey on foot. This request was granted, and our traveller was glad to be off the ship. He wrote that the barge’s owner was a godless man who swore a lot. He cursed every ship he saw sailing past out at sea because he was stuck below the cliffs.

When Kiechel left the ship, another passenger, a tailor, decided to join him. The man had come aboard the barge in Copenhagen with a horse. He sold the animal to the horse trader, who was also travelling on the vessel, for three Reichsthaler before leaving the ship. Having this companion was advantageous to Kiechel, as the tailor spoke Danish.

After being brought ashore, the two men took their bags and set out. An hour later, they reached the village of Busene, where they had something to eat. Kiechel paid a peasant from the village a few coins to lead them to the town of Stege, where they arrived in the evening.

Samuel and his companion left Stege by boat at lunchtime. Also on board were two Scotsmen. Kiechel wrote that Scots travelled as pedlars around Denmark, Pomerania, Prussia and Lithuania. He compared them to the Savoyans in his home country.

Nevertheless, the travellers arrived in Stubbekøbing, wet but safe, and spent the night there. They left the following morning (28 April) and reached Nykøbing at lunchtime.

Into Scania

Kiechel and his Danish companion continued the following morning (8 April). They made good progress and covered a lot of ground. Leaving Blekinge, they entered the province of Scania. Kiechel wrote that the landscape of Scania was far less mountainous, more fertile, and had more settlements than the previous two provinces he had travelled through. The clothing of the people of Scania was cleaner, and they managed their everyday life and affairs better.

On the way, Kiechel’s horse had a nasty fall and took the rider with it. But our traveller was lucky and avoided any serious injuries. The two men arrived in the town of Åhus in the evening. According to the journal, the town had no walls; it was well built and located on an arm of the Baltic Sea.

The following day, the two travellers continued on their way. They rode through farmland and arrived at the house of a priest at noon. There, they had lunch, and Kiechel tried his Latin to talk to their host. It took some effort to communicate, and, curious, the priest asked many questions.

Horse Troubles

After concluding the trade, Samuel Kiechel and his companion continued on their way in the afternoon. They had just two more miles to Malmö. However, when they were half an hour from the city’s gates, Kiechel’s new horse broke away and ran off. Our traveller had been leading the animal behind him. He briefly considered chasing it but decided against it. The horse he was riding was tired from the journey.

Although Samuel did not expect to see the horse again, he began searching for it. After a long while, he saw a carriage travelling along the road, with his horse ambling behind it. Kiechel attempted to catch the animal, but it escaped him again.

Eventually, the horse returned of its own accord and began following Kiechel at a distance. With some effort, our traveller finally managed to catch the animal and lead it by hand into Malmö.

Kiechel wrote that Malmö is the capital of the province of Scania. It is not very large, poorly fortified and by the sea. Some time ago, the city had been engaged in the lucrative herring trade. But the good fishing grounds were now in Norway. Herring is still caught in the waters around Malmö, but the catch is significantly lower than before. Kiechel heard that the people of Malmö considered the loss of the herring trade a punishment by god.³

The view of Malmö in volume four of the Civitates shows the city from the east. The image is small and therefore rather lacking in detail. Malmö is fortified by walls and a moat. In the background of the image lies the Øresund. Six large and two small ships are in the Sound, underscoring the city’s character as a trading and fishing port — just as Kiechel mentioned.

Malmö was a major port of the southern Øresund, and boats sailed directly from there to Copenhagen on the other side. Kiechel wrote that the Øresund was four miles wide at this point. But his hope for a quick departure was dashed by adverse winds. He had to wait three days in Malmö before the wind turned.

Crossing the Sound

Another boat was leaving for Copenhagen later that day. Samuel waited and, together with about thirty other passengers, sailed across the Øresund. He arrived in Copenhagen three hours after the first boat.

To his surprise, Kiechel’s companion proved more honest than our traveller had assumed. Instead of selling the horses and disappearing with the money, the man had waited, and the horses were properly stabled in the house of a shoemaker. Having reached his destination, the erstwhile companion and our traveller now parted company.

Kalmar and Öland

Kiechel described Kalmar as a noble town in the province of Småland, small but well fortified, and even more defensible because of its location in a flat, open landscape right beside the sea. The town had a castle with strong walls and many guns.

Our traveller further wrote: Opposite the town is a small stretch of land that is surrounded by the Baltic Sea. It is half a mile wide but eighteen miles long. This island, called Öland, has many villages and parish churches. Many horses are bred on Öland and then sold on the mainland. The horses are small but sturdy and worth their price.

Kalmar is in southeastern Sweden and is one of the country’s oldest and most important places. There, the Kalmar Union, the personal union between the three Scandinavian kingdoms, was agreed upon in 1379.

Olaus Magnus, the author of the Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalibus (1555), wrote that Kalmar was the oldest city in eastern Sweden and was well known as the place where the Swedish nobility held regular diets (deliberative assemblies). During the Swedish rebellion against Denmark, Kalmar and its castle were heavily contested because of their central location, which provided access to and control over major sea lanes in the Baltic.¹

After the Union ended in 1523, the city became Sweden’s southern stronghold near the border. The neighbouring provinces of Blekinge and Scania remained under Danish rule, and tensions between the two countries continued to simmer.

This 1693 view of Kalmar is quite detailed. It shows the city and the castle, with the Kalmar Sound in the foreground. However, it does not resemble the place Kiechel visited in 1586. There are no images of Kalmar from the late sixteenth century, and, unfortunately, it had changed in the intervening time. The medieval town centre of Kalmar had been built close to the castle. During the Kalmar War (1611-1613) between Denmark-Norway and Sweden, it was largely destroyed. The royal council decided against rebuilding Kalmar at its old location and instead opted to construct the new city centre on the nearby island of Kvarnholmen.

Kalmar was an important trading port. Medieval and early modern sea trade in the Baltic Sea, particularly the lucrative routes from the Hanseatic cities on the German coast to Russia and Livonia, followed the Swedish coast. Olaus Magnus wrote that German, Spanish, French and English merchants regularly visited the city.²

The island of Öland is, as Samuel Kiechel noted, long and very narrow. It stretches like a protective wall along the southeastern coast of Sweden. A map of the island from 1646 shows that Kiechel’s comment about the many villages and parish churches on Öland was justified. In the sixteenth century, large parts of the island were used as royal hunting grounds.

Watching the Royal Family

On 4 April, Samuel Kiechel went to the castle again. Our traveller had a letter of recommendation and was admitted to a hall where he saw the king and his family seated at the table, eating. Although he did not say where he obtained the letter, he had travelled with the Master of the Royal Mint from Söderköping to Kalmar, and it is reasonable to assume that this man was the likely source.

Samuel Kiechel continued his description: On the other side of the table, beside the queen, sat two unmarried women who were the queen’s sisters. All three women were very beautiful. Samuel further mentioned that John III had married his wife for her beauty rather than her social rank, which was below what was expected of a queen.⁵

The whole scene of Samuel Kiechel watching the Swedish royal family eat sounds strange to our modern ears. From the description, it appears as if the family was treated as an attraction to be watched by visitors. However, it’s unlikely that a steady stream of people was led past the table to watch them eat. As Kiechel wrote, he needed a letter of recommendation, which was presumably difficult to obtain. Furthermore, while representation and being seen were part of successful early modern kingship, having a foreigner standing beside the table, watching the monarch eat, was not. Our traveller probably watched the scene from a doorway, gallery or another unobtrusive place in the background.

Rising Waters

On the way to Nyköping, the horse of Kiechel’s companion had begun to limp, and the man considered staying in the town for the animal to recuperate and to exchange his sledge for a saddle. But Samuel wanted to press on to Söderköping that day. One of his former companions, whom he had travelled with from Copenhagen, stayed there, and our traveller wrote that he wanted to spend the night in the house of people he knew. After a short break, Kiechel left his companion in Nyköping and continued alone.

Samuel Kiechel wrote that he neither knew the road nor spoke Swedish, yet he hurried onward. The question of orientation keeps cropping up in the journal. I mentioned earlier that in the sixteenth century, no maps were available for this purpose, and road signs were very rare. This was even worse in Scandinavia, where pathways shifted with the seasons. In winter, frozen lakes and bays were the most common pathways. In summer, they were unusable. Even major roads on land were rarely more than muddy tracks.

However, Kiechel was not completely unfamiliar with the area between Nyköping and Söderköping. He had already travelled through there on the way to Stockholm. In addition, Scandinavian infrastructure was quite rudimentary, with few major roads. In fact, I would hazard the guess that there was only one major road southwards from Nyköping. Roads in the Middle Ages and early modern period were not planned for long-distance traffic, but to connect nearby towns and villages. Norrköping and Söderköping were the next towns to the south. Regardless of the road’s poor quality, our traveller would have been able to follow it, if only for lack of alternatives.

Following the road south, Kiechel came to a small lake, and upon stepping onto it, his horse broke through the ice and stood in the water. The water reached the belly of the animal and began to seep into the sledge. Our traveller managed to get the horse and sledge out of the lake and then drove around it along a rough, swampy path.

Due to the slow progress, Samuel Kiechel would not reach Söderköping that day. He stopped in the evening at a peasant’s house. This house was a familiar place. Our traveller had already spent a night there on his way to Stockholm. The house’s owner, a peasant, recognised the traveller and tried to talk to him, but Samuel did not speak Swedish and could not answer.

Nevertheless, Samuel was given food and drink to the best of his host’s abilities. His horse was also fed. Our traveller was even offered a bench to sleep on instead of the floor, as was usually the case.

To eat the soup the peasant served, Kiechel was given a silver spoon. Our traveller wrote: It is common in Sweden that even poor peasants have some silver spoons, even if they do not have a bed in their house. Wealthier farmers own fifty or more solid silver spoons. The spoons are considered their treasure. Kiechel believed that peasants and farmers mistrusted those who paid in money. As soon as someone had enough money to afford it, this person would not buy a silver spoon but have one made. The spoon would be thick enough to weigh three to four Reichsthaler. Our traveller was also told that the population had been much wealthier before the war (the Northern Seven Years’ War, 1563-1570). Peasants would occasionally work in the mines, and some of them had accumulated half a barrel of silver spoons.¹

Later, Samuel Kiechel would meet the master of the royal mint, a Dutchman, who told our traveller that he still knew a peasant who had half a barrel of silver spoons. But most spoons had been melted down during the war. What wealth the peasants had left was still expressed in silver spoons, and guests would be given one to eat with.

On the morning of 18 March, Kiechel paid the peasant for his hospitality and left. The further he travelled, the more the snow had turned into sludge or mud and the ice into deep water. Kiechel came to a small brook he had to cross. When he was in the middle of it, the ice broke under his horse, and the animal and sledge fell in. Kiechel jumped out, but when he landed on the ice, it broke, and our traveller stood up to his waist in the cold water. Afraid the animal might run away, Samuel did not want to let go of his horse’s reins. He waded through the freezing brook after the animal until they arrived on the other side.

Our traveller hurried onwards. It was only one mile to Söderköping. His clothes were soaked from his fall into the river, and he was cold. Kiechel decided to walk most of the way in an unsuccessful attempt to warm up. Eventually, he reached his destination around lunchtime. He went to the house of his old companion, the merchant with whom he had come from Copenhagen, and was welcomed and invited to spend the rest of the day and the next in Söderköping to dry his belongings, warm up again, and allow his horse some rest.

To Kalmar

Our traveller was preparing to leave when, on 23 March, the Master of the Royal Mint arrived in Söderköping. He was accompanied by a Dutchman and Kiechel’s former companion, the Dane whom he had left behind in Nyköping. The group was on its way to Kalmar, where the Swedish King was at the time.

Travelling to Kalmar would be a significant detour for Kiechel, who simply wanted to leave the country. But he could not find companions for a more direct route to the Øresund. Unlike the short trip from Nyköping to Söderköping, Kiechel could not travel to the Øresund alone. The distance was greater; the landscape was wild, with dense forests, high mountains and a sparse population. Without a companion or a guide, he would likely get lost.

In the following days, they continued their journey south towards Kalmar. The travellers spent the nights in small villages and farmsteads. While Kiechel recorded their names, I was unable to locate them (in the journal, the places are called: Degree, Nügart, Wy, Auaby, Cadry and Abwy). They were all quite small settlements, and our traveller provided barely any information about this part of the journey.

On 30 March, the travellers finally arrived in Kalmar. However, the last short stretch of the journey took them six hours. During the night, the temperatures had dropped, and the water along the route had frozen. The ice was not thick enough to support a horse, and the animals kept breaking through. Walking on foot and leading the horses was also difficult on the thin ice. Kiechel wrote that their horses were hurt more during those six hours than in the previous eight days.