Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-dh8gc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T15:33:15.455Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

5 - Two Books on the Antiquities of the Prussians (1518)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 May 2022

Edited and translated by
Get access

Summary

The Prussians, dwelling in the whole length and breadth of this land, do not however cultivate it; either from ignorance of agricultural matters; or, not prevented by the goodness of the soil, they become afraid of their neighbours in their guilt, and they are thus compelled to come outside. Because they do not yet know a diet generated from the earth, they feed on the flesh of wild animals and anything raw for food, and milk for drink, which they even mix with horse blood (and that to the point of drunkenness). They do not fix their houses in one place, but have them in caves or from the bark of trees, whence they are called “bark houses’; and thus they protect themselves and their children from showers and cold. For a considerable while, nothing was sacred to them; but at last they were so far seduced into insanity that they devoutly worshipped snakes, wild animals, and trees (of which we shall speak more in what follows). They know neither laws nor magistrates; and as much as is permitted to each one, that much he dares to do. Their life differs in no way from that of wild beasts. Shipwrecked people, or those tossed up out of the sea from a storm, are more civilized; and even though there is assistance for them all around, there is remarkable filthiness and filthy poverty among the rest. For them there were neither arms nor iron, and if ever they came together in conflict, they used charred stakes and poles. …

This people, as I said in passing concerning their customs, used to have princelings whose laws they obeyed; and they used to cultivate fields and know commerce. The fashion of clothing among them used to be wool for men, while women wore linen tunics, and a collar of bronze or brass encircled their necks; and from their ears they suspended earrings—a frivolous thing, which is not even abandoned today. They inhabit houses constructed in the manner of halls, and villages are alien to the Sarmatians; everything is both without any wall or protective ditch—except what may have been taught by foreigners, thanks to their coming there on account of trade.

Type
Chapter
Information
Pagans in the Early Modern Baltic
Sixteenth-Century Ethnographic Accounts of Baltic Paganism
, pp. 74 - 79
Publisher: Amsterdam University Press
Print publication year: 2022

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×