Impacts of the Prussian State
... This expansion of Germans into the territory of Prussia had a significant impact on not only the Prussian’s religion, but to the social order and society, and this expansion had affected Prussia to the fullest extent. The first important information that is to be understood is pre-Prussian history. ... These natives covered many parts of the Prussian territory, but the Slavs settled sparsely in the main areas of Prussia such as Brandenburg, east of the Elbe. ... But though they bartered with amber, this trading did not significantly develop any political structure for the state of Old Prussia because many of the peasants were free farmers and fishermen (71, Schreiber). Old Prussians were also considered to be barbaric by the Germans because they practiced polygamy and the tradition in which the father would pass down a wife to his son (34, Prussian Society and the German Order). ... After the Order fought in the Crusades, they did not have a new goal, and started to go after the Slavs in an attempt to expand and established a state in the “far north-territories” from 1226 to wipe out the heathens (25, Fulbrook). ... They controlled not only the state of Prussia but also the plunder from that region and the commerce from the Baltic Sea. ... Prussian peasants, however, were not given written rights and obligations. ... Prussian freemen were much different than the peasants, but were not treated too differently. The Prussian villagers did not have the written or collective privileges of their German neighbors. Their tenurial position was less secure than that of the German colonists, and if a Prussian died without adult male heirs, his land and half of his movable property would be given to the lord. With the Treaty of Christburg of 1249, the Prussian free classes were able to acquire property from anyone, leave property to any heir, have the right to receive testamentary bequests, and to receive Holy Orders. ... By taking advantage of Prussian labor, the Germans exploited the natives and ruined their lives by destroying their crops. ... The Germans were not to be trusted to run a efficient state that supported the natives, so when the Order lost the Battle of Tannenberg, the Prussians decided to rely on the Polish King for help and for him to become their ally. ... They would not have intermingled with different cultures and the Old Prussian language would still be present.