New historical data on the Teutonic Order crusades in Prussia: geophysical and archaeological research into an earth‐and‐timber stronghold and city of the 1230s at Starogród, northern‐central Poland

Abstract

AbstractIn 2016–2018 in Starogród, in historical Chełmno Land in northern‐central Poland, remains were discovered of a stronghold (convent house) of the Knights of the Teutonic Order that was founded in the 1230s. After a search lasting more than 100 years, remains were also discovered of the oldest and repeatedly translocated city of Chełmno, which was founded by the German Knights at the same time. Non‐invasive and archaeological studies were conducted as part of the project Castra Terrae Culmensis, at the edges of the Christian world, whose main aim was to answer central questions concerning the beginnings of the State of the Teutonic Order in Prussia. One specific goal was to discover the oldest location of the aforementioned city, founded in 1232. The article presents the results of geophysical, archaeological and geomatic analyses that confirm historical records in the fourteenth‐century German Chronicle and helped to piece together the history of the place where one of the oldest Teutonic Order earth‐and‐timber strongholds and cities chartered under Chełmno Law stood.