Making a Dynasty: The Visual and Material Politics of Duke Albrecht of Prussia, 1511-1568

Abstract

This dissertation examines the secularization of the State of the Teutonic Knights (Deutschordensstaat), a medieval crusader-state in the southern Baltic, and the making of a princely dynasty to rule the new Prussian dukedom, known as Ducal Prussia. In 1525, after centuries of lingering conflict between the military order and the neighboring Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Grandmaster Albrecht of Brandenburg-Ansbach (1490-1568) submitted to King Sigismund I of Poland and received his former lands as a royal fief. The title was to be inherited by his successors. In a next step, Duke Albrecht introduced the Reformation to his realm, thereby making Ducal Prussia the first Protestant state on the European continent. Due to dynastic alliances, the dukedom passed on to the prince-electors of Brandenburg in the early seventeenth century and became the territorial foundation (and namesake) of the modern kingdom of Prussia in 1700. As the 500th anniversary of the events of 1525 draws near, this dissertation sets out to re-evaluate this unique historical process through the lens of the visual and material cultures of the new ducal court at Königsberg. It has been exactly seven decades since Peter G. Thielen devoted a monograph to the court culture of Duke Albrecht, the last study to be devoted to the subject. Composed in the aftermath of World War II, Thielen’s publication was an attempt to vindicate the lost German cultural legacy in eastern Europe. Despite its unique genesis, the history of Ducal Prussia and its ruling dynasty has largely been forgotten in public consciousness and in the academic world. The ducal court, too, has only received little, if partial treatment. Far from attempting a comprehensive survey, the following five chapters aim to reframe the most important objects and object groups associated with the court as evidence of a prolonged process of ‘dynasty-makingʼ. In doing so, I apply the methodology of the so-called ʻcultural turn,ʼ in particular the history of political culture (Kulturgeschichte des Politischen) as practised by historians such as Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger, who emphasize the constitutive (rather than purely reflective) role of visual and material symbols with regard to cultural and social realities, such as political systems. The Prussian example vividly illustrates that dynasties, too, represent another such entity that is by no means a given but have to be fashioned via different symbolic strategies. The individual objects or object groups shed light on different themes in the making of the ducal dynasty. Chapter One analyzes the creation of Ducal Prussia as a gender revolution, as exemplified by the formerly celibate grandmaster’s conversion into the father of a family. Marriage and procreation became the main requirement for perpetuating the new dynasty, and the representation of his marriages in fact emerged as a key ingredient of the duke’s personal iconography as a ruler. The arrival of a new female population also left an important mark on Königsberg Castle’s topography. Duke Albrecht personally ensured the religious instruction of his wife, thereby implementing patriarchal Lutheran ideas about the godly household, which also served as a model for the prince’s relationship to his subjects. Chapter Two analyzes Duke Albrecht’s ceremonial sword of 1540/41 as a status symbol whose elaborate decorative program constructed the duke’s authority by invoking God’s word. The sword is also examined within the larger context of the creation of new ceremonial arms for Catholic and Protestant princes in the mid-sixteenth century, a kind of ‘symbolic arms race’ amongst Catholic and Protestant princes that expressed widespread anxieties over the escalation of confessional tensions. Chapter Three examines the so-called Silver Library, a unique group of twenty relatively large silver bindings created in the 1540s-1560s, which are doubly remarkable for being primarily associated with two female members of the ducal family. The first binding was commissioned by the regent and author Elisabeth of Brandenburg (1510-1558) for a political treatise that she herself had originally authored for her own son and his descendants in order to ensure the lasting success of her evangelical legacy. The remaining bindings were largely commissioned for and by Elisabeth’s daughter, Duchess Anna Maria of Prussia, in order to encase important works of contemporary evangelical literature. At a time when large precious metal bindings were generally no longer produced, the richly adorned Silver Library adapted a genre formerly reserved for sacred texts to encase the new works of Lutheran authors. In doing so, the ensemble constructed and affirmed the dynasty’s Protestant identity at a time when widespread doubts over Duke Albrecht’s religious orthodoxy had in fact begun to paralyze his rule. Chapter Four studies Duke Albrecht’s special relationship with Prussia’s most remarkable natural resource, Baltic amber. The Teutonic Knights had imposed a monopoly on the harvesting and sale of the material, which subsequently emerged as an important source of revenue. Duke Albrecht successfully secured and extended the monopoly. Rare and mysterious, he made frequent use of the sought-after material as a diplomatic gift, both as a medicinal substance and as artefacts. This allowed him to show off the natural riches that divine Providence had bestowed on his godly realm and demonstrably gave the little-known region a recognizable face in the broader European imaginary. Chapter Five examines the ducal family’s extraordinary funerary monuments in the choir of Königsberg Cathedral as another crucial element of self-fashioning. In an age that treasured old age and tradition, the practice of remembrance and burial sites were essential for any princely dynasty. The ducal monuments at Königsberg asserted the dynasty’s presence in the capital city’s most important sacred space and allowed its members to assert their particular place in terms of terms of continuity and rupture with the past.