La Bataille d' Heilsberg 1807

Heilsberg Battlefield Dates Back To The Time Of Teutonic Knights

To visit Heilsberg is like taking a slice of an old tree trunk and then study its tree-rings—there is a story for every ring and each story might be in a different language. The history of Upper Central Europe is well represented when a visit to Heilsberg is made. Today Heilsberg is called Lidzbark Warminski, and it is part of Poland. It is a town proud of its rich historical heritage, which dates back a thousand years. Heilsberg was originally settled by the old, pagan Prussians, who had very little in common with the more recent Prussians of modern times and had successfully resisted Christian conversion for more than 200 years. The Old Prussians, speaking a now extinct language, founded the town of Lecbarq in the 10 th or 11 th Century. Despite the efforts of the Christian Poles in the area to evangelize Prussians, that task had been turned over to the Teutonic Knights, who were able to conquer and Christianize the area in 1240 and renamed the town Heilsberg. Heilsberg became the seat for the Bishopric of Warmia for the next 500 years. The Knights built the Warmian Castle, which remains there today, in the 1350’s. The Poles took over the town in the 1450’s and the Teutonic Knights left the area. The Polish astronomer Nicholas Copernicus moved to the town and lived in the castle. He did much his work there just after 1500.

The Warmian Castle Today—the Towers Are 14 Storeys High

Swedish King, Charles XII spent a winter in Heilsberg (1703) during the Great Northern War with his Polish allies. In the 1750’s Warmia Bishop Stanislaw Grabowski, among other accomplishments, arranged for the printing of the great medieval Polish documents discovered in the Heilsberg castle which memorialize the Great Polish Enlightenment. However, the Poles had become exhausted in century of warfare and the Kingdom of Prussia annexed Heilsberg and its surrounding area in the First Partition of Poland in 1772. The Bishopric of Warmia was dis established in 1795 and Heilsberg lost its cultural standing. Heilsberg quickly became acclimated to the Prussian way of life. Heilsberg was the home of the Prussian 21 st Fusiliers, which in the Battle of Heilsberg, functioned as the garrison for the town, and did not leave the town till after the battle. The town returned to Prussian control after the

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