Celto-Germanic vs Balto-Slavic vs Celto-Romance vs Indo-Iranic

**Peterski** · 09-25-2023, 07:37 PM

Originally Posted by rothaer

Mostly you show German buildings.

I'd say all but Lublin and Warszawa.

Poznan's market square as it exists now was mostly built in the 1500s-1600s and at that time the city had a mostly Polish ethnic character.

Surnames of citizens of Poznan in various years from 1575 to 1793:

"Album civitatis Posnaniensis" - https://www.szukajwarchiwach.gov.pl/...nostka/1125084

https://repozytorium.ukw.edu.pl/bitstream/handle/item/5158/Nazwiska%20odimienne%20dawnych%20obywateli%20miejskich%20Poznania%201575%201793.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

Surnames in 1792 (as you can see still mostly Polish) - http://www.bkpan.poznan.pl/projekty-...70/poz-baz.htm

Originally Posted by rothaer

Even most of what is visible and notable from the Poznan and Kraków pics is German. Not sure how the ethnic composition in Krakau was in 1555 when they started to build the Renaissance Tuchhallen.

Cracow was already fully Polonized in 1555. As for Poznan - I doubt that it was ever majority German.

I showed you before an article about the Ostsiedlung in Wielkopolska, and according to that article, only very few Germans came to Wielkopolska during the Middle Ages.

Here is the article in question (it mentions the % of Germans in some towns, such as Pyzdry / Peisern) - https://www-wrzesnia-powiat-pl.trans...en&_x_tr_hl=pl

But the tower from the city hall from the 13th century was from the pure German period of Krakau (in the beginning Poles were not even allowed to become citizens, we've discussed and elaborated it here at TA with Peterski).

Yes we did discuss it, and the conclusion was that not Poles were not allowed to become citizens, but peasants were not allowed to become citizens.

I started a thread about it on Polish history forum and I gave you the link to responses which say that it was about peasants, not about all Poles:

https://www-historycy-org.translate....en&_x_tr_hl=pl

https://www-historycy-org.translate...._x_tr_sch=http

Poles who were knights or Poles who were burghers from other towns were allowed to become citizens in Cracow since the beginning.

Originally Posted by rothaer

In 1600 AD the German language was ceased at the Krakau city court which was the heyday of Polonisation, but already before throughout the 16th century the majority of new citizens were Poles. Here's a lot on information on those conditions:

https://www.google.de/url?sa=t&rct=j..._&opi=89978449

German was a lingua franca, similar to Latin. Just because it was used doesn't mean that the majority of people used it also as their mother tongue.

As for Posen there is the "Rechtsbuch der Stadt Posen" that shows that the language of the entity of the city of Posen was German only in 1400 AD (however):

https://www.geschichtsquellen.de/werk/4118

I'm not sure about the conditions when the Renaissance city hall was built, as this happened comparably late in the 16th century. I didn't dig deeper now.

Just because the Rechtsbuch was in German doesn't mean that the inhabitants were Germans.

German was a lingua franca similar to Latin, especially when it comes to fields like trade and law (while Latin was preferred in some other fields).

Often you find in Polish cities that they were German entities at their foundation and then lasted like that for centuries before they became Polonised. The small town Birnbaum/Miedzychód where I have ancestry from was a fully German entity even in the 17th century as I could see. It doesn't mean there were no Poles around but they were mostly no citizens and had not much to do with the political entity of the city. The administration language at that time was German only and the citizens were overwhelmingly Germans.

Międzychód became German-settled when German refugees from mostly Silesia fled there during the 1500s-1600s. You also have ancestors from Wielkopolska who came here as refugees from Silesia, not earlier during the Ostsiedlung (those became Polonized, and as I said the Ostsiedlung was never strong in Wielkopolska).