>The headquarters of the Teutonic
>Knights, Malbork, is an impressive massive castle in Poland.
Yes, they also had others, such as the one at Thorn, East Prussia,
now known as Torun. That castle is now in ruins; I've been there.
>In sum, the governance of Poland in inspiration, and all too often
>unfortuately in substance as well, was Germanic.
Polish history appears to me to be more complicated than that.
Germanic influence was strong in East Prussia and Pomerania,
but not nearly so much in the rest of Poland, which was very
slavic. The word Slav, by the way, comes from Latin Sclavus
and before that from Greek Sclabos. The English word slave
derives from slav, not the other way around. So many slavs
were enslaved by Greeks, Romans, and others that the later
meaning arose.
However, Poland has a long and proud history, much of it
consciously in distinction to the Germans, Tatars, Russians, etc.
See, for example,
http://www.kasprzyk.demon.co.uk/www/HistoryPolska.html
What does this have to do with Sinclairs? Well, according
to Pete Cummings, William St. Clair (c.1327-c.1358) died
in Lithuania fighting with the Teutonic Knights. He was
the father of Henry, first Sinclair Earl of Orkney.
At that time, King Casimir the Great (1333-1370) ruled
one one of the largest versions of the Polish state that
ever existed.
As a convenient online atlas of medieval European history,
may I recommend
http://www.euratlas.com/
which has maps in 100 year increments from AD 1 to 1700.
For a paper volume, I recommend the Times Atlas of World History,
which is now known as the Hammond Atlas of World History,
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0843713593/qid=1020263800/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/002-0115794-4348836
For those who don't want quite so large a tome, the Penguin Atlas
of World History comes in handy paperback-sized volumes.
John S. Quarterman <jsq@quarterman.org>
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