Frauenburg/Frombork
Frauenburg/Frombork
Etymology
The name ‘Frauenburg’, which has been in use since the Middle Ages, or its Latin equivalent ‘Castrum Dominae Nostrae’, refers to Mary, the cathedral’s patron saint.
Political and administrative affiliation
Poland;Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship (Województwo warmińsko-mazurskie), Braunsberg/Braniewo District (Powiat), town and administrative centre of the rural municipality of the same name.
Common symbolism
The town’s current coat of arms depicts, on a red field, a silver town wall with two towers and a closed, gold-coloured gate; above the wall is a half-length figure of the Virgin Mary in a blue cloak, holding the Child in her arms. Older versions from the Prussian/German period depict the Virgin Mary without the Child above a wall with three towers.
Middle Ages
The seat of the Diocese of Ermland, founded in 1243, was originally Braunsberg/Braniewo, situated 10 km east of Frauenburg. Following its destruction by the Prussians in the 1270s, the Bishop of Ermland, Heinrich Fleming (c. 1230–1300) moved the seat of the cathedral chapter to a fortified site, a hill on the shores of the Vistula Lagoon, and had a castle, Frauenburg, built there. No evidence has yet been found of an earlier Prussian settlement or fortification at this site. At the foot of the cathedral hill, the town of the same name was founded by the settler Gerhard Fleming (first mentioned in 1278, granted a charter in 1310 under Lübeck law), which passed from the bishop’s suzerainty to that of the cathedral chapter before 1320. During the military conflicts between the German Order and Poland from 1414 and 1454–1466, the town was sacked on several occasions. Following the defeat of the German Order and the Second Peace of Toruń in 1466, Frauenburg, along with Warmia, came under the suzerainty of the Polish Crown.
Modern times
During the so-called Cavalry War of 1520, the town was captured and sacked by the troops of Albrecht von Hohenzollern (1490–1568), the last Grand Master of the German Order. In the first year of the Polish–Swedish War of 1626 to 1629, the Swedes, advancing from Braunsberg, plundered the cathedral precinct – at that time, the cathedral’s interior was partly destroyed by the troops of Gustavus Adolphus (1594–1632) and partly looted and taken to Sweden – and the town. In 1772, during the First Partition of Poland, Frauenburg, together with Warmia, came under Prussian administration as part of the province of East Prussia.
19th/20th century
In 1818, as part of the Prussian administrative reform, Frauenburg was placed under the jurisdiction of the newly established Braunsberg district. In 1837, the bishops of Warmia moved their residence back to Frauenburg from Heilsberg/Lidzbark Warmiński. In 1927, the town and the cathedral district were merged into a single administrative unit. On 9 February 1945, Frauenburg was 80 per cent destroyed during the Red Army’s conquest; it subsequently came under Polish administration and temporarily lost its town charter (until 1959). Between 1966 and 1973, the historic town centre was rebuilt.
Population trends
In 1890, the town had a population of 2,458, the majority of whom were Catholic (92 per cent); by 1939, the figure had risen to 3,000.[1] After 1945, the Germans who remained in Frauenburg were expelled, and Poles – predominantly displaced persons from the former Polish eastern territories – settled in their place. Today, 2,463 people live in the town.[2]
Economy
From the mid-15th century, the town had a harbour on the Vistula Lagoon; its inhabitants lived mainly from fishing, trade (primarily in salt and yarn) and crafts (mainly in the service of the canons). Frauenburg experienced a modest economic upturn after 1837, when the entire diocesan administration was relocated there. In 1899, the town gained railway links to Braunsberg and Elbing. Owing to its location on the lagoon and its well-preserved historic buildings, it developed into a tourist resort. Even after the post-war reconstruction, the tourism industry remains the main source of income for the inhabitants.
History of Religion and the Church
The town’s significance in church history dates back to its founding, when, in the late 1370s, Domburg was established as the seat of the Ermland Cathedral Chapter and the site of the cathedral. Between 1350 and 1795, the bishops themselves resided at Heilsberg Castle (Lidzbark Warmiński), and thereafter, for a short time, in Oliva (Oliwa) near Gdańsk. In 1837, Frauenburg became the bishop’s seat and thus the administrative centre of the entire diocese. In 1945, the seat of the diocese was moved to Allenstein/Olsztyn.
The town remained largely unaffected by the Reformation; it was not until 1772, following the annexation of Warmia to Prussia, that a Protestant congregation was established there. Even throughout the 19th century, the Protestant inhabitants remained in the minority (in 1890, there were 176 out of 2,458 inhabitants).[3] During the 19th century, a number of Jewish families also settled in Frauenburg, but their numbers remained too small to form an independent congregation.[4]
Science
Between 1510 and 1543, the astronomer, mathematician and Ermland canon Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543) lived and worked in Frauenburg – with brief interruptions. According to oral – and rather dubious – tradition, a fortified tower in the north-west corner of the cathedral precinct served as his home and workplace; today it is known as the ‘Copernicus Tower’. It is thought, however, that he conducted his studies in a canon’s house outside the cathedral precincts. It was in Frauenburg that Copernicus also wrote his most famous work, *De revolutionibus orbium coelestium*, which made a decisive contribution to the development of the heliocentric world view. Copernicus’s grave in Frauenburg Cathedral fell into oblivion over the centuries. It was not until 2005 that skeletal fragments were found during archaeological investigations near the altar; DNA analysis identified them with a high degree of probability as the astronomer’s remains. In 2010, they were ceremonially reburied in the cathedral.
Today, Frauenburg is home to the Copernicus Museum (Muzeum Mikołaja Kopernika).
Art History and Architecture
Cathedral Quarter: The quarter, comprising the cathedral and the surrounding defensive wall with its towers, was built on a plateau on the shores of the lagoon, protected on three sides by ravines. The first settlement, comprising a wooden church and earth-and-timber fortifications, was first mentioned in documents in 1278; in 1305, a chapter house was recorded on the east side of the church. The layout of the complex evolved over the course of the 14th century; the defensive walls, built of brick on a fieldstone foundation, were fitted with towers, rebuilt and reinforced right up to the 17th century (between 1683 and 1689, the bell tower in the south-west corner, named the ‘Radziejowski Bastion’ after its benefactor, was extended and raised). The complex includes the square ‘Copernicus Tower’ on the west side and the entrance gate in the south, flanked by two towers, in front of which stood a rondel (foundations preserved). Houses for the canons were built on the inner side of the wall (partially preserved; the oldest of these, such as St Mary’s Curia on the north side, date in their core to the 15th century); further houses for the canons were situated outside the defensive wall (seven canons’ houses dating from the 14th to the 19th century have survived).
Cathedral of the Assumption of Mary and St Andrew: Construction of the present-day cathedral on the site of the first wooden church in the northern part of the castle plateau began in 1329 under Bishop Heinrich Wogenapp (in office 1329–1334). The choir was consecrated in 1342; the church was completed in 1388 (the date is inscribed in the narthex). The three-aisled, eight-bay brick hall church, with a straight-ended, five-bay chancel and star vaults, features richly decorated gables on the east and west sides as well as four small ornamental towers at the corners of the building; the construction of a large tower had to be abandoned – presumably due to a ban imposed by the German Order. The west façade was likely modelled on the abbey church in Pelplin. On the west side there is a porch featuring a foundation inscription on a letter frieze, as well as an elaborately decorated limestone portal (on the outside with depictions of animals, on the inside with depictions of the Apostles, Prophets, the Wise and Foolish Virgins, and Christ as the Judge of the World). Fragments of wall paintings dating from around 1500 have been preserved on the north wall. The originally Gothic interior was replaced by Baroque elements following the extensive looting of 1626; among the surviving features are the former high altar from 1504, the circular epitaph of Canon Bartholomäus Boreschow, who died in 1426, and the Konarski epitaph, most likely an early work by Andreas Schlüter (1659/1660–1714).
The Bishop’s Palace on the south-east side of the cathedral was built between 1523 and 1537 by Bishop Mauritius Ferber (1471–1537), and was redesigned in the Baroque style in 1727 under Bishop Christoph Andreas Szembek (1680–1740); it burnt to the ground in 1945, and was rebuilt between 1965 and 1970. This simple plaster-clad building, with a horseshoe-shaped ground plan, now houses the Copernicus Museum.
Town layout: The town, with its rectangular layout, grid-like street network and square market place, developed along the Bauda Canal (Mała Bauda; Kanał Kopernika), which was constructed in the 14th century. Following the destruction of the Second World War, it was largely rebuilt in a modern style.
Former Catholic parish church of St Nicholas: The hall church, built around 1340–1355, burnt down during the War of the Estates (1454–1466) and was rebuilt from around 1474; re-consecrated in 1507. Having burnt down in 1945, it was provisionally restored in the post-war period and used as a municipal heating plant. It is a three-aisled hall church with imposing gables on the east and west sides, divided by blind windows; inside, some of the star vaults have been preserved.
The Holy Spirit Hospital, first mentioned in 1437, with its St Anne’s Chapel, was owned by the Antonite monks from Tempzin in Mecklenburg between 1507 and 1519; it was extended in 1686, restored between 1978 and 1989 following damage sustained during the Second World War, and is now home to the Museum of the History of Medicine. The building is designed as a combination of hospital and church; in the chancel, fragments of wall paintings from around 1430 have been preserved, including a depiction of the Last Judgement.
Culture of commemoration and remembrance
At the centre of the town’s culture of remembrance is its most famous resident, Nicolaus Copernicus.
In 2001, a memorial stone was unveiled on the shores of the Vistula Lagoon to commemorate the East Prussians who fled across the ice in January/February 1945.
Bibliography
- Michael Antoni (ed.): Dehio Handbook of Artistic Monuments. West and East Prussia. The former provinces of West and East Prussia (Prussia under the Teutonic Order) including the Bütow and Lauenburg regions. Munich, Berlin 1993, pp. 178–187.
- Christofer Herrmann: Medieval Architecture in Prussia. Studies on the Question of the Artistic Landscape and Geography. Petersberg 2007 (Studies in International Architecture and Cultural History 56).
- Małgorzata Jackiewicz-Garniec, Mirosław Garniec: Castles in the Prussian Lands of the Teutonic Order. Olsztyn 2009, pp. 142–153.
- Anneliese Triller: Frauenburg. In: Erich Weise (ed.): Handbook of Historical Sites. East and West Prussia. Stuttgart 1981 (Kröners Taschenausgabe 317), pp. 56–58.
Web links
- www.frombork.pl/strona-42-Historia_miasta+Historia_miasta.html (the town of Frauenburg/Frombork’s website on the town’s history)
- www.herder-institut.de/bildkatalog/wikidata/Q497115 (Images of Frauenburg/Frombork in the image archive of the Herder Institute, Marburg)
Notes
[1] Michael Rademacher: A History of German Administration from the Unification of the German Empire in 1871 to Reunification in 1990. URL: treemagic.org/rademacher/www.verwaltungsgeschichte.de/index.html (accessed 11 January 2022).
[2] GUS – Główny Urząd Statystyczny [Central Statistical Office]: www.stat.gov.pl, as at 30 June 2013 (accessed 26 December 2013).
[3] treemagic.org/rademacher/www.verwaltungsgeschichte.de/index.html (note 1) (accessed 11 January 2022).
[4] In the 1870s, there were around 30 people of the Jewish faith living in Frauenburg who belonged to the community in neighbouring Braunsberg. See the pages on local Jewish history in Poland developed by the ‘Polin’ Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw: sztetl.org.pl/pl/miejscowosci/f/1007-frombork (accessed 11 January 2022). See also Aloys Sommerfeld: Jews in Warmia. In: Michael Brocke, Margret Heitmann, Harald Lordick (eds.): On the History and Culture of the Jews in East and West Prussia. Hildesheim 2000 (Netiva: Paths of German-Jewish History and Culture; Studies of the Salamon Ludwig Steinheim Institute 2), pp. 41–46.
Citation
Beata Lejman, Tomasz Torbus: Frauenburg/Frombork. In: Online Encyclopaedia on the Culture and History of Germans in Eastern Europe, 2014. URL: ome-lexikon.uni-oldenburg.de/p32375 (as at 11 January 2022).
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