Talk:Pomerania during the High Middle Ages/Archive 1

Double naming rules
We use Gdańsk before 1308 per double naming rules.--Molobo (talk) 18:25, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

They applied to shared history, as of the certain timeline there is no shared history yet, so they are not justified. Also the article is terribly biased to using solely German-based publications so a global template might be in order to present a balanced view.--Molobo (talk) 18:32, 20 December 2008 (UTC)


 * We use Gdansk (Danzig) before 1308. Double naming does not mean to remove all non-Polish names. Skäpperöd (talk) 07:59, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Nope, you are incorrect. For Gdańsk, use the name Gdańsk before 1308 and after 1945

''For Gdansk and other locations that share a history between Germany and Poland, the first reference of one name in an article should also include a reference to other names, e.g. Danzig (now Gdańsk, Poland) or Gdańsk (Danzig). An English language reference that primarily uses this name should be provided on the talk page if a dispute arises.''

So you have to have a shared history first. That means no Danzig for Solidarity strike, but no Gdańsk for killing of Jews by Germans in the city under the German state in 1933-1945. The certain period here is not shared German history of those areas and as such falls out the criteria.--Molobo (talk) 11:12, 21 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I already inserted the Gdansk vote notice for you, please read it carefully. You need to press the "show" button, the notice is on top of the talk page. Skäpperöd (talk) 11:39, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Good then Skapperod, will you now remove the Germanised names from period outside of shared history or should I do it ?--Molobo (talk) 11:41, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
 * There is no "outside the shared history". Please read the notice I pointed out to you. Skäpperöd (talk) 12:04, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I am afraid you are incorrect. Or do you claim that Szczecin, Królewiec should added to all the cases where Stettin, Konigbsberg is written across its history ? We only add double names when they concern a "shared history"-this is not the case here. Likewise we don't add Danzig to Gdańsk Strike or as birthplace of Wałęsa, bacause it is not a shared history with Germany--Molobo (talk) 12:36, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Section on Ostsiedlung...
... is way too long per WP:UNDUE. There already is an article on the subject and a link to it in this article. It should be cut down to the essentials. For example, most of the info in the "Rural settlement" and "Foundation of towns" should be collapsed to two or three paragraphs.radek (talk) 00:04, 29 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Disagree. Ostsiedlung is the event in high medieval Pomerania, completely reshaping it culturally, linguistically, ethnically, implementing the settlement structure that persists until today. This is already the dedicated article. Skäpperöd (talk) 07:25, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Rural settlement
This whole section has multiple problems. For starters, it tends to repeat the text already included elsewhere, probably in some kind of pursuit of WP:POINT. And this text is largely unscourced, speculative or unrepresentative of the general historical research on the area. The sneaky trick that is often being pulled is that what was true in Hither Pomerania (areas west of the Oder - which did undergo a rapid Germanization during this period) was also true on the eastern side of the Oder. The text does this to a large extent by failing to distinguish between the two regions and just using the term "Pomerania" or "Western Pomerania" for both. But pretty much all historical sources (both German and Polish) actually emphasize the differences in how the Ostiedlung, and ITS TIMING, unfolded in these two regions. Part of that is of course due to the anachronistic insistence that these regions had the same name, which only became true in the 19th century - rather than properly differentiating between "Hither Pomerania" and "Western Pomerania" (I know, I know, it's confusing for me too - there's "western" and there's hither of western). Additionally the section has a lot of OR in it which does not appear to be supported by any sources. Best case scenario is that it is constituted of cherry picked passages, intended to convey a certain meaning that is not reflective of what's actually in the sources.  Volunteer Marek  05:38, 28 January 2011 (UTC)


 * The text is not "largely unsourced", there are references at the end of every paragraph. I restored the deleted paragraphs. The paragraphs also contain detailed information about which areas where reached when. I will provide quotes for the passages you have tagged next week. Skäpperöd (talk) 15:27, 29 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Actually what you did, again, is to just blanket revert all my changes, except this time you were a little more judicious in your use of words in the edit summary. The edit summary is still highly misleading as at best it could describe only one of my edits out of a much greater number.


 * The only text which was removed was an overly-detailed and UNDUE discussion of Ostiedlung, which really belongs in the Ostiedlung article itself or, to the extent it belongs in an article on Pomerania, which should be in the "History of Pomerania - 15th-16th centuries" article. I'm undoing your changes. If you want to point to a particular, specific dispute, or an edit you disagree with please raise it here on talk. I've been careful to explain the reasons for my edits in both edit summaries and here on talk. You've just been blind reverting.  Volunteer Marek   19:16, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Anachronisms and chronology
The time period that is being covered by this article is supposed to be the 12th and 13th centuries, i.e. from about 1101 to 1300. Per Martin Wehrmann, "at around 1300 AD Pomerania was still almost completely Slavic in character". This means that while the fact that the Ostideulng slowly started during this time, and that should be mentioned, there's absolutely no reason to try and pretend that the area became Germanized in these centuries - which it did not and pretending otherwise is anachronistic. Most of the information related to Ost. should be moved to the article on "Late Middle Ages" where it chronically belongs.  Volunteer Marek  06:11, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

At the very least, can we please limit the scope of this article to the time period it's suppose to be about - 12th and 13th centuries, rather than putting in a buttload of info on stuff from the 14th+ centuries and pretending it happened one or two centuries earlier? It would make fixing all the problems a lot easier.  Volunteer Marek  06:37, 30 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Ostsiedlung started "slowly" in the 12th century, as evident from the sources cited in the article. In the 1170s, there already was a German community in Stettin (in the gard, the town itself was founded later), and the earliest surviving document mentioning a German village dates back to this period. Massive settlement started in the first half of the 13th century, the century where most of the Pomeranian towns were founded, as is also sourced in the article. That the settlement and melioratio continued throughout the 14th century is no secret, but neither is it a reason to delete the Ostsiedlung paragraphs in this article.
 * Regarding Wehrmann, Martin: Geschichte von Pommern, Gotha 1904:
 * First, it is not good style to delete entire sourced paragraphs based on an interpretation of one half of a sentence written in 1904.
 * Second, your interpretation is not in line with what Wehrmann actually said. Your interpretation is based on the first half of a sentence from p. 116, that starts with Wehrmann's assessment that by 1300 Pomeranian was "not yet a really German country" and that the Slavs were "still superior" in numbers. The "not yet" and "still" indicate that there was a process going on reversing that relation, and Wehrmann continues within the very same sentence that by 1300 the Slavic population was "in decisive decline". The next sentence says that the Slavs (still by 1300) were "pushed back by the immigrants everywhere". So the sentence is rather an argument to include here, since it was ongoing and decisive.
 * Third, your focus on the first half of the abovementioned sentence about the completely ignores the pages around it, which in length describe the Ostsiedlung prior to 1300, and focus not only on the ongoing changes in rural population but also on the other aspects of Ostsiedlung - founding of towns, role of clerus etc pp. E.g. Wehrmann says on p. 109: "By 1300 - as it was calculated - hundreds of German noble households can be assumed. That considerable numbers of Slavic nobility at that time were not anymore present seems trustworthy."
 * That besides 12th- and 13th-century events 14th-century events of the Ostsiedlung are also mentioned here makes sense, since it is the same process and it would not make sense to arbitrarily rip its coverage apart. Skäpperöd (talk) 10:14, 30 January 2011 (UTC)


 * In the 1170s, there already was a German community in Stettin (in the gard, the town itself was founded later), and the earliest surviving document mentioning a German village dates back to this period

Disregarding your attachment to long abandoned claims that new towns were formed rather than new laws adopted:German colonists are dated to second half of XII century in Szczecin. We are talking here about 1121 when it was part of Polish state.--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 22:35, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Szczecin "built" in 1237
At certain points this POV pushing that "founding of towns = building of towns" strays into outright absurdity. For example, currently, according to the article Szczecin/Stettin was built in 1237. Which is strange because a town of the same name was repeatedly besieged during the 12th century. And it's also strange because in the 1100's the place was the residence of several Pomeranian dukes. Apparently they camped out in the fields in a tent or something.  Volunteer Marek  18:21, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Certainly not, they had a castle there before. Skäpperöd (talk) 23:31, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
 * That contradicts known sources, that clearly write about settlement not restricted to castle, but with developed commarcial,religious areas and rural neighbourhood.--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 00:27, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Certainly not, they had a castle there before. - yes, exactly, that's part of the point.  Volunteer Marek  00:30, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

greifswald et al
In regard to the text The first towns were Stralsund (Principality of Rügen, 1234), Prenzlau (Uckermark, then Pomerania-Stettin, 1234), Bahn (Knights Templar, about 1234), Gartz (Oder) (Pomerania-Stettin, 1240), and Loitz (by Detlev of Gadebusch, 1242). and the caption ''Medieval Greifswald, a typical Ostsiedlung town. Locators set up rectangular blocs in an area resembling an oval with a central market, and organized the settlement.'' I'm starting to get a sense that the same trick is being pulled as with respect to Polish towns west of the Oder, just that there's no Rani or Wends editing Wikipedia to correct it. Were these truly new towns or was it, again, just a case of granting city privileges to pre existing towns being called a 'founding'. Did Greifswald spring up ex nihilo in this period or is this another "story"?  Volunteer Marek  06:44, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
 * No, it's not a trick. Skäpperöd (talk) 10:18, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes Marek, a short glance at German wiki for Strzałów(Stralsund) shows that a Slavic settelement existed there already, more information can probably be found if searched for.--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 15:29, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
 * In the case of Stralsund, there was a village at (part of) the site where later the town was built. So what? Greifswald was built in a clearance. I really don't get why you are talking about a Polish-towns-west-of-the-Oder-trick. Skäpperöd (talk) 23:21, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
 * So what? So there was settlement there already.Greifswald was built in a clearance-if that is true than it is not typical Ostsiedlung settlement, since most of them were based on already existing ones.--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 23:45, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Obviously no one's talking about Polish towns west of the Oder but of Slavic towns west of the Oder. Nice try. And yes it appears that Griefswald was one of the few sites which were actually "founded", not just given charters, during this period.  Volunteer Marek  02:20, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
 * You said yourself, verbatim, in the opening post of this thread: "the same trick is being pulled as with respect to Polish towns west of the Oder." Skäpperöd (talk) 23:31, 31 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Ok let me clarify: "the same trick that is being pulled with respect to Polish towns east of the Oder is being pulled with respect to Pomeranian towns west of the Oder".  Volunteer Marek   00:56, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Likewise for Prenzlau/Przeslaw German Wiki says:

''Archäologische Funde belegen, dass das heutige Stadtgebiet seit der jüngeren Steinzeit besiedelt wurde. Nachdem bereits ab dem 7. Jahrhundert verstärkte Siedlungstätigkeiten durch slawische Stämme zu beobachten waren, entwickelte sich das Gebiet im 10. bis 13. Jahrhundert zu einem zentralen Siedlungs- und Burgkomplex. Urkundlich erstmals 1187 erwähnt, wurde die Stadt 1188 als Burgort mit Markt und Krug (castrum cum foro et taberna) beschrieben; eine Kirche und eine der drei Münzstätten Pommerns (mit Stettin und Demmin) gehörten auch bereits zu diesem Ort. Prenzlau zeigte sich 1188 also als ein bedeutender Fernhandelsort mit zentralörtlicher Funktion, der 1234 von Herzog Barnim I. (Pommern) zur freien Stadt (civitas libera) nach deutschem Recht, dem damals modernsten Stadtrecht, erhoben wurde.''

So by 1180's it had church, and even a mint. But according to this, the town was only started in 1234.  Volunteer Marek  06:44, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Along the same lines, edits like these are completely unhelpful. Yes, this is sourced but the same kind of fallacy of equivocation is being perpetuated with the word "founded". "Founded" meant the place got a city charter and a confirmation of some privileges. Sometimes this was accompanied by an influx of new settlers, sometimes not. But in only few cases were the towns actually newly build because of this - most of them they had already existed for centuries.

Even from the list above we can see that every single one of these - Stralsund (Principality of Rügen, 1234), Prenzlau (Uckermark, then Pomerania-Stettin, 1234), Bahn (Knights Templar, about 1234), Gartz (Oder) (Pomerania-Stettin, 1240), and Loitz - predated its own "founding". "Founded" is a term from historiography but it does not mean what the article tries to pretend it means.

Displaying such lists and talking about the "founding" of the towns - even when there's an inline citation tacked on at the end - is very much POV as it fails to explain what was actually going on, what it meant for a town to be "founded" etc.  Volunteer Marek   17:53, 31 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I have already quoted Piskorski (1997) below. Piskorski (1999) has also a comprehensive map titled "founding of towns in Pomerania" (p. 66). Inachim (2008) has a chapter about the "founding of towns" (p. 25), Buchholz (1999) has a chapter about the "founding of towns" (p. 75), ... Skäpperöd (talk) 23:31, 31 January 2011 (UTC)


 * You've quoted these in order to show that these were "founded" but no body is disputing that so please address the point at issue. "founded" is the term used by historians to describe the granting of city privileges and burgher rights. It does not mean "built" as this article tries its hardest to pretend. Provide sources that these were "built" at this time, show that the numerous sources which state they existed before are somehow false, or at the very least come up with a suitable way of explaining - and incorporating - what "founding" meant in this context.  Volunteer Marek   00:52, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Or to try and spell it out once more clearly: the problem is not that the "founding" of these towns is unscourced. The problem is that the word "founding" is being falsely equivocated with these places being "built" or having their origins during this period. If you're a historian with a knowledge of the area then yes, you know that when you read about the "founding of city X" it's talking about the fact that the place was granted a town charter, burghers received some economic privileges and the town's rights and obligations were legally codified. You know that it doesn't mean that the city was "founded" or "built" or had its origins in the year given. You know that in most cases the town existed for a long time before (sometimes many centuries). But in layman's terms to "found a town" means to "start" or "built" it. But that is not at all what was happening here. The POV being pushed in this article tries to exploit this false linguistic association to try and imply that these places were "built" or "started" by German settlers. And this is done by people who obviously have enough of a background in historical research to know better.  Volunteer Marek  01:05, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Perhaps a solution would be to add what founding means and why it doesn't mean creation of a new town?--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 01:16, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, yes, that most certainly should be done but it's really just a necessary condition for NPOVing this article. If it's explained at one point but then the text slips into pretending that these towns were built during this period - or trying to imply it - then stylistically, the problem is still there. So... yes, that should be explained at the beginning of the relevant sections, but that's the least that should be done. The rest should be just getting rid of these quacky lists or at least differentiating between the town-specific circumstances.  Volunteer Marek   01:22, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

I have already provided a quote of a scholary expert source (Piskorski 1997) that the towns were built anew, even when an older settlement existed nearby or - rare exception - within the area of the new town.

Prenzlau is actually a good example for this. German wikipedia does not detail the foundation at all and is not an RS, but Prenzlau is mentioned as a typical example for the foundation of towns all over East Central Europe by another source already provided here, Rădvan (2010: 32-33). It reads:

''"A relevant example for how towns were founded (civitas libera) is Prenzlau today within German boundaries, close to Poland. It was here that, a short distance from an older Slavic settlement, duke Barnim I of Pomerania entrusted in 1234-35 the creation of a new settlement to eight contractors (referred to as fondatores) originating from Stendal, Saxony. The eight, who were probably relatives to some degree, were granted 300 Hufen (around 4800 ha) that were to be distributed to settlers, each one of the fondatores being entitled to 160 ha for himself and the right to build mills; one of them became the duke's representative. The settlers' land grant was tax exempt for three years, and it was to be kept in eternal and hereditary possession. A 1.5 km perimeter around the settlement was provided for unrestricted use by the community of pastures, forests, or fishing. Those trading were dispensed of paying taxes for land under ducal authority. Without being mentioned in the founding act, the old [pg br] Slavic community persisted as nothing more that a suburb to the new town. Aside from several topical variations, many settlements in medieval Poland and other areas followed a similar pattern."''

This quote should resolve the question whether the town of Prenzlau was founded or just granted a charter, and it is in line with the Piskorski quote about the foundation of other such towns in Pomerania. Skäpperöd (talk) 16:36, 1 February 2011 (UTC)


 * This just means that in Przeslaw an additional neighborhood was built adjacent to an existing town. I'm sure that during subsequent years, due to anti-Slavic discrimination and special privileges for the new settlers, the old town went into decline. But this 1) was a gradual process and more importantly, 2) doesn't change the fact that the town was not "built" during this time but was already in existence.
 * Also, read Radvan before page 32. On page 31 he discusses the fact that the term "founding a town" (locatio civitatis) did not necessarily mean the building ("actual foundation") of a town but could and often did simply refer to the layout of the town being made more "regular" or indicated a change in the legal status of a already existing place.  Volunteer Marek   23:26, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

One problem with the article-it pushes one theory that is not widely accepted by historians
One problem with the article it seems is that it pushes a minority view that Germanisation in Ostsiedlung meant creation of new towns, this theory according to Piskorski is not widely accepted and has been discredited. The article meanwhile seems to advocate this theory.Most historians see use of German town law as reform by already existing settlements rather then creation of new towns.--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 15:24, 30 January 2011 (UTC)


 * An excerpt also providing the context would be helpful here. I assume you are interpreting Piskorski, Jan M. (1987): Miasta Księstwa Szczecińskiego do połowy XIV wieku, p. 80?
 * Below I provide an excerpt of a newer work of the same author, chapter about towns:
 * Piskorski, Jan Maria: Die mittelalterliche Ostsiedlung - ein alter Streit und neue Ergebnisse, in: Seibt et al (eds.), Transit Brügge-Novgorod. Eine Straße durch die europäische Geschichte, Essen 1997, pp. 194-203:
 * "Usually, the settlement from the west did not only mean granting German law and a new administration, but also the shift of the old settlement location, because the new German-law town emerged not at its place, but in the vicinity of the old center, whereby sometimes the distance between them was several kilometers as e.g. in the case of Pomeranian Kolberg." Piskorski also says there were isolated ("vereinzelt") exceptions as in the case of Stettin and Wollin: "In such cases, the old settlements were surveyed anew and built anew (neu vermessen und neu erbaut)"
 * Since Piskorski in this essay also analyzes the history of the historiography of Ostsiedlung, and says nothing about simply legally reforming old settlements, the question is did Piskorski change his mind in 1997 or is the interpretation of his 1987 statement wrong? Skäpperöd (talk) 23:21, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
 * The German law adoptation was not a revolution-it was a process, you are ignoring the fact of existance of older settlements. Anyway Piskorski quote you gave means just that urban settlements under the German law were usually not in the place of older settlements already existing, it doesn't mean new towns were created at all.--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 23:45, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
 * And yes, the research available from 2010 confirms that previous settlements continued to exist, even with erection of new suburbs based on western town law.--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 00:20, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

If the "research available from 2010" is Rădvan, then it is the other way around: if there was a Slavic settlement nearby, it was degraded into a "suburb" of the new town, cf. Rădvan (2010: 33) quoted in the section above. This is also in line with Piskorski (1999: 85), who says that the Slavic castles and suburbia "lost their importance to the new towns of German law."" Skäpperöd (talk) 16:36, 1 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Depends on the place and the time. But at any rate, your response is irrelevant. New settlements were not built on top of existing settlements which I think is obvious and common sense. In a few cases (Wolin) they were built in place of destroyed settlements. But most of them were basically "town development", not the building of new towns.  Volunteer Marek   23:28, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

List of towns "founded" during this time
The following is the list of towns - all under German names rather than the names they had at the time or in many cases have currently - which were supposedly "built" and the date when they were supposedly "built", according to the present state of the article:

Prenzlau (1234) Bahn (1234) Stettin (1237) Gartz (1240) Loitz (1242) Demmin (1240's) Greifswald (1240's)

Altentreptow (1240's) Anklam Altdamm Pyritz Stargard Grimmen Greifenhagen Barth (before 1255) Damgarten (1258) Wollin (1260) Ueckermünde Wolgast Gützkow Pölitz (1260) Greifenberg (1262) Gollnow Penkun Tribsees (before 1267) Naugard (before 1268). Cammin (1274) Massow (1274) Pasewalk (recorded in 1274, founded probably in the 1250s) Plathe (1277) Lassan (between 1264 and 1278) Rügenwalde Regenwalde (1279/80) Labes (about 1280) Treptow an der Rega (between 1277 and 1281) Neuwarp (1295) Richtenberg (1279) Belgard (1299) Werben (1300)

Kolberg (1255) Köslin (1266) Körlin (early 14th century) Bublitz (1340)

Stolp (1310) Neustettin (1310) Schlawe (1317) Garz (1320s) Jacobshagen (1336) Freienwalde (1338) Zanow (1343) Lauenburg (1341) Bütow (1346) Fiddichow (1347)

I'm going through the list one by one and looking these places up in detail. Basically what emerges is that

1. Yes, some of these towns were in fact built from scratch during the period and this coincided with their "founding" (i.e. the granting of municipal rights to burghers). They were built when they were "founded". Examples are Griefswald and Anklam. But these tend to be the exceptions.

2. Some of them were indeed towns which were destroyed during the 12th and 13th centuries and rebuilt with an influx of German settlers. Wolin is an example. But not that many of these either.

3. Some of them were neighborhoods or suburbs built near existing Slavic settlements at about the same time - not coincidentally - that the "founding (the granting of town privileges) was done. Examples are some of the suburbs of Szczecin listed above. To the extent that these suburbs were separated from the main town it sort of makes sense - as long as that is made clear in the article.

But

4. A lot of them are simply towns which might have had a few German merchants move into the town at about the same time that the city charters were granted. These are places which existed before hand and were in no way "built" during this time. Pyrzyce/Pyritz is a typical example here.

5. Many of them are simply Slavic towns which were granted ("founded") city rights which were based on those of Lubeck or Magdeburg. They weren't built in any sense, whether we're talking the whole place or neighborhoods. Strzałów/Stralsund and Prenzlau/Przeslaw are typical cases.

6. Some of these being listed as "built" are just ridiculous. Szczecin of course predated all of this by a couple centuries. Stargrad - which means "Old Town" in Slavic - is another one as it was one of the oldest continuously existing towns in Pomerania, going back to the 9th century or earlier.  Volunteer Marek  00:49, 1 February 2011 (UTC)


 * re 1: agree.
 * re 2: agree in part, except that Wollin was not "rebuilt", but "surveyed anew and built anew" per Piskowski (1997) quoted above
 * re 3: disagree per Piskowski (1997): Stettin did have German 'neighborhoods' in the sense of open settlements attached to the castle and suburbium, predating the founding of the town in 1237, but it was then "surveyed anew and built anew" per Piskowski (1997) quoted above.
 * re 4: disagree: Pyritz is actually an example for a typical new checkerboard-type town in the vicinity of an older castle with suburbium, which laid outside the new town (at the other side of the valley, and much smaller in size, cf. Piskorski 1999: 71)
 * re 5: This is certainly not true. At the site of the later Stralsund, there was a fishing village, but that was not included in either of the new towns (Stralsund proper/Altstadt, Neustadt, Schadegard) founded there. Neither was the Slavic settlement at Prenzlau included in the new town, cf. Rădvan (2010: 32-33) as quoted in full above, excerpt:
 * "A relevant example for how towns were founded (civitas libera) is Prenzlau [...]. It was here that, a short distance from an older Slavic settlement, duke Barnim I of Pomerania entrusted in 1234-35 the creation of a new settlement to eight contractors [...]. Without being mentioned in the founding act, the old Slavic community persisted as nothing more than a suburb to the new town."


 * re 6: for Stettin, I refer to Piskowski (1997) as quoted above; for Stargard (which rather translates "old castle" btw) I refer in addition to Piskorski (1999: 69). New towns were founded at both places during the Ostsiedlung. Whether the respective gards were towns or not seems to be a terminology question, there were certainly huge differences to the new towns. Skäpperöd (talk) 17:09, 1 February 2011 (UTC)


 * re re 2: The fact that you want to split hairs between "rebuilt" and "built anew" is indicative of the problem here.
 * re re 3: The fact is that the town existed for a long time before the date given. Per Radvan, this "built anew" could have been simply relocating some streets to make the town more checker-board shaped.
 * re re 4: Same as above. There was a town there. Some additions were made and the layout of the town was altered.
 * re re 5: I'll give you Przeslaw, but I've seen nothing to indicate that a new neighborhood was built in Strzalow. Either way, both places existed as towns before.
 * re re 6:No, gard or grod was a "fortified town" not a "castle". What work by Piskowski are you referring to?  Volunteer Marek   23:35, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Jumne/Wollin (is rerere 2): Jumne/Julin/Vineta was neither rebuilt nor re-created; the new town Wollin was built in approximately the same location many decades after Jumne was destroyed by Danish forces in the century before. The source says "built anew". An example where a town was "rebuilt" would be Stralsund in 1238-40.
 * Stettin (is rerere 3): What passage of Radvan are you referring to? And no, it could not possibly "have been simply relocating some streets to make the town more checker-board shaped": The area of what Radvan (2010: 27) refers to as "pre-urban settlement" was only in part 'included', whereby 'included' means "surveyed anew and built anew" per Piskorski (1997) as quoted above, in the north/east of the new town. The town was much larger and centered around St. James, the church built by the German community in 1187 on what was then the (south-)western periphery of the former settlement. The area around Saint Peter, i.e. the northern part of the former settlement, remained outside the new town (cf. Piskorski 1999: 53), as remained the Slavs under ducal authority (cf. Buchholz et al. 1999: 82).
 * Pyritz (is rerere 4): the source provided makes it clear that the (much much smaller) castle and suburbium were not included into the new town.
 * Stralsund (is rerere 5): Wrong again, there was no town there before: "[...] Stralsund founded in 1234 by Wizlaw - likely near a Slavic village, Stralow [...]" (Buchholz et al 1999: 78); "near the Slavic ferry village of Stralow" (Brockhaus 1981: 191)
 * The Polabian Star(i)gard in Holstein is Oldenburg (="old castle") in Low German; per Brather (2001: 155) Slavic *grod (is Pomeranian gard) denotes castles in the area affected by Ostsiedlung, while towns were termed *město, orig. "site", [cf. Polish miast]; only in in areas not affected by Ostsiedlung, *grod would refer to towns also, cf. Russian город. The sources provided here in short citation are listed in full in the article's reference section, except for the Brockhaus encyclopedia and the sources spelled out in full on this talk page. Skäpperöd (talk) 12:09, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Re:Strzalow/Stralsund, from German Wikipedia Als gesichert gilt, dass es sich zum Zeitpunkt der Stadtgründung bereits um eine große Siedlung handelte. So yes at some point in its existence it had been a fishing village. But it was already a town when the founding took place.

Re:Pyrzyce - of course the old town was not included in the new town since in the middle ages it was very hard to build on top of existing dwellings.

Re:Szczecin - the part in Radvan where he explicitly spells out what "founding a town" actually meant; in some cases the building of a new settlement, in other cases, rebuilding existing streets to make the town more checker-board and in others simply a change in the town's legal status. Cambridge History of Poland - in discussion of the Polish context but same thing applies here - goes to great lengths to explain that "German settlement" needed not involve any Germans and that "founding of towns on German law" was most of the time a change in the legal status, the granting of city rights and privileges, rather than construction of new towns. At the very least I hope you're not going to pretend that Szczecin was not a town before it was "founded".

Re:grod - we're getting of topic, but no, "grod" "grad" "gard" were all terms for fortified towns though yes, these usually included a castle (another translation I've seen is grod="castle town"). As far as I can make Brather out, what he's saying is that AFTER the Ostiedlung had taken place the word "grad" came to mean just "castle", in Pomerania, but that's not what we're discussing here. If I'm mistaken, can you provide the actual passage where this is supposed to be cited?

I still don't see what Piskowski you're referring to.  Volunteer Marek  16:18, 2 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Re Stralsund: The settlement referred to by the (non-RS) German wiki is the German settlement that after 1200 grew next to the village that lent its name to the later town, cf. Brockhaus as cited above. The ferry remained under ducal control and was sold to Stralsund only later.
 * Re Stettin, Pyritz etc: The sources provided sufficiently established that new towns were founded (regardless whether a gard, a village or nothing existed nearby before), that the gards continued to exist nearby remaining under a different, ducal jurisdiction (special case Stettin, where Wieken were set up outside the town for the 'ducal' Slavs, and the castle for a few years remained inside the town before the duke levelled it) but declined into suburbs of the nearby towns within a relatively short period. Whether there were different cases in Poland or not is OT here. (redacted sig) 15:22, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

First German colonists in Szczecin are dated to second half of XII century.
So why does it have Germanised name in 1121 within the article? Especially as part of Polish realm ? --MyMoloboaccount (talk) 22:33, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
 * The new towns and villages actually adopted pre-existing Slavic sitenames in most cases, and that a Pomeranian duke temporarily paid a tribute to a Polish duke or subordinated to a Danish king before did not influence the naming of the places at all. Skäpperöd (talk) 23:21, 30 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I am writing about Szczecin in 1121 Skapperod-German settlers arrived 50 years later. The period here concerns Szczecin as part of Polish realm. And please stop repeating this myth of old XIX/early XX century German historiography, as Piskorski notes:

Miasta Księstwa Szczecińskiego do połowy XIV wieku Jan M. Piskorski - 1987 Rodząca się w XVIII - XIX w. niemiecka historiografia krytyczna zakwestionowała istnienie miast w Europie środkowo-wschodniej przed okresem kolonizacji na prawie niemieckim "Newly born German historiography in XVIII-XIX century questioned the existance of cities in Central and Eastern Europe before colonization based on German law". It seems you are advocating very outdated German theories... --MyMoloboaccount (talk) 23:41, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

You completely missed the point. The name of the new towns - in most cases anyway - is the former Slavic site name. Skäpperöd (talk) 16:36, 1 February 2011 (UTC) You missed the point-there were no "new towns"-there never was an end to own town and start of some new town on a crater. Those were the same locations.--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 00:23, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Claims attributed to Piskorski from 1999 are not confirmed in his later book from 2005
There are no records of ethnic violence in the duchy during this period.-this is attributed to Piskorski.

However he also wrote Kolonizacja wiejska Pomorza Zachodniego, Piskorski Jan, 2005-I read the book, and he certainly DOES mention ethnic conflict in I believe around 13th century where locals were expelled to make room for Germanic settlers.--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 16:02, 29 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I will look that up next week. Skäpperöd (talk) 19:23, 29 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I will spare you the trouble and look for it myself.--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 20:21, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Piskorski (1999), p.90: "Weder im 13., noch im 14. Jahrhundert finden sich in pommerschen Quellen Berichte über ethnische Konflikte," p. 91: "Über ethnische Konflikte hört man nicht einmal während sozialer Unruhen in den pommerschen Städten, obwohl es vermutlich noch im 14. Jahrhundert in den Vorstädten z. B. Stettins an Slawen nicht fehlte. Offensichtlich traten ethnische Gegensätze gegenüber sozialen Konflikten zurück" Skäpperöd (talk) 09:40, 10 February 2011 (UTC) I am afraid you are not reliable as to content of the books you use-it seems you massively copied contents of the book to articles, with key elements being manipulated as seen by numerous examples below by Marek.--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 11:27, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Rural settlement section
The last two, very long, paragraphs of the "Rural settlement" section, aside from the second sentence of the first paragraph (which basically says "this may have applied to Pomerania") don't appear to be specifically connected to Pomerania, are too detailed and properly belong in the Ostiedlung article rather than here. For all we know these paragraphs could be describing how the Ostiedlung occurred in Saxony and Brandenburg. Additionally the section could use both other sources for balance (Cambridge History series come to mind) and verification of given sources for close paraphrasing and accuracy. Tagged as undue for now, will remove later, after going through it one more time.  Volunteer Marek  23:13, 8 February 2011 (UTC)


 * The paragraphs about the village types are important - the medieval types prevailed until the Modern Era and in many cases until today. Buchholz et al (1999) has much more on this topic (pp. 65ff.), and Piskorski (1999) also has it on pp. 83-85. Whoever is not interested in reading it can easily skip to the next paragraph. Skäpperöd (talk) 09:55, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Or he can read it in a seperate article devoted to the subject. Of course the article needs to be checked for COPYVIO.--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 11:29, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

towns, castle towns, and Piskorski
Skapperod's current version of the text states: The gards consisted of a small castle for the castellan and his staff, and of a fortified suburbium for the craftsmen in the duke's service; attached were non-fortified places with economical and ecclesiastical function and the houses of higher nobles, who only in the course of the 13th century moved their residences to their estates.

The actual text in Piskorski is:

"The main residences of the castellans were usually placed in older tribal centers"

There's nothing there about "The gards consisted of...". In fact the rest of the text makes it clear that these "older tribal centers" being referred to are towns and urban areas. The "The gards consisted of..." part is pure OR - it refers to a small part of an already existing town:

"However they (older tribal centers) changed their appearance. Their central point consisted of a small, but well fortified, castle inhabited by the castellan and his staff and druzyna (like a body guard - VM)"

So in addition to the close paraphrasing which is problematic from COPYVIO point of view, the sources states that the gard was part of the "older tribal center" - the central point around which the town developed - rather than mostly encompassing it as the article text tries to suggest.

"Around the grod there arose a fortified podgrodzie (I guess suburbium is fine - VM) in which resided craftsmen who worked in the service of the duke and his court"

Again close paraphrasing but content wise ok.

"The grod and podgrodzie were surrounded by a chain of non-fortified places which concentrated the economical functions of the..."

Again close paraphrasing except "surrounded" was changed to "attached" to make it seem smaller. Also I left off at the end of the sentence because it actually says...

"which concentrated the economical functions of the town"

That's right it says "town" ("miasto") which Skapperod conveniently omitted in his other wise very close paraphrasing of the text, because according to Skapperod there were no towns in Pomerania until after German settlers got there.

Also omitted was the following sentence:

"Here arose markets, taverns, butcher shops, mints, which also exchanged coins, toll stations, abbeys, churches and the houses of of nobles,... (moznych - could be translated as "well off" - VM)"

Note how markets, taverns, butcher shops, mints, which also exchanged coins, toll stations, abbeys, and churches were all omitted from the description - which is otherwise a very close paraphrasing - probably because it made the places sound too much like towns.

and the sentence and paragraph ends with:

"...churches and the houses of of nobles, who only in the course of the 13th century moved to the countryside"

Here Skapperod, in an otherwise very close paraphrasing, changed "countryside" (wies) to "estates". Again "moving to the countryside" would suggest that they were leaving an urban area and of course there apparently was no urban areas in Pomerania until German colonists showed up.

I really hope that the German language version of Piskorski's book is somehow substantially different in meaning than the one I have (I don't think it can be substantially different in terms of general content judging by the close paraphrasing) because otherwise what we have here is a craftsman like blending of WP:OR (hence POV) and WP:COPYVIO. I mean, usually it's one or the other but here just by changing a few key words, the text is retained almost verbatim from the source but the meaning completely altered. I got to say that the skill with which this is being done is quite impressive.

Slapping some tags up on this doggie.  Volunteer Marek  20:28, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Thank you Marek for obtaining the book. The information you provided is most interesting and I certainly hope for more. --MyMoloboaccount (talk) 20:43, 8 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Piskorski does refer to some pre-Ostsiedlung settlements as towns, but in not in the sense 'town' is used for the Ostsiedlung towns. In his 1997 essay about towns he devotes several pages to the differences between pre-Ostsiedlung and Ostsiedlung 'towns' and adresses the pre-Ostsiedlung ones as "towns or town-like settlements" (Städte oder stadtähnliche Siedlungen) and "castle towns" (Burgstädte). This is in line with the general assessment of historians. E.g. Schich (2007), who is an authority on that field, says "if - despite the undisputable break in the 'urban' development in this area - terms like Burgstadt and Frühstadt are used here, then this is based on a broader [...] understanding of the term 'town.' Frühstadt then denotes an early form of town-like settlements preceeding the high medieval towns, without insinuating an evolution from Burgstadt or Frühstadt to the communal town." (p. 266).
 * The word 'town' is correct for some of the pre-Ostsiedlung settlements if it is clarified what kind of town that would be. The (not that good) en.wikipedia article about this is Grad (Slavic settlement), in Pomeranian this was gard. I preferred to link this one over the other, even worse en.wikipedia article about this kind of settlement, Castle town, because the grad/gard article is about the Slavic variant of medieval castle towns. Skäpperöd (talk) 11:30, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I see you are starting to copy the same sentence here as below in another section of the discussion. Needless to say claims that "he says towns are towns but they are are not towns" is not really convincing and seem rather, shall we say, weak argument.--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 11:35, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Other sources

 * Who's Kyra Inachim?
 * Why isn't the full title for Buske's book given "Pommern : Territorialstaat und Landesteil von Preussen : ein Überblick über die politische Entwicklung : die Rolle Vorpommerns seit 1945" - from Google translate: "Pomerania: territorial state and part of the country of Prussia: a Überblick about the political  development: the role of Western Pomerania since 1945". Strange that a book on political development since 1945 is being used to cite stuff from the 12th century. Or is this a mistranslation of "seit"?   Volunteer Marek   20:49, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
 * That is a misunderstanding. The title is "Pommern" (Pomerania), subtitle is "Territorialstaat und Landesteil von Preußen" ([as a] territorial state and [as a] part of the land of Prussia). I don't know where you got the other alleged subtitles. Skäpperöd (talk) 22:18, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Kyra Inachin is working in a University named after Ernst Moritz Arndt(a quite nationalistic fellow from XIX century, notable for anti-Polish and anti-semitic statements) in Greisfwald. As an offtopic it is somewhat surprising that a university in Germany has dedication to such a person.-MyMoloboaccount (talk) 20:56, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Inachin is professor for Pomeranian history. And surprise, they even have universities named after Luther in Germany, and Washington owned slaves. Skäpperöd (talk) 22:18, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Ah, it's "Inachin" not "Inachim". The consistent misspelling of her name in the article and bibliography should be corrected. On the topic of the offtopic I think that some students at the university have tried getting the name changed for exactly the reasons you mention but it hasn't come through so far.  Volunteer Marek   21:53, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, a typo that got multiplied per c&p. Skäpperöd (talk) 22:18, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Ok, and what's up with...
... the tribe of Lutici (which is what the Wikipedia article is under) being named as "Liutzians" in this article? At first I thought it was just a German term for the English term Lutici (since some editors seem intent on writing this English wikipedia article in German) but there are no sources for "Liutzians" in EITHER English or German:



Of course, there are a plethora of sources for "Lutici":



Probably someone meant "Liutizen" rather than "Liutzians" and there are sources for "Liutizen". All of them German. "Liutzians" appears to be a Wikipedia specific invention. Removed it, changed it, fixed it.  Volunteer Marek  00:38, 9 February 2011 (UTC)


 * "Liutizians" is just one of many, many valid spelling variants, you got no hits in your google query because you misspelled it as "Liutzian". Skäpperöd (talk) 10:04, 10 February 2011 (UTC)


 * You might want to check your own spelling in the link you provide, rather than the link you say you provide, as well as the spelling that existed in the article. At any rate, Lutici is far more common.  Volunteer Marek   08:42, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Ok, the google link placed by me above is for "Lutizians", but the spelling variant "Liutizians" turns out pretty much the same result. Anyway, it's not "a Wikipedia specific invention" as you alleged. Skäpperöd (talk) 15:15, 15 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Yea, well, the article had "Liutzians", "Liutizians", "Lutizians" and pretty much everything else but the English Lutici.  Volunteer Marek   17:18, 15 February 2011 (UTC)


 * "Liutizians" and "Lutizians" are English terms. Skäpperöd (talk) 21:17, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

More close paraphrasings
Article text:

In Wartislaw I's duchy, there were two social classes, the free and the slaves.[34] The bulk of the Pomeranians belonged to the free class.[34]  The relatively low number of slaves were captured Liutzian, Obodrite or Danish warriors.[27][34]  Because there were more slaves than needed, the Pomeranians engaged in slave trade[27]  and sold their slaves primarily to Poland.[27][34]

Source text:

''Society of Western Pomerania during Warcislaw I's rule was composed of two social classes: masses of the free and relatively few slaves. The latter consisted from war captives, mainly Liutzians, Obdorites and also Danes. From contemporary sources it seems that the supply of slaves exceeded demand, so slaves were also sold to Poland.''

Article text:

''The social standing of the free depended on their property and notability. Wealth was achieved primarily by the possession of land, by trade, and by piracy. The average free man was occupied with farming, breeding, fishing, hunting, foraging, and bee breeding. Those living in town-like settlements were typically merchants or craftsmen. The largest settlements were Wollin and Stettin with a few thousand inhabitants each. Goods were exchanged on marketplaces twice a week. Overall, the Pomeranian population was relatively wealthy.[35]''

Source text:

''The freemen were divided among several categories, depending on their property and notability. The source of wealth was primarily the possession of land, but also trade and piracy... The average free Pomeranian was occupied with farming, breeding, fishing, hunting, foraging, bee breeding and those living in towns were typically merchants or craftsmen. Exchange took place on marketplaces, organized twice a week. Some of the towns of Western Pomerania achieved a truly large size: both Wolin and Szczecin numbered at list a few thousand inhabitants each. According to written and archeological sources, the Pomeranians were relatively wealth and curious of the outside world.''

Once more, note the close paraphrasing above, except for the fact that "town" (miasto) was changed to "town-like settlement" (because there's not supposed to be towns in Pomerania at this time according to Skapperod) and the part about Pomeranian towns achieving a truly large size was likewise removed... from an otherwise very closely paraphrased paragraph.

Article text:

''Wartislaw's power and standing differed depending on the area. In the east of his duchy (Cammin, Belgard, and Kolberg area) his power was strongest, tribal assemblies are not documented. In the center (Wollin, Stettin, and Pyritz area) Wartislaw had to yield the decisions of the local population and nobility. In the towns (whoa! towns! how did that slip through?!? - VM), Wartislaw maintained small courts. Every decision of Wartislaw had to pass an assembly of the elders and an assembly of the free. In the newly gained Liutizian territories of the West, Wartislaw managed to establish a rule that resembled his rule in the eastern parts, but also negotiated with the nobility''

Source text:

''In the eastern part, of which the main centers were Kamien, Bialogard and Kolobrzeg, the power of Wartislaw was relatively strong and there are no documented tribal assemblies. In the center, symbolized by Wolin, Szzecin and Pyrzyce, the duke had to take into account the opinion of the local population, especially the nobility. Wartislaw actually maintained small courts in the towns, which enjoyed the right of asylum, but his de facto power was limited, since every important decision had to be approved by an assembly of the elders, and then by an assembly of the free, which was attended by people from the town and the surrounding area. It seems that in the Oder area, conservative local and tribal structures were still relatively strong and only the conquest of Pomerania by Boleslaw Krzywousty allowed the Pomeranian duke to strengthen his power. The third part of the Western Pomeranian duchy was the newly conqured Liutizian territories in the West, where the duke immediately introduced the described model of rule, although he also tried to convince the nobility to his political aims''

Note how the part about Boleslaw Krzywousty was conveniently skipped... in an otherwise close paraphrasing.

 Volunteer Marek  22:19, 8 February 2011 (UTC)


 * re 1st quote: in the German edition, it is not "also sold", but "readily sold" (gern verkauft). Since you are apparently using the Polish edition, what is the term used there?
 * re 2nd quote: Piskorski does refer to pre-Ostsiedlung Wollin and Stettin as towns, but in not in the sense 'town' is used for the Ostsiedlung towns. In his 1997 essay about towns he devotes several pages to the differences between pre-Ostsiedlung and Ostsiedlung 'towns' and adresses the pre-Ostsiedlung ones as "towns or town-like settlements" (Städte oder stadtähnliche Siedlungen) and "castle towns" (Burgstädte). This is in line with the general assessment of historians. E.g. Schich (2007), who is an authority on that field, says "if - despite the undisputable break in the 'urban' development in this area - terms like Burgstadt and Frühstadt are used here, then this is based on a broader [...] understanding of the term 'town.' Frühstadt then denotes an early form of town-like settlements preceeding the high medieval towns, without insinuating an evolution from Burgstadt or Frühstadt to the communal town." (p. 266). I have a similar understanding - the assessment you insinuate I had ("because there's not supposed to be towns in Pomerania at this time according to Skapperod") has no basis in my comments. Where did I say that?
 * re 3rd quote: I left this out because it is speculative - the sentence starts with "it seems like", and Wartislaw did only enter written history by that time. Skäpperöd (talk) 11:06, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Piskorski does refer to pre-Ostsiedlung Wollin and Stettin as towns, but in not in the sense 'town' is used That's one of the worse attempts of WP:OR twisting I have seen on Wiki.Also IIRC COPYVIO is not allowed on Wiki...--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 11:22, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Since when is citing scholary sources OR?! And where is the copyvio? Skäpperöd (talk) 22:57, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Close paraphrasing may be useful. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 23:24, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Re: Skapperod - ''Copyright law (see Wikipedia:Copyrights) forbids Wikipedia contributors from copying information directly from other sources except in limited cases and with attribution. Close paraphrasing unsuccessfully attempts to circumvent these restrictions by copying and superficially modifying information from another source.''

So that's one Wikipedia policy violation. But you also manage to violate:

''However, Wikipedia's original research policy requires that a source's statements be accurately conveyed. Thus the meaning conveyed by the article must follow the source's meaning. Language should be selected with care to avoid unacceptably changing the meaning ''

by failing to accurately convey the meaning of the passages - doctoring them by changing several key words and omitting qualifying information and context to present a POV misrepresentation of the sources.

The troubling aspect is that so far every piece of text you inserted that is cited to Piskorski has turned out to be a close paraphrasing/copyvio (and many of them pov'ed as well) across several articles (I'm still in the process of checking additional instances) and the same is true for the Ulrich Best source in the Drang nach Osten article. So this does not appear to be an isolated incident.

At this point I'm starting to suspect that if the German language Buchholtz source was checked against article text cited to it in numerous articles similar problems would become apparent. That book's in the mail so we'll see.  Volunteer Marek  01:22, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Close paraphrase concern
First, please refrain from using aggressive, loaded language and discussing my alleged motives (e.g. "conveniently skipped", "doctored" etc) - these peronal attacks are not helpful.

I maintain that the examples listed above do not constitute a too close paraphrasing or a copyright infringement. I nevertheless rephrased one paragraph to make the paraphrasing a bit 'looser'. Skäpperöd (talk) 10:15, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * What VM listed as "source text" is not the actual source text, but your English translation of the source text (which is in Polish and German). An English edition of the book does not exist.
 * I used my own, English words to reflect the content of the source text.
 * That there are a few instances where your translation contains same or similar words as the article text may have one of the following reasons:
 * VM chose, among several possible translations, one that contains words also used in the article;
 * key termini and phrases (like "free", "slave", "merchant", "Pomerania", "assembly of the elders", "assembly of the free" etc) do not allow a re-wording and are not copyrighted.
 * the "close paraphrasing" essay (not policy) specifically allows for closely paraphrasing when there are no real alternatives to put it.

Translating a foreign language text more or less verbatim and putting it into a Wikipedia article is still a copyright violation. While the original is in foreign languages the fact that the German version corresponds to the Polish version which then corresponds to the English version in the article text indicates that verbatim translation is indeed the case here. The word order within each sentence is preserved. So is often the sentence order, except occasionally you moved an entire sentence. The only real changes you made were POVed ones, like changing the word "town" to something else, or omitting passages which didn't fit in with your POV.  Volunteer Marek  17:15, 14 February 2011 (UTC)


 * This discussion was continued here, the issue is resolved. Skäpperöd (talk) 20:17, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

OR concern
I am surprised that I am accused of doing OR and close paraphrasing (i.e. following the source too strictly) at the same time. Please list any OR concerns that you may have here one by one, so they can be evaluated. Skäpperöd (talk) 10:15, 14 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, because you are doing both. I already provided examples above. For example substituting "town-like settlement" for the word "town" in order to try and "prove" that there were no towns in Pomerania before German settlement. Omitting key sentences which provide context. Etc. etc. Apparently it is quite possible to commit copyright violations - by copying most of the text verbatim - and at the same time engage in POV and OR - by changing key words and omitting relevant passages.


 * I think I've already said this like four times. Hence this is also my reply to your comment below.  Volunteer Marek   17:18, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

The town/town-like settlement issue is in no way OR. It is not my research, but based on the assessment of Piskorski (1997), Schich (2007), Stoob (1986) and Brather (2001) as referred to here and in the article. I could add Buchholz et al (1999), p. 75. All these sources point out that the larger pre-Ostsiedlung settlements had some characteristics of a town, but lacked others, so if they are addressed as towns it should be specified that these were not towns in the sense of the later/post-medieval sense of the term. Stoob, who had earlier coined the term Grodstadt (i.e., gard), even rejects the use of compound nouns including "town"; Radvan (2010) uses the term "pre-urban." The term "town-like settlement" is used e.g. by Piskorski (1997) and Schich (2007), other terms used by the sources cited are "early town" or "castle town". For the emporia, there is a similar terminology. There is no original research involved here. Skäpperöd (talk) 15:04, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * The above is a definite original research by you Skapperod, as you are creating your own personal claim.Do read on Original Research.--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 16:50, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Please point out where my research and my claim is. Skäpperöd (talk) 17:59, 15 February 2011 (UTC)


 * As pointed out two or three times above already, changing the word town to "town like settlement", removing the word town altogether when present in source and omitting any kind of information from the source which may make these places sound like "towns". The fact that the post-Ostiedlung towns differed from pre-Ostiedlung towns is immaterial - yes, that is sourced, and not even questioned. But it is not relevant to whether or not these towns existed there before.  Volunteer Marek   18:07, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

The sources provided detail not only those differences, but also the terminology. The issue is moot now anyway, as evereything is reworded. Skäpperöd (talk) 20:17, 16 February 2011 (UTC)


 * No, it is not moot. At best you've only addressed the copyvio concerns but not the OR and POV concerns - the changing of "town" in sources to "town like settlements" and omitting passages which indicate these places were town. Don't try to hide one with the other.  Volunteer Marek   20:20, 16 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I provided sources using "town-like settlement," including the dedicated essay of the same author, but after all the rewording the term "town-like settlement" has vanished from the article, so it's moot. Skäpperöd (talk) 21:20, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

POV concern
Likewise, I am surprised that I am accused of violating NPOV and close paraphrasing (i.e. following the source too strictly) at the same time. Please list any POV concerns that remained unaddressed here one by one, so they can be evaluated. Skäpperöd (talk) 10:15, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

verification request
From Piskorski (1997) for "Ostsiedlung towns with a Slavic predecessor" - can we get the exact text that uses this phrasing?  Volunteer Marek  00:39, 16 February 2011 (UTC)


 * "usually, the settlement from the west did not only mean granting German law and a new administration, but also the shift of the old settlement location, because the new German-law town emerged not at the place, but in the vicinity of the old center, whereby sometimes the distance between them was several kilometers as e.g. in the case of Pomeranian Kolberg." "In such cases [Stettin and Wollin], the old settlements were surveyed anew and built anew." Skäpperöd (talk) 20:25, 16 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Can you give the German text, and start with whatever came before "usually" - like the beginning of the sentence?  Volunteer Marek   20:47, 16 February 2011 (UTC)


 * The sentence already refers to "old center" (altes Zentrum) and "old settlement" (alte Siedlung) on the one hand and "new German-law town" on the other, and talks about "shift of the settlement location" - that should suffice for calling the old settlement a predecessor. I therefore guess you want confirmation that Piskorski used the word "predecessor" verbatim, and he does in a sentence above the quoted one, where he says that the new towns "differed from their predecessors [Vorgängern]" (emphasis added). Skäpperöd (talk) 21:50, 16 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Given your, um...... "creative", use of Piskorski (1999) as outlined in the sections above, where key words were changed and important information omitted, while the rest was copied more or less verbatim, forgive me if I ask, one more time, for the actual German text, beginning to end, rather than your assurances.Volunteer Marek (talk) 22:37, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Skapperod's blanket POV reverts
1. Re this. Piskorski and other books are written for the historian. The historian will already know the special meaning that "foundation" has in this historiography and she will know that it didn't necessarily mean that a town was actually build.

However, Wikipedia is written for the general reader, not the specialist historian. As such it is misleading to title the section "foundation of towns". It is best to give a more descriptive title and elucidate the meaning of the term immediately below. We don't want to mislead our readers, do we?

2. Re this

a) Please stop this POV practice of "attributing" names to sources you don't agree with while presenting sources you like, like Buchholz, as gospel truth without "attribution". If you're going to write "According to so and so..." and "So and so... says" every time a Polish author is used, then you should likewise do do the same every time a German author is used (and I don't mean doing it just once or twice for show).

b) The sourced information on the extent of colonialism belongs AT THE BEGINNING of the section which discusses it, rather than hidden away at the end in order to downplay the fact that it wasn't that extensive during this period as the article otherwise tries to pretend.

3. This is a petty revert. The information is in fact in the source I just didn't copy/copy vio it into the article.

4. This is completely false. The source specifically states that this is how it happened across "Central and Eastern Europe" though the chapter deals generally with Poland.

5. This, aside from violating Wikipedia naming conventions and for some strange reason continuing to insist on German rather than English spelling of terms and names is a straight up misrepresentation of the source (Piskorski) which in fact DOES use the term "town" to refer to these places. Not "settlements". Just because there were no Germans there yet does not reduced these towns to some pre-colonial status of "settlements". The discussion tacked on at the end is a violation of WP:SYNTHESIS and does not belong in this place.

6. Don't remove clarification tags, unless you actually clarify. Don't remove the verification tags either, as you did earlier, until you provide the requested info. I was gracious enough to respond to your 'verify' tags on Szczecin and elsewhere by ordering the relevant work, waiting for it, and verifying the info. The least you can do is extend the same courtesy, rather than removing the tags.  Volunteer Marek  17:47, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

7. And if you're going to blanket revert all my edits than at least do so in a single edit with an honest edit summary rather than pretending that you're editing the article and just "accidentally" removed all my changes piece by piece.  Volunteer Marek  17:50, 16 February 2011 (UTC)


 * You really need to stop your aggressive tone. There was no "blanket revert", every edit of mine had a reasoning and is based on the respective source(s). I am tired of ignoring your imputing remarks, including this very section header.
 * re 1: foundation is not a historiographic code word, it means just that.
 * re 2: There is nothing wrong in attributing conflicting or extraordinary assessments to their respective source. You are discussing my alleged motives again with that "every-time-a-Polish-author"-nonsense, and you are wrong - Piskorski (Polish) et al and Buchholz (German) et al, which I primarily used, belong to the generation of historians who don't care about each others nationality that much and cooperate well regardless of ethnic background. That I used those editions as sources and not a German counterpart of yours and Molobo's "Slavdom-has-never-been-broken"-source ridicules your insinuation of national bias.
 * re 3: If that really was in the source, provide a quote.
 * re 4: My edit summary [here is correct, Radvan verbatim says that it "led the same Benedykt Zientara to claim that locatio is actually a technical term, which had three separate meanings in Poland: [...1-3...]"
 * re 5: we have been through this, I provided several expert sources on that including a dedicated essay by the same author whom I allegedly misrepresented.
 * re 6: what else do you want to have clarified in that sentence?
 * Skäpperöd (talk) 21:12, 16 February 2011 (UTC)


 * My tone is not "aggressive", I am merely calling it what it is - you reverted all of my edits though you did it piece by piece. And yes, I consider these reverts to be POV. Finally, I don't think you of all people have any right to lecture others about 'aggressive tone', but never mind that.
 * re 1: "foundation" is a historiographic term (not a "code word", whatever that is supposed to be - don't put words in my mouth) which is why virtually all works which discuss the subject first very very very carefully explain what it means and only then go on to discuss the phenomenon in question. The present Wikipedia article fails to do that and in doing so misleads the reader.
 * re 2: There is nothing wrong in attributing conflicting or extraordinary assessments to their respective source. - in general no, there isn't, when done in a balanced and NPOV way. Singling out particular sources, simply because of their nationality you don't like them (red. VM) for this kind of treatment however is POV. Your statements about Piskorski and Buchholz are true enough and I can only wish that the same thing was true for Wikipedia editors. However that is irrelevant to the point being made and in fact contradicts your practice of judging sources according to their nationality.
 * I was imprecise in the above statement, mostly because I was responding to the strange innuendo in your comments. I have seen you use the same tactic of qualifying some sources via "attribution" while presenting others unequivocally in many instances where some sources simply don't agree with your POV while others do. There is a correlation between the incidence of "attribution" and the author's nationality/ethnicity but I have also seen you do this with German or Austrian sources which don't fit in with your POV. So it's not a 100% nationality issue. It's a POV one.
 * Or to make it even more precise, why aren't you sprinkling "According to Buchholz..." "Buchholz says..." "Buchholz claims..." through out the article? What is it that makes Buchholz, for example, so special, unlike Piskorski, Bielecki, Labuda, Radvan and others? Right now the whole thing is written as if Buchholz was the Holy Bible of the subject and every other author some kind of deviationist from that gospel truth.(added later, VM)
 * re 3: Oh please, it's a general, neutral statement, and the whole freakin' book is about the subject.
 * re 4: You're cherry picking Radvan (again!). Right after he gets done explaining what "locatio"/foundation meant, he says "The complex process of location is not specific only to Poland, since this mode of evolution, both urban, as well as rural is encountered all across Central Europe". So no, it's not specific to Poland - he is just using it as an illustrative example.
 * re 5: The author whom you misrepresented however uses the word "town" freely. You are trying to use the fact that there were some differences between how pre-Ostsiedlung and post-Ostsiedlung towns were structured to pretend that the former never existed. Yes, there is a specialized discussion among historians on exactly what these differences consisted of and qualifying adjectives are added to the word "town". But they were still towns.
 * re 6: What do you mean "what else"? You haven't clarified or verified anything to begin with. Why does that claim contradict other information?Volunteer Marek (talk) 22:34, 16 February 2011 (UTC)


 * So, Marek, Skapperod is essentially deleting all your contributions-but rather then doing it in wholesale revert he is pretending to make an edit after edit to conceal wholesale revert?--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 21:30, 16 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Yup.Volunteer Marek (talk) 22:34, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Please also address the question of why you keep moving sourced info which discusses the extent of the colonization to some obscure corner of the article rather than placing it at the beginning where it logically belongs.Volunteer Marek (talk) 23:00, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Please don't remove POV tag without justification,...
... without indicating that that's what's being done in an edit summary (which is misleading), without addressing all the issues that have been raised over this article's POV in the recent past, and especially when you're restoring the POV portions of the article.Volunteer Marek (talk) 18:38, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Town-like settlements vs towns
The towns of the 13th century need to be distinguished from the town-like settlements of the 10th-11th centuries. They have completely different features (burgh-suburbium vs market/churches centered town with council, merchants, craftsmen, town law). Skäpperöd (talk) 07:39, 29 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes, yes, when it was the barbaric natives living there it was a "settlement" but as soon as a German merchant or two moved in, all of sudden it became a "town". Standard colonialist narrative. Same thing supposedly true of thriving towns in Africa or Latin America - they were "settlements" until a Spaniard or an Englishmen showed up, the only difference being that Prussia chose to try and establish its colonies next door. It's academically outdated in those context, and that kind of mentality is outdated in this context as well, no serious scholars think that way anymore (I sincerely hope). Catch up, Wikipedia!  Volunteer Marek   05:43, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

The Pomeranian (not barbarian) gards differed significantly from the later towns, with which they nevertheless had some functions in common. This has nothing to do with any "mentality" problem. I propose to replace "town-like settlement" with "gard". Skäpperöd (talk) 15:27, 29 January 2011 (UTC) Incorrect. They were already numerous towns. The adoption of laws that from territories that would later be Germany didn't mean previous towns did not exist.--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 16:10, 29 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Of course "gards" differed from later towns, since that's pretty much like saying that the "city hall building" differs from the existing town. "Gards" (the castles located within a town) were part of pre-Ostsiedlung towns not their entirety - nice attempt at a strawman argument. "Town like settlement" and "gard" are both inaccurate. Overall though, there's mucho points for sneakiness here though.Volunteer Marek (talk) 02:02, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Mostly undue
The removed text is the following:

''Villages before the Ostsiedlung were of the Haufendorf type; the houses were built close to each other without a special ruling. A variant of this type also found in Pomerania is the Sackgassendorf (or Sackdorf) type, where a dead-end road leads to those houses. This type evolved as an extension of Haufendorf-type villages. German settlement introduced new types of villages: In the Hagenhufendorf type, houses were built on both sides of a main road, each within its own hide (Hagen). Those villages were usually set up after the clearance of woodlands; most of them were given German names in absence of any Slavic site names. This type of village can be found all along the coast, most of them in the areas between Barth and Wolgast, Kolberg and Köslin, and north and west of Schlawe. Other villages were built in the Angerdorf type, where a main street fork encloses a large meadow ("Anger") in the village's center where the life stock was kept at night; sometimes the church or other buildings not used for living were built on the Anger also. This type is the most prominent type in the Peene, lower Oder, Pyritz, Lake Madü and Rega areas, many villages of this type are also found in the Kolberg and Schlawe area. In addition to these types, the Straßendorf type, characterized by a single and very long main street, was introduced in a later stage of Ostsiedlung, and therefore is found predominantly in areas that were affected last by the German settlement (easternmost parts, Cammin area). Villages of this type were either new foundations, or extensions of Slavic precursors. In other areas, Hagenhufendorf and Angerdorf types dominate, while the Haufendorf type used in Slavic times and its Sackdorf variant can still be found in between, predominantly on the islands. ''

''The villages' area was divided in hides. The size of a hide differed between the village types: A Hagenhufe, used in the Hagenhufendorf villages, comprised 60 Morgen (iugera), about 40 hectar. A Landhufe, used in the Angerdorf villages, comprised 30 Morgen. One farm would usually have an area of one Hagenhufe or two Landhufen. Slavic farmland was measured in Haken (uncus), with one Haken equals 15 Morgen (half a Landhufe). Haken were used only in villages remaining under old Slavic law (predominantly on the islands), whereas Hufen were used for new villages placed under German law (in Pomerania sometimes referred to as Schwerin Law). Not all families of German villages owned a Hufe. Those dwelling on considerably smaller property ("gardens") were usually hired as workers by the farmers (Vollbauern). These people were termed "gardeners" (Gärtner) or Kossäten (literally "who sits in a hut"), and could either be local Slavs or the younger sons of German farmers who did not inherit their father's soil. ''

1. Most of this stuff is simply undue in detail.

2. For some reason it insists on using German terminology even for the period before there were any Germans in the region or for terms where standard English ones are available.

3. The whole point appears to be to squeeze as much German (Haken? Maybe Hektary? Morgen? Morgi? - note all the red links, this isn't the German Wikipedia (which is too bad cuz de.wiki's several times more NPOV than the English one when it comes to these topics) into these paragraphs as possible.

4. At the time "Kolberg" "Schlawe" and other areas east of the Oder were still overwhelmingly Slavic, so why are German names being used?

5. The whole process described in these paragraphs TOOK PLACE LATER than the scope of this particular article. Try Pomerania during the Late Middle Ages.

5 above is the kicker - this article is simply NOT THE RIGHT PLACE for most of this text and as such winds up making the article embarrassingly anachronistic. And once you fix that and move it to the proper place, the problems with the excessive German naming and terminology will also be muted. The possible exception would be for Hither Pomerania west of the Oder where the process did start earlier - and I tried to reflect that in my changes, but those like all others were simply reverted by Skapperod without discussion.

 Volunteer Marek  19:31, 29 January 2011 (UTC)


 * re 1: these types of villages prevailed largely unchanged until the early modern era, many of them prevail until today. It is an important aspect of Pomeranian history.
 * re 2: if you can offer exact Enghlish cognates, introduce them.
 * re 3: it's Hagen, not Haken. The reason for the appearance of German designations is the German settlement of that time. Since that process did not happen in England, I doubt that there are English cognates available.
 * re 4+5: it took place in the High Middle Ages and also later. It started in the 12th century and affected most of Pomerania during the 13th century.
 * Skäpperöd (talk) 20:12, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

re 4+5: it took place in the High Middle Ages and also'' later. It started in the 12th century and affected most of Pomerania during the 13th century.'' - per sources, it did not. There might have been some migration in the 12th century - just like there was Slavic migration into German lands during this time - but, again, per sources, by the early 14th century, German presence west of the Oder was incomplete (i.e. the areas were still heavily slavic) and east of the Oder, negligible. You're taking these German settlers from the 1400 hundreds, putting them into some kind of secret time machines you invented and transporting them two centuries into the past to make some kind of WP:POINT about the "Germaness" of these territories. Since the area DID become Germanized extensively later (reformation+) there's really no need for this kind of disruption of the time space continuum and it just makes this article an embarrassment to Wikipedia, if read by anyone with even a basic knowledge of history of the region.  Volunteer Marek  07:00, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I have to agree with Marek here, there is absolutely no reason to give German names here, if the towns and settlements were not Germanised yet.--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 20:22, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

The paragraphs confirming the statement that Ostsiedlung started in the 12th century and affected most of Pomerania during the 13th century, are sourced. Skäpperöd (talk) 10:17, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
 * That's not what we are talking about-we are talking about specific towns, that even this highly biased and POV version has to admitt were under Polish rule-and we are talking about period in which they weren't subject to Ostsiedlung-in fact it was almost two centuries before that. Hence there is no reason whatsoever for Germanised names to be placed in the text at this particular moment, and absolutely no explanation why Polish ruled towns with Polish and Slavic population are given Germanised versions of their names that appeared centuries later.--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 15:07, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Can we please at least agree that this portion is undue? It really does read like an excuse to incorporate as many German language terms into the English Wikipedia as possible. There might be something salvageable in the above - which properly belongs in the Ostsiedlung article - but here it really is an exercise in subtle POV pushing.Volunteer Marek (talk) 02:06, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Close paraphrasing "resolved"?
I might have missed this, but where was the close paraphrasing actually resolved? Honestly, maybe it was but I'm not seeing the relevant diffs.Volunteer Marek (talk) 02:03, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Skäpperöd (talk) 17:16, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Um, what's going on?
In regard to this - I JUST tried to clarify for like the third time that it wasn't Bialecki who says "this" but rather it was a German historians who made that claim. Yet here you are inaccurately attributing the statement to Bialecki again and claiming that he made it. Once can be understood as a simple mistake. Twice raises eyebrows and makes one wonder, but ok, Assume Good Faith and all that. Three times appears to be a purposeful attempt at misrepresentation of sources, particularly given your hi-jinks with Piskorski's text above. Please stop.Volunteer Marek (talk) 06:15, 5 March 2011 (UTC)


 * The Wehrmann quote was misleading. Wehrmann (1904): Geschichte von Pommern vol. I, pp. 116-117 actually said:
 * [orig.] "Um 1300 war aber Pommern durchaus noch nicht ein wirklich deutsches Land; im Gegenteil, damals war die slawische Bevölkerung der Zahl nach noch überlegen, doch in entschiedenem Niedergange begriffen. Überall von den neuen Einwanderern zurückgedrängt [...]" "Im Osten aber, jenseits der Persante, erhielten sich im Anschluß an das benachbarte Polen slawische Sprache, Sitte und Brauch und wohl auch anfangs das Heidentum noch Jahrhunderte hindurch. Das Slawentum wurde dort vielleicht nie vollständig gebrochen. Sonst war der Sieg des Deutschtums um 1300 entschieden."
 * [transl.] "Around 1300 AD, Pomerania was eventually not yet a really German area; to the contrary: then, the Slavic population was still superior in numbers, but in decisive decline. Pushed back by the new immigrants everywhere [...]" "To the east, on the other side of the Persante [Parseta] river, next to neighboring Poland, Slavic language, culture, customs and in the beginning probably also paganism continued to exist for centuries. There, Slavdom was probably never broken completely. Else, the victory of Germandom was decided by 1300."
 * This quote does not back the statement previously reinserted by VM that "around 1300 AD Pomerania was still almost completely Slavic in character, and due to its association with Poland, the area had Slavic language, culture and institutions, and that 'Slavdom' in those areas 'had never been broken'."
 * That aside, I still think that there is no need to have these thesis from 1904 in the article at all. Skäpperöd (talk) 08:59, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

And I believe that if it is good for a major scholarly work it is good enough for Wikipedia.--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 11:57, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

I don't see why we should take your translation over that found in a reliable source - particularly when the translation includes statements such as "Pomerania was eventually not yet" which make no grammatical sense.Volunteer Marek (talk) 20:42, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Another possible translations of durchaus noch nicht is "not yet at all" (or, alternatively,  "yet by no means"), so that the beginning of the sentence in question could also be translated as follows: "Around 1300 AD, Pomerania was not yet at all a really German land; quite to the contrary, at that time the Slawic population was ... " - -Kaiser von Europa (talk) 11:04, 9 March 2011 (UTC)