Life
David was born in Olsztyn (Allenstein), Poland, to Gerhard Dönhoff. He studied at the University of Leipzig, where he also received a Magister degree. Despite having converted to Protestantism, he served as the chancellor of Bishop Tiedemann Giese between 1540 and 1549. After Giese received the Diocese of Warmia, David joined the ducal court of Albert, Duke of Prussia, in Königsberg (Królewiec) (today Kaliningrad) in 1549, taking his oath on 26 March 1550.
Albert commissioned a work on the history of Prussia, mainly to counter the - in his view - biased Polish and Catholic works. However, he was only able to produce a recent history of Prussia before he died. His son, Albert Frederick, however, continued the efforts, and instructed David to compile a history of Prussia. This was also supported by various social classes, which believed that the Polish histories belittled Prussian achievements. Hence David researched documents of Prussian history, and started to write his Prussian Chronicles ("Preußische Chronik") from ca. 1575. While David utilized large parts of the work of Simon Grunau, he also frequently corrected errors by Grunau.
David married a wealthy widow in Leipzig. He instituted scholarships at the University of Leipzig, mainly for poor students from his hometown.
Before David was able to complete his chronicles, he died at Königsberg (Królewiec) in 1583 at the age of 80. The chronicle ends with the events preceding the Battle of Grunwald (or Tannenberg) in 1410; other sources state that his works extend till 1475. His works were largely unknown to his contemporaries, and were re-discovered only around 1720, with another 100 years before their first publication in the years between 1812–17 in eight volumes. Since then he has become well known past the borders of his homeland for these Prussian Chronicles. He is ranked as a 'modern' historian, as he based his studies on historical sources.
The Prussica-Sammlung Trunz started by another Allenstein native, Dr. August Trunz (1875-1963), contains works by David. It is housed in the library of the University of Münster.
Old Prussian was a West Baltic language belonging to the Baltic branch of the Indo-European languages, which was once spoken by the Old Prussians, the Baltic peoples of the Prussian region. The language is called Old Prussian to avoid confusion with the German dialects of Low Prussian and High Prussian and with the adjective Prussian as it relates to the later German state. Old Prussian began to be written down in the Latin alphabet in about the 13th century, and a small amount of literature in the language survives.
Low Prussian, sometimes known simply as Prussian (Preußisch), is a moribund dialect of Northern Low German that developed in East Prussia. Low Prussian was spoken in East and West Prussia and Danzig up to 1945. In Danzig it formed the particular city dialect of Danzig German. It developed on a Baltic substrate through the influx of Dutch- and Low German-speaking immigrants. It supplanted Old Prussian, which became extinct in the 18th century.
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Adalbert Bezzenberger was a German philologist. He was born at Kassel and died at Königsberg. He is considered to be the founder of Baltic philology.
Regierungsbezirk Königsberg was a Regierungsbezirk, or government region, of the Prussian province of East Prussia from 1815 until 1945. The regional capital was Königsberg.
Simon Grunau was the author of Preussische Chronik, the first comprehensive history of Prussia. The only personal information available is what he wrote himself in his work: that he was a Dominican priest from Tolkemit (Tolkmicko) near Frauenburg (Frombork) just north of Elbing (Elbląg) in the Monastic State of the Teutonic Order. He preached in Danzig (Gdańsk) and claimed to have met Pope Leo X and Polish King Sigismund I the Old. The chronicle was written in the German language sometime between 1517 and 1529. Its 24 chapters deal with Prussian landscape, agriculture, inhabitants, their customs, and history from earliest times to up to 1525 when the Protestant Duchy of Prussia was created. It also contains a short vocabulary of the Prussian language, one of the very few written artifacts of this extinct language. While often biased and based on dubious sources, this work became very popular and is the principal source of information on Prussian mythology. The chronicle circulated as a frequently copied manuscript and was first published in 1876. Modern historians often dismiss the Preussische Chronik as a work of fiction.
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Caspar Hennenberger was a German Lutheran pastor, historian and cartographer.
Gustav Reinhold Ludwig von Wienskowski gen. von Saltzwedel was a Prussian politician and public official.
The Jüngere Hochmeisterchronik, Croniken van der Duytscher Oirden, or Utrecht Chronicle of the Teutonic Order is a Middle Dutch chronicle of the Teutonic Order. It was written in or around the city of Utrecht in the Low Countries in several phases: around 1480, around 1491, and with some minor alterations after 1492. It has been referred to as “the final piece of the puzzle that is the official historiographic tradition of the Teutonic Order”. The anonymous chronicle was likely authored by the land commander of the Utrecht bailiwick of the Teutonic Order, Johan van Drongelen, in cooperation with his personal secretary Hendrik Gerardsz. van Vianen.
Georg Heinrich Ferdinand Nesselmann was a German orientalist, a philologist with interests in Baltic languages, and a mathematics historian.
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Johann Friedrich Goldbeck was a German geographer and Protestant theologian.
The district of Allenstein was a Prussian district in East Prussia, which existed from 1818 to 1945.
Johannes Kunisch was a German historian. He held chairs of early modern history at the Goethe University Frankfurt. (1972-1976) and the University of Cologne (1976–2002). Through his publications Kunisch became one of the leading German early modern historians. His biography Frederick the Great, published in 2004 and widely acclaimed, gave lasting impulses to Prussian research.
Hermann Frischbier was a German schoolteacher as well as an author of works about East Prussian local history and culture.
The Mohrungen district was a district in the southwestern part of the Prussian province of East Prussia. It existed from 1818 to 1945 and belonged to Regierungsbezirk Königsberg. The seat of the district administration was the town of Mohrungen. Prior to this, from 1752 to 1818 there was a Mohrungen district in East Prussia, which however, encompassed a much larger area.
The Rößel district was a Prussian district in the administrative region of Königsberg in the Prussian province of East Prussia. It was located in Warmia in the middle of East Prussia and existed from 1818 to 1945. The seat of the district administration was initially Rößel (Reszel) and, from 1862, Bischofsburg (Biskupiec).
The Preußisches Obertribunal, abbreviated PrObTr, was between 1703 and 1879 either the sole or one of the supreme courts of the Kingdom of Prussia. The court played a significant role in shaping Prussia's legal system and had major influence on the administration of justice in the kingdom.
Ernst Strehlke was a German historian and archivist. He dedicated his rather short life to the history of the Teutonic Order.
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