Ritterswerder (Nemunas island near Lampėdžiai)¶

In the 1380s [Historical record]¶

A Nemunas island near Lampėdžiai where the Order built a fort in autumn 1391; its guests were seized and the fort destroyed in summer 1392 (event).

Ritterswerder (Nemunas island near Lampėdžiai)


Tipas	vietovė
Pastaba	Order fortress built autumn 1391; its guests were seized in summer 1392 and it was destroyed.

Sensory sketch¶

A newly raised timber fortress on a low Nemunas island, so green wood sweats resin in the sun, with pine-pitch and fresh-hewn sawdust underfoot, and the harbour smell of river mud and hemp rope. A festival night in early summer (the saga puts it on St John’s) brings drums, torches along the bank, and beer; the broad river reflects bonfires, and the wooden palisade is the only brightness that is not water. Mosquitoes near the reed-beds. After the fire the sound is a flat crackle and a river that goes on as before.

Sagoje¶

The wooden fort smells of resin and Order ale; Vytautas’s name hangs over its gate: „dar viena dovana, kuri buvo paskola“.

Getting there¶

The island lies in the Nemunas just below Kaunas near Lampėdžiai, in the stretch of river the Order held as a line of forts. From Vilnius, Kaunas is about 95 km (2.5 days by horse; the Neris is also navigable downstream in four or five days). To Jurbarkas by the Nemunas is about 85 km (two days downstream; upstream four to eight). To Königsberg by water it is 300-320 km (six to nine days downstream; two to four weeks the other way). Because the fort stood on an island and was reachable only by boat or ford, guests could be gathered inside it by invitation and then cut off: the island was both bait and trap.

Scenes set here¶

Book II ch. 9.

Ryšiai

Events here: The break: Ritterswerder guests seized, Order forts burned

Chronologija¶

Year	Event	Book
1392-07	The break: Ritterswerder guests seized, Order forts burned	II · Auksinis Šešėlis

Sąsajos¶

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  ev_ritterswerder_1392["The break: Ritterswerder guests seized, Order forts burned"]
  ritterswerder["Ritterswerder (Nemunas island near Lampėdžiai)"]
  ev_ritterswerder_1392 -->|Location| ritterswerder
  style ritterswerder stroke-width:3px