Archivum Lithuanicum

Three handwritten copies of an order issued by George Frederick, Margrave of Brandenburg- Ansbach, have recently come to light in the Secret State Archives Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation (Berlin). Two of these, A and B, had been edited before by Jurgis Gerullis (1927), but were meanwhile considered lost. The third one, K, has been newly discovered in a file of drafts which also contained the German drafts both for the text of the order and the Duke’s accompanying letter to the church administrations of Tilsit and Ragnit. It is edited here with the variants from A, B and a photograph of the lost copy U, and together with the two German drafts. The edition is accompanied by a full commentary and glossary. George Frederick, nephew of the first Prussian duke Albert of Brandenburg, took over the administration of the Duchy of Prussia after Albert’s son had been declared unfit to rule. The order, dating from December 1578 and addressed to the church administration of Tilsit, admonishes the members of the Protestant church district of Tilsit to fulfil their obligations as Christians and refrain from heathen practices. It is the earliest extant administrative document written in Old Lithuanian.