Masovia

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Poland in 1370 showing the various annexations of which it was comprised, including Mazovia.
Mazovia is still distinctly shown.

Masovia (Polish: Mazowsze) is today a region in mid-north-eastern Poland. Around 990 AD it was an independent Duchy with links to what is sometimes called Great Poland to its west which forced it to become a vassal Duchy in 1351 under Poland's Casimir III[1] Marsovia lies on the north European plain, roughly between Łódź and Białystok, and has no hills. Its eastern borders are with Lithuania and Belarus. Warsaw is the capital and largest city. Writing in 1875 John Murray described the language of Marsovia as a dialect of Polish.

Throughout the centuries, Masovia developed its own culture with diverse folk songs, architecture, dress and traditions different from those of adjoining Poland, although it is generally accepted that the ancient population were Slavs and probably one of the Polanie (people of the plain) tribes which settled this region after the Slav migrations.

In 1223 and again in 1241 the Tartars invaded most of European Russia and Poland, and in 1226 Conrad, the Duke of Masovia, also in difficulty with constant marauding raids over his territory by the old heathen Baltic Prussian tribes, asked the religious military order of the Teutonic Knights for their help to conquer the Prussians. He offered the Order a sweetener, the small frontier territory around the settlement of Kulm (Chełmno). This was agreed and confirmed by both Pope and Emperor.[2].

Sources

  1. Previté-Orton, The Shorter Cambridge Medieval History, Cambridge University Press, 1952, vol.ii, p.924.
  2. Previté-Orton, 1952, vol.ii, 745-6.