New sources about the relations of Pskov with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Teutonic Order in Livonia in the first third of the XVth century

Abstract

The paper discusses and provides an edition of nine epistolary sources concerning the wars and diplomatic contacts between Pskov, the Teutonic Order, and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (GDL) from 1406 to 1426. The published letters from Grand Duke Vytautas of Lithuania, the Grand Masters and Livonian Masters of the Teutonic Order, and other Order officials in Prussia and Livonia originate from the archive of the Grand Masters and have been preserved in originals and in one draft in the Königsberg Archive (now in the Geheimes Staatsarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz in Berlin), as well as in a 16th-century manuscript summary held in the Wróblewski Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences in Vilnius. The first six letters focus on the war between the Livonian branch of the Order and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania against Pskov from 1406 to 1409, highlighting the competition for Pskov in which Vytautas involved his Livonian allies, the engagement of the Order’s authorities in Prussia in this process, and the positions of the parties on the international stage, including Novgorod the Great and the Grand Duchy of Moscow, at the moment of the outbreak of the war between the Teutonic Order and Poland – GDL in 1409. Another three letters shed light on Vytautas’s campaign against Pskov in 1426, showing how he organized the informational support for this campaign