The attitude of the Teutonic Order towards millers and mill owners in Prussia

Abstract

 The article sets to closely investigate the nature of the relations between the Teutonic Order and millers and mill owners in the Teutonic Order’s state. The analysis emphasises the fact that the Order was the largest land owner in Prussia. For this reason, it was also able to introduce a favourable legal environment that strengthened its position, namely the imposition of the mill regalia which granted the Order full control over the construction of any water-driven milling facilities, and later also windmills. Direct legal relations of millers and mill owners with the Order were regulated in mill charters. Such documents were issued during the granting of the mills, which were regarded as independent settlement units distinguished by law from rural areas or mill settlements situated far from villages. In the charters, the Order specified their recipient, the title on the basis of which the mill was to be used, the amount of rent to be paid and other duties of the miller or mill owner, as well as the special rights granted to them with regard to fishing (most frequently only in the mill pond), granting of the land appurtenant to the mill and very rarely – the right to own an inn. The Order also reserved the right to grant privileges allowing for the erection of mills in the outlying estates of knights. The relations between the Order and mill owners and millers were not limited only to the issue of payment of the adequate rent. The granting of a mill was frequently accompanied by the acceptance of other obligations such as military service for the land owned, obligatory work for the feudal lord (Scharwerk), compulsory tenure associated with the maintenance of roads, bridges or levees, etc. The documents also occasionally included various regulations, for example in cases when the mill operated close to surrounding villages or bordered fields belonging to villagers. This solved issues such as flooding of fields caused by millers’ damming up of rivers for milling purposes. Interestingly, the Order treated millers as a separate, though internally stratified, occupational group. This is suggested by a tax tariff draft in which, according to a version discussed in 1419, millers were to pay a waterwheel fee. Such extensive control of the organisation of the milling industry, and hence of millers and mill owners as well, was possible because the Order made use of the mill regalia within its state.