The History of the World Podcast, written and presented by Chris Hasler

Volume 4 The Medieval World, Episode 52, the Battle of Grunveld. Oh, The location of the battle this week is in the northeast of the modern country of Poland in the Varmian

Masuri and Voivodeship.

The battle took place near a village called Grunwald, hence the name.

It is possible that Baltic peoples occupied this area before the Romans travelled to the Baltic

Sea. It does seem that Germanic tribes

would have pushed eastwards from Central Europe and likely came into contact with the

Baltic tribes in this area. We can feel somewhat confident that Celtic and Scythian

peoples would have either occupied or been in close contact with this area

before the age of written history reached this area from Northern Europe.

While the earliest Celtic cultures such as the Halstadt and the Latten cultures

were dominating the middle of the European continent, the

Lusation culture was existing in modern Polish lands. Production of Bronze Age

weaponry and evidence of horseshoes is apparent with a strongly agricultural society as one might expect.

The deceased were likely to be cremated and Iron Age culture would have migrated to this area naturally

from surrounding cultures most notably the Celts from the south. It would be

after the classical age that the Germanic tribes would have spread into the areas of Poland

looking to expand their area of influence. The biggest problem when telling the story of this area is ascertaining how much influence the Germanic tribes had over this area and guessing which of the many groups of Germanic tribes were settled in this area.

For example, the Jeopids may have originated in Polish lands,

but there are two issues with this.

The Jeopids were quite closely related to the goths and the Vandals, so we don't know whether we are confusing these tribes with each other,

or how diverged or converged they were with each other.

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