ABSTRACT
A number of crucially important political events that must have had an impact on planned objectives took place in 1227. Swietopelk, the Polish princes' steward in Gdansk, who in 1224 had taken part in a crusade against the pagan Prussians at the side of his overlord, Leszek Bialy, Duke of Krakow raised a rebellion against him. Prussia gained considerable political autonomy within the Polish state. The core of political life in Royal Prussia focused on assemblies of the estates, where discussions encompassed local politics, taxes, neighbourhood disputes, the manning of castles, and affairs of the Polish Crown. It provides financial assistance for the King in matters of great import in the latter half of the fifteenth century, such as Poland's attempts to secure the thrones of Bohemia and Hungary, or the question of the Ottoman threat to Moldova and Podolia. Gdansk's privileges and a boom in the grain trade led to the city's rapid economic growth in the sixteenth century.
