Burial sites in former Illyric settlements in this area have yielded clay sculptures depicting priests serving a female deity from a time 3000 years ago. In the fourth century BC the Illyrics were pushed aside by the old Germans (Teutones). From the 7th to 9th centuries Slav settlers emerge. The northern tribes take their name from the Baltic Sea "po-morje" - "at the sea" (Latin "mare" - sea), "Pomeranes", i.e. sea-neighbour. The southern Slav group gathers as "po-lani", Polish, "field inhabitant," separated by the Netze River from their kin in the north; fighting between them lasts two and a half centuries. At the important excavation site Zantoch Castle discoveries were made that no doubt are of Viking origin and date from the founder of Poland, Mieszko I. His alternative form of name Dago shows Nordic Teutonic extraction, too.
About the year 1200 the country east of Oder River belonged to the Polish Dukes of Glogau from the House of Piasten14). They sold land to German monks and knights for settlement; the Cistercians of the monastery in Paradies and Semmritz (later Blesen) worked south of Warta River. Many of these estates passed into the possession of the Margraves Johann and Otto III. of Brandenburg of the Ascanian family. As a culmination of their work of peace the Polish Duke Przemyslaw and Johann I. of Brandenburg signed the treaty of Zantoch "in order to restore peace, avoid manslaughter and bring back calmness and peace to those parts of the land". Peace, in fact, was disturbed for centuries by ongoing fights between Pomeranes living north of the Warta-Netze-line and Poles south of the river. Konrad, son of Johann, married Constanze, daughter of Duke Przemyslaw, and she got Landsberg County as a Morgengabe or gift on the morning after her wedding. On July 2nd, 1257, Johann I. signed the document founding the City of Landsberg.
In the year 1402 the city, together with the whole Neumark State, passed over into the possession of the German Order of Knights, who took this land for a bridge from their Prussian estates to the Reich. After only a few years power of the order broke down. Elector Friedrich II. of Hohenzollern took the land in 1455, and it stayed connected to the March and Prussian State afterwards. Under the government of Margrave Johann of Küstrin, 1535-71, the Neumark was an independent state for the only time in history. The sovereign made Küstrin his residence and the seat of his government and rebuilt it as a fortress. The area south of the Warta belonged to the diocese of Posen (in Poland) until the 15th century.
In Landsberg the Reformation was introduced in 1537. At the beginning of the Thirty Years' War, when news from the Reich grew more threatening and war drew nearer, recruitment efforts were widespread through the cities and countryside of the Neumark. In the mustering lists of the Neumark we find the first appearance of the name Schmerse.
The open alliance of Elector Georg Wilhelm with the Kaiser in 1627, accursed by the people who for the sake of faith sided the opponent, was decisive in the fate of the land. The suffering from war lasted until the year 1630 and the arrival of Swedish King Gustav Adolf in East-Brandenburg. On the urging of the Kaiser, the Elector finally had to admit Wallenstein's troops to occupy Landsberg. They declared the Neumark for enemies in spite of the alliance. The imperial occupation troops of Landsberg were defeated by the troops of Gustav Adolf on Easter 1631 and again in March 1635. The Neumark became the scene of battles between Imperials and Swedes, and on 19. January 1637 the Swedes once again came into town, and this time as enemies. After a new siege, 700 defenders surrendered to 200 imperial aggressors on 2 July. In summer 1639 Landsberg was drawn into the whirl of the warlike events for a last time. The town was unable to resist the attack the Swedes made with at the end of July in that year. Landsberg stayed in the hand of the Swedes until two years after the conclusion of peace. They made themselves at home, took over the administration of the town and of the land and treated the inhabitants so mildly that they were more pleased with their new masters than with their original electoral governor.
Later it became obvious that Landsberg and the surrounding area had suffered under the war most of all of Neumark's areas. Its dominating site at the intersection of important roads, and river crossings, an advantage in times of peace, had become the doom of the town and her hinterland. Of course the war did not, like in other areas, wipe entire villages from the map, but the population was extraordinarily diminished and hostilities had brought Landsberg at the brink of destruction. Burghers and farmers who survived murder and plague sought their salvation in flight. Landsberg, which at the beginning of the century counted 600 burghers, in 1640 counted only 60; as late as 1660, 99 houses wholly or in part were destroyed. The surviving population was absolutely impoverished, house, farm, stables and barns were in ruin, livestock was almost completely destroyed. Seed was lacking as well as harness and farm implements, and the fields, untilled for years, were entirely grown over with shrub and forest.
Until the 19th century three types of villages could be found in Landsberg County: the electoral, later on kingly official villages; the noble estate villages; and the council villages controlled by the town of Landsberg. The official villages, i.e. villages without manors, came into the possession of the sovereign by the secularization of the monastery Himmelstädt in 1539. The noble villages were owned in former times by knightly lineages, the so-called vassals. Their fields, the Ritterhufen, were exempt from all public tributes and burden; therefor the vassals had the duty of military service.
The town Landsberg since the 14th century owned the seven "council villages": Borkow, Dechsel, Kernein, Eulam, Zechow, Lorenzdorf and Wepritz. The town also owned an extensive swamp area flanking the Warta, which was increasingly developed through colonization since the 17th century. Subjects of the old municipal villages had to do hand- and hitching services for the town but apart from that had also official duties to the office Himmelstädt; they were subject to the court- and police power of the council, that held a congress three times a year on the occasion of the "village journey" at each locus. The lower administration of the villages was presided over by the town-appointed mayor. Even before the state began colonizing the Warta swamp, the municipal colonies of Landsberger Holländer, Plonitz and Blockwinkel came into being, and so did the two council outworks Altensorge and Berkenwerder. It is striking that Schmerses dwelled only in these council villages until far into the 19th century.
There is a map of the Landsberg area showing villages where Schmerse families lived: next to Landsberg and Bürgerwiesen (= Citizen's Meadows) there are Kernein, Altensorge, Berkenwerder, Borkow, Czettritz and Dechsel, as well as - a little bit farther off - Alexandersdorf, Pollychen, Zantoch, Wepritz and Derschau/Carolinenhof. The map is 2030 by 1448 pixels (ca. 1 MB, at 300 dpi: 7 by 5 inches of scale 1:100.000).
Sources:
1. Beske, H.; Handke, E.: Landsberg an der Warthe, Band I bis III, Bielefeld 1976 - 1980
