Działalność krzyżackiego szpiega o pseudonimie „N.S. Arman” w Królestwie Polskim w połowie XV wieku i jego tożsamość
Activities of a Teutonic Spy Nicknamed “N.S. Arman” in the Kingdom of Poland in the Mid-Fifteenth Century and its Identity

Summary/Abstract: This authors of this article discuss the figure of the Teutonic informant with the pseudonim “N.S. Arman”, based on reports addressed by him to the Grand Master of the Teutonic Order Ludwig von Erlichschausen in 1451 and 1453. They have attempted to establish an indicative date for those of the reports that did not have annual dates. After analyze the scope of the messages included in these sources, the spy was identified with Niclos Scharar, a Rypin burgher from Toruń, a client and handyman of the Brest voivode Jan Kretkowski, and then his son Andrzej. In Scharar’s letters we find a wide panorama of state life in Poland, a description of relations between Poland and Lithuania, related in particular to territorial disputes over Volhynia and Podolia, the actions of King Kazimierz Jagiellończyk, Tatar invasions, as well as wars on the Polish-Silesian borderland. However, the data from these reports contain almost no references to the intensive contacts of the Prussian opposition with various political centers in Poland, which were already ongoing at that time. This allows the scholars to conclude that their value for the Teutonic principals of Niclos was small. Scharar’s reports, however, are of great importance for contemporary researchers in the context of the information they contain regarding the internal political life of the Kingdom of Poland in the early 1450s.

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