The text describes the town of Mindelheim, located in the Swabian corner of Bavaria north of the Tyrolean Alps. According to the text, there is a parish church in this town, which contains the tomb of Anna Teck. The history associated with this daughter of Casimir the Great is recalled, as well as a description of the tombstone itself and the inscription on it (Source: Tygodnik Illustrowany, Warsaw 1869, Series 2, T:3, pp. 167-169, after: Digital Library of the University of Łódź).

A modernised reading of the text

The tomb of Anna Duchess Teck, daughter of Casimir the Great, in the parish church of Mindelheim.

In a Swabian corner of Bavaria, north of the Tyrolean Alps, on a plain bisected by the Mindel river, lies the town of Mindelheim. Above it, on a high hill, towers the deserted castle of Mindelburg, seat of the town's former lords. The origins of Mindelheim can be traced back to the original inhabitants of this land, the Vindelicans, who were subjugated by the Romans, who founded a colony in their country under the name: Augusta Vindelicorum (Augsburg).

On the hill which the Mindela River separates from the town called Rostro-nemice by the Vindellians, the Romans built a castle, the remains of which, made of square stones, support the present-day Mindelburg Castle.
At the decline of the Roman state, the land was successively invaded by the Goths and the Hunns.

After the defeat of the latter by Otto I, the German emperor, the Swabian dukes ruled this land until 1269, when Conradin, the last of their line, died. Subsequently, the neighbouring knights, the Counts of Mindelheim, took possession of the town of Mindelheim. In 1363, the last of this house sold it to the Lords von Hohenschlitz, one of whom was Bishop of Augsburg and donated his property to the Augsburg Chapter.

However, this was not allowed by Duke Friedrich von Teck (of the House of the Dukes of Zahringen, ruling today in the Duke of Baden), who held Mindelheim in lien and, having moved here to live from his family castle of Teck in the Württemberg region, reigned until 1389, when he ended his life. After him, his two sons Friedrich II and Ulrych reigned together, and after the death of Friedrich II in 1413, Ulrych alone until 1432.

Ulrych was married to the daughter of Ka¼mirz the Great, king of Poland. In order to explain these relations, we must go back to the mid-14th century. Ka¼mirz the Great, having left his second wife Adelaide, Duchess of Hess, who led a lonely life in the castle of Žarnowiec, and having no male offspring, decided to make new marriage vows, although the Apostolic See refused to release him from the previous ones. Henry, Duke of Żegań and Głogów, did not refuse the King the hand of his daughter Jadwiga, born of the Archduchess Katarzyna of Rakuz. The wedding ceremony took place in Kraków in 1357. It was not without a slander against Kaźmier for forging a papal dispensation for this marriage, in which, however, Pope Urban V himself justified the Polish King.

Two daughters born of this marriage, Anna and Jadwiga, were minors in 1370 when their father died; the older one could be barely twelve years old. In his testament, Kozmir the Great bequeathed to them all household utensils, clothes, garments, fabrics of rare beauty, shining with purple, pearls and precious stones, all gold bowls, nevertheless, half of vessels, valuables and jewels made of silver; the other half to his wife Jadwiga.

The successor of Kaismier, his nephew Ludwik, King of Hungary, came to Cracow with his mother, Queen Elżbieta Łokietkówna, who, by the royal order and in compliance with the decree of Kaismier's brother, divided the treasure left after him between the royal daughters and the widow of King Kaismier.Jadwiga, having collected her part, valued at 333 grzywnas of silver and 1000 grzywnas of broad grogs, returned home and married Rupert, the prince of Lignitz; her daughters were taken by Queen Elisabeth to Hungary, so that they would not be tempted to claim their father's throne after they had married some mighty princes.In addition, King Louis instituted a court in their case, which, declaring that they were illegitimate, deprived them of their paternal inheritance and the right to the crown.

However, in the following year 1371, Pope Gregory XI, at the request of the same King Ludvik and in consideration of the pious relations of the deceased Kozmir with the Apostolic See, with separate dispensations, restored the right of birth to Kozmir's orphans, excluding only the hereditary rights to the Polish crown.The eldest, Anna, was married to Wilhelm, Count of Cilicia, probably before 1380, because in that year Queen Elżbieta Łokietkówna, writing her will, bequeaths a wreath to the daughter of the Polish King Kaźmirz the deceased, that is, to the still unmarried Jadwiga.

At that time, the house of the Counts of Cilicia was not yet notorious for the later crimes of members of this family; therefore, no malicious intent on the part of Louis and Elizabeth can be seen in this relationship. In any case, Queen Anne's marriage to William, Count of Cilicia, who died in 1392, was not a very long one. Shortly thereafter, Anne remarried to Ulric, Duke of Teck, lord of Mindelheim, but was forced to leave her only daughter Anne of Cyllia in Cyllia, in the care of her first husband's cousin Ilerman II, Count of Cilicia.

There, in 1400, Polish envoys came for her, asking for her hand in marriage to their king, Władysław Jagiełło. Jagiełło, having lost his wife Jadwiga of Hungary, heir to the Polish crown, sought to strengthen his own claim to the crown by marrying the granddaughter of Kaźmier the Great, and daughter of the barely legitimate royal Anna.

When Anna of Cilicia arrived in Cracow (16 November 1400), her mother, royal Anna, Duchess of Teck, reigned in Mindelheim and was famous for her piety and charity. Together with her husband, she founded a prebend in the Mindelheim parish church under the title of St. Paul, and donated many jewels and a chasuble sewn with pearls to the church.In the archives of Mindelheim, a German parchment privilege from 1405 has been preserved for the foundation of a morning mass in the chapel of St. Sylvester, the intitulation of which reads as follows in Polish: "We the Duke Ulrich von Teck and We the Lady Anna, his wedded wife, King Ka¼mirza, the late King of Poland, the wedded daughter etc.".

In the year 1402 King Wladyslaw Jagiello set the coronation of his wife Anna Cilicia for the Sunday called Quinquagesima, which in that year fell on the 5th of February. To this ceremony the King invited his wife's mother, the Princess Anna Teck.She arrived in Krakow, after an absence of 32 years at a ripe old age, having left her home town after the death of her father, as a 12-year-old girl. She had the consolation of seeing her daughter on the throne where her mother had once sat, and King Ladislaus honoured her with splendid gifts as she departed for her own country.

Anna, Queen of Poland, Duchess of Teck, outlived her daughter by nine years, for she died on 11 June 1425, and her tombstone, transferred from the former church, which was demolished in 1816, is still preserved in the Mindelheim parish church.

The effigy of Queen Anne, in convex relief, is carved in hard sandstone; her head rests on a cushion, her arms crossed; under her feet is a pedestal, and beneath it is an eagle with outspread wings and a frayed tail. Her handsome features, noble composition and artistically pleated dress give this monument a special grace. All around, one can clearly read the German inscription:

"Anno Dni MGCCCXXV starb. fro. An. des durchlauchtigsten hochgebornen fursten herrn hr. Kasmiri Saeli. (gen) Kung zu Polen tochter un hercogin.".

And in smaller letters on the edge:

"Am montag nach unsers herrn frohleichnamtag vierten tag.".

Which in Polish means:

"In the year of our Lord 1425 died the lady Anna, the most illustrious high-born prince and lord Kaiser the heavenly king of Poland, daughter and duchess. On the Monday after the feast of Corpus Christi on the fourth day".

In 1425 Corpus Christi fell on 7 June, and the following Monday (11 June) was the day of Queen Anne's death. After her death, Duke Ulrich, childless, married Ursula, Margrave of Baden, but she too died childless shortly afterwards (in 1429), and three years later (in 1432) Duke Ulrich also died. The tombstones of Duke Ulrich and his second wife are located next to that of Queen Anne; their figures are carved in red marble.
The family of the Dukes of Teck was extinguished in 1439 by Ulrich's brother Ludwig, Patriarch of Aquileia, and Mindelheim was inherited by their nephews, the Counts von Rechberg.

Their descendants sold the state to the von Freundsbergs in 1467. One of these, named George, became famous as a brave leader in the imperial army in many battles, notably at Pavia, where Francis I, King of France, was taken prisoner. George von Freundsberg was said to have received a royal sword at that time, which they still show in the Mindelheim town archives.When the last of the house of von Freundsberg died in 1586, he was succeeded by his nephew Wolf Wit von Maxelrein; but the Fuggers quarrelled with him over the inheritance; until in 1617 Maximilian, Duke of Bavaria, captured the castle of Mindelburg and the town of Mindelheim, which still belong to the Bavarian kings today.

The castle and the town of Mindelheim belong to the Bavarian kings to this day. They have suffered many defeats over the years, from the Swedes, the English under the Duke of Marlborough and the Austrians.

In the town, the chapel of St. Sylvester, the Fuudacy of the Queen Anne, is now turned into a fire brigade hall. On the main wall, the painted coat of arms with the eagle and the chase, a monument from the middle of the 17th century, gleams.

The small town of Mindelheim already attracts the eye of the traveller from afar with its beautiful location.