III. The Postclassical Period, 500–1500 > F. Europe, 461–1500 > 3. Western Europe and the Age of the Cathedrals, 1000–1300 > d. Germany > 1. The Teutonic Knights
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  The Encyclopedia of World History.  2001.
 
 
1. The Teutonic Knights
1190–91
 
Crusading origin. Merchants of Lübeck and Bremen founded a hospital at Acre that soon became attached to the German Church of Mary the Virgin in Jerusalem.  1
 
1198
 
The brethren of this hospital were raised to a military order of knighthood (Order of the Knights of the Hospital of St. Mary of the Teutons in Jerusalem) by the Germans gathered for Henry VI's crusade. Thenceforth membership in the order was open only to Germans, and knighthood only to nobles. Pope Innocent III gave them the rule of the Templars. Headquarters were successively at Acre (1191–1291), Venice, and (after 1309) Marienburg, clear evidence of the new orientation of the Knights. Intense rivalry existed between the order and the Templars and Hospitalers in the Holy Land, until the failure of the crusades turned them to other fields of action. The robes of the Teutonic Knights were white with a black cross.  2
Reconstitution of the order and transfer to the eastern frontier of Germany. The eastward advance (Drang nach Osten) of the Germans, begun under Charlemagne and never wholly ceased, and colonization with Netherlandish farmers and German merchants, coupled with Cistercian efforts during the days of Adolf of Holstein, Albert the Bear (self-styled margrave of Brandenburg), and Henry the Lion of Saxony established the Germans firmly in Mecklenburg and Brandenburg. Lübeck (founded 1143) early became an important commercial center. The foundation of Riga (1201), as a crusading and missionary center, the establishment of the Livonian Brothers of the Sword, and an influx of Westphalian nobles and peasant immigrants ensured the continued advance of Germanization and the progress of Christianity (largely under Cistercian auspices) in Livonia. The defeat of the Danes at Bornhöved (1227) by the combined princes of North Germany cost them Holstein, Lübeck, Mecklenberg, and Pomerania, leaving only Estonia to Denmark. The Poles had already begun the conversion of the Prussians and East Pomeranians.  3
 
1210–39
 
Under HERMANN VON SALZA, the first great grand master, the order, at the invitation of Andrew of Hungary, was established (1211–24) in Transylvania as a bulwark against the Comans (Cumani), until their progress alarmed the Hungarian monarch.  4
Hermann was a friend of Emperor Frederick II, and was the real founder of the greatness and prosperity of the still relatively poor and insignificant order.  5
 
1226
 
By the Golden Bull of Rimini, Frederick laid down the organization of the order (on Sicilian lines) and prepared the Knights for a new career as pioneers of Germanization and as Christian missionaries on the eastern frontier. Frederick repeatedly made them generous gifts, used them for his own crusade, and employed individual knights on important missions. The grand master was given the status of a prince of the empire.  6
Organization of the order. Districts, each under a commander; a general chapter, acting as advisers to the grand master; five chief officers; the grand master elected for life by the Knights. The order was nominally under the pope and the emperor, but in the days of its might, only strong popes exerted any influence.  7
 
1229
 
The call of Prussia. (The name “Prussia” is probably derived from a native word Prusiaskai, not from Bo-Russia.) An appeal (1225–26) from Conrad of Masovia, duke of Poland, for aid, coinciding with Frederick's reorganization, was accepted by Hermann von Salza, and the Knights embarked on a unique crusade comparable only with that in the Iberian Peninsula, as champions of Christianity and Germanism. Conrad gave them Kulmerland (1230), and promised them whatever they conquered from the Prussians. Frederick confirmed their rights.  8
 
1234
 
The Knights transferred all their holdings to the pope, receiving them back as fiefs of the Church, and thus had no other lord than the distant papacy.  9
 
1237
 
Union with the Livonian Brothers of the Sword was followed by notable progress in Livonia and plans for the conversion of the Russians from the Greek Church to the Roman, which led to a serious defeat for the order. Courland was also gained, and Memel was founded (1252) to hold the conquests. Eventually the southern Baltic coast from the Elbe to Finland was opened by the order to the missions of the Church and the trade and colonies of the Germans.  10
A great era of town foundations (some 80 in all) opened under the order, including Thorn (castle, 1231), Kulm (castle, 1232), Marienwerder (1233), Elbing (castle, 1237), Memel (1252), Königsberg (1254).  11
 
1242–53
 
A Prussian revolt was put down, and the conquest of Prussia continued with aid from Ottokar of Bohemia, Rudolf of Habsburg, Otto of Brandenburg.  12
 
1260
 
The Battle of Durben, a disastrous defeat of the order by the Lithuanians, was followed by another Prussian revolt that had national aspects and was put down with Polish aid. The suppression was marked by deliberate extermination, and the virtually complete Germanization of Prussia ensued. Castle Brandenburg was built (1266) and the reduction of Prussia completed (1285).  13
The order allowed great freedom to the towns (especially after 1233); no tolls were collected, only customs dues. The large commercial towns joined the Hanseatic League (See 1282). The Knights were also generous (after 1236) in charters to German (and Polish) nobles, the peasants were treated well, and mass migrations into territories of the Knights became common.  14
 
1263
 
The pope granted the order permission to trade, but not for profit, a concession later expanded into full commercial freedom. As a result the order, founded as a semimonastic crusading society, eventually became a military and commercial corporation of great wealth and selfish aims and a serious competitor of the very towns it had founded. The Teutonic Knights escaped the fate of the Templars, though they were temporarily on the defensive.  15
A magnificent court was kept at the headquarters in Marienburg, and under Grand Master Winrich (1351–82) the order was the school of northern chivalry, just as later it became a great cultural influence through the foundation of schools everywhere in its domain and the maintenance of its houses as centers of learning. (See The Teutonic Knights)  16
 
 
 
The Encyclopedia of World History, Sixth edition. Peter N. Stearns, general editor. Copyright © 2001 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Maps by Mary Reilly, copyright © 2001 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

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