Post Saladin

After the death of Saladin disputes arose among his sons and the opportunity was seized of commencing a new chapter in the history of which is well known, and in which the Teutonic Knights took an active part. At this time (1197) Henry VI, Emperor of Germany, gave the knights the monastery Cistercians, at Palermo, in Sicily, and several privileges and exemptions - a transaction that caused considerable disagreement between the Pope and the Emperor. The knight were however, finally confirmed in possession of the monastery, and it became the preceptory or chief house of the Order in Sicily, where other property was gradually bestowed upon the Knights.

Henry de Walpot, the first grand master, died at Acre, in 1200, and was succeeded by Otho de Kerpen, who was an octogenarian at the time of his election, but full of vigor and energy which he displayed by devoted attention to the duties of hi office, and personal attendance upon the sick in the hospitals During the mastership of Otho de Kerpen, an order of knight hood arose in the north of Europe, which was afterward incorporated with the Teutonic order. Livonia, a country situate on the borders of the Baltic, was at this time still pagan. Th merchants of Bremen and Lubeck, who had trading relation with the inhabitants, desired to impart to them the truths an blessings of Christianity, and took a monk of the name of Menard to teach them the elements of the faith. The work succeeded, and Menard was consecrated bishop, and fixed his see at Uxhul, which was afterward transferred to Riga.

The mission, however, as it advanced, aroused the jealous and suspicion of the pagan nobles, and they attacked and destroyed the new town, with its cathedral and other buildings. The Bishop appealed to his countrymen for help. Many responded to his call, and, as there was at that time no crusade in progress in Palestine, the Pope [1199] was persuaded to accord to those who took up arms for the defense of the Christians in Livonia the same privileges as were given to those wh actually went to the Holy Land.

Military Religious Order

In consequence of these events a military religious order was founded, to assist in this war, called the Order of Christ which was confirmed by Pope Innocent III, in 1205. Th knights wore a white robe, upon which a red sword and a star were emblazoned. They maintained a vigorous and successful conflict with the heathen, till circumstances rendered it desirable that they should be incorporated with the Teutonic Knights.

In the mean time the Latins had seized Constantinople, set up Baldwin, Count of Flanders, as emperor, and divided the Eastern Empire among themselves. The Teutonic Knights received considerable possessions, and a preceptory was formed in Achaia. Some time afterward another was establish Armenia, where also the order had obtained property and terriority in return for services rendered in the field. The Order also received the distinction of adding to their bearings the Cross of Jerusalem.

The valor of the knights, however, and the active part which they took in all the religious wars of the day, cost them dear, and from time to time their numbers were greatly reduced; so much so that when Herman de Salza was elected grand master (1210) he found the order so weak that he declared he would gladly sacrifice one of his eyes if he could thereby be assured that he should always have ten knights to follow him to battle with the infidels. The vigor of his administration brought new life to the order, and he was able to carry on its mission with such success that at his death there were no less than two thousand German nobles who had assumed the badge of the order and fought under its banner. Large accessions of property also came at this time to the knights in Hungary, Prussia, Livonia, and elsewhere.

In 1214 the emperor Frederick I decreed that the grand master should always be considered a member of the imperial court, that whenever he visited it he should be lodged at the Emperor's expense, and that two knights should always have quarters assigned them in the imperial household. In 1221 the emperor Frederick II, by an imperial act, took the Teutonic order under his special protection, including all its property and servants; exempted them from all taxes and dues; and gave its members free use of all pastures, rivers, and forests in his dominions. And in 1227 Henry commanded that all proceedings in his courts should be conducted without cost to the order. The King of Hungary also, seeing the valor of the knights, endeavored to secure his own possessions by giving them charge of several of his frontier towns.

It would be unnecessary, as it would be tedious, to repeat all the details of the crusades, the varying successes and defeats, in all of which the Teutonic Knights took part, both in Syria and in Egypt, fighting side by side with their brethren in arms, the Templars and Hospitalers.

They continued also their humane services to the sick and wounded, as the following curious contemporary document shows. It forms part of a charter, obtained by one Schweder, of Utrecht, who says that, being at the siege of Damietta, "he saw the wonderful exertions of the brethren of the Teutonic Order, for the succor of the sick and the care of the soldiers of the army, and was moved to endow the order with his property in the village of Lankarn."

It was during the siege of Damietta that the famous St. Francis of Assisi visited the crusading army, and endeavored to settle a dispute, that had arisen between the knights and the foot soldiers of the army, the latter being dissatisfied and declaring they were unfairly exposed to danger as compared with the mounted knights.

Grand Master

In 1226 the grand master was selected by the emperor Frederick and Pope Honorius to be arbitrator in a dispute that had arisen between them. So well pleased were they with his honorable and wise counsel that, in recognition of his services, he and his successors were created princes of the Empire, and the order was allowed to bear upon its arms the Imperial Eagle.

The Emperor also bestowed a very precious ring upon the master, which was ever afterward used at the institution of the grand master of the order. Again, in 1230, the Grand master was one of the principal agents in bringing about a reconciliation between the Emperor and Pope Gregory IX, whose dissensions had led to many troubles and calamities.

It has already been mentioned that the King of Hungary bestowed upon the knights some territory on the borders of his dominions, with a view to their defending it from the incursions of the barbarous tribes in the vicinity. The King's anticipations were amply realized. The knights maintained order in the disturbed districts, and by their presence put an end to the incursions of the predatory bands who came periodically to waste the country with fire and sword. The land soon smiled with harvests, and a settled and contented population lived in peace and quietness.

But no sooner were these happy results attained than the King took a mean advantage of the knights, and resumed possession of the country which they had converted from a desert to a fruitful and valuable district. The consequence was that the wild tribes renewed their invasions, and the reclaimed country once more lapsed into desolation. Then again the King made the border country over to the knights, who speedily reasserted their rights, and established a settled government and general prosperity in the dominion made over to them. This .grant and some others that followed were confirmed to the order by the bull of Pope Honorius III in 1222.

Poland

A few years after this the Duke of Poland asked the aid of the order against the pagan inhabitants of the country that was afterward Prussia. These people were very savage and barbarous, and constantly committed horrible cruelties upon their more civilized neighbors, laying waste the country, destroying crops, carrying off cattle, burning towns, villages, and convents and murdering the inhabitants with circumstances of extreme atrocity, often burning their captives alive as sacrifices to their gods. The grand master consulted with his chapter and wit the Emperor on the proposed enterprise, and finally resolve to enter upon it, the Emperor undertaking to secure to the order any territory that they might be able to conquer and hold in Prussia. Pope Gregory IX, in 1230, gave his sanction to the expedition, and conferred on those concerned in it all the privileges accorded to crusaders.

In the following year an army invaded Prussia and erected a fortress at Thorn, on the Vistula, on the site of a grove of enormous oaks, which the inhabitants looked upon as sacred to their god Thor. This was followed, in 1232, by the foundation of another stronghold at Cuhn. A successful campaign followed, and the castle of Marienwerder, lower down the Vistula, was after some reverses and delays successfully built and fortified. The grand master then established a firm system of government over the conquered country, and drew up laws and regulations for the administration of justice, for the coining of money, and other necessary elements of civilization. Other fortified places were built which gradually developed into cities and towns.

But all this was not effected without many battles and much patient endurance, and frequent defeats and checks. Nor did the knights forget the spiritual needs of their heathen subjects. Mission clergy labored among them, and by the instruction, and still more by their holy, self-denying lives, the succeeded in winning many to forsake their idols and becoming Christians.

The order received an important accession to its ranks at this time (1237) by the incorporation into its of the ancient Order of Christ, in Livonia, which had considerable possessions This was followed shortly afterward by an agreement between the order and the King of Denmark, by which the former undertook the defence of the kingdom against its pagan neighbors.

In 1234 the order received into its ranks Conrad, Land grave of Thuringia and Hesse, a man who had led a wicked an violent life, but, being brought to see his errors, made an edifying repentance, and became a Teutonic Knight, and afterwards was elected grand master. This Conrad was brother to Louis of Thuringia, who was the husband of St. Elizabeth of Hungary. After the death of Elizabeth, the hospital at Marburg, where she had passed the latter years of her widowhood in the care of the sick, was made over to the Teutonic Knights, and after her canonization a church was built to receive her remains, and placed under the care of the order.

In 1240 the knights received an earnest petition, from the Duke of Poland, for aid against the Turks, who were ravaging his dominions, and by the enormous multitude of their hosts were able to defeat any army he could bring into the field. The knights accepted the invitation, and took part in a series of bloody and obstinate battles, in which they lost many of their number. They had also a new enemy to encounter in the Duke of Pomerania, who had been their ally, but who now sided with the Prussians against them. In the war that ensued the Duke was defeated, several of his strongholds were taken, and he was obliged to sue for peace.

A few years afterward, however (1243), the Duke recommenced hostilities, and with more success. Culin was besieged by him, and the greatest miseries were endured by the inhabitants, the slaughter being so great in the numerous conflicts before the walls that at last very few men remained. The Bishop even counseled the widows to marry their servants, that the population of the town might not become extinct. The war was continued for several years with varying fortune, till a peace was at last concluded, principally through the mediation of the Duke of Austria.

Schism

About this time a disputed election caused a schism in the order, and two rival d masters for several divided the allegiance of the knights, till Henry de Hohenlohe was recognized by both sides as master. During his term of office successful war was carried on in Courland and other neighboring countries, which resulted in the spread of Christianity and the advance of the power of the order. At the same time, the Teutonic order took part in the crusades in Palestine, and shared with the Templars and Hospitalers the successes and reverses there.

It would be tedious to enter upon all the details of the conflicts undertaken by the order against the Prussians and others; suffice it to say that the knights, though often defeated, steadily advanced their dominion, and secured its permanence by the erection of fortresses, the centres about which cities and towns ultimately arose. Among these were Dantzic, Koenigsberg, Elbing, Marienberg, and Thorn.

By the year 1283 the order was in possession of all the country between the Vistula and the Memel, Prussia, Courland, part of Livonia, and Samogitia; commanderies were established everywhere to hold it in subjection, and bishoprics and monasteries were founded for the spread of Christianity among the heathen population. In the contests between the Venetians and the Genoese, the Teutonic Knights aided the former, and in 1291, after the loss of Acre, the grand master took up his residence in Venice.

About this time the Pope originated a scheme for the union of the three orders of the Hospitalers, the Templars, and the Teutonic Knights, into one great order, purposing at the same time to engage the Emperor and the kings of Christendom to lay aside all their quarrels, and combine their forces for the recovery once for all of the Holy Land. Difficulties without number, which proved insuperable, prevented the realization of this scheme. Among these was the objection raised by the Teutonic Knights, that while the Hospitalers and Templars had but one object in view-the recovery of Palestine, their order had to maintain its conquests in the North of Europe, and to prosecute the spread of the true faith among the still heathen nations.

In 1309, when all hope of the recovery of the Christian dominion in the East had been abandoned, and no further crusades seemed probable, it was determined to remove the seat of the grand master from Venice to Marienberg. At a chapter of the order held there, further regulations were agreed upon for the government of the conquered countries, some of which are very curious, but give an interesting picture of the state of the people and of society at that period.

Thus it was commanded that no Jew, necromancer, or sorcerer should be allowed to settle in the country. Masters who had slaves, and generally Prussians, prisoners of war, were obliged to send them to the parish church to be instructed by the clergy in the Christian religion. German alone was to be spoken, and the ancient language of the country was forbidden, to prevent the people hatching conspiracies, and to do away with the old idolatry and heathen superstitions. Prussians were not allowed to open shops or taverns, nor to act as surgeons or accoucheurs.

The wages of servants were strictly settled, and no increase or diminution was permitted. Three marks and a half a year were the wages of a carpenter or smith, two and a half marks of a coachman, a mark and a half of a laborer, two marks of a domestic servant, and half a mark of a nurse. Masters had the right to follow their runaway servants, and to pierce their ears; but ff they dismissed a servant before the end of his term of service, they must pay him a year's wages. Servants were not allowed to marry during time of harvest and vintage, under penalty of losing a year's wages and paying a fine of three marks. No bargains were to be made on Sundays and festivals and no shops were to be open on those days till after morning service.

Sumptuary laws of the most stringent nature were passed, some of which appear very singular. At a marriage or other domestic festival, officers of justice might offer their guests six measures of beer, tradesmen must not give more than four, peasants only two. Playing for money, with dice or cards, was forbidden. Bishops were to visit their dioceses every three years, and to aid missions to the heathen. Those who gave drink to others must drink of the same beverage themselves, to avoid the danger of poisoning, as commonly practiced by the heathen Prussians . A new coinage was also issued.

General Prosperity

The next half-century was a period of general prosperity and advance for the order. It was engaged almost incessantly in war, either for the retention of its conquests or for the acquisition of new territory. There were also internal difficulties and dissensions, and contests with the bishops. In 1308 the Archbishop of Riga appealed to Pope Clement V, making serious charges against the order, and endeavoring to prevail upon him to suppress it in the same way as the Templars had lately been dealt with. Gerard, Count of Holstein, however, came forward as the defender of the knights.

A formal inquiry was opened before the Pope at Avignon in 1323. The principal charges brought forward by the Archbishop were, that the order had not fulfilled the conditions of its sovereignty in de-. fending the Church against its heathen enemies; that it did not regard excommunications; that it had offered insolence to the Archbishop, and seized some of the property of his see, and other similar accusations. The grand master explained some of these matters, denied others, and produced an autograph letter of the Archbishop's, in which he secretly endeavored to stir up the Grand Duke of Lithuania to make a treacherous attack upon some of the fortresses of the knights. The end of the matter was that the case was dismissed and there is little doubt that there were serious faults on both sides.

The times were indeed full of violence, cruelty, and crime. The annals abound with terrible and shameful records, bloody and desolating wars, and individual cases of oppression, injustice, and cruelty. Now a grand master is assassinated in his chapel during vespers; now a judge is proved to have received bribes, and to have induced a suitor to sacrifice the honor of his wife as the price of a favorable decision. Wealth and power led to luxury and sensuality, the weaker were oppressed, noble and bishop alike showing themselves proud and tyrannical. There are often two contradictory accounts of the same transaction, and it is impossible to decide where the fault really was, when there seems so little to choose between the conduct of either side.

The conclusion seems forced upon us that human nature was in those days much the same as it is now, and that riches and irresponsible authority scarcely ever fail to lead to pride and to selfish and oppressive treatment of inferiors. When we gaze upon the magnificent cathedrals that were rising all over Europe at the bidding of the great of those times, we are filled with admiration, and disposed to imagine that piety and a high standard of religious life must have prevailed; but a closer acquaintance with historical facts dissipates the illusion, and we find that then as now good and evil were mingled.

The history of the order for the next century presents little of interest. In 1388 two of the knights repaired to England by order of the grand master, to make commercial arrangements with that country, which had been rendered necessary by the changes introduced into the trade of Europe by the creation of the Hanseatic League. A second commercial treaty between the King of England and the order was made in 1409.

Summit of Greatness

The order had now reached the summit of its greatness. Besides large possessions in Germany, Italy, and other countries, its sovereignty extended from the Oder to the Gulf of Finland. This country was both wealthy and populous. Prussia is said to have contained fifty-five large fortified cities, forty-eight fortresses, and nineteen thousand and eight towns and villages.

The population of the larger cities must have been considerable, for we are told that in 1359 the plague carried off thirteen-thousand persons in Dantzic, four thousand in Thorn, six thousand at Elbing, and eight thousand at Koenigsberg. One authority reckons the population of Prussia at this time at two million one hundred and forty thousand eight hundred.The greater part of these were German immigrants, since the original inhabitants had either perished in the war or retired to Lithuania.

Historians who were either members of the order or favorably disposed toward it, are loud in their praise of the wisdom and generosity of its government; while others accuse its members and heads of pride, tyranny, luxury and cruel exactions.

In 1410 the Teutonic order received a most crushing defeat at Tannenberg from the King of Poland, assisted by bodies of Russians, Lithuanians, and Tartars. The grand master, Ulric de Jungingen, was slain, with several hundred knights and many thousand soldiers.

There is said to have been a chapel built at Gruenwald, in which an inscription declared that sixty thousand Poles an forty thousand of the army of the knights were left dead upon the field of battle. The banner of the order, its treasury, and a multitude of prisoners fell into the hands of the enemy, which shortly afterward marched against Marienberg and closely besieged it.

Several of the feudatories of the knights sent in their submission to the King of Poland, who began at once to dismember the dominions of the order and to assign portion to his followers. But this proved to be premature. The knight found in Henry de Planau a valiant leader, who defended the city with such courage and obstinacy that, after fifty-seven days of siege, the enemy retired, after serious loss from sorties an sickness. A series of battles followed, and finally a treaty o peace was signed, by which the order gave up some portion o its territory to Poland.

More Teutonic Knights

Introduction
Post-Saladin
Huss