CLEMMENS.891      P 10

The   Teutonic Knights

by Roy H. Clemens, MPS


Within the Scottish Rite degrees there
is a series (27th through 30th) that is
known as the Chivalric Degrees. Among
the examples set forth within the teach-
ings of these degrees are the deeds and
character of Hermann von Salza, who
was at one time the Grand Master of the
Teutonic Knights. Recently John H. Van
Gorden devoted one chapter of his book,
"Medieval Historical Characters in Ma-
sonry," to him and pointed out that he
exemplifies the virtue of persuasive-
ness.This is easy to understand because
von Salza was one of the most effective
and dynamic of all the Grand Masters of
the Order.But who were these Teutonic
Knights with whom he was associated?
What is their place in history, and what
lasting beneficial effect did they have on
humanity? And, not to be overlooked;
what happened to them as Europe
marched inexorably through the Middle
Ages into the Renaissance, the Reforma-
tion, and on through the Age of Enlight-
enment, the Scientific and Industrial
Revolutions and into our Modern Age?
To answer these questions we must ex-
amine their Order of knighthood, how it
was organized; how it operated; what it
did, or did not, achieve; and what be-
came of it as the years passed.
Throughout this process it must be
clearly understood that the Teutonic
Knights were not Freemasons, nor did
they have any direct connection with
Freemasonry or its forerunners. The
concept is simply that Scottish Rite Ma-
sons are encouraged to emulate the finer
virtues of the knights of that Order.

While it is true that the Teutonic
Knights were initially engaged in, and
were a part of, the Christian Crusades in
the Holy Land, their principal effect was
felt in eastern Europe and along the
southern shores of the Baltic Sea. The
Order was headquartered in the Holy
Land until 1291, but its principal efforts
and concerns were centered on areas
further north. Their aims were tied first
to the expansion of German territory and
influence and secondly to Christian
evangelism .

The eastward expansion of the Ger-
man Empire, influence and culture un-
dertaken by the Teutonic Knights in the
early 13th century is frequently referred
to as the Prussian Crusade, and in part
the Livonian and Estonian Crusades.
While these continued for a slightly
longer period than the more popularly
known Crusades to the Holy Land, the
conquest of the Teutonic Knights closely
approximated those fateful efforts in its
barbarity, loss of life, political jealousies,
economic and political consequences
and final outcome.Thousands died,
many of them horribly, on both sides.
Inordinate suffering, fear and death
were the constant companions of both
conqueror and conquered. In the end,
the goal, the reason that it all occurred
slipped away from the German Crusa-
der's grasp and left them to collapse and
shrivel slowly, sometimes disgracefully,
into a rejected and forlorn shadow of the
powerful and glorious Order they had
once been. As valiant and sustained as
their effort was, neither the Teutonic
Knights nor any other power before or
after them has been able to retain any of
the eastern lands under German sover-
eignty, or even within its sphere of politi-
cal influence for any prolonged period of
time. True, Christianity came to, and has
remained strong, in the Baltic area, but
while the Teutonic Knights can rightfully
be credited with helping the Christiani-
zing effort it is abundantly clear that
Christianity would have come to that
area even without their participa-
tion.Yet, in the development and man-
agement of the land which came under
their control, the Ordensstaat, they con-
tributed greatly to the economic and
commercial progress of northeast Ger-
many and the south and southeastern
shores of the Baltic Sea.Their support in
the conversion of the pagan tribes and
their development, administration and
protection of the Hansa in the waste-
lands of northeast Europe may well be
considered one of the glorious achieve-
ments of the Middle Ages, and certainly
the most outstanding accomplishment of
medieval German civilization. (1)

The Teutonic Knights, as an Order,
had its beginning at the siege of Acre in
1190, during the Third Crusade, when
the German knights of the Crusade set
up a hospital outside the city's wall to
care for the sick and wounded. They had
started out from Germany under the
leadership of Emperor Frederick Bar-
barossa. However, Barbarossa died en-
route as the result of an accident and the
Germans continued on to Acre under the
leadership of his second son, Duke
Frederick of Swabia. The knights took
part in the siege, which continued for
eight months, and when the city finally
fell in 1191 it became the new capital of
the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. The
hospital was allocated space within the
city's wall so that it could continue its
work. In that same year Pope Celestine
III confirmed the group as a small and
independent Order to be known as the
Teutonic Knights of St. Mary's Hospital
ofJerusalem. During the next five years
branch hospitals were set up at several
places in the Christian controlled areas
of the Middle East.

Late in the 1190s the knights met in the
house of the Templars and decided that
their hospital activities would be pat-
terned after those of the Hospital of St.
John of Jerusalem, which was operated
by the Knight Hospitallers of St. John.
During these same meetings they also
decided that the clerical, knightly and
other activities would be carried on
under the same rules as the Knights
Templar. Pope Innocent III approved
these decisions on February 19, 1199.
And so, the Teutonic Knights came into
existence as a Religious Order of Chiv-
alry under its first Grand Master, Hein-
rich Walport von Bassenheim, a Rhine-
lander. The Order was headquartered in
the Holy Land until the collapse of the
Crusades, acquiring during that time a
rundown castle thirty miles north of Acre
from the Henneberg family, which they
developed into the stronghold of Mont-
fort, also known, in German, as Starken-
berg, and much other land and power in
northern Galilee. In 1271 they lost
Montfort, and with the loss of Acre and
the shattering of the Crusades in 1291,
Grand Master Konrad von Feucht-
wangen moved the headquarters to Ven-
ice. Later, in 1309, Grand Master Seig-
fried von Feuchtwangen relocated the
headquarters to Marienburg, Prussia
where it remained until the Order was
forced out by the Treaty of Thorn in
1466. At that time the headquarters was
moved to Konigsberg by Grand Master
Ludwig von Ehrlichshausen. Shortly
after 1561 the Order made the final relo-
cation of its headquarters to what is now
Wurttemberg. The Order continued in a
shadowy existence until 1923, its last
Grand Master being Archduke Eugene,
the Commander-in-Chief at Caparetto,
a small village at the foot of the Venetian
Alps.(2)

The Order's original organization, and
the one it retained throughout most of its
existence consisted of a high command
made up of a Grand Master (Hochmeis-
ter), an elected and absolute leader; his
lieutenant and next in command, the
Grosskomtur, who was in charge of all
land administration; followed by the
Marshall of the Order (Ordensmar-
schal), who was in charge of all military
operations, the Hospitaller (Spittler),
who was in charge of all hospitals and
relief work; the Quartermaster-General
(Trapier), who was in charge of supplies,
and later, trade relations; and the Treas-
urer (Tresler), who was in charge of the
finances. Below this General Staff were
the District Commanders, who were in
charge of districts consisting of several
Commanderies. The Commandery was
the smallest unit of the Order, was sta-
tioned at a fortress or strong point and
consisted of a Commander (Komtur)
and twelve knights and their supporting
personnel. (3)

Each individual knight had an atten-
dant (knechte), or esquire, who served
him personally, cared for his weapons
and armor, dressed him for battle but
usually did not accompany him into
combat. (4) The knight and all his serving
brothers took the normal monastic vow
of poverty, chastity and obedience.In the
fortress monasteries the knights slept in
dormitories and ate in the refectory. Dis-
cipline was very strict and life was not
easy for them.Indeed, they could not
have survived had their lifestyle been
other than rigorous. We have but to look
at the fate of the Roman Legions, the
Ottoman Janissaries, the Japanese
Samurai, more recently the armies of
France and Britain in 1940, even the
ultimate fate of the Order to observe the
devastating effect of relaxed discipline.

The dress of the knights varied but
usually consisted of a shirt and leggings
of chain-mail over padded undergar-
ments, over which fitted steel plates of
armor were buckled.Over this a white
surplice with a black Latin cross in front
was worn, the whole being topped by a
long white cloak having a black Latin
cross on the left shoulder.The head was
covered and protected by a fitted metal
cap under a hood of chain-mail, or more
often, by a full helmet of steel, well
padded on the inside and worn over a
hood of mail. Arms consisted of a lance
and a long two-edged steel sword and, at
times, a mace.Their horses were of the
large strong work-horse type and they,
like the knight, were fitted with plate
armor for battle. Armor was worn only
for battle and training. Likewise, the
large battle horse was clad and ridden
only for the same purposes. On the
march the armor of the knight and the
battle plates of his mount were carried on
mules. The knight rode a mule and his
war-horse was led unencumbered.

In battle the knight and his mount were
always on the move.The main value of
the mounted knight was in the charge,
where the ferocious shouts, the weight
and inertia of the charging horse, the
lance, swinging sword or mace took their
toll.The constant movement served also
to destroy the aim of archers and the
dreaded pikes of foot-soldiers, for once
the horse was downed, or the knight
unseated, death soon followed through
spear or dagger thrusts under the edges
of the armor plates. In 1240, Alexander
Nevsky, a Russian Prince of Novgorod,
inflicted the so-called "massacre on the
ice" when he lured the charging Teutonic
Knights onto ice-covered Lake Pei-
pus.The weight of the huge armored
horses carrying the armor clad knights
was so great that the ice broke beneath
them and the major part of the force
died, not by the sword but by drowning.
Even in combat with the light cavalry of
the Prussians, once the opposing forces
were engaged in the deadly embrace of
battle, the heavily clad knight had to be
protected and extricated from the fray
because both the knight and his steed
were vulnerable to the greater maneuv-
erability of the light cavalry and the ter-
rible devastation of the violent sword-
swinging Prussian nobles. (5)

The statutes of the Order, including the
penal regulations, were compiled while
it was operating in the Middle East.The
earliest datable manuscript containing
the statutes bears the year 1264.These
contain much of the same kind of rules
as those followed by the Knights Tem-
plar, Knights Hospitaller and Domini-
can friars, whose statutes in turn de-
pended on the regulations concerning
religious and temporal life contained in
the Rule of St.Benedict and the Rules of
St.Augustine.In regard to the penal
code, offenses were divided into four
types--minor, serious, more serious and
most serious.Minor offenses consisted of
such things as Iying, abusive language,
gambling, simple assault by striking with
the hand, or consorting with bad
women.The penalty was a one to three
day penance, much lighter than that of
the other Orders. Serious offenses were
things such as drunkenness, wasteful-
ness, sending or receiving letters, refus-
ing to carry out orders or collecting alms
without permission . The penalty for
these crimes was to have one's cross
taken away until pardoned by the supe-
rior and brethren, and during the mean-
while to live with the slaves, eat with the
servants sitting on the ground, fast for
three days each week on bread and water
and receive discipline from the priest in
the chapel every Sunday.The "more se-
rious" offenses were things such as con-
spiracy against the Master or a superior,
thievery, to be found to have property, to
sin with a woman, disclose the Order's
secrets or appeal against the laws of the
Order.The penalty for such crimes was
up to the judgment of the superior and
brethren and ranged from one years pen-
ance; during which the offender lived
with the slaves, ate with the servants
sitting on the ground, served in a habit
without a cross, fasted for three days
each week on bread and water and was
disciplined by the priest in the chapel
each Sunday; to as great a penalty as life
imprisonment.The "most serious" of-
fenses were acts such as gaining admis-
sion or arranging for someone else to
gain admission to the Order by simony
or falsehood, fleeing from the standard
or the army, deserting to the heathens or
cohabiting with men.The penalty for si-
mony and falsehood resulting in mem-
bership in the Order was for the guilty
brother to be expelled from the Order,
but he could regain admission by the
grace of the superior and brethren. How-
ever, for the crimes of cowardice and the
" foul sin" the guilty brother was expelled
forever. (6) It is interesting to note that
unlike the penalties of many other cul-
tures, except for the chapel discipline no
physical torture, abuse, disfigurement or
execution penalties are included in the
penal code.In order that there be no lack
of discipline or lack of adherence to the
regulations of the Order, the Grand
Master expected each Commander to
visit all of his Commanderies at least
once every three years and in 1442
Grand Master Konrad von Ehrlich-
shausen issued a decree making such vis-
its mandatory.This has the flavor of a
resurrection, after a period of nearly five
hundred years, of the Carolingian
"missi dominici," and the use of the
more recent practice of visitation by the
Cluniac and Cistercian Orders.The wis-
dom of such visits continues even to this
day in the concept that good and proper
command, control and management by
civil as well as military organizations
calls for periodic visits by leaders to the
offices factories, institutions or military
units for which they are responsible.

Within the Order of Teutonic Knights
the knight was the elite warrior.Usually
of noble birth, he was one of a number of
nobles, younger sons of nobles or even
illegitimate sons who, deprived of landed
estates had the choice of entering a mon-
astery or serving as a warrior-knight. (7)
Normally, noble birth was a prerequisite
for advancement in the Order, but the
number of actual nobles was always
small. More often the knights were de-
scendants of burghers, gentry or minis-
teriales. (8) Armor, weapons and horses
were costly, as was the maintenance of an
esquire and other members of a knight's
entourage. Consequently, except for
those cases of wealthy but not noble
families who could provide for an adept,
courageous and adventurous son,
knights were members of the upper
class. (9) The support of a group of knights
required the services of lower-born free-
men and slaves. Among the freemen
were the foot-soldiers and archers, who
formed the numerical majority of the
fighting force.Their work was to assist in
the protection of their knights, to destroy
the enemy knight except if that knight
was in combat with one of their own
knights, and to destroy the foot-soldiers,
archers and other fighting assets of the
enemy.

In 1209 Hermann von Salza, son of a
Thuringian ministeriale, was elected
Grand Master.The most dynamic of all
the leaders of the Order at a time when
it was wealthy and possessed appreciable
lands in Palestine, Cilician Armenia,
Greece and Europe. Friction had devel-
oped between the Knights Templar and
the Teutonic Knights and the struggle for
the Holy Land was somewhat aba-
ted.Consequently the Teutonic Knights
turned their attention to other areas,
their purposes being both the spread of
Christianity and the development of
German dominion over whatever lands
they could acquire.As it turned out their
major efforts were in northeastern
Europe and in the area along the south
coast of the Baltic Sea. In 1211, Andrew
II, King of Hungary, acting on the sug-
gestion of Count Hermann of Thurin-
gia, an advocate of Hermann von Salza,
invited the order to occupy Burzenland
in Transylvania, from which they were
to protect Hungary from the raids of the
Kumans, one of the Mongol tribes under
Genghis Khan which was pressing west-
ward out of the Ukraine.Accepting the
offer, the Teutonic Knights quickly
pacified the Burzenland, built a network
of crude forts after which, rather than
serve as garrison forces, they began in-
cursions into the Kuman lands.Concur-
rently they introduced German settlers
into the region and attempted to develop
the land into an autonomous German
monastic State, erecting castles at
Marienberg, Swarzenburg, Rosenau
and Kreuzburg. In 1224 von Salza per-
suaded Pope Honorius III to grant cer-
tain ecclesiastical exemptions and pro-
tections to the area; in effect making
Burzenland a papal fief.When Andrew
II learned of these moves, and prompted
by heavy pressures from his son, Prince
Bela, and other nobles, he withdrew the
privileges of the Order and ordered them
to leave Hungary.When they refused he
authorized Prince Bela to remove them
by force, and he did. (10)

Shortly thereafter, in 1225, Duke Con-
rad of Masovia offered the Order the
land of Chelmno (Kulm) and the posses-
sion of all lands to be conquered in Prus-
sia in exchange for protection against the
Prussians (Prusiskai). Il Von Salza ac-
cepted and as protection against treat-
ment such as was received in Hungary
negotiated with Pope Honorius III and
Frederick II.Frederick viewed this mat-
ter from several angles. First he was
being strongly pressed by the Pope to
embark on his promised Crusade to the
Holy Land and he needed the Teutonic
Knights as a crucial part of his forces.
Secondly, his principal interests of em-
pire lay in the Mediterranean region
(Sicily and Italy) and matters in northern
Europe did not gain much of his atten-
tion. Thirdly, he was aware of the riches
of the Near East, which he hoped to tap
with his Crusade, but Prussia was a cold,
forbidding area lacking in riches, and
riches are what he needed to continue his
plans for empire in the under-belly of
Europe. Additionally, Hermann von
Salza was a powerful and respected lea-
der of an Order which he could not afford
to antagonize. Further, he was indebted
to von Salza for services he had per-
formed in Germany, particularly his
work in obtaining the release of the
kidnapped King Waldemar II of Den-
mark. Therefore, in 1226 he issued the
"Golden Bull of Rimini" giving Grand
Master von Salza, and consequently the
Order, full authority as a Prince over the
area between Thorn and Chelmno east
of the Vistula, and all the land in Prussia
that the Teutonic Knights might con-
quer. This document, called a "Golden"
Bull because the seal of Frederick II
placed on it was of gold leaf and thus
marked it as a document of great signif-
icance, was of the lesser known yet most
important documents of the Middle
Ages.For the first time a German
Emperor, with the concurrence of the
Roman Catholic Church, gave a person
who was not of noble lineage the same
status as a prince and permitted him to
set up an autonomous State with full
powers to develop and govern it. Freder-
ick II's failure to maintain a strong hand
in the affairs of an expanding Germany
contributed to its political fragmentation
and the eventual downfall of the Hohen-
staufen empire.The terms of the Golden
Bull were:

1. Hermann von Salza was given permis-
sion to enter Prussia with his Teutonic
Knights and their allies.

2. The Teutonic Knights were given a
grant in perpetuity to all the lands re-
ceived from the Duke of Masovia, and
promises to give them all the lands they
might conquer in Prussia together with
the royal rights in the lands, rivers,
swamps, seas, etc. free and immune of
any services or tax whatever.

3. Concedes to them the right to try, sen-
tence and punish or condemn crimi-
nals; to hear and judge both civil and
criminal cases.

4. Concedes to them all natural resources
in the regions they conquer together
with rights of establishing laws, estab-
lishing markets, coining money, travel
and raising taxes.

5. Grants the Grand Master and his
successors the same rights and jurisdic-
tions in their lands as other princes in
the empire.

6. Prohibitions and penalties for violation
of the grants.

The Golden Bull was witnessed by Al-
bert of Kaefernburg, Archbishop of
Magdeburg. Also present at the signing
were Count Henry von Salza; Albert,
Duke of Saxony, the nominal overlord of
the Swordbrothers; and the Count of
Arnstein who later, in 1240, joined the
Teutonic Order. (12)

Von Salza immediately dispatched
Hermann Balke, the " Pizarro of the Bal-
tic, " with a force of seven knights to cross
the Vistula. After the crossing Balke
stormed the Prussian stronghold at
Nessau, "hanging the chieftain from his
own sacred oak." (13)

The Prussians were a pagan people of
Lettish race who lived in the area from
the Baltic Sea inland to the border of
Masovia, between the Vistula and Pre-
gel Rivers. They were divided into elev-
en separate tribes, each under a different
chief and normally lived in stockaded
ring-villages. They engaged in fishing,
small farming, bee-keeping, cattle-rais-
ing and hunting. Their clothing was
made up of linen, leather and furs; their
buildings were largely of wood; and their
tools and weapons were of hardwood
coupled with bone, and in some cases
iron or steel when it could be obtained
through trade or other means. Their re-
ligion was simple and related to nature,
with shamans, or priests, and temples
usually set in sacred groves. They were
satisfied with their way of life and fiercely
resisted all intruders. They had
developed a highly mobile light cavalry
and their sword-wielding leaders and
warriors were both fearsome and fear-
less. But there was no national unity and
leadership. The arrangement was more
like that of the appanages of early Russia
where alliances were, or were not,
formed according to the leaders percep-
tion of the threat. The land itself, Prus-
sia, was, in the coastal areas, a maze of
dunes, salt marshes and meandering
rivers, while inland it rose slightly to
accommodate rolling plains, forests and
numerous swamps and fresh water
marshes. There were very few hills and
even the highest of these was less than
600 feet in elevation. These are the peo-
ple and this was the forbidding land
which the Order sought to conquer. (14)

After neutralizing Nessau, Balke con-
tinued his campaign and built castles at
Thorn in 1231, at Chelmno (Kulm) in
12~2 and further down the Vistula at
Marienwerder in 1233.15 In the fall of
1233, - with the help of Polish forces the
knights further decimated the Prussians
and built the stronghold of Burg Rheden
upriver from Marienwerder. Later, in
1237, Count Henry of Meissen built a
fort (Elbing) on an Island in the Elbing
River. The Order thus possessed a string
of strongholds stretching from Masovia
to the Baltic Sea, from which they could
proceed with their conquest.

In 1228, at Thorn and Chelmno, the
first German Burghers moved in and one
of the first sovereign acts of the Teutonic
Knights was to grant them a charter of
self-government which was based on the
law of Magdeburg. The colonization and
commercial development of Prussia by
the Germans had begun.

Also in 1228, Duke Conrad of Masovia
formed a crusading group which was
dubbed the Knights of Dobrzyn. Seven
years later they petitioned for and were
assimilated into the Order of the Teuton-
ic Knights.(16)

In the latter part of the 12th century
large numbers of Germans and Dutch
from Utrecht, Westphalia and Frisia
were transported to the Slavic lands bor-
dering on the Baltic Sea. There they set
about improving the land, building
dikes, draining swamps and generally
establishing a growing economy. There
were, among these people, crusaders,
merchants, clerics and artisans as well as
the farmers and herdsmen, all of whom
were welcomed by the Slavic Princes.
They settled in lands ranging from the
mouth of the Dvina River to the upper
reaches of what is now Estonia. The en-
tire region came to be known as Livonia
and was inhabited by tribes such as the
Livs, Letts and Esths. The pacification
and assimilation of these tribes is indeed
another chapter in the Crusades along
the Baltic. It is mentioned here to show
that a large German population had
entered into this land and had formed it
into an economic and political entity
known as Livonia. These people en-
dured incursions from the Poles, Li-
thuanians and Russians, and it was in-
evitable that they should become ac-
quainted with the Teutonic Knights.
This acquaintance came about in 1237
when the Sword:Brethren (Schwertbru-
der), an Order of Christian Knights
formed in 1204 to protect the German
population of Livonia, were almost an-
nihilated by the Lithuanians. Their rem-
nants were absorbed by the Teutonic
Knights who then took up the task of
pacifying Estonia, Kurland and Livo-
nia. (l7) Following this the Order made a
tragic incursion into Russia and in 1240
on the ice of Lake Peipus they suffered
disastrous losses at the hands of Alex-
ander Nevsky the Russian Prince of
Novgorod.

The Order then turned southward
along the Baltic coast, reaching Memel
in 1252 and moving inward to Samland
in 1254. Here, together with an army of
Bohemians, Moravians and Bavarians
led by King Ottokar II of Bohemia and
an army of crusaders from Saxony, Meis-
sen and Magdeburg led by Duke Otto of
Brandenberg, the Order defeated the
Sambians with little difficulty. In 1255,
with the help of native warriors, they
built the great castle on the heights over-
looking the Pregel River, which they
named Konigsberg in honor of King Ot-
tokar II.

In 1260 a revolt broke out in eastern
Livonia following a serious defeat of the
Teutonic Knights by the Lithuanians at
Durben in Kurland. This precipitated a
further widespread and violent revolt by
a coalition of native Prussian leaders and
the Order suffered further heavy losses.
A new Crusade of knights into the area
was led by a succession of nobles; Duke
Albert I of Braunsweig, Landgrave Al-
bert of Thuringia; Margrave Otto of
Brandenberg; King Ottokar II of Bo-
hemia and Margrave Dietrich of Lans-
burg. By 1248 they had annihilated or
driven out the bulk of the rebels and
devastated more than one half of Prus-
sia. The papacy, by the Treaty of
Christburg in 1249, had placed limits on
the extent to which the Order could go in
subjugating and converting the Prussi-
ans. It mandated that all free members
of the Prussian tribes that accepted
Christianity could marry, bequeath
property, trade, seek litigation, enter the
Church, become knights and could be
disinherited only by due process of law.(18)
However, after the retaliatory measures
of the 1264-1284 period the Order felt no
longer obliged to adhere to the Treaty
provisions. The original plans for a State
under the sovereignty of the Order (Or-
densstaat) could now proceed. This was
the period of the interregnum in Ger-
many. The German Emperors had first
neglected the lands north of the Alps for
the pleasures of Italy and Sicily, then
over a period of a few years shed their
kingly responsibilities and vested many
of their rights and authorities in the pro-
vincial princes. The papacy, faced with
its troubles with the German Emperors
and Italian nobles, was no longer
capable of exerting the authority ex-
pected of it, especially in this wild
country in far northeastern Europe. The
Golden Bull of Rimini had given the
Grand Master the rights of a Prince of
the empire and the time was at hand to
assert that right. Grand Master Bur-
chard von Schwanden proceeded to do
so.

Heretofore such colonization as there
was in the Prussia/I,ivonia area was
limited to German nobles, bourgeois
colonists, burghers and church people.
Now, however, the Order began in
earnest to bring in peasants from Silesia,
Lower Saxony, Westphalia, Meissen and
the Elbe/Saale area to populate and
develop Prussia. Within a matter of a few
years they had established fourteen
hundred villages and the area had a total
population of around 15,000 people.
This was a planned move by the Order
as a part of the program to develop the
Ordensstaat. It systematically developed
Prussia using the services of "locators"
to bring in settlers and provide them with
lands on a uniform, well-planned basis.
The plan called for the establishing of
towns which served as stabilizing centers
for economic development. Each town
was associated with the economic regi-
men adjacent to it, served as a protective
enclave and was the center of the local
legal system. Each, in turn, maintained
economic, political and legal liaison with
others adjacent to it so the laws of the
entire developed State were intercon-
nected, supportive and functional in the
preservation of a sense of solidarity.(19)

In the meanwhile, the Order, having
once secured Prussia, moved westward
and seized eastern Pomerania. In 1291
the Crusaders, including the Teutonic
Knights, lost the city of Acre and were
driven from the Holy Land. Grand
Master Konrad von Feuchtwangen relo-
cated the Order' s headquarters to Venice
and in 1309 Grand Master Seigfried von
Feuchtwangen relocated it to Marien-
burg. From this headquarters the ad-
ministration of the Ordensstaat was car-
ried on. The Order expanded its organi-
zation to include Advocates (Vogte), who
governed Commanderies without con-
vents, two Chief Agents (GrossSchaf-
fer), one at Marienburg and one at
Konigsberg, who were in charge of all
trading activities, a Master of the Mint
and Directors of Posts. (20)

The Ordensstaat exported large quan-
tities of grain and rye, and developed a
monopoly in amber. In addition to con-
trolling the trading operations the Order
employed its monetary surplus in bank-
ing operations. By now it became not
only a military, political and religious
organization. it also became an econom-
ic power. Taxes were levied on land but
they were not oppressive, and the Order
possessed corporate rights over mines,
waters, forests, hunting, fishing and
many other activities, drawing much re-
venue from them. Moreover, the Order
possessed huge numbers of horses,
cattle, sheep and swine. Exportation of
wool was forbidden; it was consigned to
the manufacturing of cloth. ln addition
to the staple grains; furs, potash, wax,
tallow and honey were produced in
ample amounts to provide a basis for
trade. As this era of commodity surplus
and trading developed, so did the prob-
lem of commerce create the need for the
Order to seek papal approval to engage
in it. In 1263 Pope Urban IV authorized
the Order to engage in commerce to
obtain needed commodities but not to
engage in such activity for profit. This,
however, was not in consonance with the
Order's plans and they devised means to
circumvent it. The Gross-Schaffers were
supplemented by lesser agents (Klein-
schaffer), who were stationed in each
important town with a staff of various
lesser employees (Knechte). At locations
abroad local agents (Lieger) were as-
signed. In the early 14th century the
larger cities of Prussia and Livonia (the
Ordensstaat) became members of the
Hansa, the huge German trading cartel
in the Baltic. Those which comprised the
Prussian, or Livonian Circle of the
Hansa were Danzig, Elbing, Konigs-
berg, Thorn, Libau, Riga, Reval, Pskov,
Dorpat and Wisby on the Baltic island of
Gotland.2l In 1379 the Order formally
joined the Hansa and trade was carried
on in varying degrees with all the north-
ern European countries and Spain.
However, some of the Grand Masters
engaged in independent trading and this
created problems in the years to come. (22(
Commerce, and the wealth it brought,
attached itself to the Order like a giant
leech, slowly but surely sapping its moral
strength, and becoming one of the major
causes of its downfall.

At the same time that the Order was
engaged in its commercialism it was not
without concern for the aesthetic quali-
ties of life. Under Grand Master Luther
von Braunsweig, in 1331 Marienberg
had acquired considerable recognition as
a center for music, attracting musicians
from all over Germany. Later, under
Grand Master Winrich von Kniprode,
from 1351 to 1382, the city was the site
of many new and uniquely original ar-
chitectural forms. The Order reached its
crowning point under von Kniprode, a
Rhinelander, who was not only brave
and cheerful but also cared for his sub-
jects and sincerely loved Prussia. The
knights, mostly Rhinelanders, having
fought their hardest battles, having
created the beloved Ordensstaat, turned
their thoughts toward culture and mo-
nastic activities. One, an obscure chap-
lain, wrote the "Theologiaca Ger-
manica," which would have significant
effect on a later German, Martin
Luther.(23)

By the beginning of the 14th century
the Ordensstaat had reached the limits to
which it was to expand and throughout
that century the knights fought off as-
saults by, and carried out summer cam-
paigns against, the Lithuanians and
Poles in what has been described as the
most savage and pitiless of the medieval
wars . The seizure of Danzig (Gdansk) by
the Order in 1331 had cut the Poles off
from the Baltic Sea, an act that could not
be tolerated by Poland. This was the area
that was to create problems for the next
six hundred years. As recently as 1939
the issue of the Polish Corridor, Poland's
access to the Baltic Sea, centered on Dan-
zig, created a serious issue between Ger-
many's Third Reich and Poland. In
Livonia the knights, who were mainly
Westphalians, although bound by duty
and oath to a benevolent Grand Master,
needed to maintain a stricter attitude
toward the inhabitants than was necessa-
ry in Prussia. In 1346 the Landmeister
of Livonia ruthlessly and completely ex-
terminated two entire provinces in the
peasant uprising of that year. To the dis-
credit of the Order there were many local
Commanders of the Order who were
unusually abusive. Such was the case of
the Commander at Thorn in 1349, Jo-
hann Nothaft, an arrogant Bavarian
aristocrat. In the matter of the collection
of taxes that year he told the townspeople
that "when he wanted them to come to
him they must go or he would send two
or three servants to get them. If they
were killed, he would send two or three
brothers. And, by God, he said, if they
were killed, he would send something
that their grandchildren would cry
over." (24) In 1386 Poland and Lithuania
were united when the twelve-year-old
Queen of Poland, Jadwiga, married
Jagiello, King of Lithuania, concur-
rently with his becoming a Roman
Catholic. As a result Jagiello became
King of Poland as well as Lithuania. In
1410 he set about making a series of
formal complaints against the Order of
Teutonic Knights, but he got no support
in western Europe. Undaunted, he
gathered a coalition of Poles, Letts, Li-
thuanians and Russians, marched
against the Order and decisively
defeated them in a great battle near Tan-
nenburg. The Grand Master, Ulrich von
Juningen, and most of the Order's other
leaders were killed in the fighting. From
this defeat the Order never really re-
covered. (25)

Internal intrigue now fractured the
Order and decay began to set in. It
suffered a second defeat by the Poles in
1435, the herring fisheries failed, the
Hansa declined, plague and famine
stalked the land, and there was an agrar-
ian crisis in which labor costs soared and
land values dropped drastically. (26) The
Order was in disarray and declining. No
longer were their white mantles with
their black cross the symbol of a heroic
and chivalrous Christian Order, no
longer an emblem of the protector. Time
was passing them by, their culture had
run its course, there were no more pagan
Prussians to convert, there were no more
glorious Crusades, recruits and replace-
ments for the aging knights dwindled
and the Order found its wealth draining
away and its authority questioned. The
Order had alienated the Hansa, through
its restrictive policies had lost the support
of the growing middle class and was in-
creasingly despised by the peasants for
their continued hold on the land and
their ever-increasing taxes.

In 1454 the nobles of Chelmno (Kulm)
formed a "Prussian Union" (Prussische
Bund) and, supported by the Emperor of
Germany and Pope Nicholas V, and in
alliance with KingCasimir IV of Poland,
rebelled against the Order. The war that
followed lasted thirteen years and saw
the employment of mercenary troops,
many of whom were Czechs. Czech
mutineers seized Marienberg, forcing
Grand Master Ludwig von Ehr-
lichshausen to flee, leaving the Spittler,
Heinrich Reuss von Platen to carry on.
He inflicted some defeats on the Poles
but finally the finances of the Order were
exhausted and he sued for peace. By the
Treaty of Thorn in 1466 the Order ceded
West Prussia to Poland and relocated its
headquarters to Konigsberg.

In 1498 the Order moved to improve
its wealth and prestige by electing Duke
Frederick of Saxony as Grand Master. In
1512 the first Hohenzollern Grand
Master, Margrave Albert of Bran-
denberg-Anspach was elected. He con-
ducted an unsuccessful war with Poland
from 1517 to 1521, and in 1525 saw a
solution to his predicament in the grow-
ing movement of Martin Luther. By em-
bracing Lutheran Prostestantism he
divested himself of papal control, secu-
larized the Order of Teutonic Knights
and converted Prussia to a hereditary fief
under the suzerainty of King Sigismund
of Poland; obtained for himself the title
of Duke of Prussia. (27) The Order which
had begun as a militant religious Order,
sanctioned and blessed by the Papacy in
1191, had now run its course. The Or-
densstaat was broken beyond repair,
Prussia was secularized and had become
a Polish duchy. In Livonia the Order
under Provincial Master Walter von
Plettenberg smashed one of Ivan III's
armies on the Seritsa River in 1501 and
arranged a fifty year truce with the
Russians. The last victory of the Order
in Livonia was won by a local Com-
mander, Caspar von Oldenbock, who
with a force of 2,000 men drove off a
force of 30,000 Russians at Wittenstein
in 1561 . The last Provincial Master, Got-
tard von Kettler, repelled an attempt by
Ivan Grozny (Ivan IV, the Terrible) of
Russia to seize Livonia, but later the
entire province fractured under the as-
sault of the Danes, Swedes and Russians .
The island of Osel went to Denmark,
northwest Estonia and the island of Dago
went to Sweden, southeastern Livonia
and the city of Dorpat went to Russia and
the balance fell to Poland.

In 1591 von Kettler was permitted to
combine Kurland and Samland into a
secular duchy, later known as Courland,
which he governed as a Polish fief. (28) A
fragment of the Order continued to exist
until 1697 when it fought the Turks, par-
ticularly during the siege of Vienna in
1683. (29) In 1809 it was dissolved by
Napoleon but was reestablished thirty
years later by Emperor Ferdinand I of
Austria. It continued as an Order but
with no significant military function
until 1923 when Pope Pius XI confirmed
it as the purely clerical Marian Order,
which continues its work to this day.

The memory of the Order of Teutonic
Knights has lingered with the German
people into the 20th Century. The
mighty war-cry of the Teutonic Knights,
"Gott Mit Uns," found its way to the
belt buckle of the German soldier of
World War I and the proud symbol of the
Order has been perpetuated in the form
of the German military decoration for
valor in battle, the Iron Cross, a black
Latin Cross edged in white.

In examining the types and sequences
of events encountered by the Order of
Teutonic Knights, and in some cases
manufactured by its behavior, we find
the usual pattern of origin, organization,
struggle, success, arrogance, stubborn-
ness, deterioration and demise. Histori-
cal events, strangely enough, seem to
lead the way through the sequence. The
Crusades in the Holy Land served to
create the circumstances leading to the
founding of the Order and its original
noble concepts. The seemingly justifia-
ble moves, first into Hungary and later
into the Baltic area, were in consonance
with their perception of their mission as
protectors of Christianity in Hungary
and both protectors and militant evan-
gelists in the Baltic lands. Turned loose
by the Papacy and a calculative German
Emperor they embarked on a mission of
subjugation which was more self-serving
than nationalistic or religious. Von Salza
and each of the Grand Masters who fol-
lowed him were well aware of Frederick
II's attitude toward Germany and the
northern lands. They were continually
aware of, and did themselves participate
in, the decline and collapse of the power
of the German throne eastward from the
Rhine and north of the Alps. Their con-
quests took them further and further
north and east of the seat of German
power, whether it be south of the Alps,
Swabia, Bavaria, Luxembourg or Aa-
chen; and from papal authority whether
it be at Rome or Avignon. And finally,
with the collapse of the Crusades to the
Holy Land, the rise of the middle class,
and the introduction of gunpowder and
cannon the glorious days of the knight
came to an end . The knights of the Order
died in battle, from disease or old age,
and suddenly there were no suitable re-
cruits to fill the ranks. At this point the
Order doomed itself, for it turned to
mercenaries and as it did so its spirit, its
reason to exist, its grand, noble and
glorious tradition, its wealth and culture
began to rapidly disappear. Those
leaders who remained made valiant but
futile efforts to save the Order but it was
of no avail.

Yet to this Order with its original dedi-
cation to the Ordensstaat, it is fitting to
recognize their work in developing the
lands they conquered, in participating in
the Christianization and economic
development of those lands. Surely, his-
tory would have been much different
without them and who in this 20th cen-
tury can say that our world is any the
worse for their sometimes ruthless,
sometimes enlightened presence in Livo-
nia, Samland, Kurland and Prussia.

Without central authority in Germany
there was no one to come to the aid of the
Order during the period preceding and
following the massive defeat at Tannen-
berg. It is difficult to fault the Princes of
western Germany because France was
rattling its sabre and in 1444 the French
army moved against Lorraine and Al-
sace in the initial assault by France
against the western borders of Germany.
In effect the entire German empire
began to crumble at the same time as the
Order entered its slide into oblivion. The
weakness and irresponsibility of Ger-
many's rulers since the time of Frederick
Barbarossa's death finally brought Ger-
many into the maw of disaster and disin-
tegration. It would be another four hun-
dred years before she again raised her
head in pride as a united nation under
the Prussian aristocrat, Otto von Bis-
marck.
The Teutonic Knights and their Order
are gone, never to rise again. Our jour-
ney through the history of the Order has
revealed to us once more the consistent
pattern of rise and fall that seems to
naturally pervade all of mankind's at-
tempts. And, in this there is a lesson for
us, that we take every possible counter-
measure to break away from this pattern.
In addition to the lessons of diligence
duty, honor, and the benefits of progress
we must also take into consideration the
dangers of corruption evolving out of
amassing of great wealth and power for
they breed arrogance and the deteriora-
tion of moral fiber. As we continue our
efforts daily it is important that we keep
these lessons, as well as those others that
we learn as Freemasons, clearly in mind.
Footnotes

1. J. B.Bury, Thc Cambridge Medical History, Vol
Vll, Chap. IX (Cambridge: The University
Press, 1949), p.268.

2. Desmond Seward, "The Teutonic Knights "
History Today, Vol . XX, No. 12, December 1 9iO
p. 866.
3. Ibid., p. 860.

4. Indrikis Sterns, "Crime and Punishment

Among the Teutonic Knights," Speculum, Vol
57,January 1982, p. 8t;
5. William Urban, ThePrussian Crusade, University
Press of America, Lanham, Md ., 1980, p 71

6. Indrikis Sterns, "Crime and Punishment
Among the Teutonic Knights," Spcculum, Vol
57, No. l,January 1982, pp. 89-91.

7.Richard Barber, Thc Reign of Chivaly, St. Mar-
tin's Press, New York, 1980, p. 158

8. William Urban, The Prussian Crusade, University
Press of America, Lanham, Md., 1980, p. 32.

9. Israel S. Clare Library of Universal History, Vol
IV, R.S. Pealei J.A. Hill, New York, 1898, p.

10. William Urban, ThePrussian Crusade Univer-
sity Press of America, Lanham, Md., i 980, pp
40-43.
11.J.B. Bury, The Cambridge Medieval History, Vol

Vll, Chap. IX, (Cambridge: The University
Press, 1949) p. 253.

12. William Urban, The Prusslan Crusade Univer-
sity Press of America, Lanham Md. i980 pp
91-93

13. Desmond Seward "The Teutonic Knights, "
History 70day, Vol. XX, No. 12, December 1970
p. 860.

14. James W. Thompson, Economic and Social His-
tory of Europe in the Lata Middle Ages, (New York
Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1965) p 180

lS.J.B. Bury, The Cambridge Medical History, Voi.
Vll, Chap. IX, (Cambridge: The University
Press, 1949), p. 254.

16. Kenneth M. Setton, Gen. Ed., A History of the
Crusades, Vol. 111, (Madison, Wis.: The Univer-
sity of Wisconsin Press, 1975), p. 570.

17. Francis Dvornik, The Slaus in European History
and Civilazition, (New Brunswick: Rutgers Uni
versity Press, 1962), p. 14

18.Eric Christiansen, TheNorthern Crusades, (Min
neapohs: University of Minnesota Press, 1980)
p. 20~                   ~

19. Geoffrey Barraclough, The Origins of Modern
Germany, (New York: W.W. Norton, 1984), pp.

20. Kenneth M. Setton, Gen. Ed., A History of the
Crusades, Vol . 111, (Madison, Wis.: The Univer
sity of Wisconsin Press, 1975), p. 578.

21.James W. Thompson, Economic and Social His-
tory of Europe in the Late Middle Ages, (New York:
Frederick Ungar Pu blishing C o ., I 931 ), p . 158 .

22.1bid., p. 189.

23. Desmond Seward, "The Teutonic Knights "
History Today Vol XX # 12 Dec. 1970
P. 863

24. Michael Burleigh, Prussian Society and thc German
Order,   (New York: Cambridge University Press

25. Desmond Seward, "The Teutonic Knights "

p. 864 y~ Vol XX, No 12 Dece b

26. /b~d.

27. Kenneth M. Setton, Gen. Ed., A History of
the Crusades, Vol. 111, (Madison, Wis. The
University of Wisconsin Press, 1975), p. 584

28. Ibid., pp. 584-585.

29. Richard Barber, The Reign of Chivalry, (New
many, New York: W.W. Norton Co., 1984.

Burleigh, Michael, Prussian Society and the German
Order New York: Cambridge University Press
1 984.

Bury, J.B., The Cambridge Medieval History, Vol.
Vll, Cambridge: The University Press, 1949.

Christiansen, Eric, The Northetn Crusade, Min-
neapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1980.

Clare, Israel S., Library of Universal History, Vol.
IV, New York: R.S. Peale/J.A. Hill, 1898.

Dvornik, Francis, The Slaus In European History and
Civilization, New Brunswick: Rutgers University
Press, 1962.

Setton, Kenneth M., Gen Ed., A History of the
Crusades, Vol. 111, Madison, Wis.: The Univer-
sity of Wisconsin Press, 1962.

Seward, Desmond, "The Teutonic Knights,"
History Today, Vol. XX, No. 12, December 1970.

Sterns, Indrikis, "Crime and Punishment Among
the Teutonic Knights," Speculum, Vol. 57, No.
1, January 1982.

Thompson, James W., Economic and Social History
of Europe in the Lata Middk Ages New York:
Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., i93 1 .

Urban, William, The Prussian Crusade, Lanham
Md.: University Press of America, 1980.

The Philalethes, August 1991
