Hermann von Salza served as the fourth Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights (1209 to 1239).
The 'Teutonic Knights' or 'Teutonic Order' (
Latin: ''Ordo domus Sanctæ Mariæ Theutonicorum Ierosolimitanorum'', "Order of the German House of St. Mary in Jerusalem",
German: ''Orden der Brüder vom Deutschen Haus St. Mariens in Jerusalem'' or more commonly ''Deutscher Orden'') is a
German-based
Roman Catholic religious order formed at the end of the 12th century in
Acre,
Palestine. During the
Middle Ages they were a
crusading military order and wore white
surcoats with a black cross. It is now a clerical order based in
Vienna,
Austria.
The medieval Order played an important role in the
Middle East, controlling the port tolls of Acre. After Christian forces were defeated in the Middle East, the Order moved to
Transylvania in 1211 to help defend Hungary against the
Cumans. They were expelled in 1225 after allegedly attempting to place themselves under Papal instead of Hungarian sovereignty.
Following the
Golden Bull of Rimini,
Grand Master Hermann von Salza and Duke
Konrad I of Masovia made a joint invasion of "
Old Prussia" in 1226 to Christianize the Baltic
Old Prussians. The knights were then accused of cheating Polish rule and creating an independent
monastic state. The Order lost its main purpose in Europe, when the neighbouring country of Lithuania
accepted Christianity. Once established in Prussia, the Order became involved in campaigns against its Christian neighbours, the
Kingdom of Poland, the
Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and the
Novgorod Republic (after assimilating the
Livonian Order). As well as their feudal levies the Order had a strong urban economy, hired many mercenaries from throughout Europe, and became a naval power in the
Baltic Sea.
In 1410, a Polish-Lithuanian army decisively defeated the Order and broke its military power at the
Battle of Grunwald (Tannenberg). The Order steadily declined until 1525 when Grand Master
Albert of Brandenburg resigned and converted to
Lutheranism to become
Duke of Prussia. The Grand Masters continued to preside over the Order's considerable holdings in Germany and elsewhere until 1809, when
Napoleon Bonaparte ordered its dissolution and the Order lost its last secular holdings. The Order continued to exist, headed by
Habsburgs through
World War I, and today operates primarily with
charitable aims in Central Europe.
The knights sometimes used a
cross pattée as their
coat of arms; this image was later used for military decoration and insignia by the
Kingdom of Prussia and
Germany (see
Iron Cross).
History
Foundation
In 1143
Pope Celestine II ordered the
Knights Hospitaller to take over management of a German Hospital in Jerusalem, which, according to the chronicler Jean d’Ypres, accommodated the countless German pilgrims and crusaders who could neither speak the local tongue (i.e. French) nor Latin (''patrie linguam ignorantibus atque Latinam'').
[1] However, although formally an institution of the Hospitallers, the pope commanded that the prior and the brothers of the ''domus Teutonicorum'' (house of the Germans) should always be Germans themselves, so a tradition of a German-led religious institution could develop during the 12th century in Palestine.
[2]
After the loss of Jerusalem in 1187, some merchants from
Lübeck and
Bremen took up the idea and founded a field hospital for the duration of the
siege of Acre in 1190, which became the nucleus of the order;
Celestine III recognized it in 1192 by granting the monks
Augustinian Rule. Based on the model of the
Knights Templar it was, however, transformed into a military order in 1198 and the head of the order became known as the
Grand Master (''magister hospitalis''). It received
Papal orders for crusades to take and hold
Jerusalem for
Latin Christianity and defend the
Holy Land against the
Muslim Saracens. During the rule of Grand Master
Hermann von Salza (1209-1239) the Order changed from being a
hospice brotherhood for pilgrims to primarily a
military order.
Originally based in
Acre, the Knights purchased
Montfort (Starkenberg), northeast of Acre, in 1220. This castle, which defended the route between Jerusalem and the
Mediterranean Sea, was made the seat of the Grand Masters in 1229, although they returned to Acre after losing Montfort to Muslim control in 1271. The Order also had a castle near
Tarsus in
Armenia Minor. The Order received donations of land in the
Holy Roman Empire (especially in present-day
Germany and
Italy),
Greece, and
Palestine.
Emperor Frederick II elevated his close friend Hermann von Salza to the status of ''
Reichsfürst'', or "Prince of the Empire", enabling the Grand Master to negotiate with other senior princes as an equal. During Frederick's coronation as
King of Jerusalem in 1225, Teutonic Knights served as his escort in the
Church of the Holy Sepulchre; von Salza read the emperor's proclamation in both
French and
German. However, the Teutonic Knights were never as influential in
Outremer as the older
Templars and
Hospitallers.
In 1211,
Andrew II of
Hungary accepted their services and granted them the district of
Burzenland in
Transylvania. Andrew had been involved in negotiations for the marriage of his daughter with the son of Hermann, Landgrave of
Thuringia, whose vassals included the family of Hermann von Salza. Led by a brother called Theoderich, the Order defended Hungary against the neighbouring
Cumans and settled new German colonists to among those who were known as the
Transylvanian Saxons, living there before. In 1224 the Knights petitioned
Pope Honorius III to be placed directly under the authority of the
Papal See, rather than that of the King of Hungary. Angered and alarmed at their growing power, Andrew responded by expelling them in 1225, although he allowed the new colonists to remain.
Prussia
''Frederick II allows the order to invade Prussia'', by
P. Janssen
In 1226
Konrad I, Duke of
Masovia in west-central
Poland, appealed to the Knights to defend his borders and subdue the pagan Baltic
Prussians, allowing the Teutonic Knights use of
Chełmno Land (Culmerland) as a base for their campaign. This being a time of widespread crusading fervor throughout Western Europe, Hermann von Salza considered
Prussia a good training ground for his knights for the wars against the
Muslims in Outremer.
[3] With the
Golden Bull of Rimini, Emperor Frederick II bestowed on the Order a special imperial privilege for the conquest and possession of Prussia, including Chełmno Land, with nominal papal sovereignty. In 1235 the Teutonic Knights assimilated the smaller
Order of Dobrzyń, which had been established earlier by Konrad.
The conquest of Prussia was accomplished with much bloodshed over more than 50 years, during which native Prussians who remained unbaptised were subjugated, killed, or exiled. Fighting between the Knights and the Prussians was ferocious; chronicles of the Order state the Prussians would "roast captured brethren alive in their armour, like chestnuts, before the shrine of a local god".
Christianized Prussians received the same rights as the newcomer settlers from the Empire. Conversion to Christianity was initially largely nominal and sometimes did not entail more than
baptism.
Drawing of the Teutonic Knights' Castle Marienburg (
Malbork)
The Order ruled Prussia under
charters issued by the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor as a
sovereign monastic state, comparable to the arrangement of the
Knights Hospitallers in
Rhodes and later in
Malta. Previous documents in 1224 had put the inhabitants of "Terra Prussia"' as ''
Reichsfreie'', or under authority of only the emperor and the empire.
To make up for losses from the
plague and to replace the partially exterminated native population, the Order encouraged the
immigration of
colonists from the
Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation (mostly
Germans,
Flemish, and
Dutch) and from Masovia (
Poles), the later
Masurians). The colonists included nobles, burghers, and peasants, and the surviving Old Prussians were gradually assimilated through
Germanization. The settlers founded numerous towns and cities on former Prussian settlements. The Order itself built a number of castles (''
Ordensburgen'') from which it could defeat
uprisings of Old Prussians, as well as continue its attacks on the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Kingdom of Poland, with which the Order was often at war during the 14th and 15th centuries. Major towns founded by the Order included
Königsberg, founded in 1255 in honor of King
Otakar II of
Bohemia on the site of a destroyed Prussian settlement,
Allenstein (Olsztyn),
Elbing (Elbląg), and
Memel (Klaipėda).
When the
Livonian Order was absorbed into the Teutonic Order in 1237, its nominal territorial rule extended over
Prussia,
Livonia,
Semigalia, and
Estonia. Its next aim was to convert
Orthodox Russia to
Roman Catholicism, but after the knights suffered a disastrous defeat in the
Battle on Lake Peipus (1242) at the hands of Prince
Alexander Nevsky of
Novgorod, this plan had to be abandoned.
Against Lithuania
The Teutonic Knights began to direct their campaigns against pagan Lithuania (see
Lithuanian mythology), especially after the fall of the
Kingdom of Jerusalem at
Acre in 1291. The knights moved their headquarters to
Venice, from which they planned the recovery of Outremer (or the Holy Land).
[4] Because "
Lithuania Propria" remained non-Christian until the end of the 14th century, much later than the rest of eastern Europe, many knights from western European countries such as
England and
France journeyed to Prussia to participate in the seasonal campaigns against the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Some of them campaigned against pagans to obtain remission for their sins, while others fought to gain military experience.
Warfare between the Order and the Lithuanians was especially brutal. Non-Christians were seen as lacking rights possessed by Christians. Because enslavement of non-Christians was seen as acceptable at the time and the subdued native Prussians demanded land or payment, the Knights often used captured pagan Lithuanians for forced labor. The contemporary
Austrian poet Peter Suchenwirt described treatment he witnessed of pagans by the Knights:
"Women and children were taken captive; What a jolly medley could be seen: Many a woman could be seen, Two children tied to her body, One behind and one in front; On a horse without spurs Barefoot had they ridden here; The heathens were made to suffer: Many were captured and in every case, Were their hands tied together They were led off, all tied up — Just like hunting dogs".[5]
Against Poland
A dispute over the succession of the Duchy of
Pomerelia embroiled the Order in further conflict in the beginning of the 14th century. The Margraves of
Brandenburg had claims to the duchy which they acted upon after the death of King
Wenceslaus of Poland in 1306. Duke
Władysław I the Elbow-high of Poland claimed the duchy as well basing on inheritance from
Przemysław II, but was opposed by some
Pomeranian nobles. They requested help from Brandenburg, which subsequently occupied all of Pomerelia except for the citadel of
Danzig (Gdańsk) in 1308. Because Władysław was unable to come to the defense of Danzig, the Teutonic Knights were hired to expel the Brandenburgers. The Order, under Prussian Landmeister
Heinrich von Plötzke, evicted the Brandenburgers from Danzig in September 1308. Von Plötzke presented Władysław with a bill for 10,000
marks of silver for the Order's help, but the Polish duke was only willing to offer 300 marks.
[6] After this refusal, the Teutonic Knights occupied the entirety of Danzig, increasing discontent in the city. The following month the knights suppressed an uprising with great bloodshed, especially of the German merchants in the city. The Teutonic Order purchased Brandenburg's claims to the castles of Danzig,
Schwetz (Świecie), and
Dirschau (Tczew) and their hinterlands from the margraves for 10,000 marks on
13 September 1309.
Control of Pomerelia allowed the Order to connect their monastic state with the borders of the
Holy Roman Empire. Crusading reinforcements and supplies were able to travel from the Imperial territory of
Hither Pomerania through Pomerelia to Prussia, while Poland's access to the Baltic Sea, was blocked. While Poland had mostly been an ally of the knights against the pagan Prussians and Lithuanians, the capture of Pomerelia turned the kingdom into a determined enemy of the Order.
[7]
The capture of Danzig marked a new phase in the history of the Teutonic Knights. The persecution and abolition of the powerful
Knights Templar which began in 1307 worried the Teutonic Knights, but control of Pomerelia allowed them to move their headquarters in 1309 from Venice to
Marienburg (Malbork) on the
Nogat River, outside of the reach of secular powers. The position of Prussian Landmeister was merged with that of the Grand Master. The Pope began investigating misconduct by the knights, but the Order was defended by able jurists. Along with the campaigns against the Lithuanians, the knights faced a vengeful Poland and legal threats from the Papacy.
The
Treaty of Kalisz of 1343 ended open war between the Teutonic Knights and Poland. The Knights relinquished
Kuyavia and
Dobrzyń Land to Poland, but retained
Culmerland and Pomerelia.
Height of power
In 1337 Emperor
Louis IV allegedly granted the Order the imperial privilege to conquer all Lithuania and Russia. During the reign of Grand Master
Winrich von Kniprode (1351-1382), the Order reached the peak of its international prestige and hosted numerous European crusaders and nobility.
King
Albert of
Sweden ceded
Gotland to the Order as a
pledge (similar to a
fiefdom), with the understanding that they would eliminate the pirating
Victual Brothers from this strategic island base in the
Baltic Sea. An invasion force under Grand Master
Konrad von Jungingen conquered the island in 1398 and drove the Victual Brothers out of Gotland and the Baltic Sea.
In 1386 Grand Duke
Jogaila of Lithuania was
baptised into
Roman Catholic Christianity and married Queen
Jadwiga of Poland, taking the name Władysław II Jagiełło and becoming King of Poland. This created a
personal union between the two countries and a potentially formidable opponent for the Teutonic Knights. The Order initially managed to play Jagiello and his cousin
Vytautas against each other, but this strategy failed when Vytautas began to suspect that the Order was planning to annex parts of his territory.
The baptism of Jagiello began the official conversion of Lithuania to Christianity. Although the crusading rationale for the Order's state ended when Prussia and Lithuania had become officially Christian, the Order's feuds and wars with Lithuania and Poland continued. The
Lizard Union was created in 1397 by Polish nobles in Culmerland to oppose the Order's policy.
In 1407 the Teutonic Order had reached its greatest territorial extent and included the lands of
Prussia,
Pomerelia,
Samogitia,
Courland,
Livonia,
Estonia,
Gotland,
Dagö,
Ösel, and the
Neumark pawned by Brandenburg in 1402.
Decline
In 1410 at the
Battle of Grunwald (also known as the Battle of
Tannenberg), a combined Polish-Lithuanian army, led by Vytautas and Władysław II Jagiełło, decisively defeated the Order in the
Lithuanian-Polish Teutonic War. Grand Master
Ulrich von Jungingen and most of the Order's higher dignitaries fell on the battlefield (50 out of 60). The Polish-Lithuanian army then besieged the capital of the Order,
Marienburg, but was unable to take it owing to the resistance of
Heinrich von Plauen. When the
First Peace of Toruń was signed in 1411, the Order managed to retain essentially all of its territories, although the Knights' reputation as invincible warriors was irreparably damaged.
While Poland and Lithuania were growing in power, that of the Teutonic Knights dwindled through infighting. They were forced to impose high taxes in order to pay a substantial indemnity but did not give the cities sufficient requested representation in the administration of their state. The authoritarian and reforming Grand Master Heinrich von Plauen was forced from power and replaced by
Michael Küchmeister von Sternberg, but the new Grand Master was unable to revive the Order's fortunes. After the
Gollub War the Knights lost some small border regions and renounced all claims to
Samogitia in the 1422
Treaty of Melno.
Austrian and
Bavarian knights feuded with those from the
Rhineland, who likewise bickered with
Low German-speaking
Saxons, from whose ranks the Grand Master was usually chosen. The western Prussian lands of the
Vistula River Valley were ravaged by the
Hussites during the
Hussite Wars. Some Teutonic Knights were sent to battle the invaders, but were defeated by the
Bohemian infantry.
[8] The Knights also sustained a defeat in the
Polish-Teutonic War (1431-1435).
In 1454 the
Prussian Confederation, consisting of the
gentry and burghers of western Prussia, rose up against the Order, beginning the
Thirteen Years' War. Much of Prussia was devastated in the war, during the course of which the Order returned Neumark to Brandenburg in 1455. In the
Second Peace of Toruń, the defeated Order recognized the
Polish crown's rights over western Prussia (subsequently
Royal Prussia) while retaining eastern Prussia under nominal Polish overlordship. Because Marienburg was lost to the Order, its base was moved to Königsberg in
Sambia.
Eastern Prussia was subsequently also lost to the Order when Grand Master
Albert of Brandenburg, after
another unsuccessful war with Poland, converted to
Lutheranism in 1525, secularized the Order's remaining Prussian territories, and assumed from King
Sigismund I the Old of Poland the hereditary rights to the
Duchy of Prussia as a vassal of the Polish Crown in the
Prussian Homage. The Protestant Duchy of Prussia was thus a fief of Catholic Poland.
Although it had lost control of all of its Prussian lands, the Teutonic Order retained its territories within the
Holy Roman Empire and
Livonia, although the Livonian branch retained considerable autonomy. Many of the Imperial possessions were ruined in the
Peasants' War from 1524-1525 and subsequently confiscated by Protestant territorial princes.
The Livonian territory was then partitioned by neighboring powers during the
Livonian War; in 1561 the Livonian Master
Gotthard Kettler secularized the southern Livonian possessions of the Order to create the Duchy of
Courland, also a vassal of Poland.
After the loss of Prussia in 1525, the Teutonic Knights concentrated on their possessions in the Holy Roman Empire. Since they held no contiguous territory, they developed a three-tiered administrative system: holdings were combined into
commanderies which were administered by a
commander (''Komtur''). Several commanderies were combined to form a
bailiwick headed by a ''Landkomtur''. All of the Teutonic Knights' possessions were subordinate to the Grand Master whose seat was in
Bad Mergentheim. Altogether there were twelve German bailiwicks:
Thuringia,
Alden Biesen (in present-day
Belgium),
Hesse,
Saxony,
Westphalia,
Franconia,
Koblenz,
Alsace-
Burgundy,
An der Etsch und im Gebirge (Tyrol),
Utrecht,
Lorraine, and
Austria. Outside of German areas were the bailiwicks of
Sicily,
Apulia,
Lombardy,
Bohemia, "
Romania" (Greece), and
Armenia-
Cyprus. The Order gradually lost control of these holdings until, by 1810, only the bailiwicks in Tyrol and Austria remained.
Following the abdication of Albert of Prussia,
Walter von Cronberg became ''Deutschmeister'' in 1527 and Grand Master in 1530. Emperor
Charles V combined the two positions in 1531, creating the title ''Hoch- und Deutschmeister'' and elevating the Order's Grand Master to the status of
Prince of the Empire.
[3] A new Grand Magistery was established in
Mergentheim in
Württemberg, which was attacked during the
Peasants' War. The Order also helped Charles V against the
Schmalkaldic League. After the
Peace of Augsburg in 1555, membership in the Order was open to Protestants, although the majority of brothers remained Catholic.
The Teutonic Knights now were tri-denominational, and there were Catholic, Lutheran and Reformed bailiwicks.
The Grand Masters, often members of the great German families (and, after 1761, members of the House of
Habsburg-
Lorraine), continued to preside over the Order's considerable holdings in Germany. Teutonic Knights from Germany, Austria, and Bohemia were used as battlefield commanders leading mercenaries for the
Habsburg Monarchy during the
Ottoman wars in Europe. The military history of the Teutonic Knights ended in 1809, when
Napoleon Bonaparte ordered their dissolution and the Order lost its remaining secular holdings to Napoleon's vassals and allies.
Contemporary Teutonic Order
The Order continued to exist in
Austria. It was only in 1834 that it was again officially called the ''Deutscher Ritterorden'' ("German Knightly Order"), although most of its possessions were worldly by then. Beginning in 1804 it was headed by members of the
Habsburg dynasty until the 1923 resignation of the Grand Master,
Archduke Eugen of Austria.
In 1929 the Teutonic Knights were converted to a purely spiritual
Roman Catholic religious order and were renamed ''Deutscher Orden'' ("German Order"). After Austria's
annexation by
Nazi Germany, the Teutonic Order was abolished throughout the ''
Großdeutsches Reich'' from 1938-1945, although the
Nazis used imagery of the medieval Teutonic Knights for
propaganda purposes. The Order survived in Italy, however, and was reconstituted in Germany and Austria in 1945.
By the end of the 1990s, the Order had developed into a
charitable organization and incorporated numerous
clinics. It sponsors excavation and tourism projects in
Israel and the
Palestinian territories. In 2000 the German chapter of the Teutonic Order declared insolvency, and its upper management was dismissed. A 2002-03 investigation by a special committee of the
Bavarian parliament was inconclusive.
The Order currently consists of approximately 1,000 members, including 100
Roman Catholic priests, 200
nuns, and 700 associates. While the priests are organized into six provinces (
Austria, the
Czech Republic,
Germany,
Italy,
Slovakia, and
Slovenia) and predominantly provide spiritual guidance, the nuns primarily care for the ill and the aged. Associates are active in Austria,
Belgium, the Czech Republic, Germany, and Italy. Many of the priests care for German-speaking communities outside of Germany and Austria, especially in Italy and Slovenia; in this sense the Teutonic Order has returned to its 12th century roots — the spiritual and physical care of Germans in foreign lands.
The current General
Abbot of the Order, who also holds the title of Grand Master, is
Bruno Platter.
The Coat of Arms of the Teutonic Order
The current seat of the Grand Master is the
Deutschordenskirche[10] in
Vienna. Near the
Stephansdom in the Austrian capital is the Treasury of the Teutonic Order which is open to the public, and the order's Central Archive. Since 1996 there has also been a museum dedicated to the Teutonic Knights at their former castle in
Bad Mergentheim in
Germany, which was the seat of the Grand Master from 1525-1809.
Timeline of events
:''see also
Polish-Teutonic War''
★ 1242–1249
First Prussian Uprising
★ 1249
Treaty of Christburg with the pagan Prussians signed on February 9
★ 1249
Battle of Krücken in November, 54 Knights slaughtered
★ 1260–1274
Great Prussian Uprising
★ 1308–1309
takeover of Danzig
★
Polish-Teutonic War (1326–1332) for
Kuyavia, with involvement of Lithuania and Hungary
★ 1331
Battle of Płowce
★
Treaty of Kalisz (1343), exchange of Kuyavia for Kulm and other territories
★ 1409–1411
Polish-Lithuanian-Teutonic War, including the
Battle of Tannenberg (1410), ending with
Peace of Toruń 1411
★ 1414
Hunger War
★ 1422
Gollub War ending with the
Treaty of Melno
★
Polish-Teutonic War (1431–1435)
★ 1454–1466
Thirteen Years' War
★ 1466
Peace of Toruń 1466
★ 1467-1479
War of the Priests
★
Polish-Teutonic War (1519–1521)
★ 1525
Prussian Homage
Cultural references
★ The Order and its relations with
Poland,
Masovia, and
Lithuania are the main subject of
Nobel Prize-winning Polish author
Henryk Sienkiewicz's
historical novel ''
The Teutonic Knights'', which describes the era of the Battle of Grunwald from the Polish point of view. A Polish film based on the novel, ''Krzyżacy'', was released in 1960. Other books referencing the conflict between the Order and Poland include
James A. Michener's historical novel ''
Poland'' and
Leo Frankowski's
Conrad Stargard science fiction series.
★ The Order plays an important part of the story in the opera ''
I Lituani'' by
Ponchielli (1874), based on
Adam Mickiewicz's poem ''
Konrad Wallenrod'' (1828).
★ The
historical drama film ''
Alexander Nevsky'' (1938) depicts the defeat of the Teutonic Knights by the Russians in the
Battle of the Ice (1242).
★ German
nationalism often invoked the imagery of the Teutonic Knights, especially in the context of territorial conquest from eastern neighbours of Germany and conflict with nations of Slavic origins, who were considered to be of lower development and lacking in culture. The German historian
Heinrich von Treitschke used imagery of the Teutonic Knights to promote pro-German and anti-Polish rhetoric. Such imagery and symbols were adopted by many middle-class Germans who supported German
nationalism. During the
Weimar Republic, associations and organisations of this nature contributed to laying the groundwork for the formation of
Nazi Germany.
[11]
★ Emperor
William II of Germany posed for a photo in 1902 in the garb of a monk from the Teutonic Order, climbing up the stairs in the reconstructed
Marienburg Castle as a symbol of the German Empire's policy.
★ During
World War II,
Nazi propaganda and
ideology made frequent use of the Teutonic Knights' imagery, as the Nazis sought to depict the Knights' actions as a forerunner of the Nazi conquests for
Lebensraum.
Heinrich Himmler tried to idealize the
SS as a 20th century incarnation of the medieval knights.
★ The black and white colours of the Order became the colours of the state of
Prussia.
★ Teutonic Knights are featured in a variety of historically-themed
computer games, including '', '', in which the Order is equaled with the Templars and the
Knights of Saint John in power, and ''
Age of Empires II'', in the latter of which "Teutonic Knights" and "Elite Teutonic Knights" are some of the most powerful armed units in the game. They are also playable in ''
Europa Universalis III'' as the "Teutonic Order".
★ The Teutonic Knights are represented as ruthless murderers in the
Symphonic Black Metal band
Dimmu Borgir video ''
The Serpentine Offering''.
★ The Teutonic Knights order descendants play an important role in the novel "Le Roi des Aulnes" written by the french Goncourt prize winner
Michel Tournier.
Names in other languages
★
Latin: ''Ordo domus Sanctæ Mariæ Theutonicorum Ierosolimitanorum'', "Order of the German House of Saint Mary in Jerusalem"; ''Ordo Teutonicus'', "German Order"
★ , "German Order"; officially ''Orden der Brüder vom Deutschen Haus St. Mariens in Jerusalem'', "Order of the Brothers of the German House of St. Mary in Jerusalem"
★ , "Teutonic Order"
★ , "German Order"
★ , "German Order"
★ , "German Order"
★ , "German Knight Order"
★ , "Teutonic Knights"
★ , "German Knight Order"
★ , "German Order"
★ , "Order of Crusaders"
★ , "Order of the Crossbearers"
★ , "Order of the Teutonic Knights"
★ , "Teutonic Knights Order"
★ , "Teutonic Order"
★ , "Crossbearers"
★ - Tevtonski red, "Teutonic Order"
★ , "German Order"
★
Swiss German: ''Tütsche Ordä'', "German Order"
★
Italian: ''Ordine Teutonico'', "Teutonic Order"
★
Spanish: ''Orden Teutónica'', "Teutonic Order"
★ ''(doitsu-kishidan)'', "Knights of Germany"
See also
Field altar of the Grand Masters of the Teutonic Order.
★
Monastic state of the Teutonic Knights
★
Grand Masters of the Teutonic Knights
★
Livonian Brothers of the Sword
★
Order of Dobrzyń
★
Prussia
★
Deutschordenskirche (Vienna)
★
Deutschhaus Mainz
★
Ordensburg Marienburg
★
Northern Crusade
★
Mongol invasion of Europe
★
Imperial Knight
Coat of arms gallery
Seals and coins
Notes
1. Monumenta Germaniae Historica, SS Bd. 25, S. 796.
2. Kurt Forstreuter. "Der Deutsche Orden am Mittelmeer". ''Quellen und Studien zur Geschichte des Deutschen Ordens, Bd II''. Bonn 1967, S. 12f.
3. Seward, Desmond. ''The Monks of War: The Military Religious Orders''. Penguin Books. London, 1995. ISBN 0-14-019501-7
4. Christiansen, Eric. ''The Northern Crusades''. Penguin Books. London, 1997. ISBN 0-14-026653-4
5. Sainty, Guy Stair. ''The Teutonic Order of Holy Mary in Jerusalem''. Accessed June 6 2006.
6. ''Geschichte-Feuchtwangen.de''. "Die Expansion des Ordens von Preußen nach Westen." Accessed 8 June 2006.
7. Urban, William. ''The Teutonic Knights: A Military History''. Greenhill Books. London, 2003. ISBN 1-85367-535-0
8. Stier, Hans-Erich, Ernst Kirsten, Wilhelm Wühr. Heinz Quirin, Werner Trillmilch, Gerhard Czybulka, Hermann Pinnow, and Hans Ebeling. ''Westermanns Atlas zur Weltgeschichte: Vorzeit / Altertum, Mittelalter, Neuzeit''. Georg Westermann Verlag. Braunschweig, 1963
9. Seward, Desmond. ''The Monks of War: The Military Religious Orders''. Penguin Books. London, 1995. ISBN 0-14-019501-7
10. ''Deutschordenskirche, Wien 1'' - an explanatory pamphlet (in German) of the Order available in the Deutschordenskirche, by Franz R. Vorderwinkler, 1996, published by Kirche & Kultur Verlag mediapress, A-4400, Steyr.
11. ''Mówią wieki''. "Biała leganda czernago krzyża". Accessed June 6 2006.
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Bibliography
★ Urban, William. ''The Teutonic Knights: A Military History''. London: Greenhill Books, 2003 (hardcover, ISBN 1-85367-535-0).
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★ Reviewed by Alan V. Murray in the ''War in History'', Vol. 13, Issue 3. (Nov., 2006), pp. 385–387.
External links
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The order's homepage in Germany
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The order's homepage in Austria
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Current photos and history of the order´s towns and castles in Eastern Europe
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Chivalric Orders.org
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Territorial extent of the Teutonic Knights in Europe (map)
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''An Historical Overview of the Crusade to Livonia'', by William Urban
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"The Early Years of the Teutonic Order", by William Urban
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The Bailiwick of Utrecht of the Teutonic Order, by Guy Stair Sainty
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Castle in Bad Mergentheim
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History of the priests of the Order
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