# Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Teutonic Order

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TEUTONIC ORDER, The, or Teutonic Knights of St Mary's Hospital at Jerusalem (Deutscher Orden, Deutsche Ritter, Orden der Ritter des Hospitales St Marien zu Jerusalem, is one of the three great military and religious orders to which the crusades gave birth. Its name is derived from a German hospital founded at Jerusalem in 1128, which disappeared on the capture of the Holy City by the Saracens in 1187. The pity excited in the minds of some German merchants by the sufferings of the Christian soldiers at the siege of Acre in 1190 induced them to revive the work of this society under a somewhat different form; and eight or nine years later the society, as thus resuscitated, was converted into a military order. Like the two other military orders, the Teutonic order adopted the Augustine rule of life; and, in addition to the ordinary monastic vows, the members laid upon themselves the special obligations of tending sick and wounded pilgrims and of fighting the pagans. Frederick, duke of Swabia, took the young order under his protection, and it soon received charters from the pope and emperor, entitling it to the same privileges as the Templars and Knights of St John. Whatever was the case at first, the members of the order were ultimately required to be Germans of honourable birth. Priest brothers were introduced about 1220, and afterwards half-brothers, like the frères servants d'armes of the other orders, who did not require to be of noble birth, and might, to some extent, continue their ordinary secular occupations. The distinguishing garb of the order consisted of a white mantle with a black cross.
Almost at once a rich stream of benefactions of all kinds began to flow into the coffers of the order, which gradually acquired extensive territories in Palestine and also in Germany and other parts of Europe. Its first seat was at Acre, and the first grand-master was a Rhenish knight named Herman Walpot of Bassenheim. The order rose to great power and influence under Herman von Salza (q.v.), who held the office of grand-master from about 1210 to 1239, and enjoyed the fullest confidence of both emperor and pope. He was also keen enough to see the hopelessness of the attempt to expel the Mohammedans from the Holy Land, and eagerly hailed the opportunity of transferring the activity of the order to another sphere which was afforded by the invitation to undertake a crusade against the heathen Prussians. The successful progress of this crusade, the aggrandizement thereby accruing to the order, and its subsequent decline have already been narrated in the article Prussia (vol. xx. pp.. 5-6). Soon after the beginning of the struggle, in 1237, the Teutonic order absorbed the order of the Brothers of the Sword, a union which brought Courland, Semgallen, and Livonia to swell its territories. In 1291, when Acre, the last strong hold of the Franks in Palestine, fell the order removed its headquarters to Venice; but, when its centre of gravity became so obviously shifted to the extensive territories won from the Prussians, the seat of government was transferred (1309) to Marienburg (q.v.) on the Vistula, where a splendid castle was erected for the grand-masters. The grand-mastership of Weinrich von Kniprode (1351-82) is the most prosperous period in the history of the order. Its territorial possessions far exceeded those attained by either of the rival orders, stretching from the Oder on the west to the Gulf of Finland on the east, and containing a population of two to three million souls. Its government at first was excellent, and for a time it may be said to have played the leading role in the political history of northern Europe. Wherever the order spread, Christianity and German national life were introduced. Its revenues were very large, and its ranks were kept full by hosts of aspirants to a share in its pious and lucrative crusades.
So long as the order maintained its own high standard all went well with it. But its internal decay was synchronous with external events that would alone have been extremely perilous. The union of Poland and Lithuania in 1386 raised up a jealous neighbour, whose power it was well-nigh impossible in the long run to resist, while the nominal conversion of the latter to Christianity struck at the root of the order's prosperity by depriving it of its mission. When there were no more heathens within reach to convert and despoil, the chief attraction to outsiders to join its ranks disappeared. After the conversion of Prussia into a secular duchy the Teutonic order still continued to exist as an ecclesiastical organization, possessing eleven bailiwicks in different parts of Europe, with a total area of 850 square miles and 88,000 inhabitants. The headquarters were fixed at Mergentheim in Swabia. Its political importance was of course now a thing of the past, and the scattered position of the bailiwicks only emphasized its weakness. In 1801 the bailiwicks to the west of the Rhine were absorbed by France, and in 1809 the order was entirely suppressed by Napoleon, its lands going to the secular principalities within which they lay. In 1840 the order was resuscitated in Austria, where it now exists as a semi-religious knighthood, presided over by a royal archduke. Of late it has been doing something towards justifying its existence and connecting itself with its past history by engaging in the ambulance service in time of war. The bailiwick of Utrecht, which survived the decree of Napoleon, also still exists, but the Dutch representatives of the order have become Protestants. The jewel of the order consists of a black and white cross, surmounted by a helmet with three feathers.
The complete organization of the Teutonic order included a grand-master (hochmeister), provincial masters (landmeister) for the greater provinces, and commanders (komtüren) for the smaller districts and castles. The power of these officers was not, however, absolute. The grand-master co-operated with a chapter consisting of the provincial masters and five other important functionaries, while the provincial masters in turn had to consult with the council formed by the knight commanders. The privileges enjoyed by the order in its palmy days were of the most extensive nature, and its relations to both church and state were often of a most exceptional nature.
See Voigt, Gesch. d. Deutschen Ritterordens (1857–59); Lohmeyer, Gesch. v. Ost- u. West-Preussen (vol. i., Gotha, 1881); and E. Strehlke, Tabulæ Ordinis Theutonici (Berlin, 1869).