Question: The Melanchthon Circle was a 16th-century Lutheran intellectual network centred on the University of Wittenberg in Germany, and its leading theologian Philip Melanchthon, patronage came from which 37th Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights, who after converting to Lutheranism, became the first ruler of the Duchy of Prussia, the secularized state that emerged from the former Monastic State of the Teutonic Knights?

full_context: Document 1: List of monarchs of Prussia: The monarchs of Prussia were members of the House of Hohenzollern who were the hereditary rulers of the former German state of Prussia from its founding in 1525 as the Duchy of Prussia. The Duchy had evolved out of the Teutonic Order, a Roman Catholic crusader state and theocracy located along the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea. The Teutonic Knights were under the leadership of a Grand Master, the last of whom, Albert, converted to Protestantism and secularized the lands, which then became the Duchy of Prussia. The Duchy was initially a vassal of the Kingdom of Poland, as a result of the terms of the Prussian Homage whereby Albert was granted the Duchy as part of the terms of peace following the Prussian War. When the main line of Prussian Hohenzollerns died out in 1618, the Duchy passed to a different branch of the family, who also reigned as Electors of Brandenburg in the Holy Roman Empire. While still nominally two different territories, Prussia under the suzerainty of Poland and Brandenburg under the suzerainty of the Holy Roman Empire, the two states are known together historiographically as Brandenburg-Prussia. Following the Second Northern War, a series of treaties freed the Duchy of Prussia from any vassalage to any other state, making it a fully sovereign Duchy in its own right. This complex situation (where the Hohenzollern ruler of the independent Duchy of Prussia was also a subject of the Holy Roman Emperor as Elector of Brandenburg) laid the eventual groundwork for the establishment of the Kingdom of Prussia in 1701. For diplomatic reasons, the rulers of the state were known as the King in Prussia from 1701 to 1772; largely because they still owed fealty to the Emperor as Electors of Brandenburg, the "King in Prussia" title (as opposed to "King of Prussia") avoided offending the Emperor. As the Prussian state grew through several wars and diplomatic moves throughout the 18th century, it became apparent that Prussia had become a Great Power that did not need to submit meekly to the Holy Roman Empire. By 1772, the pretense was dropped, and the style "King of Prussia" was adopted. Thus it remained until 1871, when in the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War, the King of Prussia Wilhelm I was crowned German Emperor. From that point forward, though the Kingdom of Prussia retained its status as a constituent state of the German Empire, all remaining Kings of Prussia also served as German Emperor, and that title took precedence.
Document 2: Albert II of Germany: Albert the Magnanimous KG (10 August 139727 October 1439) was King of Hungary and Croatia from 1437 until his death. He was also King of Bohemia, elected King of Germany as Albert II, Duke of Luxembourg and, as Albert V, Archduke of Austria from 1404.
Document 3: Flag of Prussia: The state of Prussia had its origins in the separate lands of the Margraviate of Brandenburg and of the Duchy of Prussia. The Margraviate of Brandenburg developed from the medieval Northern March of the Holy Roman Empire, passing to the House of Hohenzollern in 1415. The Duchy of Prussia originated in 1525 when Albert of Brandenburg-Ansbach, a member of a cadet branch of the Hohenzollerns, secularized the eastern lands of the Teutonic Knights as a Polish fief. Prince-elector John Sigismund, Elector of Brandenburg, inherited the Duchy of Prussia in 1618, thus uniting Brandenburg and Prussia under one ruler in a personal union; the Elector's state became known as Brandenburg-Prussia. The Kingdom of Prussia formed when Elector Frederick III assumed the title of Frederick I, King in Prussia, on 18 January 1701.
Document 4: Melanchthon Circle: The Melanchthon Circle was a 16th-century Lutheran intellectual network centred on the University of Wittenberg in Germany, and its leading theologian Philip Melanchthon. It was identified as significant for its interests in natural philosophy by Lynn Thorndike, in a chapter "The Circle of Melanchthon" in his multi-volume "History of Magic and Experimental Science". Among this circle were found many of the most important early proponents of the heliocentric model of Copernicus. They included Caspar Peucer who became Melanchthon's son-in-law, Erasmus Reinhold, and Georg Joachim Rheticus. Patronage came from Albert, Duke of Prussia.
Document 5: Polish–Teutonic War (1519–21): The Polish–Teutonic War of 1519–1521 (German: "Reiterkrieg" , "horsemen's war", Polish: "Wojna pruska" , "Prussian War") was fought between the Kingdom of Poland and the Teutonic Knights, ending with an armistice in April 1521. Four years later, under the Treaty of Kraków, part of the Catholic Monastic state of the Teutonic Knights became secularized as the Duchy of Prussia. The reigning Grand Master Albert of Hohenzollern-Brandenburg-Ansbach became the first Duke of Prussia by paying the Prussian Homage as vassal to his uncle, Polish king Sigismund I the Old.
Document 6: Cusanus Hochschule: Cusanus Hochschule is a private non-profit university situated in Bernkastel-Kues, in the Moselle valley, close to Luxemburg and France. Officially recognised, as one of nine universities in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, it was founded in February 2014 by a group of academics, students and citizens. One of the institutions involved in the founding of Cusanus Hochschule has been the Kues Academy for the History of European Thought (Kueser Akademie für Europaeische Geistesgeschichte). Cusanus Hochschule remains independent of economic, political and religious interests. Hence, it is not affiliated with any religious denomination. The founding presidium consisted of Harald Spehl (president, professor emeritus Trier University), Silja Graupe (vice-president, professor of economy and philosophy Cusanus Hochschule), Harald Schwaetzer (vice-president, professor of philosophy Cusanus Hochschule) and Frank Vierheilig (managing director of Cusanus Treuhand gGmbH, chancellor of Cusanus Hochschule). The patron saint of Cusanus Hochschule is Nicholas of Cusa, a German philosopher, theologian, jurist and astronomer, who is considered as one of the first German proponents of Renaissance humanism.
Document 7: Mysterium Cosmographicum: Mysterium Cosmographicum (lit. The Cosmographic Mystery, alternately translated "Cosmic Mystery", "The Secret of the World" or some variation) is an astronomy book by the German astronomer Johannes Kepler, published at Tübingen in 1596 and in a second edition in 1621. The full title being "Forerunner of the Cosmological Essays, Which Contains the Secret of the Universe; on the Marvelous Proportion of the Celestial Spheres, and on the True and Particular Causes of the Number, Magnitude, and Periodic Motions of the Heavens; Established by Means of the Five Regular Geometric Solids" (Latin: "Prodromus dissertationum cosmographicarum, continens mysterium cosmographicum, de admirabili proportione orbium coelestium, de que causis coelorum numeri, magnitudinis, motuumque periodicorum genuinis & proprijs, demonstratum, per quinque regularia corpora geometrica"). Kepler proposed that the distance relationships between the six planets known at that time could be understood in terms of the five Platonic solids, enclosed within a sphere that represented the orbit of Saturn.
Document 8: Prussia (region): Prussia (Old Prussian: "Prūsa", German: "Preußen" , Lithuanian: "Prūsija" , Polish: "Prusy" ) is a historical region stretching from Gdańsk Bay to the end of Curonian Spit on the southeastern coast of the Baltic Sea, and extending inland as far as Masuria. The territory and inhabitants were described by Tacitus in Germania in AD 98, where Suebi, Goths and other Germanic people lived on both sides of the Vistula River, adjacent to Aesti (further east). About 800–900 years later the Aesti were named Old Prussians, who since AD 997 repeatedly successfully defended against take-over attempt by the newly created Duchy of the Polans. The territory of the Old Prussians and neighboring Couronians and Livonians was unified politically in the 1230s as the Teutonic Order State. Prussia was politically divided in the period 1466-1772, with western Prussia under protection of the crown of Poland-Lithuania and eastern Prussia a Polish fief until 1660. The unity of both parts of Prussia remained preserved by retaining its borders, citizenship and authonomy until western and eastern Prussia were also politically re-united under the Kingdom of Prussia. It is famous for many lakes, as well as forests and hills. Since the military conquest by the Soviet Army in 1945 and the expulsion of the inhabitants it divided between northern Poland (most of the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship), Russia's Kaliningrad exclave, and southwestern Lithuania (Klaipėda Region). The former German state of Prussia (1701–1947) derived its name from the region.
Document 9: Prussian Crusade: The Prussian Crusade was a series of 13th-century campaigns of Roman Catholic crusaders, primarily led by the Teutonic Knights, to Christianize the pagan Old Prussians. Invited after earlier unsuccessful expeditions against the Prussians by Polish princes, the Teutonic Knights began campaigning against the Balts in 1230. By the end of the century, having quelled several Prussian Uprisings, the Knights had established control over Prussia and administered the Prussians through their monastic state.
Document 10: Erasmus: Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus ( ; 28 October 1466 – 12 July 1536), known as Erasmus or Erasmus of Rotterdam, was a Dutch Renaissance humanist, Catholic priest, social critic, teacher, and theologian.
Document 11: Willibald Pirckheimer: Willibald Pirckheimer (5 December 1470 – 22 December 1530) was a German Renaissance lawyer, author and Renaissance humanist, a wealthy and prominent figure in Nuremberg in the 16th century, and a member of the governing City Council for two periods. He was the closest friend of the artist Albrecht Dürer, who made a number of portraits of him, and a close friend of the great humanist and theologian Erasmus.
Document 12: Kreisau Circle: The Kreisau Circle (German: "Kreisauer Kreis") (1940–1944) was a group of about twenty-five German dissidents led by Helmuth James Graf von Moltke, who met at his estate in the rural town of Kreisau, Silesia. The circle was composed of men and a few women from a variety of backgrounds, including those of noble descent, devout Protestants and Catholics, professionals, socialists, and conservatives. Despite their differences, the members of the Kreisau Circle found common interest in their opposition to Hitler's Nazi regime on both moral and religious grounds. At their meetings, the circle discussed how they would reorganize the German government after the end of the Third Reich. Although the circle did not promote violent overthrow of the regime, their planning was considered by the Nazis to be treasonous as it rested on the assumption that Germany would lose the war. The group began to falter after Helmuth von Moltke was arrested by the Gestapo in January 1944 and eventually came to an end when most of its members were arrested following Claus von Stauffenberg's attempt on Hitler's life on July 20, 1944.
Document 13: Albrecht von Müller: Albrecht von Müller (born in 1954) is a German philosopher and former entrepreneur. Since 2000, Müller has been the director of the Parmenides Center for the Study of Thinking, which is run by the non-profit organization Parmenides Foundation (founded by Müller) and is associated with the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. He is also a teacher of philosophy at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich as well as teaching the theory of thinking at the MCA program of the international school for advanced studies in Trieste, SISSA His main fields of interest are the concept of time and the theory of thinking, and in these fields he has made various publications. Müller is also an external contributor to programs of the Human Science Center and the Munich Center of Neuroscience at the Ludwig Maximilian University. Furthermore, he serves on the board of trustees of the Max Planck Institute for Neurobiology and the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry.
Document 14: Albert, Duke of Prussia: Albert of Prussia (German: Albrecht von Preussen, 17 May 149020 March 1568) was the 37th Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights, who after converting to Lutheranism, became the first ruler of the Duchy of Prussia, the secularized state that emerged from the former Monastic State of the Teutonic Knights. Albert was the first European ruler to establish Lutheranism, and thus Protestantism, as the official state religion of his lands. He proved instrumental in the political spread of Protestantism in its early stage, ruling the Prussian lands for nearly six decades (1510–1568).
Document 15: Wilton Circle: The Wilton Circle were an influential group of 16th-century English poets, led by Mary Sidney. They were based at Wilton House, Wiltshire, which was run by the half-brother of Walter Raleigh. Sidney turned Wilton into a "paradise for poets", and the circle included Edmund Spenser, Michael Drayton, Sir John Davies and Samuel Daniel.
ground_truth: Albert of Prussia