Emperor Frederick II raised his friend, von Salza, to the rank of Reichfurst, or Prince of the Empire. When Frederick was crowned King of Jerusalem in 1225, the Teutonic Knights provided his escort in the Church of the
Holy Sepulchre.
In spite of this honour and recognition, the Teutonic Knights never became as influential in the Holy Land as the Templars and the Hospitallers. Events nearer home would provide a new crusade and role for the Teutonic Knights and would shift their focus to the Baltic and Eastern Europe.
The Knights in the Baltic
This new opportunity came in 1226 in north-eastern Poland, when Duke of Masovia, Konrad I, appealed to the Knights for military assistance to defend his borders from attack and to subdue the pagan Baltic Prussians.
During the next fifty years the Teutonic Knights engaged in a fierce and bloody crusade to conquer Prussia and to subjugate, kill, or expel any native Prussians who remained unbaptized. The Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor issued charters granting the knights Prussia as a sovereign monastic state, similar to that of the Knights Hospitallers on Malta.
The Knights encouraged immigration from the Holy Roman Empire to boost the population, which had been reduced severely by the war. The settlers established new towns on the site of Old Prussian ones and the knights built several castles from which they could defend attacks by Old Prussians.
Having conquered Prussia, the Knights turned their attention to pagan Lithuania, and it took 200 years before they conquered and converted Lithuania to Christianity. Other conquests included the city of Danzig, (in Polish, ‘Gdansk’) and the region of Pomeralia along the Baltic which provided a land bridge to the Holy Roman Empire. The capture of Danzig in 1307 marked a new phase in the Knights’ development, and it was after this they moved their headquarters from Venice to Malbork Castle (See page 88-89).
The Decline Sets In
In 1410, after the Knights were defeated at the Battle of Grunewald by a combined Polish-Lithuanian army, the Teutonic Order went into decline, losing lands, military strength, and power. Eventually the Teutonic Order was expelled from Prussia after a war with Poland and Lithuania. In 1525 Grand Master Albert of Brandenburg converted to Lutheranism and secularized the remaining Prussian territories. The Teutonic Order suffered further losses of its lands that remained in the Holy Roman Empire. In 1555, after the Peace of Ausberg, the Teutonic Order allowed its first Lutheran members, though it still remained largely Catholic.
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