47 Facts About Teutonic Order

Order of Brothers of the German House of Saint Mary in Jerusalem, commonly known as the Teutonic Order, is a Catholic religious institution founded as a military society c in Acre, Kingdom of Jerusalem.

Fraternity which preceded the formation of the Teutonic Order was formed in the year 1191 in Acre by the German merchants from Bremen and Lubeck.

Soon Pope Clement III approved it and the Teutonic Order started to play an important role in the Outremer, controlling the port tolls of Acre.

Teutonic Order theoretically lost its main purpose in Europe with the Christianization of Lithuania.

The Teutonic Order Knights had a strong economic base which enabled them to hire mercenaries from throughout Europe to augment their feudal levies, and they became a naval power in the Baltic Sea.

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In 1410, a Polish-Lithuanian army decisively defeated the Teutonic Order and broke its military power at the Battle of Grunwald.

However, the capital of the Teutonic Knights was successfully defended in the following Siege of Marienburg and the Order was saved from collapse.

The Teutonic Order did keep its considerable holdings in Catholic areas of Germany until 1809, when Napoleon Bonaparte ordered its dissolution and the Teutonic Order lost its last secular holdings.

However, the Teutonic Order continued to exist as a charitable and ceremonial body.

Teutonic Order was founded in Acre, and the Knights purchased Montfort, northeast of Acre, in 1220.

The Teutonic Order received donations of land in the Holy Roman Empire, Frankish Greece, and the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

However, the Teutonic Order Knights were never as influential in Outremer as the older Templars and Hospitallers.

Some nobles claimed these lands, but the Teutonic Order refused to share them, ignoring the demands of the local bishop.

In 1224, the Teutonic Order Knights, seeing that they would have problems when the Prince inherited the Kingdom, petitioned Pope Honorius III to be placed directly under the authority of the Papal See, rather than that of the King of Hungary.

In 1235 the Teutonic Knights assimilated the smaller Order of Dobrzyn, which had been established earlier by Christian, the first Bishop of Prussia.

Teutonic 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.

The Teutonic Order itself built a number of castles 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 Teutonic Order was often at war during the 14th and 15th centuries.

Major towns founded by the Teutonic Order included Allenstein, Elbing, Klaipeda, and Konigsberg, founded in 1255 in honor of King Otakar II of Bohemia on the site of a destroyed Prussian settlement.

Teutonic Order Knights began to direct their campaigns against pagan Lithuania, due to the long existing conflicts in the region and the lack of a proper area of operation for the Knights, after the fall of the Kingdom of Jerusalem at Acre in 1291 and their later expulsion from Hungary.

At first the knights moved their headquarters to Venice, from which they planned the recovery of Outremer, this plan was shortly abandoned, and the Teutonic Order later moved its headquarters to Marienburg, so it could better focus its efforts on the region of Prussia.

In 1348, the Teutonic Order won a great victory over the Lithuanians in the Battle of Streva, severely weakening them.

The Teutonic Order Knights won a decisive victory over Lithuania in the Battle of Rudau in 1370.

Control of Pomerelia allowed the Teutonic Order to connect their monastic state with the borders of the Holy Roman Empire.

The Teutonic Order initially managed to play Wladyslaw II Jagiello and his cousin Vytautas against each other, but this strategy failed when Vytautas began to suspect that the Teutonic Order was planning to annex parts of his territory.

In 1407, the Teutonic Order reached its greatest territorial extent and included the lands of Prussia, Pomerelia, Samogitia, Courland, Livonia, Estonia, Gotland, Dago, Osel, and the Neumark, pawned by Brandenburg in 1402.

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The Polish-Lithuanian army then began the Siege of Marienburg, the capital of the Teutonic Order, but was unable to take Marienburg owing to the resistance of Heinrich von Plauen.

Some Teutonic Order Knights were sent to battle the invaders but were defeated by the Bohemian infantry.

In 1454, it rose up against the Teutonic Order and asked Polish King Casimir IV Jagiellon to incorporate the region into the Kingdom of Poland, to which the King agreed and signed an act of incorporation in Krakow.

Much of Prussia was devastated in the war, during the course of which the Teutonic Order returned Neumark to Brandenburg in 1455 to raise funds for war.

From now on, every Grand Master of the Teutonic Order was obliged to swear an oath of allegiance to the reigning Polish king within six months of taking office.

Teutonic Order secularized the Order's remaining Prussian territories and assumed from his uncle Sigismund I the Old, King of Poland, the hereditary rights to the Duchy of Prussia as a personal vassal of the Polish Crown, the Prussian Homage.

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 Teutonic Order to create the Duchy of Courland, a vassal of Poland.

Teutonic Order gradually lost control of these holdings until, by 1809, only the seat of the Grand Master at Mergentheim remained.

The Teutonic Order Knights became tri-denominational, with Catholic, Lutheran and Reformed bailiwicks.

Military history of the Teutonic Knights was to be ended in 1805 by the Article XII of the Peace of Pressburg, which ordered the German territories of the Knights converted into a hereditary domain and gave the Austrian Emperor responsibility for placing a Habsburg prince on its throne.

Teutonic Order had the rank of the ruler of an ecclesiastic imperial state and was sovereign prince of Prussia until 1466.

Teutonic Order was divided into three national chapters, Prussia, Livland and the territory of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation.

Conditions in Czechoslovakia gradually improved and in the meanwhile, the forced exile of some members of the Teutonic Order led to the Teutonic Order's re-establishing itself with some modest, but historically significant, foundations in Germany.

Also part of the Teutonic Order are the Sisters, with internal self-government within their own structures but with representation in the Teutonic Order's General Chapter.

The approximately 100 Catholic priests and 200 nuns of the Teutonic Order are divided into five provinces, namely, Austria, Southern Tyrol-Italy, Slovenia, Germany, Czech Republic and Slovakia.

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.

In 2000, the German chapter of the Teutonic Order declared bankruptcy, and its upper management was dismissed; an investigation by a special committee of the Bavarian parliament in 2002 and 2003 to determine the cause was inconclusive.

Current Abbot General of the Teutonic Order, who holds the title of High Master, is Father Frank Bayard.

Portion of the Teutonic Order retains more of the character of the knights during the height of its power and prestige.

The relationship of the Bailiwick of Utrecht to the Roman Catholic Deutscher Orden resembles that of the Protestant Bailiwick of Brandenburg to the Roman Catholic Teutonic Order of Malta: each is an authentic part of its original order, though differing from and smaller than the Roman Catholic branch.

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Procession in honour of Saint Liborius of Le Mans with Knights of the Holy Sepulchre together with Teutonic Order Knights in Paderborn, Germany.

Emperor Wilhelm II of Germany posed for a photo in 1902 in the garb of a monk from the Teutonic Order, climbing the stairs in the reconstructed Marienburg Castle as a symbol of Imperial German policy.