Hermann von Salza, who was grand-master at the time, was an intimate adviser of the Emperor Frederick II., who had given the black eagle of the empire as the Order’s standard, and a man of no small importance in the politics of southern Europe. Endowed with equal energy and foresight, he welcomed the opportunity of founding a new Christian state in the north, where greater security and distinction could be gained than in upholding a losing cause in the Holy Land. But he had no intention of fighting the battles of the Polish duke or the Prussian bishop without adequate reward, and he took the most painstaking precautions to secure the independent rule of the Order in what was destined to be its future home. Frederick II., who knew little and cared less about the fate of the Baltic provinces, was easily induced to grant to the Order a formal investiture of the district of Kulm with all future conquests in Prussia. This was followed by treaties with the Duke of Masovia and with Christian of Oliva, whose original alliance had been broken by their rival claims to suzerainty; and finally, to remove any difficulties with Rome, Pope Gregory IX. was persuaded to claim the lands of the heathen as the property of St. Peter, and to grant them to the Order on payment of a nominal tribute (1234).
In 1231 the first detachment of Knights entered Prussia and commenced the work of conquest. In spite of their smaller numbers, their superior arms and |Conquest of Prussia.| discipline gave them an immense advantage over the disorderly hordes which opposed them. As each district was reduced to submission, a fortress was built to enforce obedience and to serve as a base for further operations. Thus, in the first few years, Thorn, Kulm, and Marienwerder were built and garrisoned in rapid succession. In 1237 the Knights of the Sword agreed to form a close alliance with the Teutonic Order, of which they became a subordinate branch, though retaining a considerable measure of autonomy. Thus the heathen were threatened with attack on both sides—on the west from the valley of the Vistula, and on the north-east from Riga and the coast of Livonia. But the rapid successes of the Knights provoked jealousy and opposition. The Poles were indignant at the establishment of a German state between their own borders and the Baltic, and political and race antipathy soon overpowered the original alliance on religious grounds. Konrad of Masovia bitterly repented his shortsighted cession of Kulmerland, and both from Poland and from Pomerania aid was sent to the heathen Prussians. Even the bishop, Christian of Oliva, was alienated by the Order’s assumption of ecclesiastical independence, and did his utmost to enforce his own claims to superiority in the conquered districts. But the Papacy remained loyal to the warrior priests, whom it regarded as submissive vassals. The usual indulgences were offered to all who would undertake the pious duty of joining a crusade against the heathen, and crowds of recruits were induced to secure their temporal prosperity and their future salvation by fighting in the service of the Knights. The most famous of the princely allies was Ottokar of Bohemia, the lord of Austria, and the most powerful of German princes in the middle of the thirteenth century. In 1255 he led a large army into Prussia, and the fortress of Königsberg was named in his honour.
But the conquest of Prussia was not achieved without difficulties and reverses. In 1260 a general rising was organised among the Slav population, and for the next ten years the Knights were in serious danger of losing all they had gained. But their dogged resolution prevailed in the end, and by 1280 the land had once more been forced into sullen submission. The desperate struggle had seriously diminished a population which was always thinly scattered over a huge area. To fill the place of those who had fallen or had migrated eastwards to preserve their independence in Lithuania, the Order encouraged the settlement of German peasants and German burghers. The conquest of Prussia was a victory for Germany as well as for Christianity. The Slavs had to accept the religion and the language of the conquerors.
The end of the thirteenth century ushered in a period of trial for the great crusading orders. The fall of |Quarrel with the Papacy.| Acre in 1291 marked the ultimate failure of the attempts to recover the Holy Land for Western Christendom. The military associations were discredited by their ill-success; and while they lost their hold upon popular favour, their immense wealth excited the avarice of the temporal princes. The Papacy had fallen from the lofty position which it had held in the time of Innocent III., and was forced to become the accomplice and the agent of the royal spoilers. The Templars were first persecuted and then suppressed by Philip IV. of France and his creature Pope Clement V. The Knights of St. John only escaped a similar fate by throwing themselves into Rhodes, and by holding the island as a bulwark of Christendom against the encroaching Mohammedan power. The position of the Teutonic Order was as insecure as that of their older and, for a time, more prosperous rivals. The grand-master had removed his headquarters from Acre to Venice, and thence could watch the approach of danger. When, in 1309, Clement V. issued a hostile bull against the Order, the Knights were prepared with a practical and efficient answer. The only way to prove their strength and their value to Europe was to concentrate their undivided energies upon the work which had been undertaken on the Baltic coast. The hostility of a distant Pope would there be comparatively impotent, and they could strengthen themselves by a close alliance with the interests and forces of Germany. It was, no doubt, a great sacrifice for the Knights to abandon a residence in southern Europe, where they had enjoyed considerable wealth and influence, and to bury themselves in a |Transference of the Order to Prussia.| remote and barbarous district in the inclement north. But there was no other alternative if they would escape destruction; and in 1309 the grand-master transferred his residence from Venice to Marienburg, which became henceforth the headquarters of the Order.
The severance of the Teutonic Order from all connection with Palestine and its concentration in Prussia had many important results. The close connection which had been hitherto maintained with the Papacy was weakened, and the ties with Germany and the Empire were drawn closer. Henry VII. hastened to assure the Knights of his protection and to confirm their rights and privileges. Hitherto they had conquered in the name of the Church, henceforth their triumphs are to be for the extension of Germany. And these triumphs were for a time proportioned to their increased unity and strength. In 1311, by dexterously taking advantage of a dispute between Brandenburg |Acquisition of Pomerellen.| and Poland, they seized the district of Pomerellen on the left bank of the Vistula, which contained the important city of Danzig. This acquisition enormously strengthened the position of the Order on its western or German border; but, at the same time, it led to the long and desperate struggle with Poland which ultimately brought disaster in its train. And the conquest illustrates the changed attitude of the Order, for which the quarrel with the Papacy was partially responsible. Its aims have become political rather than religious. It is no longer solely absorbed in the task of forcibly converting the heathen, but can turn aside to the pursuit of self-aggrandisement at the expense of its Christian neighbours.
The Papacy, which had been so enthusiastic a supporter of the Teutonic Order in the thirteenth century, was on the side of Poland in the fourteenth. But its ecclesiastical |The Order at the height of its power.| weapons were blunted by the energetic support which was given to Lewis the Bavarian, and by the complete alienation of Germany owing to the residence in Avignon. The first war with Poland ended in the victory of the Order. In 1343 Casimir the Great concluded the Treaty of Kalisch, by which he confirmed the cession of Pomerellen and other disputed territories near the valley of the Vistula. In 1346 Denmark handed over to the Order its ancient claims on the province of Esthonia. The Knights had now acquired almost the whole of the Slav territories to the south-east of the Baltic. Only the Lithuanians remained obstinately heathen and obstinately independent, and against them the Order waged a fairly successful war during the grand-mastership of Winzig von Kniprode from 1351 to 1382. During these years the Teutonic Order was at the zenith of its power and prosperity. Brandenburg, which might have contested its ascendency in the north, was rendered impotent by the extinction of the Ascanian line, and by its rapid transfer through the hands of successive Wittelsbach and Luxemburg margraves. In Poland Casimir the Great was succeeded in 1370 by his nephew, Lewis of Hungary, who had no sympathy with the anti-German prejudices of the Polish nobles, and was disinclined to employ his forces in the defence of the heathen peasants of Lithuania. The campaigns of the Order had become a recognised school of warfare for the active and ambitious youth of northern Europe. Among the numerous allies who gave their services to the cause of Christianity were the adventurous John of Bohemia, who lost his eyesight in the marshes of Prussia, and Henry of Derby, son of John of Gaunt, who later established the Lancastrian dynasty on the English throne. Chaucer, in describing the career of his knight, says that
‘Full ofte tyme he had the bord bygonne
Aboven alle naciouns in Pruce,
In Lettowe had he reysed and in Ruce.’
The death of Kniprode in 1382 was followed by the death of Lewis the Great of Hungary and Poland. The party of strong Slav sympathies among the Polish nobles were determined to put an end to the union with Hungary and the rule of a foreign king. Lewis’s |Union of Poland and Lithuania.| younger daughter, Hedwig, was invited to assume the crown of Poland, but she was compelled to offer her hand to Jagello, the grand prince of Lithuania. Jagello agreed to purchase a bride and a kingdom by accepting Christianity, and was baptized and crowned by the name of Ladislas in 1387. The accession of this Lithuanian dynasty, under whose rule Poland rose to the height of its power, dealt a fatal blow to the interests of the Teutonic Order. The two great enemies of the Order, whose quarrels with each other had more than once given the Knights both military and diplomatic triumphs, were henceforth united in a common cause. And the conversion of the Lithuanians, who now adopted the faith of their neighbours and allies, struck at the very foundations of the Order, which rested upon the conception of a crusade against the heathen. Now that Prussia was surrounded by a ring of Christian states, there could no longer be any pretext for a religious war; and foreign princes and nobles were not likely to take an active interest in what became from this time a purely political struggle. The stream of auxiliaries from Europe was dried up at its source, and the Order had to fall back upon the expensive and unsatisfactory expedient of filling its armies with mercenary troops.