On this page
The Teutonic Knights were a German military religious order that played a major role in the Northern Crusades and the Christianization of the Baltic region. Founded in the Holy Land in the late twelfth century, the order gradually shifted its focus to the Baltic in the thirteenth century, where it embarked on a long campaign of conquest and conversion that resulted in the establishment of a monastic state in Prussia and Livonia. The order played a major role in the political and economic life of medieval northern Europe, and its decline at the Battle of Grunwald in 1410 marked a major turning point in the history of the region.
This cluster explores the Teutonic Knights and the Northern Crusades. The articles in the related long-tail pages provide deeper examinations of specific aspects of the topic.
William Urban, “The Teutonic Knights: A Military History” (2003), is the most useful single-volume treatment. Eric Christiansen, “The Northern Crusades” (1980; 2nd ed. 1997), is the indispensable wider reading. The page below uses both, and the Cronica terre Prussie of Peter of Dusburg (c. 1326) as the primary source. The Order’s transformation from a crusading brotherhood into a Prussian principality is the central thread.
The Founding of the Order
The Teutonic Knights were founded in 1190, during the Siege of Acre in the Holy Land, as a German hospital order modeled on the Knights Templar and the Knights Hospitaller. The order was originally established to care for German pilgrims and sick soldiers in the Holy Land, and it received formal recognition from Pope Clement III in 1191 and from Pope Innocent III in 1199.
The order was reorganized in 1198 under the leadership of Henry of Walpot, who transformed it from a hospital order into a military religious order modeled on the Templars and the Hospitallers. The rule of the order was based on the rule of the Hospitallers, modified to accommodate the German character of the order and the specific circumstances of the Baltic crusade. The order adopted a white mantle with a black cross — the symbol that has remained associated with the order to the present day.
The order played a limited role in the Holy Land, operating in the marginal areas of the Crusader States and participating in a few military campaigns. The order began to shift its focus to the Baltic in the early thirteenth century, responding to requests from the Polish duke Konrad I of Masovia for assistance against the pagan Prussian tribes. The order accepted the invitation in 1226, and it began a long campaign of conquest and conversion that would last for nearly two centuries.
The Northern Crusades
The Northern Crusades were a series of campaigns launched by the German and Polish nobility, with the support of the papacy, to convert the pagan peoples of the Baltic — Prussians, Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians, and Finns — to Christianity and to bring them under the authority of Christian rulers. The Northern Crusades were conducted by a variety of actors, including the Teutonic Knights, the Livonian Brothers of the Sword, the Danish kingdom, the Swedish kingdom, and the Polish and Lithuanian rulers.
The Christianization of Prussia was the central project of the Northern Crusades. The Prussians were a pagan people speaking a Baltic language, closely related to the Lithuanians and the Latvians. The Prussians were organized in tribal groups that resisted the German expansion eastward, and the Teutonic Knights embarked on a long campaign of conquest and conversion that lasted from the 1230s to the 1280s. The Prussians were gradually defeated, converted, and assimilated into the German-ruled monastic state of the Teutonic Order.
The Christianization of Livonia (modern Latvia and Estonia) was carried out by the Livonian Brothers of the Sword, a military religious order founded in 1202 and later incorporated into the Teutonic Order. The Livonian crusade resulted in the establishment of the Livonian branch of the Teutonic Order, which governed the region until the sixteenth century. The Lithuanians, who remained pagan longer than the other Baltic peoples, resisted the crusaders successfully for centuries, and they finally converted to Christianity in 1386, when the Grand Duke of Lithuania Jogaila married the Polish queen Jadwiga and became king of Poland.
The Northern Crusades had a major impact on the demographic, political, and economic development of the Baltic region. The Crusades resulted in the colonization of the region by German and Polish settlers, the establishment of towns and bishoprics, and the integration of the region into the wider European economic and political system. The Crusades also resulted in the destruction or displacement of the native pagan cultures, and they left a legacy of tension between the German and native populations of the Baltic that persists to the present day.
The Teutonic State in Prussia
The Teutonic state in Prussia was one of the most distinctive political entities of medieval Europe. The state was governed by the Grand Master of the order, who resided at Marienburg (now Malbork in Poland), one of the largest Gothic castles in Europe. The state extended across Prussia, Livonia, and parts of Pomerania, and it included a large number of castles, towns, and villages.
The Teutonic state was organized along feudal lines, with the order holding the major portion of the land and granting fiefs to knights and other tenants. The towns of the state — Königsberg (now Kaliningrad), Danzig (now Gdańsk), Elbing (now Elbląg), and Thorn (now Toruń) — were major centers of trade and manufacturing, and they played a major role in the Hanseatic League and the Baltic trade. The state developed a sophisticated administrative apparatus, with a network of commanderies governed by Komturs (the German term for the heads of commanderies) and a centralized bureaucracy at Marienburg.
The Teutonic state was a major military power. The order maintained a standing army of knights and soldiers, and it built a network of castles across its territory. The state fought a series of wars with the Lithuanians, the Poles, and the Russians in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and it participated in the Hanseatic League and the Northern trade. The state was finally defeated at the Battle of Grunwald in 1410, a decisive Polish-Lithuanian victory that marked the beginning of the order’s decline.
The Battle of Grunwald
The Battle of Grunwald (also known as the Battle of Tannenberg or Žalgiris) was fought on July 15, 1410, between the Teutonic Knights and a combined Polish-Lithuanian army led by King Władysław II Jagiełło of Poland and Grand Duke Vytautas of Lithuania. The battle was a decisive Polish-Lithuanian victory, and it is considered one of the most important battles of the medieval period in eastern Europe.
The battle began in the morning with a series of attacks and counter-attacks by both sides. The Teutonic army, led by Grand Master Ulrich von Jungingen, included a large force of knights, mercenaries, and auxiliaries, and it outnumbered the Polish-Lithuanian army. The Polish-Lithuanian army, however, was better organized and led, and it included a large number of Lithuanian light cavalry and Polish heavy cavalry. The battle ended in a Polish-Lithuanian victory, with the Grand Master killed and the Teutonic army effectively destroyed.
The Battle of Grunwald was a major turning point in the history of the Teutonic Order. The order never fully recovered from the defeat, and it entered a long period of decline that eventually led to the secularization of the order’s territories in 1525. The Grand Master Albert of Brandenburg, under pressure from the Polish crown and facing the rise of the Reformation, converted to Lutheranism and secularized the order’s territories, transforming the state into the Duchy of Prussia, a vassal of the Polish crown. The secularization of the Teutonic state marked the end of the order as a major political and military power in eastern Europe.
The Legacy of the Teutonic Knights
The legacy of the Teutonic Knights is complex and controversial. On the one hand, the order played a major role in the Christianization of the Baltic region, the establishment of towns and bishoprics, and the integration of the region into the wider European economic and political system. The order developed a sophisticated administrative apparatus and a distinctive architecture that remains a major feature of the cultural landscape of Poland, Lithuania, and the Baltic states.
On the other hand, the order was a conquering military force that destroyed or displaced the native pagan cultures of the Baltic region, and it imposed German rule on a non-German population. The order’s rule was often brutal, and it provoked numerous revolts and resistance movements among the native populations. The order’s defeat at Grunwald in 1410 was celebrated as a liberation by the Polish and Lithuanian populations, and it continues to be a major event in the national memory of Poland and Lithuania.
Sources
Principal sources used in this article:
- William Urban, The Teutonic Knights: A Military History (Greenhill, 2003).
Further reading:
- Eric Christiansen, The Northern Crusades (Penguin, 1980; 2nd ed. 1997).
For a recent single-volume synthesis with full scholarly apparatus, see the relevant chapter of Barbara H. Rosenwein, A Short History of the Middle Ages (University of Toronto Press, 2014).