Teutonic Order

A monastic order that conquered a country and ruled it for two centuries, then dissolved itself into a duchy. The Teutonic Knights were founded as a hospital brotherhood at Acre during the Third Crusade and militarised soon after, but their future was in the Baltic rather than the Holy Land: invited into Prussia in 1226 by a Polish duke to deal with pagan raiders, they were granted whatever they could conquer and took the whole territory over fifty years. The result was a genuinely unusual state - celibate monks under vows governing a country, administering it from brick castles, encouraging German settlement, and funding themselves through an amber monopoly and the grain trade. Marienburg, now Malbork, is the largest brick castle in the world and a World Heritage site. Crusading in the Baltic drew nobles from across Europe on seasonal campaigns, including the future Henry IV of England. The problem arrived when the pagans converted: Lithuania accepted Christianity in 1386 and joined with Poland, which removed the order's reason to exist and produced an enemy it could not beat. The combined Polish-Lithuanian army destroyed the order's field army at Grunwald in 1410. Prussian towns and nobles then revolted against it. In 1525 the grand master converted to Lutheranism, secularised the state and made himself Duke of Prussia. That duchy became the kingdom of Prussia. The order still exists as a charitable body. The order ruled Prussia and Livonia from the thirteenth century to 1525. Marienburg was its headquarters from 1309. Grunwald is also known as Tannenberg. The order's white mantle with a black cross is the origin of later Prussian and German military insignia.

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