monastic state of the Teutonic Knights
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The monastic state of the Teutonic Knights (German: Deutschordensland), sometimes known in English by the German term Ordensstaat[1] (IPA: [ˈɔːdn̩ˌʃtɑːt]), or "Order-State", was formed during the Teutonic Knights' conquest of Old Prussia and the pagan Baltic Old Prussians in the 13th century. Formed by the military order in 1224 during the Northern Crusades, the monastic state was secularized in 1525 during the Protestant Reformation and replaced with the Duchy of Prussia in eastern Prussia.
Background
Many attempts at conquest had preceded this one, starting with Bolesław I the Brave of Poland, who had sent Adalbert of Prague in 997. In 1147 Boleslaw IV of Poland together with Russian troops attacked Prussia but could not conquer it. A number of attempts followed, and under Duke Konrad I of Masovia the attempts intensified with several crusades and battles, the largest ones in 1209, 1219, 1220, and 1222.[2]
These campaigns were successfully repelled by the Prussians. Konrad suffered from retaliatory strikes when Prussians tried to sack the Polish province of Chełmno Land, which in effect caused almost total depopulation of this land. Konrad had already, on the advice of Christian, first bishop of Prussia, established the Order of Dobrzyń. This was a small group of 15 knights which was soon defeated; in reaction Konrad called for help from the Teutonic Knights.
The results were edicts calling for crusades against the Prussians. Many of Europe's knights joined in these crusades, which lasted sixty years.
Early in 1224 Emperor Frederick II announced at Catania that Livonia, Prussia with Sambia, and a number of neighboring provinces were Reichsfreie, to be subordinated directly to the Roman Catholic Church and the Holy Roman Empire only, as opposed to being under the jurisdiction of local rulers.
At the end of 1224 Pope Honorius III announced to all Christendom the appointment of Bishop William of Modena as Papal Legate for Livonia, Prussia, and other countries.
With the Imperial Bull of Rimini and the Papal Bull of Rieti, the Teutonic Order received Prussia into their possession. Under their governance, woodlands were cleared and marshlands made arable. Many cities and villages were founded upon those lands, including Marienburg (Malbork) and Königsberg (Kaliningrad).
Further history
13th century
In 1234 the Teutonic Order received the remaining members of the Order of Dobrzyń. In 1237 the Teutonic Knights absorbed the Livonian Brothers of the Sword (established in Livonia in 1202), increasing their lands by the territories of today's Latvia and Estonia.
In 1243, the Papal legate William of Modena divided Prussia into four bishoprics, Culmerland, Pomesania, Warmia, and Sambia under the Archbishopric of Riga under the mother city of Visby on Gotland.
14th century
At the beginning of the 14th century, the neighboring region of Pomerania was plunged into war involving Poland and Brandenburg to the west. Brandenburg ruled Pomerelia (Eastern Pomerania) in the 1250s and had a treaty of August 8 1305 between Brandenburg's rulers and Wenceslaus III of Bohemia, which promised the March of Meissen to the Bohemian crown in exchange for Pomerelia.
During the course of the war, the city of Danzig (Gdańsk) was seized (November 1308) by the Teutonic Knights, called in by King Władysław I of Poland. Based on the subsequent stagnation and reversal in the development of Danzig, some historians claim that all the inhabitants of the city, both Polish and German, were slaughtered, but this massacre is disputed by other historians. In September 1309, Margrave Waldemar of Brandenburg sold his claim to the territory to the Teutonic Order for 10,000 marks. This was the start of a series of conflicts between Poland and the Teutonic Knights, as the Order continued incorporating territories into its domains.
Possession of Danzig by the Teutonic Order was disputed by the Polish kings Władysław I and Casimir the Great and led to a series of bloody wars and legal claims in the papal court in 1320 and 1333. Finally peace was concluded at Kalisz in 1343 when the Teutonic Knights agreed they should rule Pomererlia as a fief of the Polish crown. Polish kings retained the right to the title Duke of Pomerania under fief from the Holy Roman Empire.
15th century
In 1404 the Teutonic Order bought the Brandenburg Neumark.
In 1410, with the death of the German king Rupert, war broke out between the Teutonic Knights and a Polish-Lithuanian alliance supported by Ruthenian and Tatar auxiliary forces, in which Poland and Lithuania were the winners following their victory at the Battle of Grunwald (Tannenberg). The Order assigned Heinrich von Plauen to defend Pomerania. He moved rapidly to bolster the defence of Castle Marienburg in Prussia, was elected vice-grand master and saved the Marienburg headquarters. He then became grand master and in 1411 concluded the First Treaty of Toruń with King Władysław II Jagiełło.
In March 1440, the Hanseatic cities of Danzig, Elbing (Elbląg), and Thorn (Toruń), and gentry (mainly from Culmerland) founded the Prussian Confederation with other Prussian cities to free themselves from the overlordship of the Teutonic Knights. Due to the heavy losses and costs after the Polish-Lithuanian-Teutonic War, the Teutonic Order had to raise steep taxes, but did not want to give the cities due representation. The cities asked King Casimir IV of Poland to support their revolt and incorporate Prussia into Poland (February 1454), and when he agreed, the War of the Cities or Thirteen Years' War started. The resulting Second Treaty of Toruń (October 1466) provided for the Teutonic Order's cession to the Polish crown of its rights over the western half of its territories, which became the province of Royal Prussia, the remaining part of the Order's land became a Polish fief.
16th century
During the Protestant Reformation, endemic religious upheavals and wars occurred, and in 1525, in the aftermath of the Polish-Teutonic War (1519-1521), the last Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights, Albert of Brandenburg-Ansbach, a member of a cadet branch of the House of Hohenzollern, resigned his position, adopted the Lutheran faith and assumed the title of "Duke of Prussia." In a deal partially brokered by Martin Luther, the Duchy of Prussia became the first Protestant state. Albert's submission to Poland is known as the 'Prussian Homage'. The Habsburg-led Holy Roman Empire continued holding a claim on Prussia and furnished grand masters, titular administrators of Prussia. In 1618 the Duchy of Prussia passed to the senior Hohenzollern branch, the ruling margraves of Brandenburg whose descendants became the Kings of Prussia in the 18th century.
See also
Crusader states - Drang nach Osten
- Origins of Prussia
- Prussia
- War of the Priests
References
- ^ France, John (2005). The Crusades and the Expansion of Catholic Christendom, 1000-1714. New York: Routledge, 380. ISBN 0415371287.
- ^ Corwin, Edward Henry Lewinski, The Political History of Poland. 1917, The Polish Book Importing Company p45.
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