Teutonic Knights

One of the more celebrated of the military and religious orders to which the Crusades gave birth. The sufferings of the Christian soldiers at the siege of Acre excited the sympathy of certain merchants of Bremen and Lübeck, who rendered such important services by the erection of hospitals and otherwise, that Duke Frederick of Suabia, with the sanction of Pope Clement III. and the emperor Henry VI., enrolled them in an order of knighthood. The habit of the order was a white mantle with a black cro ; and the knights took vows of poverty and chastity, which in later times were not very strictly interpreted. In the course of the 13th century, they were, with the sanction of the pope, engaged in a bloody war to enforce Christianity on the heathen nations inhabiting the southern shores of the Baltic, which resulted in the acquisition by the order of Pru ia, Livonia, Courland, and other adjoining territories. Warriors from all parts of Europe in that and the following century joined their standard, including Henry IV. of England, accompanied by 300 attendant knights and men-at-arms. The conquests of the order raised it to the rank of a sovereign order, with a territory extending from the Oder to the Baltic, and embracing a population of between 2,000,000, and 3,000,000, the grand master having his seat at Marienburg, Pru ia. The decline of the order began in the 15th century, and its fall was brought about partly by internal di ensions, and partly by the attacks of neighboring states. At the peace of Presburg in 1805, the emperor of Austria obtained the rights and revenues of the grand master, but in 1809 the order was abolished by Napoleon, its lands pa ing to the sovereigns in whose dominions they lay. The Teutonic order, however, still continues to preserve a titular existence in Austria.