Ep. 6 (133) - The Order of the Order

Hello and welcome to the History of the Germans: Episode 133 – The Order of the Order

In the century that followed the last of the Prussian and Livonian uprisings the states of the Teutonic Order in the Baltic experienced a period of economic growth and internal and external stability that is almost unique in the chaotic 14th century. Whilst Europe was in the grip of the Hundred-Years War, an incessant merry go round of internecine feuds, the Black Death, Papal Schisms and a deteriorating climate, this theocracy on the Northern Baltic shore became a beacon of prosperity and peace.

How was it possible that a religious order became an astute manager of its estates, a de-facto member, if not by its own claim head of the Hanseatic League and the organizer of the greatest chivalric adventure holidays for Europe’s aristocracy? That is what we try to find out in this episode..

But, as you know, there will now be 20 seconds of me blabbing on about the Patreon account and how eternally grateful I am for all your support. If you want to skip it, you should hit the 15 second button…now! Great, now that we are amongst friends, let me tell you what these skipper dippers miss. The chance to feel good about themselves. As it says in the Acts of the Apostles: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’ So here I am, ready to receive either on my Patreon account at patreon.com/historyofthegermans or on my website at historyofthegermans.com/support so that you all can enjoy the act of supporting the show. Just ask Adam M., MSG, Andreas and John A. who are already indulging in the delights of giving.

Now back to the show

ian village had cooled off in: 1283

What is however quite clear is that the late medieval Prussian society was split between Germans and non-Germans. This distinction was however not necessary ethnic but linguistic and most significantly legal.

There were effectively two sets of legal frameworks people lived in Prussia.

The Germans had come as part of a large scale economic development program. These initial settlers came from Brandenburg, Pomerania and Silesia and were themselves descendants of the 12th century first wave of settlers we discussed in season 5. As the Teutonic Knights moved further east and expanded cultivation deeper and deeper into the forests, settlers were recruited not just from the empire, but more and more from the population of the territories that had already been settled. And that included Prussians, Lithuanians and Poles who were granted the status of “German” settlers.

These “German” settlers -in inverted commas- were typically given a plot of land, usually about 33 hectares. Their leader, the Locator who had organized the convoy and had negotiated the deal with the brothers would get twice that, as would the local church. The Locator would then become the Schulze, the village mayor with the right to administer the so-called lower justice, petty crime and civil disputes. The mayor would often also get the fishing and game rights. In exchange the Mayor was obliged to fight for the order in light armor on top of the annual rent he had to pay like all the other free peasants. Once the village was established, the villagers had the right to choose their mayor.

These were the so-called “German villages”. As for the old Prussian villages life was quite a bit harder. A Prussian peasant would usually have about 20 hectares, i.e., 2/3rds of the German peasant. They had to provide not rent but services and a percentage of their crop to the Knights. They did have a foreman, a “Starost” who represented them but who was supervised by a separate administrative structure supported by the Witingers, a sort of Prussian minor nobility.

Effectively the Prussian and German villages lived completely separate lives and there are regular mentions of priests or brothers needing translators to communicate with the leaders of the Prussian villages next door.

The administrative entity above the village was Vogt or Pfleger, usually a knight brother based in a smaller castle or estate. The Vogts then reported to the Komtur. In Prussia a Komtur was usually a whole convent of Teutonic Knights. Based on the arithmetic of the New Testament, each Komtur was supposed to contain at least 12 brothers who lived in a large fortified convent. The Komtur would collect the rents paid by the villagers as well as their share of the crops of the unfree peasants. That was first used by the brothers in the Komtur for their needs, such as food and military equipment. Any surplus was then sent up to the Prussian Master.

The Prussian Master, alongside the Livonian master and the German Master was one of the central roles within the Teutonic Knights. These institutions had become necessary when the order expanded geographically to a point where the grand master could not be present in all important centers. And that was fairly early on. Hermann von Salza never went to Prussia which meant that he appointed Hermann Balk as his representative on the Baltic, making him the first Prussian Master. And since Livonia was separated from Prussia by Lithuania and they still had the Sword Brother tradition, there was the need for a Livonian Master. The office of the German master, in charge of many of the order’s possessions in the empire and hence in charge of recruitment and supply to the fighting outposts was another necessary management function. When the grand Masters moved to Prussia the office of the Prussian master was abolished and its functions integrated with the grand Master.

And finally, at the top of the pyramid stood the Grand Master. But he did not stand there on his own. He had a number of senior officer in charge of different aspects of the order. There was the Grand Komtur, who was the grand Master’s deputy and in charge of operations during peace time. The Grand Marshall was in charge of the military capabilities of the order, he made sure there were enough horses, armor and siege engines available and led the forces in war, unless the grand master did that himself. The Spitaller was in charge of the hospitals. We should not forget that the Teutonic order was initially set up to run a hospital in Acre and they did maintain several hospitals throughout their existence, one of which was in Elbing in Prussia. Then we have the Trappier, in charge of clothing, though he quickly became an important figure in the brother’s trading operations. And finally the Tressler, the treasurer who looked after the order’s finances.

All of these senior officers were with very few exceptions recruited from the knight brothers of the order. However, the order consisted not just of knight brothers. There were the priest brothers whose role it was to conduct the religious ceremonies. They were the only members of the order who were ordained priests. Each Komtur would almost always have at least one priest brother so that the members could observe their religious duties as monks, namely to pray every three hours.

As the order became more and more exclusive, blocking out commoners, those who wanted to join were admitted as Sarjents or grey cloaks. They would wear not the white cloak with black cross of the full brothers, but a grey one still with a black cross. Their jobs varied from administration and commerce to fighting alongside the knights. Below them were the half brothers, men who had not made the sacred vows but still dedicated themselves to the order. These could be just servants or farmhands Sometimes these could be donors who use the Teutonic Knight’s convent as a retirement home to live there sometimes even with their wives. Even more surprising there were even half-sisters and even sisters in the Teutonic order. These were very few and concentrated in specific houses in Alsace and Switzerland, effectively not connected to the main order.

All this sounds a bit as if it was a strictly hierarchical organization with a grand master at the top sending orders down the chain of command. But that wasn’t really the case.

All major decisions had to be taken by the grand chapter of the order, not the grand master. The grand master could not even get his hands on the order’s treasury. It was kept in a strongbox that had three keys, one for the Grand Master, one for the Grand Komtur and one for the Tressler.

of the Grand Masters between: 1297

The Grand Master election also reflected the significance of the various senior members of the order. The tradition was that the dying grand master would hand the seal of the order to his deputy who would then organize the election. Knights from all over Europe would come to the election that often took place in Marburg and after 1309 in Marienburg in Prussia. It kicked off with a solemn mass. Then the deputy would propose an election officer to the knights present. Once an election officer was approved the officer in turn would propose 13 electors, 8 knights brothers, one priest brother and 4 Grey Cloaks. These had to be chosen carefully to reflect the different large administrative entities, like Livonia, Prussia, Germany and originally Palestine as well as the different branches and ranks. The electors would then debate in private and choose a new Grand Master.

As for the various offices, it was the grand master who appointed them and in principle every one of the major offices was re-appointed every year at the annual grand chapter. This became a little bit cumbersome given distances and the like, so that it became an event happening every 6 years. But even outside the grand chapter the grand master could at any time recall or redeploy brothers from one post to the next. And he very often did. We also hear that brothers would retire from senior positions as they reached an age where they were no longer able to discharge their duties.

The Teutonic Knights operated much closer to the way a modern bureaucracy works than a medieval kingdom. Though there was surely some nepotism in the appointments at times, but positions weren’t inherited as knights had no legitimate children, there is little evidence of corruption and the transfer of order property to the family of grand masters or other officers is rarely mentioned.

And there was something even more unusual about Prussia, there was no local nobility, except for the leadership class of the old Prussians. Despite the fact that the Teutonic order were almost all aristocrats, they did not establish the kind of feudal system they had grown up in. Actually where they had acquired territory with an existing local nobility, they tried to buy them out and get rid of them.

Though they sure must have had their problems with discipline, by and large the knight brothers stuck to their vows of chastity, poverty and obedience. And that removed some of the main scourges of medieval life – the endless feuds.

We are in the 14th century and this is a time where the four horsemen of the apocalypse, pestilence, war, famine and death are roaming Europe. It is not just the 100 years war that spreads misery in France, but within the empire there is incessant fighting. Take the Margraves of Meissen, the house of Wettin where one war between brothers is followed by the next as they fight over the succession. On top of that you have the Black Death killing sometimes half or more of a town’s population.

But Prussia was spared quite a bit of this pain. In the absence of a local nobility, there weren’t any feuds. The Teutonic Knights had their internal differences but they never spilled out into open warfare. When the Grand Master Werner von Orselen was murdered, the brothers insisted that it was the act of just one disaffected individual.

lague, it did reach Elbing in: 1349

Whilst there was no proper nobility in Prussia, there were cities, cities that were members of the Hanse. Whilst their city’s rights were much constrained compared to the other members of the league, they did have some independence. And the Teutonic knights recognized that. The cities were invited to regular consultations with the grand master. Some have called this a Staendetag, a sort of early parliament. But at least before 1410 the order having essentially all the revenues from the land did not have to raise taxes to cover its expenses, which left the cities with limited bargaining power.

xported from Elbing and after: 1310

Now if you have followed the series about the Hanseatic League, you will remember how significant the grain exports from Danzig were in feeding Norway, England and most importantly Flanders. The Teutonic Knights became a major commercial force in Northern Europe and participated in the various embargoes against Flanders and Norway. And they combined that with their military capability. They did get involved in a number of the confrontations, including the wars with Denmark and England where their weight counted for a lot.

They also continued the export of amber that had already been Prussia’s main business for more thousand years.

Their biggest money-spinner however was tourism, chivalric adventure tourism to be precise.

After the fall of Acre in: 1291

That is where Teutonic Knights tours came in. they organized something they called a Rhyse, still the German word for journey.

a year almost every year from: 1304

It was a rite of passage, a sort of medieval grand tour that all young men of wealth and breeding would undertake.

The Teutonic Order offered two trips, a summer and a winter trip. The summer trip which started traditionally on August 15 was less popular as the crusaders would arrive when the ground was boggy and hard to pass on horses weighed down by armor. The summer period was usually known as the Bauzeit, the time to build new fortresses or reinforce already existing ones. The more glamorous season was in the winter when the bogs were frozen and the knights could attack on the surfaces of the rivers and lakes. And not only that. Because war in western europe was usually limited to the summer season, intrepid knights who wanted to engage in their favorite sport in winter had limited options. Lithuania was close and it had a winter season.

The crusaders would either arrive by ship from Bruges via Lubeck into Elbing, Danzig or Koenigsberg or on the land route again first to Luebeck and then along the coastal road through Pomerania and to Danzig. Alternatively there was the High Road through Silesia and Poland to Thorn in Prussia.

Some travelers combined the Prussian Rhyse with a sort of world tour that took in Venice and the Holy Land from there Spain where they would join the Reconquista before returning home to Blighty or La Douce France. That is where the adventure trip becomes a fully-fledged medieval gap year.

There was however a big difference to the gap year. These noble tourists did not journey with just a backpack containing three changes of underwear and a collection of achingly cool t-shirts. They journeyed in style. Henry Bolingbroke, admittedly the son of the richest man in England brought about 200 retainers who traveled on three ships. His supplies included not just the latest and best in military gear but also his horses, dogs, falcons, tapestries, gold and silver plates and cutlery. He was accompanied by his chaplain, doctor, cook, heralds, minstrels, pipers. The three or four heavy wagons that followed his progress contained his provisions, including the finest foodstuff, spices, herbs, wines from Bordeaux and the Rhine, clothes for feasts, equipment for tournaments and so on and so. When one of these fighting pilgrim stopped in a town or city he would expect a banquet to be held in his honor, where the local girls were asked to dance with the guests. In turn the traveling prince would make generous donations to the local churches and monasteries. He would also buy souvenirs along the way. Altarpieces, jewelry, furs and sometimes more exotic things like the ostrich Henry Bolingbroke acquired in Vienna.

Occasionally that ostentatious display of wealth planted unholy desires into the local aristocracy’s mind. We hear of multiple occasions where the crusaders are held for ransom or at least relieved from the heavy load they were dragging across the muddy roads of central europe.

Assuming you have managed to get to Prussia and were still in possession of most of your limbs, weapons and provisions, the next place to go to was the castle of Marienburg, modern day Marbrog in Poland, the seat of the grand master of the Teutonic Knights. This, the largest brick castle in the world never failed to impress the visitors. It covers a surface area of 18 hectares and has 145,000 square metres of floor space, roughly double of Buckingham palace and comparable to the Louvre, both of which were built much later.

Marienburg is not just large. It is breathtaking in its beauty and coherence. At the heart is the square structure of the High Castle, built on the standard floorplan of the Teutonic castles that combined elements of monastic convents with its defensive nature. One side is taken up by the palace chapel, a structure that can compare with the greatest of them all, the Sainte Chapelle in Paris. There is the grand masters palace where “the shape of the interior spaces, the manner of vaulting, and the illumination from the many enormous windows have no parallels in the residential architecture of medieval Europe” as the Unesco world heritage experts describe it The great refectory, the dining hall of the knights is “another structure of exceptional value, even on a global scale. This is due to the superb systems of proportions and the innovatory artistic form of the vaulting, supported on slender columns. It is one of the most magnificent and elegant secular interiors that European Gothic architecture produced.” My favorite structure is the Dansker, something you find in most Teutonic Knight’s castles. These are large latrine tower that emptied into a stream or river and is connected to the main castle by a covered walkway. These were needed because the order’s castles were permanently garrisoned by a much large number of men than “normal” European castles - just another indication of how different the Teutonic Knight’s state was.

The noble guests were usually given an audience with the Grand Master and invited to a banquet in that fabulous dining hall which by the way had an underfloor heating system that could raise the temperature in the 800 sqm room from 6 to 22 degrees in just 20 minutes. The dinner was almost certainly splendid though in keeping with the order’s strict rules, no women were allowed. Vistors keep pointing out that amidst the splendor the knights remained austere, eating the same modest meal and wearing the same unadorned clothes. They had no personal property and in war they had the same weapons and armor, all provided for by the order.

The guests, honored as they were, were not invited to stay inside the enormous castle. They were expected to find their own accommodation for themselves and their retinue. Not even food or drink was provided for free.

From Marienburg the crusaders set off for Konigsberg the jumping off point for the actual Rhyse.

d it as follows: "In the year: 1283

As we have heard before, the Lithuanians prove much harder to beat than the Prussians and Livonians. And, spoiler alert, they never were conquered. They did have two things in their favor, for one they were able to unify in the face of the oncoming attacks and secondly, Lithuania prove even more geographically impenetrable than Prussia, Latvia and Estonia.

The Teutonic Knights maintained a string of border fortresses that stretched from Memel, modern day Kalipeda along the Neman river to Ragnit. Across from there was the Wilderness, a 30 to 50km wide stretch of no-man’s land that could be crossed only under most favorable weather conditions, namely in the winter when the swampy ground was frozen hard.

The difficulty of the terrain meant that any campaign, the actual Rhyse needed a lot of advance planning. The guests were asked to gather food and equipment ahead of departure. The Knights would bring their own gear and supplies, but none for the other crusaders

listic. The Rhysen started in: 1304

In fact it seems the main purpose of these campaigns wasn’t to convert the Lithuanians. Of the 307 campaigns the historian Werner Paravicini analyzed in his 700 page work on the Prussian Rysen, he categorized 127 as pure devastation campaigns, 35 were set up as sieges, 38 as campaigns to build or rebuild fortifications and only 10 that involved an actual battle against the Lithuanians, and of these 10, only three were planned to result in a battle whilst the other seven were the consequence of an unexpected Lithuanian counterattack.

These military campaigns were also very short, usually about 2 to 3 weeks, of which a chunk must have been taken up just by cutting a way through the wilderness.

All that is why I call them adventure holidays. Sure, the guests are given the opportunity to do some actual fighting, but in 95% of cases only against unarmed peasants. And by the time the powerful Lithuanian cavalry forces come to relive the pressure on the villages, the brave Christian knights are back in the woods, carrying their plunder and the occasional prisoner back to Konigsberg. It was a very controlled risk that made sure the honorable guests could come back again.

Once the expedition returned to Koenigsberg, it was tea and medals. The order set up a table of honor with 12 seats, some reimagining of the round table of king Arthur. Only the most valiant knights were given the great honor to sit at that table. That is what Chaucer’s knight refers to when he boasts that he had sat “at the table of honor above all nations”. And those amongst the crusaders who had not been knighted yet could be daubed by the master’s sword. It was great way for young men to be introduced into the chivalric world without too much risk that the precious heir to the duchy or county would come to serious harm.

So if this was just a little bit of fun with little to no military significance, why did the Teutonic Knights organize these trips? Well, let’s take a look at the bills Henry Bolingbroke, the son of John of Gaunt and one of the richest men in England racked up on his 8 month jaunt to Prussia: he spent £564 on wages for his retinue, £400 on gifts for various potentates and the leaders of the order, £75 on silver kitchenware made in Prussia, he hired boats, horses, wagons to carry his stuff, he had to hire accommodation everywhere he went as the order would not cater for that and he had to feed all these men. And not to forget the gambling and other entertainment. The total bill came to £4,360 pounds, more that the Teutonic order spent in that same period on acquiring the whole island of Gotland.

There you have it, these guests were a huge boon to the Prussian economy and as we will see, when they stopped coming, the finances of the order are hit hard. The end of the Rhysen and with it the end of the golden age of the Teutonic Knights came at the very end of the 14th century. And why it came is what we are going to discuss next week. I hope you will join us again.

I have put a link to the truly astounding work by Werner Paravicini about the Rhysen into the show notes. Even though I have gone far beyond the time I initially allocate to this story, I have barely scratched the surface of his analysis. If you want to know more about this unique phenomena, take a look. It is full of great little vignettes of life in the Middle Ages. It is unfortunately in German. If you look for an English text, you can find more detail in Eric Christiansen’s The Nordic Crusades.

Share Episode

Shownotes

Transcripts

Follow

Links

Chapters

Video

More from YouTube