Teutonic Order

Teutonic Order. The Order of German knights grew out of a nursing community founded near Acre in 1190. In 1198 it was converted into a military order with the rule of the Templars; in 1245 it received a rule of its own. The Order, made up of knights, priests, and lay brothers, was active and richly endowed in Palestine and Syria, but soon sought to advance the frontiers of Christendom elsewhere. Duke Conrad of Masovia invited the knights to subdue the heathen Prussians and in 1226 Frederick II conferred princely powers on the Grand Master and gave almost limitless rights over future conquests to the Order. In 1231 the knights crossed the Vistula and from 1236 the Order also expanded in Livonia, but from the later 13th cent. it gave itself increasingly to the administration of its territories. When Lithuania accepted Latin Christianity and entered into a personal union with the Polish kingdom in 1386, the knights' crusading task lost its meaning. In 1525 the Grand Master, Albert of Prussia, resigned his office, embraced Lutheranism, and secularized his territory for dynastic ends. The Order survived under the protection of the Habsburgs in Austria. From c.1840 it again found its vocation in hospital work, especially in military hospitals, and in schools.