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Revision as of 10:25, 7 April 2006 by Molobo (talk | contribs) (restored last version.)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)The Monastic State of the Teutonic Knights (Template:Lang-de, Polish: Państwo Zakonne) was formed after the Teutonic Knights conquered the pagan Baltic Prussians in the 13th century.
The conquest of Prussia began in 1220 after Konrad I of Masovia suffered from attacks in his province of Chelmno Land from Prussians. In reaction Konrad called for help from the Teutonic Knights. The results were edicts calling for crusades against the "marauding, heathen" Prussians. Many of Europe's knights joined in these crusades, which lasted sixty years.
The pope installed the Teutonic Knights as rulers of the area. 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).
History
13th century
In 1237 the Teutonic Knights absorbed the Livonian Brothers of the Sword (established 1202 in Livonia), 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, Chełmno Land, 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 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 Meissen territory to the Bohemian crown in exchange for Eastern Pomerania.
During the course of the war, the Polish city of 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 Gdańsk, some historians claim that all the inhabitants of the city, both Polish and German, were slaughtered, but this massacre is disputed by other historians. The Teutonic Order continued incorporating territories into its domains. In September 1309, Margrave Waldemar of Brandenburg had to sell his claim to the territory to the Teutonic Order for 10,000 marks. This was also the start of a series of conflicts between Poland and the Teutonic Order.
Possession of Gdańsk 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 in 1343 peace was concluded when the Teutonic Knights accepted that they should rule Eastern Pomerania as a fief of the Polish crown. Polish kings retained the right to the title Duke of Pomerania, (Pomerania having been under the Holy Roman Empire directly from 1181 to 1806 and the emperors passed on fiefs.)
15th century
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 Henry XIII, duke of Reuss-Plauen, to defend Pomerania. He moved rapidly to bolster the defence of 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 Gdańsk, Elbląg, and Toruń and gentry (mainly from Chełmno Land) founded the Prussian Confederation with other Prussian cities to free themselves from the overlordship of the Teutonic Knights. They 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. None of this was agreed to by pope or the emperor, and the Pfaffenkrieg (priests war) of 1467-79 ensued.
16th century
During the Reformation endemic religious upheavals and wars occurred, and in 1525, the last Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights, Albert of Brandenburg, 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, Ducal Prussia became the first Protestant state. The Habsburg-led Holy Roman Empire continued holding claim on Prussia and furnished grandmaster, administrators of Prussia. In 1618 the duchy of Prussia passed to the senior Hohenzollern branch, the ruling margraves of Brandenburg whose descendents became the Kings of Prussia in the 18th century.