The Empire in the Political Strategy of Order States of Prussia and Livonia on the Turn of the 15th – 16th Centuries

Abstract

The implementation of an imperial project to include the Order states of Prussia and Livonia into the Holy Roman Empire as princedoms didn’t meet interests of the Supreme and Livonian Masters of the Teutonic Order. Wishing to keep the status of sovereign rulers, they intended to maintain traditional relations with the emperor as the «defender» of the Order, from whom they expected some help to resolve foreign policy problems of the Prussian and Livonian branches of the Order in their confrontation with the Polish-Lithuanian Jagiellonowie and the Moscow state. The masters were slow over accepting the ducal regalia and transfer their possessions into the rank of imperial fiefs until they had hope for help from the second «curator» of the Order states, the pontificate, on which the order’s privileges preservation and the receipt of cash grants by the Order within «papal grace» (cruciate) also depended. The low efficiency of such analysis and the beginning of the Reformation made inevitable the final course of the Order states for rapprochement with the empire.