Armoured in Righteousness

From the mid-thirteenth until the early sixteenth century, the Teutonic Order existed as one of the most unusual political entities in Europe. Founded in late twelfth century Palestine as a German crusading order with close ties to the Holy Roman Emperor, the Order’s focus would not remain long in Palestine as it began a long series of wars to conquer, convert, and settle the regions bordering the eastern portions of the Baltic Sea.1 Uniquely among crusading orders, the Teutonic Knights would become increasingly important territorial rulers in that region over the course of the thirteenth, fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, before a gradual decline began in the fifteenth century. Military attacks led to losses in territory, even as rhetorical ones threatened the Order’s legitimacy, pushing it into a precarious position by the early sixteenth century. In 1525, the Order’s leading figures secularized the Prussian Ordensstaat by their official conversion to Lutheranism, thereby creating the first territorial Lutheran state in Europe.2 At the same time, the former Grandmaster, now Duke of Prussia, accepted Polish sovereignty and became a subject of the Polish Crown, securing the stability of the new state.3