Teutonic Knights (41 page)

Hermann Balk
The first master in Prussia, 1230 – 9, and Livonian master 1237 – 9. Probably a former canon of the Hildesheim church, he may have joined the Teutonic Knights in Acre in 1189. He died in 1239/40.

Louis von Erlichshausen
Grand Master 1450 – 67. His efforts to suppress the Prussian estates representing burghers, vassals, and gentry led to the Thirteen Years’ War. The Peace of Thorn, 1466, ended the order’s last hopes at recovering its lost importance.

Siegfried von Feuchtwangen
Grand Master 1303 – 11. He moved his residence from Venice to Marienburg, thus establishing the Prussian crusade as the order’s primary duty.

Albrecht von Hohenzollern-Ansbach
The last grand master in Prussia, 1511 – 25. He introduced Lutheran reforms, secularised the order’s domains, married, and became the duke of Prussia, 1525 – 68.

Conrad von Jungingen
Grand Master 1393 – 1407. His military and diplomatic skill led to the victorious conclusion of the Samogitian Wars. The Treaty of Sallinwerder, 1398, brought peace with Poland and Lithuania and guaranteed his order possession of Samogitia, thus securing the overland route to Livonia.

Ulrich von Jungingen
Grand Master 1408 – 10. His defeat and death at the battle of Tannenberg marked the end of the order’s era of greatness.

Winrich von Kniprode
Grand Master 1352 – 82. His genial personality and instinctive sense of etiquette won the order firm friends among the highest nobility of Germany, France, and England. Under his supervision the Teutonic Order became famous for its chivalry and courtesy.

Michael Küchmeister
Advocate of Samogitia, Grand Master 1414 – 22. Fearing that Heinrich von Plauen’s policies would lead to another military disaster, he led the high officers in a coup-d’état, after which everything went wrong. The First Peace of Thorn, 1422, was the true beginning of the order’s downhill course.

Poppo von Osterna
Prussian master 1237 and 1241 – 4, Grand Master 1253 – 7. From a prominent family in the Nuremberg region, it must have come as a surprise that he separated from his wife to join a military order (she entered a nunnery). Poppo guided the order through its most difficult crisis, the war against Sventopełk of Pomerellia and the Prussian pagans.

Heinrich von Plauen
Grand Master 1410 – 13. His heroic efforts in saving Prussia from the armies of Poland and Lithuania almost resulted in restoring the order’s power and prestige.

Hermann von Salza
Grand Master 1210 – 39. Friend and confidant of popes and emperors, he presided over the order’s rise to prominence in the Holy Land and sent knights to Transylvania, Prussia, and Livonia.

Anno von Sangershausen
Livonian master 1254 – 6, Grand Master 1257 – 74. He governed through the critical years following the 1259 – 60 defeats by the Samogitians and the subsequent revolts in Prussia and Livonia.

Conrad von Thüringen
(Thuringia). Although grand master for only a year, 1239 – 40, he was the first important noble to join the order. Henceforth it became easier to recruit knights and ask for pious donations of money and lands.

The Chronicle of Henry of Livonia
, translated by James A. Brundage. University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, 1961. The
Chronicle
is a lively, intelligent account of the period 1180 – 1227. Apparently written for the benefit of William of Modena, the papal legate who arrived in Riga in 1225, it is more thorough and more reflective than all but a very few mediaeval chronicles.

Chronicle of Novgorod
, translated by Robert Michell and Nevil Forbes. Camden third series vol.25, London, 1914. Much less useful than the foregoing, and uneven in quality. Unfortunately, the editors mix together the texts of several editions of this indispensable account of the early history of an important Russian state.

The Hypatian Codex, Part Two: The Galician-Volhynian Chronicle
, annotated translation by George A. Perfecky. Fink, München, 1973 (Harvard Series in Ukrainian Studies, 16, III). A somewhat dense and frustrating text with fascinating anecdotes. Essential for thirteenth-century Lithuania and Poland.

The Livonian Rhymed Chronicle
, translated by Jerry C. Smith and William Urban. New and expanded 2nd edition, Lithuanian Research and Studies Center (LRSC), Chicago, 2001. An indispensable narrative for the second half of the thirteenth century: naïve, lively, informative.

The Annals of Jan Długosz
, English abridgement by Maurice Michael. IM Publications, Chichester, 1997. Fails to catch the spirit of the prose of this knowledgeable Polish Renaissance author, but provides the basic story.

Johannes Renner’s Livonian History 1556 – 1561
, translated by Jerry C. Smith and William Urban, with Ward Jones. Edwin Mellen, Lewiston, Queenston, Lampeter, 1997. A well-informed chronicle of the last days of the Livonian Order.

The Chronicle of Balthasar Russow & Forthright Rebuttal by Elert Kruse & Errors and Mistakes of Balthasar Russow by Heinrich Tisenhausen
, translated by Jerry C. Smith, Juergen Eichhoff and William Urban. Baltic Studies Center, Madison, 1988. The best contemporary Livonian history.

These are the best. Some well-known works have been omitted because their only worth is for propaganda in disputes now long forgotten or for providing the authors’ income.

Barber, Malcolm, ed.
The Military Orders, vol.1: Fighting for the Faith and Caring for the Sick
. Variorum (Ashgate), Brookfield, 1994.

Burleigh, Michael.
Prussian Society and the German Order: An Aristocratic Corporation in Crisis c.1410 – 1460
. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1984.

Christiansen, Eric,
The Northern Crusades: The Baltic and the Catholic Frontier, 1100 – 1525
. Cambridge, 1998.

Davies, Norman.
God’s Playground: A History of Poland in two volumes
. Columbia, New York, 1982.

Evans, Geoffrey.
Tannenberg 1410:1914
. Hamish Hamilton, London, 1970.

Jasienica, Pawel (translated by Alexander Jordan).
Jagiellonian Poland
. American Institute of Polish Culture, Miami, 1978.

Knoll, Paul.
The Rise of the Polish Monarchy: Piast Poland in East Central Europe, 1320 – 1370
. University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, 1972.

Murray, Alan V., ed.
Crusade and Conversion on the Baltic Frontier 1150 – 1500
. Ashgate, Aldershot, 2001.

Nicholson, Helen, ed.
The Military Orders, vol.2: Welfare and Warfare
. Ashgate, Aldershot, Brookfield, Singapore and Sidney, 1998.

—
Templars, Hospitallers and Teutonic Knights: Images of the Military Orders, 1128 – 1291
. Leicester University Press and St Martin’s, Leicester, London and New York, 1993.

Nicolle, David.
Lake Peipus 1242: The Battle on the Ice
. Osprey, London, 1996.

Rowell, Stephen C.
Lithuania Ascending: A Pagan Empire within East-Central Europe, 1294 – 1345
. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1994.

Turnbull, Stephen.
Crusader Castles of the Teutonic Knights, vol.1: The Red Brick Castles of Prussia
; and
vol.2: The Stone Castles of Livonia
. Reed, London, forthcoming 2003/2004.

—
Tannenberg 1410
. Reed, London, forthcoming 2003/2004.

Urban, William.
The Baltic Crusade
. 2nd edition, LRSC, Chicago, 1994.

—
The Prussian Crusade
. 2nd edition, LRSC, Chicago, 2000.

—
The Samogitian Crusade
. LRSC, Chicago, 1989.

—
Tannenberg and After: Poland, Lithuania and the Teutonic Order in Search of Immortality
. Revised edition, LRSC, Chicago, 2002.

Arnold, Udo, ed.
800 Jahre Deutscher Orden
. Bertelsman, Gütersloh/Munich, 1990. (Catalogue of the exhibition in the German National Museum in Nürnberg in co-operation with the Internationale Historische Kommission zur Erforschung des Deutschen Ordens.)

Benninghoven, Friedrich, ed.
Unter Kreuz und Adler: der Deutsche Orden im Mittelalter
. Hase & Koehler, Mainz, 1990. (Catalogue of the exhibition of the Geheimes Staatsarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin.)

Kulnyt, Birut, ed.
Lietuvos Istorijos Paminklai
(Monuments of Lithuanian History). Mintis, Vilnius, 1990.

Roesdahl, Else, and Wilson, David, eds.
From Viking to Crusader: Scandinavia and Europe 800 – 1200
. Rizzoli, New York, 1992.

Nineteenth-century German and Polish scholars produced several very important critical editions and collected works. The most important are listed below. See commentary on
http://www.rrz.uni-hamburg.de/Landesforschung/Quellen.htm
.

Scriptores Rerum Livonicarum. Sammlung der Wichtigsten Chroniken und Geschichtsdenkmale von Liv-, Ehst-, und Kurland
, edited by A. Hansen. 2 vols. E. Frantzen, Riga and Leipzig, 1853. Carefully edited chronicles which are available elsewhere in more modern editions.

Scriptores Rerum Prussicarum
, edited by Theodore Hirsch and others. 6 vols. S. Hirzel, Leipzig, 1861 – 74; Frankfurt, 1965. Contains the chronicles of the Teutonic Order.

Heinrici Chronicon Livoniae
, edited by Leonid Arbusow and Albert Bauer. 2nd edition, Hahnsche, Hannover, 1955. The standard scholarly edition.

Livländische Reimchronik
, edited by Leo Mayer. Georg Olms, Hildesheim, 1963 (reprint of 1876 edition). The principal account of the period 1227 – 90.

Preussische Urkundenbuch
. Hartung, Königsberg, 1882 – ; Elwert, Marburg/ Lahn, 1955 – . Also:
http://www.phil.uni-erlangen.de/~plges/quellen/pub/4frame.html
. The collected documents of the Teutonic Order.

Liv-, Est-. und Kurländische Urkundenbuch
, edited by Friedrich Georg von Bunge. 12 vols. H. Laakman, Reval, 1853 – 9; Riga and Moscow, 1867 – 1910. The collected documents of the Livonian Order.

Das Zeugenverhör des Franciscus de Moliano (1312)
, edited by August Seraphim. Thomas Oppermann, Königsberg, 1912. A transcript of the inquiry by the papal legate into the feud between Riga and the Teutonic Knights. Often incautiously mined for snappy quotes.

Lites ac Res gestae inter Polonos Ordineque Cruciferorum
. 3 vols. Kónicke, Poznań, 1892. The papal legates’ hearings into the Teutonic Knights’ misdeeds in Poland. Also often used naively.

Monumenta Poloniae Historica
. 6 vols. Gravenhagen, 1893; Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, Warsaw, 1961. Contains the minor chronicles.

Johannis Długossi, Historiae Polonicae in Opera Omnia
, edited by Alexander Przezdziecki. CZAS, Cracow, 1876 – 8. The most important source for mediaeval Polish history.

Books on the crusading order in German and Polish are numerous, and the number of articles is almost beyond counting. The most important are:

Arnold, Udo, ed.
Die Hochmeister des Deutschen Ordens 1190 – 1994
. Elwert, Marburg, 1998. (
Quellen und Studien zur Geschichte des Deutschen Ordens
, 6.)

Benninghoven, Friedrich.
Der Orden der Schwertbrüder
. Böhlau, Köln-Graz, 1965.

Biskup, Marian, and Labuda, Gerard.
Dzieje Zakonu Krzyżackiego w Prusach: Gospodarka – Społeczeństwo – Panstwo – Idelogia
. Morskie, Gdańsk, 1986.

Boockmann, Harmut.
Der Deutsche Orden: Zwölf Kapitel aus seiner Geschichte
. Beck, München, 1981. The most easily read overview.

Ekdahl, Sven.
Die Schlacht bei Tannenberg 1410, Quellenkritische Untersuchungen, vol.1: Einführung und Quellenunterlage
. Duncker und Humblot, Berlin, 1982. Highly recommended.

Górski, Karol.
L’Ordine Teutonico, alle Origini dello Stato Prussiano
. Einaudi, Turin, 1971.

Jučas, Mečislovas.
Žalgiro mūšis
. 2nd edition, Baltos Lankos, Vilnius, 1999.

Kuczyński, Stefan.
Spór o Grunwald
. MON, Warsaw, 1972.

Labuda, Gerard, ed.
Historia Pomorza, vol.1
(in two parts):
do roku 1466
. Wydawnictwo Poznańskie, Poznań, 1972.

Lowmiański, Henryk.
Studia nad Dziejami Wielkiego Ksi stwa Litewskiego
. UaM, Poznań, 1983.

Murawski, Klaus Eberhard.
Zwischen Tannenberg und Thorn: Die Geschichte des Deutschen Ordens unter dem Hochmeister Konrad von Erlichshausen 1441 – 1449
. Wissenschaftlicher Verlag, Göttingen, 1953. (
Göttinger Bausteine zur Geschichtswissenschaft
, 10 – 11.)

Schumacher, Bruno.
Geschichte Ost- und Westpreussens
. 6th edition, Holner, Würzburg, 1977.

Tumler, P. Martin.
Der Deutsche Orden: Werden, Wachsen und Wirkung bis 1400
. Panorama, Wien, 1955.