unlikely that the Teutonic Knights will be judged by the most consistent of their statements and actions, for they, like most human organisations, exhibited over time a wide range of behaviours; if one always assumes the worst of them and the best from their foes, one can see them as evil, indeed; and that is the way that many historians, particularly those who judge the past as essentially part of the twentieth century, have written about these German warriors.
The crusading position began to come apart in 1259, when the Samogitians chose to fight for their pagan faith and traditional customs (which included raiding Christian settlements). They inflicted annihilating defeats upon Prussian and Livonian armies, forced Mindaugas to recant his conversion, and persuaded native peoples to the north and west to rise in revolt against their German masters. Soon Lithuanian armies were penetrating into Livonia, Prussia, Volhynia and Poland. Pagan victories seemed to confirm the rightness of the pagan religion. Holy War was now truly a contest of faiths, not merely a struggle between rulers as to who would rule.
This time the Teutonic Knights were more or less on their own. Neither German nor Polish crusaders came in great numbers, much less Bohemian monarchs and prelates. Moreover, the Holy Land became once again the centre of crusading energies, and the Teutonic Knights, like other military-religious orders, gave that region priority. The war in Prussia became a contest of border raids, sieges and surprises, and patrolling the wilderness to prevent the eastern Prussians and Lithuanians from coming through the depopulated Galindian forests and swamps to attack isolated settlements. Poles and Germans worked together to close the gap and eventually they were joined by Volhynians in carrying the war to the common enemy.
Pagan and Orthodox Enemies
The fifteen years of this Second Prussian Insurrection (1260 – 75) had been difficult ones, as Peter von Dusburg reminded his readers:
There was hardly a time in which there was enough bread to eat, and one, two, or more times they had to ride to battle and drive the enemy away. And so, they acted as did those Jews who wanted to rebuild the holy city of Jerusalem when threatened by enemies, in that half of them worked and the others stayed on guard from dawn till dusk. With one hand they worked, and in the other they held a sword.
The worst years of the insurrection were over by 1273, the year that the bishop of Olmütz (Olomouc), a Czech prelate with excellent access to information about Poland, Galicia and Hungary, wrote a memorial for Pope Gregory X reminding him that the entire eastern part of Europe was still threatened by pagans, heretics and ‘schismatics’ (members of the Orthodox church):
There are four realms in this region – Hungary, Rus’, Lithuania, and Prussia. There are imminent dangers to the Christians in the kingdom of Hungary. First, because the Cumans are there, where they are not only aliens, but attack the kingdom and, among other customs, kill the very young and very old and take the youths and maidens captive and teach them their evil rites, and such is their power that they multiply, and, therefore, Hungary is certainly in danger from them, and the neighbouring lands, too. And in that kingdom there are heretics and schismatics who have fled from other lands. The very Queen of Hungary is a Cuman, whose parents were and are pagans. Two daughters of the Hungarian king have been married to schismatic Rus’ians . . . The Rus’ians are schismatics and servants of the Mongols. The Lithuanians and Prussians are pagans who devastate many bishoprics in Poland. These are the closest to us.
There were great dangers still, and not far away. The surrender of the Nattangians, Warmians and Bartians made the Teutonic Knights responsible for protecting these new ‘converts’; this could be done only by striking deeper into the interior of the country against the
The crusading position began to come apart in 1259, when the Samogitians chose to fight for their pagan faith and traditional customs (which included raiding Christian settlements). They inflicted annihilating defeats upon Prussian and Livonian armies, forced Mindaugas to recant his conversion, and persuaded native peoples to the north and west to rise in revolt against their German masters. Soon Lithuanian armies were penetrating into Livonia, Prussia, Volhynia and Poland. Pagan victories seemed to confirm the rightness of the pagan religion. Holy War was now truly a contest of faiths, not merely a struggle between rulers as to who would rule.
This time the Teutonic Knights were more or less on their own. Neither German nor Polish crusaders came in great numbers, much less Bohemian monarchs and prelates. Moreover, the Holy Land became once again the centre of crusading energies, and the Teutonic Knights, like other military-religious orders, gave that region priority. The war in Prussia became a contest of border raids, sieges and surprises, and patrolling the wilderness to prevent the eastern Prussians and Lithuanians from coming through the depopulated Galindian forests and swamps to attack isolated settlements. Poles and Germans worked together to close the gap and eventually they were joined by Volhynians in carrying the war to the common enemy.
Pagan and Orthodox Enemies
The fifteen years of this Second Prussian Insurrection (1260 – 75) had been difficult ones, as Peter von Dusburg reminded his readers:
There was hardly a time in which there was enough bread to eat, and one, two, or more times they had to ride to battle and drive the enemy away. And so, they acted as did those Jews who wanted to rebuild the holy city of Jerusalem when threatened by enemies, in that half of them worked and the others stayed on guard from dawn till dusk. With one hand they worked, and in the other they held a sword.
The worst years of the insurrection were over by 1273, the year that the bishop of Olmütz (Olomouc), a Czech prelate with excellent access to information about Poland, Galicia and Hungary, wrote a memorial for Pope Gregory X reminding him that the entire eastern part of Europe was still threatened by pagans, heretics and ‘schismatics’ (members of the Orthodox church):
There are four realms in this region – Hungary, Rus’, Lithuania, and Prussia. There are imminent dangers to the Christians in the kingdom of Hungary. First, because the Cumans are there, where they are not only aliens, but attack the kingdom and, among other customs, kill the very young and very old and take the youths and maidens captive and teach them their evil rites, and such is their power that they multiply, and, therefore, Hungary is certainly in danger from them, and the neighbouring lands, too. And in that kingdom there are heretics and schismatics who have fled from other lands. The very Queen of Hungary is a Cuman, whose parents were and are pagans. Two daughters of the Hungarian king have been married to schismatic Rus’ians . . . The Rus’ians are schismatics and servants of the Mongols. The Lithuanians and Prussians are pagans who devastate many bishoprics in Poland. These are the closest to us.
There were great dangers still, and not far away. The surrender of the Nattangians, Warmians and Bartians made the Teutonic Knights responsible for protecting these new ‘converts’; this could be done only by striking deeper into the interior of the country against the
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