. Military and religious life in the Middle Ages and at the period of the Renaissance. despotic sway of theknights, laid waste the country that he had undertaken to protect. Theorder, driven out of Marienburg and Konitz, only retained possession ofEastern Prussia, and held even that under Polish rule; its grand master,whose head-quarters were now at Konigsberg, was, in fact, a prince and acouncillor of Poland. As Prussia was a fief of the Church, the grand masterof the Teutonic Order was bound by vow to preserve it to the Church and to 196 M1L1JARY ORDERS. his own order. Albert of Brandenburg,
. Military and religious life in the Middle Ages and at the period of the Renaissance. despotic sway of theknights, laid waste the country that he had undertaken to protect. Theorder, driven out of Marienburg and Konitz, only retained possession ofEastern Prussia, and held even that under Polish rule; its grand master,whose head-quarters were now at Konigsberg, was, in fact, a prince and acouncillor of Poland. As Prussia was a fief of the Church, the grand masterof the Teutonic Order was bound by vow to preserve it to the Church and to 196 M1L1JARY ORDERS. his own order. Albert of Brandenburg, its last grand master, was bound bythis oath, and by the triple vow of poverty, obedience, and chastity, which hehad taken on entering the order. To rid himself of the fetters of these oathshe joined the Lutheran Church, and divided the possessions of his order withhis uncle, the aged Sigismund, King of Poland, who for these considerationsbestowed on him the title of hereditary Duke of Prussia. This was theorigin of the royal family of Prussia. After this easy acquisition of title. Fig. 154.—Teutonic Knight.—Facsimile of a Woodcut by Jost Amman, in his work entitled Cleri totius Eomanae ecclesise .... habitus: 4to, Frankfort, 1585. and territory, Albert of Brandenburg married the daughter of the King ofDenmark. As a matter of course, the Order of the Teutonic Knights becameextinct. The Order of the Knights of the Golden Fleece was not founded till1449. It was then instituted by Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy andCount of Flanders, in order to induce the nobles of his court to join him inmaking war against the Turks, and to attach his subjects by closer ties tothe service of the state. The crusade never took place, but the order survived,and still exists as an heraldic distinction. This order, which was placed under the protection of St. Andrew, wasoriginally composed of twenty-four knights of high rank and stainless MILITARY ORDERS. 197 character; their number was increa
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