Teutonic Prussia: The Order’s Conquest and State, 1230 to 1525

From 1230 to 1525, the Teutonic Order built a territorial state in Prussia, on the southeastern Baltic coast around the lower Vistula and the lands to its east. Its expansion brought the Order into a region inhabited by Baltic-speaking Prussian communities, whose local identities and leaders were not part of a single unified state. The Order’s rule took shape through warfare and forced conversion, but also through castles, church institutions, settlement, town privileges and systems of taxation. Its territory changed over time: after the Second Peace of Thorn in 1466, Royal Prussia came under the Polish Crown, while the Order’s eastern Prussian lands remained a Polish fief until their secularisation in 1525 as the Duchy of Prussia.

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Conquest and the limits of conversion

Before the Order’s arrival, Polish rulers and churchmen had made earlier, largely unsuccessful attempts to extend Christian rule into Prussia. The Masovian duke Konrad invited the Teutonic Knights to help secure his borders and subdue the Prussians. He granted them a base in Chełmno Land, east of the lower Vistula between that river, the Drwęca and the Osa. The parties did not necessarily understand the grant in the same way: Konrad expected military assistance, while the Order sought independent authority over the lands it conquered. The precise terms of the agreement associated with Kruszwica remain disputed because the document is lost. In 1234, Pope Gregory IX’s bull of Rieti recognised the Order’s claims to conquered territory under papal authority. The Order also relied on an imperial charter known as the Golden Bull of Rimini, traditionally dated to 1226, although its dating and circumstances have been questioned.

Beginning in 1230, the Knights and their allies advanced from the Vistula, establishing fortified positions that could support further campaigns. Polish and Pomeranian rulers provided troops and bases, while crusaders from other parts of Europe joined for limited periods. Many of these seasonal forces went home after a campaign. The Order’s members remained to garrison forts and hold territory. Early strongholds were often timber constructions; from the later thirteenth century, the Order increasingly built in brick, which was useful where building stone was scarce. Castles provided defence, but also housed officials and supported the administration of the surrounding district.

Conquest proceeded through campaigns, agreements and repeated uprisings. The Order faced resistance from Prussian communities in different regions, as well as alliances that shifted over time. The First Prussian Uprising began in 1242. The Treaty of Christburg, concluded in 1249, promised civil rights and a measure of autonomy to Prussians who converted to Christianity. These terms did not end conflict. After crusader defeats in Livonia, the Great Prussian Uprising began in 1260 and continued until 1274. The fighting brought further deaths, destruction and displacement. Many Prussians fled to neighbouring Lithuania or were forcibly resettled; some leaders who remained became vassals of the Order.

Conversion accompanied military subjugation, but did not immediately erase local traditions or languages. The Order’s authority extended through a long process of Christianisation and cultural change, while the rights promised to converts were applied unevenly, especially after renewed rebellions. A Prussian-language version of Luther’s catechism was produced in 1545, more than two decades after the Order lost power in Prussia. It is one indication that the language survived the political end of the monastic state.

Building a territorial government

The Order’s government adapted the hierarchy of a religious community to the demands of ruling land. The Grand Master, elected as head of the Order, became the central territorial ruler in Prussia. From 1309, the Grand Master’s main residence was Marienburg, now Malbork in northern Poland, which served as a centre of government as well as a major fortress. The Order divided its territory into commanderies, districts administered by a commander, or Komtur. Larger commanderies could be divided into smaller administrative areas called bailiwicks. Officials collected dues, administered justice and organised the resources needed to maintain the Order’s houses and forces.

Church organisation was another part of territorial government. In 1243, Prussia was divided into four dioceses: Chełmno, Pomesania, Warmia and Sambia. Bishops and their chapters, the bodies of clergy who advised them and administered church affairs, held authority alongside the Order. Their influence varied. The Order gained substantial influence over several diocesan chapters, while Warmia retained a greater degree of independence. This arrangement meant that the Prussian lands were not governed by one institution alone, even though the Order was the dominant territorial power.

The legal basis of the Order’s authority was reinforced by its control of forts, land and administrative offices, through local offices and negotiated privileges. The Order depended on local officials, settlers, town governments and landed people to make its authority work. Its own members formed a relatively small ruling group, and the effectiveness of its government rested on a network of local relationships as well as on armed force.

Settlement, land and towns

After conquest, the Order encouraged new settlement and reorganised land for agriculture. German-speaking settlers came from parts of the Holy Roman Empire, while Polish settlers also lived in the region, particularly in and around Chełmno Land. Forest clearance and drainage made some land suitable for cultivation. The lower Vistula delta became an important area of farmland. Estates attached to the Order’s castles supplied food and other resources, helping support garrisons and administration.

Village foundations were arranged through negotiated agreements. A locator, an organiser who acted as the Order’s intermediary, helped recruit settlers and agree the size of a settlement, its obligations and rights such as permission to operate a mill or tavern. Settlers could hold their plots hereditarily, but owed dues to the Order. These might be payments in money or produce, or military service when required. The conditions for indigenous Prussians could be less favourable, particularly after the uprisings. Their status improved during the fourteenth century, but the experience of settlement and rule varied between communities and periods.

The Order also founded and supported towns, many with planned street layouts and fortifications. Town privileges commonly followed Kulm law, a regional form of municipal law related to Magdeburg law. It provided for town courts and a degree of local self-government. Such privileges gave townspeople defined rights, but did not make their towns independent of the Order’s territorial authority. Elbing, founded with support from settlers from Lübeck, followed Lübeck law instead.

Urban centres connected the region to trade across the Baltic. Major towns including Danzig, Elbing, Thorn, Königsberg and Braunsberg took part in the Hanseatic trading network. Grain and timber were important exports, while the amber trade was a notable source of revenue for the Order, which controlled its sale. Trade and agricultural income helped maintain the territorial system. However, the Order and the towns did not always share the same interests: town privileges and commercial activity gave urban communities resources and political influence, while the Order sought to control taxation and uphold its own authority.

Estates, taxation and political opposition

In Prussia, landed nobles and representatives of towns pressed for a greater say in decisions that affected them. The term “estates” refers to such groups represented in political assemblies, not to a parliament elected by the population as a whole. By 1422, towns and nobles had secured the regular convening of an assembly, known as a Landtag. These meetings gave influential groups a forum to discuss matters such as taxation and trade, but did not replace the Grand Master’s rule.

The political balance grew more difficult for the Order after its defeat at the Battle of Grunwald in 1410. The First Peace of Thorn in 1411 left the Order in possession of most of its Prussian territory, but required substantial payments. Raising revenue placed pressure on towns and landholders, who objected to being taxed without adequate influence over policy. In 1440, nobles and towns formed the Prussian Confederation to oppose the Order’s authority. In 1454, the Confederation sought support from the Polish king, and the resulting Thirteen Years’ War further weakened the Order’s finances and control.

Royal Prussia and the Order’s eastern lands

The Second Peace of Thorn in 1466 divided the Order’s former Prussian territory. The Order ceded its western lands, including Pomerelia, Chełmno Land and Warmia, to the Polish Crown. These territories became Royal Prussia, an autonomous province within the Kingdom of Poland. They were not part of the later Duchy of Prussia. The lands that remained under the Order, farther east, were known as Teutonic or Monastic Prussia. They became a fief of the Polish Crown, meaning that the Order held them under the Polish king’s overlordship rather than as an independent sovereign territory. The Grand Master was required to swear allegiance to the king. After Marienburg passed to the Polish Crown in 1457, Königsberg became its main centre in Prussia.

Secularisation and the Prussian Homage

The Order’s rule in eastern Prussia ended amid the Protestant Reformation and the aftermath of another war with Poland, fought from 1519 to 1521. Albert of Brandenburg-Ansbach, a member of the Hohenzollern family and Grand Master in the early 1510s, adopted Lutheranism in the early 1520s. He sought a settlement that would replace the Order’s religious government with hereditary secular rule. King Sigismund I of Poland, Albert’s uncle, accepted a solution that kept the territory under the Polish Crown as a fief.

The Treaty of Kraków, signed on 8 April 1525, provided for the change. On 10 April, in Kraków, Albert resigned as Grand Master and received the title Duke of Prussia from Sigismund. The public ceremony, known as the Prussian Homage, formally expressed Albert’s allegiance to the Polish king. The resulting Duchy of Prussia was a secular and Lutheran state under Polish overlordship. In December 1525, the Prussian estates established a Lutheran church order in the duchy.

The Duchy of Prussia occupied the Order’s former eastern Prussian lands; Royal Prussia remained a separate province under the Polish Crown. Secularisation ended the Teutonic Order’s rule in Prussia, not the Order itself. Its Livonian branch continued separately until 1561.