The conquest and conversion of the Prussians was
accomplished by the famous order of Teutonic Knights. It had been founded in
Palestine as a military-religious order, at the time of the Third Crusade.
The decline of the crusading movement left the knights with no duties to
perform, and so they transferred their activities to the Prussian frontier,
where there was still a chance to engage in a holy war. Throughout the
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the Teutonic Order flourished, until its
grand master ruled over the entire Baltic coast from the Vistula to the gulf of
Finland. The knights later had to relinquish much of this region to the Slavs,
but they sowed there the seeds of civilization. Russia's Baltic provinces [36]
are to-day the richest and most advanced in the empire.
[36] Courland, Livonia, and Esthonia.
POLITICAL GERMANY
Germany at the close of the Middle Ages was not a united,
intensely national state, such as had been established in England, France, and
Spain. It had split into hundreds of principalities, none large, some extremely
small, and all practically independent of the feeble German kings. This
weakness of the central power condemned Germany to a minor part in the affairs
of Europe, as late as the nineteenth century. Yet Germany found some
compensation for political backwardness in the splendid city life which it
developed during the later Middle Ages. The German cities, together with those
of Italy and other European lands, now call for our attention.
