This was the era of Chivalry Orders, and GELUBDE; time for Bodies of Men uniting themselves by a Sacred Vow, "GELUBDE"--which word and thing have passed over to us in a singularly dwindled condition: "CLUB" we now call it; and the vow, if sacred, does not aim very high! Templars and Hospitallers were already famous bodies; the latter now almost a century old. Walpot's new GELUBDE was of similar intent, only German in kind,--the protection, defence and solacement of Pilgrims, with whatever that might involve.
HEAD OF TEUTSCH ORDER MOVES TO VENICE.
The Teutsch Ritters earned character in Palestine, and began to get bequests and recognition; but did not long continue there, like their two rival Orders. It was not in Palestine, whether the Orders might be aware of it or not, that their work could now lie.
Pious Pilgrims certainly there still are in great numbers;to these you shall do the sacred rites: but these, under a Saladin bound by his word, need little protection by the sword. And as for Crusading in the armed fashion, that has fallen visibly into the decline. After Barbarossa, Coeur-de-Lion and Philippe Auguste have tried it with such failure, what wise man will be in haste to try it again? Zealous Popes continue to stir up Crusades; but the Secular Powers are not in earnest as formerly; Secular Powers, when they do go, "take Constantinople," "conquer Sicily," never take or conquer anything in Palestine. The Teutsch Order helps valiantly in Palestine, or would help; but what is the use of helping? The Teutsch Order has already possessions in Europe, by pious bequest and otherwise; all its main interests lie there;in fine, after less than thirty years, Hermann von der Salza, a new sagacious TEUTSCHMEISTER or HOCHMEISTER (so they call the head of the Order), fourth in the series, a far-seeing, negotiating man, finds that Venice will be a fitter place of lodging for him than Acre: and accordingly during his long Mastership (A.D. 1210-1239), he is mostly to be found there, and not at Acre or Jerusalem.
He is very great with the busy Kaiser, Friedrich II., Barbarossa's grandson; who has the usual quarrels with the Pope, and is glad of such a negotiator, statesman as well as armed monk. The usual quarrels this great Kaiser had, all along, and some unusual.
Normans ousted from Sicily, who used to be so Papal: a Kaiser NOTgone on the Crusade, as he had vowed; Kaiser at last suspected of freethinking even:--in which matters Hermann much serves the Kaiser. Sometimes he is appointed arbiter between the Pope and Kaiser;--does not give it in the Kaiser's favor, but against him, where he thinks the Kaiser is wrong. He is reckoned the first great Hochmeister, this Hermann von der Salza, a Thuringer by birth, who is fourth in the series of Masters: perhaps the greatest to be found there at all, though many were considerable.
It is evident that no man of his time was busier in important public affairs, or with better acceptance, than Hermann.
His Order, both Pope and Emperor so favoring the Master of it, was in a vigorous state of growth all this while; Hermann well proving that he could help it better at Venice than at Acre.
But if the Crusades are ended,--as indeed it turned out, only one other worth speaking of, St. Louis's, having in earnest come to effect, or rather to miserable non-effect, and that not yet for fifty years;--if the Crusades are ended, and the Teutsch Order increases always in possessions, and finds less and less work, what probably will become of the Teutsch Order? Grow fat, become luxurious, incredulous, dissolute, insolent; and need to be burnt out of the way? That was the course of the Templars, and their sad end. They began poorest of the poor, "two Knights to one Horse,"as their Seal bore; and they at last took FIRE on very opposite accounts. "To carouse like a Templar:" that had become a proverb among men; that was the way to produce combustion, "spontaneous"or other! Whereas their fellow Hospitallers of St. John, chancing upon new work (Anti-Turk garrison-duty, so we may call it, successively in Cyprus, Rhodes, Malta, for a series of ages), and doing it well, managed to escape the like. As did the Teutsch Order in a still more conspicuous manner.
TEUTSCH ORDER ITSELF GOES TO PREUSSEN.
Ever since St. Adalbert fell massacred in Prussia, stamping himself as a Crucifix on that Heathen soil, there have been attempts at conversion going on by the Christian neighbors, Dukes of Poland and others: intermittent fits of fighting and preaching for the last two hundred years, with extremely small result.
Body of St. Adalbert was got at light weight, and the poor man canonized; there is even a Titular Bishop of Prussia;and pilgrimages wander to the Shrine of Adalbert in Poland, reminding you of Prussia in a tragic manner; but what avails it?
Missionaries, when they set foot in the country, are killed or flung out again. The Bishop of Prussia is titular merely; lives in Liefland (LIVONIA) properly Bishop of RIGA, among the Bremen trading-settlers and converted Lieflanders there, which is the only safe place,--if even that were safe without aid of armed men, such as he has there even now. He keeps his SCHWERTBRUDER(Brothers of the Sword), a small Order of Knights, recently got up by him, for express behoof of Liefland itself; and these, fighting their best, are sometimes troublesome to the Bishop, and do not much prosper upon Heathendom, or gain popularity and resources in the Christian world. No hope in the SCHWERTBRUDER for Prussia;--and in massacred Missionaries what hope? The Prussian population continues Heathen, untamable to Gospel and Law; and after two centuries of effort, little or no real progress has been made.