THE TEUTONIC KNIGHTS

Emerging in the context of the Crusades in Palestine, the military religious order of the Teutonic Knights established itself as a key actor in a relatively little-known episode in our latitudes: the conquest and evangelisation of the last pagans of Europe.

Living in the south-east of the Baltic Sea, these peoples were confronted with missionary and military enterprises assimilated to crusades. Called upon to defend the borders of Poland against the pagans of Prussia, the brothers of the Teutonic Order carved out a genuine state in this region on the fringes of Christendom.

In its desire to capture the crusading spirit so dear to the nobility, the Teutonic Order regularly invited knights from across Europe to join its military activities. In this way, a great number of French and English lords — among them central figures of the Hundred Years' War — made their way to distant Prussia to fight the "Saracens of the North". For the rivalries pitting the Teutonic Knights against their neighbours, pagan or Christian, gave rise to military but also doctrinal confrontations, which in turn sparked debates concerning the rights of non-Christian peoples.

This book sets out to present the history of the Order of the Teutonic Knights, highlighting its role as intermediary between the world of chivalry and that of the pagans of north-eastern Europe. The relations of the men of the black cross with the Balts, but also with the lords of western Europe who came to lend them assistance, as well as their role in the controversies surrounding the use of force as a tool of conversion, allow us to grasp a little-known facet of medieval Europe: its eminently cosmopolitan character, transcending national or regional — and in some respects religious — borders.