None of the Orders rose so high as the Teutonic in favor with mankind. It had by degrees landed possessions far and wide over Germany and beyond: I know not how many dozens of BALLEYS (rich Bailliwicks, each again with its dozens of COMTHUREIS, Commanderies, or subordinate groups of estates), and Baillies and Commanders to match;--and was thought to deserve favor from above.
Valiant servants, these; to whom Heaven had vouchsafed great labors and unspeakable blessings. In some fifty or fifty-three years they had got Prussian Heathenism brought to the ground;and they endeavored to tie it well down there by bargain and arrangement. But it would not yet lie quiet, nor for a century to come; being still secretly Heathen; revolting, conspiring ever again, ever on weaker terms, till the Satanic element had burnt itself out, and conversion and composure could ensue.
Conversion and complete conquest once come, there was a happy time for Prussia: ploughshare instead of sword; busy sea-havens, German towns, getting built; churches everywhere rising; grass growing, and peaceable cows, where formerly had been quagmire and snakes.
And for the Order a happy time? A rich, not a happy. The Order was victorious; Livonian "Sword-Brothers," "Knights of Dobryn," minor Orders and Authorities all round, were long since subordinated to it or incorporated with it; Livonia, Courland, Lithuania, are all got tamed under its influence, or tied down and evidently tamable.
But it was in these times that the Order got into its wider troubles outward and inward; quarrels, jealousies, with Christian neighbors, Poland, Pommern, who did not love it and for cause;--wider troubles, and by no means so evidently useful to mankind. The Order's wages, in this world, flowed higher than ever, only perhaps its work was beginning to run low! But we will not anticipate.
On the whole, this Teutsch Ritterdom, for the first century and more, was a grand phenomenon; and flamed like a bright blessed beacon through the night of things, in those Northern Countries.
For above a century, we perceive, it was the rallying place of all brave men who had a career to seek on terms other than vulgar.
The noble soul, aiming beyond money, and sensible to more than hunger in this world, had a beacon burning (as we say), if the night chanced to overtake it, and the earth to grow too intricate, as is not uncommon. Better than the career of stump-oratory, I should fancy, and ITS Hesperides Apples, golden and of gilt horse-dung. Better than puddling away one's poor spiritual gift of God (LOAN, not gift), such as it may be, in building the lofty rhyme, the lofty Review-Article, for a discerning public that has sixpence to spare! Times alter greatly.--Will the reader take a glimpse of Conrad von Thuringen's biography, as a sample of the old ways of proceeding? Conrad succeeded Hermann von der Salza as Grand-Master, and his history is memorable as a Teutonic Knight.
THE STUFF TEUTSCH RITTERS WERE MADE OF. CONRAD OF THURINGEN:
SAINT ELIZABETH; TOWN OF MARBURG.
Conrad, younger brother of the Landgraf of Thuringen,--which Prince lived chiefly in the Wartburg, romantic old Hill-Castle, now a Weimar-Eisenach property and show-place, then an abode of very earnest people,--was probably a child-in-arms, in that same Wartburg, while Richard Coeur-de-Lion was getting home from Palestine and into troubles by the road: this will date Conrad for us. His worthy elder brother was Husband of the lady since called SAINT Elizabeth, a very pious but also very fanciful young woman;--and I always guess his going on the Crusade, where he died straightway, was partly the fruit of the life she led him; lodging beggars, sometimes in his very bed, continually breaking his night's rest for prayer, and devotional exercise of undue length;"weeping one moment, then smiling in joy the next;" meandering about, capricious, melodious, weak, at the will of devout whim mainly! However, that does not concern us. [Many LIVES of the Saint. See, in particular, <italic> Libellus de Dictis Quatuor Ancillarum, <end italic> &c.--(that is, Report of the evidence got from Elizabeth's Four Maids, by an Official Person, Devil's-Advocate or whatever he was, missioned by the Pope to question them, when her Canonization came to be talked of. A curious piece):--in Meuckenii <italic> Scriptores Rexum Germanicarum <end italic> (Lipsia, 1728-1730), ii. dd.; where also are other details.] Sure enough her poor Landgraf went crusading, Year 1227(Kaiser Friedrich II.'s Crusade, who could not put it off longer);poor Landgraf fell ill by the road, at Brindisi, and died,--not to be driven farther by any cause.
Conrad, left guardian to his deceased Brother's children, had at first much quarrel with Saint Elizabeth, though he afterwards took far other thoughts. Meanwhile he had his own apanage, "Landgraf"by rank he too; and had troubles enough with that of itself.
For instance: once the Archbishop of an Mainz, being in debt, laid a heavy tax on all Abbeys under him; on Reichartsbronn, an Abbey of Conrad's, among others. "Don't pay it!" said Conrad to the Abbot. Abbot refused accordingly; but was put under ban by the Pope;--obliged to comply, and even to be "whipt thrice" before the money could be accepted. Two whippings at Erfurt, from the Archbishop, there had been; and a third was just going on there, one morning, when Conrad, travelling that way, accidentally stept in to matins. Conrad flames into a blazing whirlwind at the phenomenon disclosed. "Whip my Abbot? And he IS to pay, then,--Archbishop of Beelzebub?"--and took the poor Archbishop by the rochets, and spun him hither and thither; nay was for cutting him in two, had hot friends hysterically busied themselves, and got the sword detained in its scabbard and the Archbishop away.
Here is a fine coil like to be, for Conrad.