Hermann von Salza and the Rise of the Order
Hermann von Salza is the single most important figure in the early history of the Teutonic Order. During the three decades of his grand mastership, from 1209 to his death in 1239, the Order was transformed from a small hospital brotherhood of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem into a sovereign corporation of European consequence, with territorial possessions in the Levant, the German lands, and the Baltic. It is sometimes said that Hermann von Salza did for the Teutonic Order what Bernard of Clairvaux had done for the Templars a century earlier.
Origins and Early Career
Hermann von Salza was a Thuringian ministerialis — a noble of service, not of inherited blood, the typical product of the German ministerial class that staffed the chancelleries and households of the high medieval Empire. The date of his birth is unknown, but he was probably in his late thirties at the time of his election in 1209. The family was of modest standing; the Salza were well-connected with the Hohenstaufen and the landgraves of Thuringia.
Hermann had taken the cross at an early age, had visited the Holy Land, and was already, at the time of his election, an experienced man in the prime of life. He had the diplomatic and administrative skills that the Order most needed; he had the personal connections with the imperial court that the Order would need in the following years; and he had the strategic vision that would allow the Order to make the most of the opportunities of the early thirteenth century.
Hermann was elected grand master in 1209, on the death of Heinrich Bart. The election took place at Acre, and Hermann was, in the political sense, a candidate of the imperial faction within the Order. The choice of grand master would determine, in significant part, the direction of the Order’s expansion over the following decades.
The Imperial Patronage
Hermann’s most important political asset, throughout his grand mastership, was his close relationship with the imperial house of Hohenstaufen. The protection was formalised in 1220, by a charter of Frederick II, by which the Order was placed under the direct protection of the Empire (imperialis immedietas). The charter exempted the Order from the jurisdiction of the German bishops, gave the Order the right to maintain its own courts, and recognised the Order’s right to acquire and hold territory in the Empire.
The price of the imperial patronage was, of course, service. Hermann was, throughout his grand mastership, in constant communication with the imperial court; he was, in the 1220s and 1230s, the principal diplomatic intermediary between the Empire and the papacy; he was, in 1227–1229, one of the principal architects of the imperial crusade that culminated in the Treaty of Jaffa.
The Papal Recognition
Hermann’s second great political achievement was the consolidation of the Order’s relationship with the papacy. The most important of the papal concessions was the formal recognition of the Order’s right to hold conquered territory in perpetual tenure. The papal resolution of the legal difficulty was, in effect, to recognise the Order as a feudal corporation pro hac vice, and to allow the Order to hold its conquered territory as a papal fief.
The papal privilege was, of the first importance. The Order’s later claim to the sovereignty of the Prussian state rested, in significant part, on the papal privilege, and the Order’s later conflicts with the papacy over the disposition of the Prussian territories were conducted, in significant part, within the legal framework established by Hermann’s diplomacy.
The Order in the Latin East
Hermann’s grand mastership was, in the Latin East, a period of consolidation and gradual loss. The Order’s Levantine possessions were, in 1209, modest; by 1239, they included a chain of castles in the Galilee, a number of properties in the coastal cities, and a substantial establishment in Acre itself. The most important acquisition was the castle of Montfort, in the Galilean hills, which the Order received in 1220 and which became, for the next half-century, the principal seat of the Order in the Holy Land.
Hermann was realistic about the prospects of the Latin Kingdom. He had concluded, by the late 1220s, that the Kingdom was no longer defensible. The relocation of the Order’s principal seat was not, however, completed under Hermann’s mastership. The transfer of the Grand Master’s seat from Acre to Venice (Italy) was begun under Hermann’s successors and was only fully consolidated under Konrad von Feuchtwangen in 1290–91, after the fall of Acre. Hermann himself died in 1239 in Italy, in the course of yet another diplomatic mission.
The Order in the Baltic
Hermann’s most consequential decision, was the Order’s engagement in the Baltic. Duke Conrad of Masovia, a Piast prince of the Polish duchies on the middle Vistula, had appealed to the Order in 1226 for assistance against the pagan Prussian tribes. The Golden Bull of Rimini, issued by Frederick II in March 1226, transferred to the Order the ius conquerendi — the right to conquer, to Christianise, and to hold in perpetual tenure — over the Prussian lands.
Hermann himself never visited Prussia. His contribution to the Order’s Baltic enterprise was, accordingly, primarily diplomatic and constitutional: he negotiated the Golden Bull, he established the constitutional framework within which the Baltic enterprise would be conducted, and he recruited the knight-brothers and the landmeisters who would carry out the actual conquest.
The Death of Hermann and the Long Significance
Hermann died on 19 March 1239, in Salerno, in the course of yet another diplomatic mission. His successors in the grand mastership were, on the whole, able administrators who continued the work of consolidation. The Order that Hermann bequeathed to his successors was, the Order that was to build the Prussian state, to fight the battle of Grunwald, and to preside, for two centuries, over the politics of the Baltic. The comparison with Bernard of Clairvaux, is apt: Hermann was, like Bernard, a man of considerable personal piety who was also a man of considerable political sophistication, and the institution that he built has lasted, in one form or another, for eight centuries.
Sources
- Boockmann, Hartmut. Der Deutsche Orden: Zwölf Kapitel aus seiner Geschichte. Munich: Beck, 1981.
- Schmieder, Felicitas, and Wolfgang Woellert, eds. Die Chronik des Bischofs Peter von Dusburg. Hannover: Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 2006.
- Strehlke, Ernst, ed. Tabulae ordinis Theutonici. Berlin: Weidmann, 1869.
Related Reading
For the early context of Hermann’s grand mastership, see the article on the founding and origins of the Teutonic Order and the article on the 1190 founding and the Acre treaty. For the longer consequences of Hermann’s work, see the History of the Teutonic Knights and the articles on the Northern Crusades and the Teutonic state in Prussia. The Order’s constitutional structure is examined under the Order’s hierarchy.