Prussia under the Teutonic Order

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In 1220 Prussians invaded territories of Conrad of Masovia, in reaction Conrad called on the pope and the emperor for a Crusade. The results were edicts calling for Crusades against the "marauding, heathen" Prussians. Many of Europe's knights joined in these Crusades, which lasted sixty years. In 1243, the Papal legate William of Modena divided Prussia into four bishoprics, Culmland, Pomesania, Warmia (Ermland), and Sambia (Samland) under the archbishopric of Riga.

In 1237 the Teutonic Knights absorbed the Order of the Sword Knights (established 1202 in Livonia, increasing the occupied regions by the territories of today's Latvia and Estonia. Since the Monastic Prussia and Livonia did not have a common border, it was the aim of the Teutonic Knights' politics in XIV century to incorporate the Lithuanian province of Samogitia, in order to join the lands ruled by the Order.

The pope installed the Teutonic Knights, a crusading order that reported directly to the Papacy, as rulers of the area. Under their governance, woodlands were cleared and marshlands made arable. Many cities and villages were founded upon those lands, including Marienburg (now the Polish Malbork), the seat of the Knights' grand master. Many of these cities joined the Hanseatic League of northern European trading cities.

At the beginning of the 14th century, the neighboring region of Pomerania was plunged into war involving Poland and Brandenburg to the west. Brandenburg's claim to the Gdansk Pomerania was based on a treaty of August 8, 1305 between Brandenburg's rulers and Wenceslaus III, promising the Meissen territory to the Bohemian crown in exchange for Gdansk Pomerania (the contract was not made).

During the course of the war, Gdansk was seized (November 1308) by the Teutonic Knights, called in by Wladislaw Lokietek of Poland. All the inhabitants of the city, both Polish and German, were brutally slaughtered. The Teutonic Order continued its invasion of the Polish lands, incorporating them into its domains. In September 1309, Margrave Waldemar of Brandenburg sold his ficticious claim to the territory to the Teutonic Order for 10,000 marks. At this time the city became known under its German name of Danzig. This was also the start of a series of conflicts between Poland and the Teutonic Order. The massacre is disputed by some historians, but nevertheless after the supposed event there was some stagnation and even reversal in development of Danzig, which could confirm it.

Possession of Danzig by the Teutonic Order was questioned all the time by the Polish kings Ladislaus the Short and Casimir the Great what led to a series of bloody wars and legal-suits in the papal court in 1320 and 1333. Finally in 1343 peace was concluded when the Teutonic Knights accepted that they control Gdansk Pomerania as an alm or gift of Polish kings, and they also acknolegded the fuedal overlordship of Poland. Polish rights to Pomerania were no longer questioned and the Polish kings retained the title Duke of Pomerania.

In 1410, with the death of the emperor Rupert, war broke out between the Teutonic Knights and a Polish-Lithuanian alliance supported by Ruthenian and tiny Tatar auxiliary forces, in which Poland and Lithuania were the winners following their victory at Battle of Grunwald. The Order assigned Henry XIII, duke of Reuss-Plauen, to defend Pomerania. He moved rapidly to bolster the defence of Marienburg, was elected vice-grand master and saved the Marienburg headquarters. He then became grand master and in 1411 concluded the First Treaty of Thorn with king Ladislaus II of Poland.

In March 1440, the Hanseatic cities of Danzig, Elbing and Thorn and gentry (mainly from Culmland founded the Prussian Confederation with other Prussian cities to free themselves from the overlordship of the Teutonic Knights. They asked king Casimir IV of Poland to supported their revolt and incorporate Prussia into Poland (February 1454), and when he agreed the War of the Cities or Thirteen Years' War started. The resulting Second Treaty of Thorn (October 1466 provided for the Teutonic Order's cession to the Polish crown of its rights over the western half of its territories, which became the province of Polish or Royal Prussia. The eastern half of Prussia remained under the rule of the Order and its successors, until 1660 under Polish overlordship.

During the Reformation endemic religious upheavals and wars occurred, and in 1525, the last Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights, Albert of Brandenburg, a member of a cadet branch of the house of Hohenzollern, resigned his position, adopted the Lutheran faith and assumed the title of "Duke of Prussia." In a deal partially brokered by Martin Luther Ducal Prussia became the first Protestant state. In 1618 the dukedom of Prussia passed to the senior Hohenzollern branch, the ruling Margraves of Brandenburg.