But at the same time the seeds of new di-seii-ioii- had
been scattered. To give to the archiepiscopal dignity in
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PRUSSIA
the countries of the Baltic .a firmer support, bishop Will- iam of Sabina directed, iu the pope's name, that the seat of the archbishop should be Riga, which was in many re- spects the most important and fittest city in those parts. After the decease of the actual bishop of Riga, or if his see should become vacant in any other way, the Church of Ei"a should become archiepiscopal, and be transferred to archbishop Albert. Meanwhile nothing should be al- tered in the situation of the bishop of Riga, and the arch- bishop should exercise iu his diocese only his archiepis- copal jurisdiction. Nicolaus, bishop of Riga, died at the close of 1258, and Albert, in 1254, established himself in Livonia. He had already been empowered to exercise again the power of a legate in Prussia, Livonia, and Es- tkouia. But in Prussia, his ordinances in ecclesiastical matters, and the exercise of his power as a legate, met with some obstacles: there were the liberties and privi- leges granted to the order by the popes; there were the peculiar relations existing between the bishops and the order, for under Heidenreich's successor the chapter of Culm had adopted the rule of the Teutonic Order, and the chapters of Samland and Pomesania had in their origin been filled witli brothers of the order. The archbishop submitted these difficulties to the pope, and expressed a wish to be relieved of his duties as a legate so far as Prussia was concerned, discharging the same only in Li- vonia, Esthonia, and Russia. The pope complied with this wish, reiterating the old injunctions not to do any- thing in the lands of the order against the will of the same. Albeit assumed in 1254 the dignity of archbishop of Riga, and found himself, as such, in quite new relations with the order in Livonia. The troubles which arose out of them were again disposed of at the papal court, whither both parties had again betaken themselves, Dec. 12, 1254. In the ensuing year pope Alexander IV, by a bull, received the Church of Riga, with all its enumerated 'possessions, into the protection of the apostle Peter ; sub- ordinated to it the bishoprics of Oesel, Dorpat, Wierland, Corn-land, Culm, Ermland, Pomesania, Samland, and Rus- sia; defined with accuracy the rights and liberties of the archbishop, and delineated in all its bearings his situation in regard to the clergy of those countries and to the Teu- tonic Order. Thus the hierarchical affairs were settled. The order enjoyed in their lands the patronal rights; the bishops and chapters enjoyed them iu their own territo- ries. In the lands of the order the bishop could pretend only to what must needs be done by a bishop (" salvis ta- meu episcopo in duabus fratrum partibus illis omnibus qua? non possunt nisi per episcopnm exerceri"). Nothing now prevented the blessings of Christianity being poured over Prussia. But there were other obstacles in the way. The people had been converted under compulsion, and the true spirit of Christianity had poorly prospered iu such a soil. The knights, to promote the knowledge of the German language, and bring about a gradual fusion of the Prussian and the German element, Used to appoint German priests exclusively; the consequence was that the pastor could speak to his flock only through the min- istry of an interpreter. With the exception of Ermland, all episcopal chapters were filled by brothers of the order, and thus the grand-master's will was decisive in all epis- copal elections. This was afterwards felt, when the order had abated much of its strictly clerical spirit, to be a sore disadvantage. The order was often engaged in disputes with the bishops and the metropolitan, and by their refu- sal to heed the papal interdict which such conduct brought upon them they set a bad example. In a moral point of view also the knights were not always shining lights; and it is a sorrowful truth that a number of members of the higher and lower clergy were not their superiors in this respect. Even the most zealous of the archbishops could not change this unfortunate state of things, the met- ropolitan tie of Ermland, Samland, and Pomesania with Riga, and of Culm with Gnesen, being a very loose one. Iu"the dominions of the order few monasteries were es- tablished, and not one could acquire might and influence by its wealth: the acquisition of real estate by ecclesias- tical corporations, or even by individual priest's, was sub- ject to the agreement of the order, and this was usually withheld. The two Cistercian monasteries of Oliva and Pelplin were the only exceptions: under the protection and by the liberality of the old dukes of Pomerania they had acquired such extensive possessions that they were surpassed by no other monastery, either in Pomerania or in Prussia.
" The unhappy wars between the knights and the Poles and Lithuanians, together with the moral degeneracy of the order, led, in the 14th and 15th centuries, to the grad- ual decline of their supremacy. In 1454 the municipal and noble classes, with the co-operation of Poland, rose in open rebellion against the knights, who were finally compelled to seek peace at any rate, and obliged in 1466 to accept the terms offered to them by the treaty of Thorn, by which West Prussia and Ermland were ceded by them unconditionally to Poland, and the remainder of their territories declared to be fiefs of that kingdom. In 1511 the knights elected as their grand-master the mar- grave Albert' of Anspach and Baireuth, a kinsman of the king of Poland, and a scion of the Frankish line of the Hoheuzollern family. Although his election did not im-