588 THE GERMAN REFORMATION. A.D. 1517 To 15380.
§ 99. The Reformation in Prussia. Duke Albrecht and Bishop Georgy Von Polenz.
I. LuTHER’s Letters to Albrecht from May 26, 1525, to May 2, 1545 (177, see list in Erl. ed. LVI. 248), to Briesmann and Georg von Polenz, in the collections of De Wette and Enders. J. Vorar: Briefwechsel der beriihmtesten Gelehrten des Zeitalters der Reformation mit Herzog Albrecht von Preussen, Konigsb. 1841.
II. HARTKNOCH: Preussische Kirchenhistorie, Konigsberg, 1686. AR- NOLDT: Preussische Kirchengeschichte, Konigsberg, 1769. Bock: Leben Albrechts des Aelteren, Konigsb. 1750. RuEsA: De priniis sacrorum reformatoribus in Prussia, Konigsberg, 1823-1830 (seven University Programs containing biographies of Briesmann, Speratus, Poliander, Georg v. Polenz, Amandus). GEBSER: Der Dom zu Konigsberg, 1835. ERDMANN: Preussen, Ordensstaat, in Herzog!, XII. 117-165 (1860; omitted in the second ed.). PAstTor (R. Cath.): Neue Quellenberichte uber den Reformator Albrecht von Brandenburg, Mainz, 1876 (in the “* Katholik,” LVI. February and March). C. A. HAsE: Herzog Albrecht von Preussen und sein Hofprediger. Hine konigsberger Tragéddie aus dem Zeitalter der Reformation, Leipzig, 1879. RINDFLEISCH: Herzog Albrecht von Hohenzollern, der letzte Hochmeister, und die Reformation in Preussen, Danzig, 1880. P. TSCHACKERT (professor in Konigsberg): Georg von Polentz, Bischof von Samland, Leipzig, 1888 (in ‘‘ Kirchengeschichtl. Studien ’’ by Brieger, Tschackert, etc., pp. 145- 194).
III. The general histories of Prussia by STENZEL, DROYSEN, ΥΟΙΘΤ (large work, 1827-39, in 9 vols.; condensed ed. 1850, in 3 vols.), CosEL, HAHN, PIERSON (4th ed. 1881, 2 vols.), RANKE (Zw6lf Bucher preussischer Gesch. 1874), FORSTER, etc. For the history of the Teutonic order, see WATTERICH: Die Griindung des deutschen Ordensstaates in Preussen, Leipzig, 1857; and Jou. VoiatT: Geschichte des deutschen Ritterordens, Berlin, 1859, 2 vols.
IV. RANKE: Vol. 11. 826 sqq. JANSSEN: III. 70-77.
Of greater prospective importance than the conversion of Hesse and even of Saxony to Protestantism, was the evangelization of Prussia, which from a semi-barbarous Duchy on the shores of the Baltic rose to the magnitude of a highly
row ’’ isa fictitious name for Wittenberg. Tyndale’s name does not appear in the University Register, but he may not have entered it. Hans Luft was the well-known printer of Luther’s Bible in Wittenberg in Saxony, but he may have had an agent in Marburg “ἴῃ the land of Hesse.”
§ 99. THE REFORMATION IN PRUSSIA. 589
civilized kingdom, stretching from the borders of Russia beyond the banks of the Rhine, and which is now, in connection with the new German Empire, the leading Protestant power on the Continent of Europe.!
Old Prussia? was a colony of the Teutonic Knights (Deutschorden), one of the three military religious orders which arose during the crusades for the defense of the Holy Land and the protection of pilgrims. They had the same military and monastic constitution as the Knights Templars, and the Knights of St. John (Johannite) ; but their members were all Germans. They greatly distinguished themselves in the later crusades, and their chivalrous blood still flows in the veins of the old Prussian nobility. They wore a white mantle with a black silver-lined cross, and as a special favor an imperial eagle on their arms, which descended from them to the royal house of Prussia. After the fall of Jerusalem they removed their headquarters to Venice, and afterwards to Marienburg and Kénigsberg (the capital, where the kings of Prussia are crowned). Emperor Frederick II. and Pope Innocent III. granted them all the lands they might conquer from the heathen on the eastern borders of Germany, and the grand-masters received the dignity of princes of the Roman Empire. They were invited by the Duke of Poland to defend the frontiers of his country against the heathen Prussians (1240). The conquest was completed in 1283. The Knights Christianized, or rather Romanized and Ger-
1“ Bei weitem die merkwiirdigste und durchgreifendste Verdnderung Ffand in Preussen statt.’’ Ranke, II. 326. Janssen can see in the Reformation of Prussia only a change for the worse. The best refutation of his view is the subsequent history and present condition of Prussia. The history of the past must be read in the light of the present. ‘‘ By their fruits ye shall know them.”’
2 Prussia proper is a division of the kingdom of Prussia, and comprises East or Ducal Prussia and West or Royal Prussia, with a total area of 24,114 square miles, and a population of about three millions and a half. East Prussia was united with Brandenburg by the Elector John Sigismund, 1618. West Prussia was severed from Poland by Frederick the Great in the firs! division of that kingdom, 1772.