590 THE GERMAN REFORMATION. A.D. 1517 To 1530.
manized, the Prussians, after the military fashion of Charlemagne in his dealings with the Saxons, and of Otho I. in subduing the Wends. The native heathenism was conquered, but not converted, and continued under Christian forms. Prussia is said to have contained under the Knights two millions of people and more than fifty cities, which carried on an extensive trade by means of the Hanseatic League. The chief cities were Marienburg, Kénigsberg, Thorn, Danzig, and Culm. But the common people were treated as slaves.
After nearly two centuries of rule the Knights degenerated, and their power declined by internal dissensions and the hostility of Poland. In 1466 they were forced by Casimir IV. in the Peace of Thorn to cede West. Prussia with the richest cities to Poland, and to accept East Prussia as a fief of that kingdom. This was virtually the destruction of the political power of the order. The incompatibility of the military and monastic life became more and more apparent. Pope Adrian VI. urged Albrecht to restore the order to its former monastic purity and dignity. But this was impossible. The order had outlived itself.!
Luther saw this, and inaugurated a different kind of reform. He seized a favorable opportunity, and exhorted the Knights, in a public address, March 28, 1528, to forsake the false monastic chastity so often broken, and to live in true matrimonial chastity according to the ordinance of God in paradise (Gen. 2:18), which was older and wiser than popes and councils. “Your order,” he argued, “is truly a singular order: it is both secular and spiritual, and neither; it is bound to wield the sword against infidels, and yet to
1 ἐς Der deutsche Orden,” says Ranke (II. 334), ‘‘ und seine Herrschaft in Preussen war ohne Zweifel das eigenthiimlichste Product des hierarchischritterlichen Geistes der letzen Jahrhunderte in der deutschen Nation; er hatte eine grossartige Welteinwirkung ausgeiibt und ein unermessliches Ver-
dienst wm die Ausbreitung des deutschen Namens erworben; aber seine Zeit war voriiber.”’
Ξ
§ 99. THE KEFORMATION IN PRUSSIA. 591
live in celibacy, poverty, and obedience, like other monks. These things do not agree together, as is shown by reason and by daily experience. The order is therefore of no use either to God or the world.” }
In the summer of the same year he sent, at the wish of Albrecht, the pioneer of Protestant preachers, to Prussia, in the person of his friend Dr. Johannes Briesmann (1488- 1549), a theologian of learning, piety, and executive ability, who arrived in Kénigsberg, Sept. 27, 1523, and labored there as preacher in the Dome, and successor of Bishop Georg von Polenz, till his death, with the exception of four years which he spent as evangelist in Riga (1527-1531).?, He afterwards sent two other gifted evangelists, known for their evangelical hymns, namely, Paul Speratus (d. 1551), and John Poliander (Graumann, d. 1541), who made themselves very useful. A third one, Amandus, created disturbance by his radicalism, which resembled that of Carlstadt, and caused his removal from K6nigsberg.
With the help of these theologians and evangelists, Duke Albrecht and Bishop Georg von Polenz brought about a radical change in Prussia, and prepared the way for its great future destiny. The religious reformation preceded the political change.
Albrecht, Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach, last grandmaster of the Teutonic Knights, and first Duke of Prussia, was born at Ansbach, May 16, 1490; destined for the clerical profession ; received into the order of the Knights, and elected its grand-master in 1511. He made his entry into Konigsberg, Nov. 22,1512. His effort to make Prussia independent, and to refuse obedience to the king of Poland,
1 An die Herren deutsches Ordens, dass sie falsche Keuschheit meiden und zur rechten ehelichen Keuschheit greifen, Ermahnung. Wittenberg, den 28 Marz, 1523. In the Erl. ed. X XIX. 16-33. Walch, XIX. 2157 sqq.
2 He published several sermons. Extracts in Seckendorf, I. 272. Seethe article ‘‘ Briesmann”’? by Dr. Erdmann in Herzog’, II. 629-631, with literature.