In addition to the Hospitalers and the Templars, both formed in PALESTINE during the CRUSADES, there were also the LIVONIAN ORDERS, the TEUTONIC KNIGHTS, and various orders devoted to fighting the MOSLEMS in Spain and Portugal had more strictly national interests and memberships. The Knights Of Malta, also an international body, was a later continuation of the Hospitalers.

More detail:

TEUTONIC KNIGHTS (too-tahn'-ik) or Teutonic Order, German religious-military order founded ab. 1190 at Jerusalem during the third CRUSADE. Patterned after the Templars and the Hospitalers, the new Order played only a small role in the affairs of the Frankish-Christian states which had been carved out in Palestine-Syria.

Around 1210 the Knights became involved in European affairs, and the Order reached the height of its influence and power during the 13th and l4th cent., when it conquered Prussia, converting the inhabitants to Christianity or replacing them with German colonists. By the end of this period, the Order, which after 1225 also included the LIVONIAN ORDER, with its cap. at Marienburg (Konigsberg after 1466), ruled a large domain along the coast of the Baltic as far as Russia. Following major defeats in the intermittent war with Poland (see TANNENBERG, BATTLES OF) in the l5th cent., the Order acknowledged Polish sovereignty. There followed a period of gradual but steady decline. In 1525, the Grand Master of the Order accepted PROTESTANTISM, and the former holdings of the Order in Prussia became a duchy under Polish protection. The Order's few remaining possessions in Germany proper were secularized in 1805. Biblio.: Krollmann, C., The Teutonic Order in Prussia (1938).


LIVONIAN ORDER (li-voh'-nee-un), Livonian Knights or Knights of the Swords, German KNGHTLY ORDER, founded in 1202 by the bishops of Riga to christianize the lands lying along the Baltic Coast, i.e., Livonia (N. Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia). In 1236, following their defeat at Siauliai by the Lithuanians, the Order became a branch of the TEUTONIC KNIGHTS, although it retained its autonomy in the Livonian Region. An attack by the Order on Novgorod led to its massive defeat by Alexander NEVSKY at Lake Peipus (1242), and in the years afterward the Order was steadily weakened by Russian and local opposition and by the Protestant Reformation. It was disbanded in 1561.