Page:The Book of Orders of Knighthood and Decorations of Honour of All Nations.djvu/59

Rh these Corporations or Colleges, and gave it, under sanction of Pope Coelestin III. the name of: 'the Order of the German House of the Holy Virgin at Jerusalem,' choosing for the insignia, a black cross with white mountings, worn upon a white cloak.

By the provisions of the original statutes, only native Germans of blameless character and nobility were admissible. The members were, moreover, to be unmarried and to remain single the whole of their lives; they were also to give up to the Order all their private property, and to devote themselves exclusively to the service of God, the sick and the poor, and to the defence of the Holy Land. Their food was originally bread and water, and their couch only a sack of straw, all of which, together with their garment, were regularly distributed amongst them by the Grand Master.

After a long series of eventful vicissitudes, the Order attained its culminating point, and assumed at the same time quite a different character under the Grand Master Herman of Salza, who well knew how to turn to account the disputes between Pope Honorius [I]. and the Emperor Frederick II., as also the warlike events in the provinces which now form a part of Eastern Prussia.

The Duke Conrad of Masovia and Cujavia, having, in his religious zeal, attempted to force Christianity upon his pagan neighbours the Prussians, was met with such an obstinate resistance from them, that he was in his turn threatened with an invasion of his own dominions. In this dilemma he called to his assistance, in 1226, the Teutonic or German Knights, offering them in return for their service, the concession of important rights and privileges; while the Pope and the Emperor granted them the possession of all the lands they might conquer from the heathens during the war. Herman had just returned from his third Crusade to Palestine, and settled at Venice after