Page:The Book of Orders of Knighthood and Decorations of Honour of All Nations.djvu/61

Rh In 1440, the towns of Dantzig, Elbing, Thorn, and the nobility of several adjoining provinces concluded a formal treaty amongst themselves against these ruthless masters, while in 1454 the whole of Western Prussia, headed by King Casimir IV., rose against them, and after a war of twelve years, which cost above three hundred thousand human lives, the Order was obliged to sign a treaty which left it in possession of only half of Prussia, and placed it under the supreme authority of Poland. But having repeatedly violated this treaty, the Order was virtually abolished by the peace of Cracow (1525), the whole of its landed property having been granted as a fief of Poland to the then Grand Master, Albert, Margrave of Brandenburg.

Thenceforth its chief resided at Mergentheim in Franconia, under the title of Administrator in Prussia, Grand Master of the Teutonic Order in Germany and Italy, and Spiritual Prince of the Empire and member of the Franconian district, while his possessions consisted of Mergentheim, with fifteen thousand German square miles, and thirty-two thousand inhabitants, partly Catholics and partly Protestants. By the peace of Liineville, (9th February, 1801), the Order lost the bailiwicks, Coblentz, Altenbriesen, and Bourgogne, and though it received in return the abbeys and cloisters of Austrian Voralberg, and the diocese of Augsburg and Constance, the peace of Presburg (1805) invested the Emperor of Austria with all the rights, dignity, and revenues appertaining to its Grand Master.

In 1809, Napoleon entirely abolished the Order in the Rhenish provinces, and the different European princes appropriated to themselves the possessions belonging to their respective territories, a spoliation to which Austria was compelled to consent in the ensuing treaty of peace. At the Congress of Vienna, the Chapter House at Francfort-on-the-Maine, together with the