The valor of the knights, however, and the active part which they took in all the religious wars of the day, cost them dear, and from time to time their numbers were greatly reduced; so much so that when Herman de Salza was elected grand master (1210) he found the order so weak that he declared he would gladly sacrifice one of his eyes if he could thereby be assured that he should always have ten knights to follow him to battle with the infidels.  The vigor of his administration brought new life to the order, and he was able to carry on its mission with such success that at his death there were no less than two thousand German nobles who had assumed the badge of the order and fought under its banner.  Large accessions of property also came at this time to the knights in Hungary, Prussia, Livonia, and elsewhere.

In 1214 the emperor Frederick I decreed that the grand master should always be considered a member of the imperial court, that whenever he visited it he should be lodged at the Emperor’s expense, and that two knights should always have quarters assigned them in the imperial household.  In 1221 the emperor Frederick II, by an imperial act, took the Teutonic order under his special protection, including all its property and servants; exempted them from all taxes and dues; and gave its members free use of all pastures, rivers, and forests in his dominions.  And in 1227 Henry commanded that all proceedings in his courts should be conducted without cost to the order.  The King of Hungary also, seeing the valor of the knights, endeavored to secure his own possessions by giving them charge of several of his frontier towns.

It would be unnecessary, as it would be tedious, to repeat all the details of the crusades, the varying successes and defeats, in all of which the Teutonic Knights took part, both in Syria and in Egypt, fighting side by side with their brethren in arms, the Templars and Hospitalers.  They continued also their humane services to the sick and wounded, as the following curious contemporary document shows.  It forms part of a charter, obtained by one Schweder, of Utrecht, who says that, being at the siege of Damietta, “he saw the wonderful exertions of the brethren of the Teutonic Order, for the succor of the sick and the care of the soldiers of the army, and was moved to endow the order with his property in the village of Lankarn.”

It was during the siege of Damietta that the famous St. Francis of Assisi visited the crusading army, and endeavored to settle a dispute that had arisen between the knights and the foot soldiers of the army, the latter being dissatisfied and declaring that they were unfairly exposed to danger as compared with the mounted knights.