head of these knaves and fools, had taken Jerusalem, in the year 1099, Christians of various nations remained in that city; among the rest, one good honest German, that took particular care of his countrymen who came thither in pilgrimages.  He built a house for their reception, and an hospital dedicated to the Virgin.  This little establishment soon became a great one, by the enthusiasm of many considerable people who engaged in it, in order to drive the Saracens out of the Holy Land.  This society then began to take its first form; and its members were called Marian Teutonic Knights.  Marian, from their chapel sacred to the Virgin Mary; Teutonic, from the German, or Teuton, who was the author of it, and Knights from the wars which they were to carry on against the Infidels.

These knights behaved themselves so bravely, at first; that Duke Frederick of Swabia, who was general of the German army in the Holy Land, sent, in the year 1191, to the Emperor Henry vi. and Pope Celestine III. to desire that this brave and charitable fraternity might be incorporated into a regular order of knighthood; which was accordingly done, and rules and a particular habit were given them.  Forty knights, all of noble families, were at first created by the King of Jerusalem and other princes then in the army.  The first grand master of this order was Henry Wallpot, of a noble family upon the Rhine.  This order soon began to operate in Europe; drove all the Pagans out of Prussia, and took possession of it.  Soon after, they got Livonia and Courland, and invaded even Russia, where they introduced the Christian religion.  In 1510, they elected Albert, Marquis of Bradenburg, for their grand master, who, turning Protestant, soon afterward took Prussia from the order, and kept it for himself, with the consent of Sigismund, King of Poland, of whom it was to hold.  He then quitted his grand mastership and made himself hereditary Duke of that country, which is thence called Ducal Prussia.  This order now consists of twelve provinces; viz., Alsatia, Austria, Coblentz, and Etsch, which are the four under the Prussian jurisdiction; Franconia, Hesse, Biessen, Westphalia, Lorraine, Thuringia, Saxony, and Utrecht, which eight are of the German jurisdiction.  The Dutch now possess all that the order had in Utrecht.  Every one of the provinces have their particular Commanderies; and the most ancient of these Commandeurs is called the Commandeur Provincial.  These twelve Commandeurs are all subordinate to the Grand Master of Germany as their chief, and have the right of electing the grand master.  The elector of Cologne is at present ‘Grand Maitre’.

This order, founded by mistaken Christian zeal, upon the anti-Christian principles of violence and persecution, soon grew strong by the weakness and ignorance of the time; acquired unjustly great possessions, of which they justly lost the greatest part by their ambition and cruelty, which made them feared and hated by all their neighbors.