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TEUTONES 321 TEUTONIC PEOPLES TEUTONES, or TEUTONS, in antiq- uity, a powerful German tribe, which, in alliance with the Cimbri, advanced into Illyria, and defeated the consul Cn. Papir- ius Carbo, at Noreia 113, B. C. They afterward forced their way into Roman Gaul, and defeated Manlius and Scipio 105 B. C; and they invaded Spain 104 B. c. On their retreat from Spain, they were met by the Romans, under Marius, at Aquae Sextiae, the modern Aix, and totally defeated, 102 B. C. TEUTONIC CROSS, in heraldry, a name sometimes given to a cross potent, from its having been the original badge assigned by the Emperor Henry VI., to Teutonic Knights {q. v.). TEUTONIC KNIGHTS, one of the three military-religious orders of knight- hood founded during the period of the Crusades. Certain merchants of Bremen and Liibeck, vdtnessing the sufferings of the wounded Christians before Acre in 1190 were so moved with compassion that they erected tent hospitals for them. There had been a German hospital in Jerusalem from 1128 to 1187; and the new arrangement at Acre was in some sort a continuance of this, being called the Hospital St. Mary of the Germans in Jerusalem. The new hospital, the attend- ants and founders of which formed them- selves into a monastic order with the same rules as the Knights Hospitallers of St. John, found a patron in Duke Freder- ick of Swabia and through him secured the countenance of his brother the Em- peror Henry VI., and the confirmation of the Pope (1191). Seven years later it was converted into a knightly or military order; and the change was stamped with the papal approval in 1199. The knights, in addition to the usual monastic vows, bound themselves to tend the sick and wounded, and wage incessant war on the heathen. Their distinguishing habiliment was a white mantle with a black cross. About the year 1225 the Duke of Maso- via (in Poland) invited the Teutonic Knights to help him against the heathen Prussians. The grand-master, Hermann von Salza, sent a body of knights, who experienced little difficulty in establish- ing themselves in the territories of the heathen. Twelve years later they were strengthened by the absorption into their order of the Brethren of the Sword, a military order which had been formed to convert to Christianity with the sword the Livonians, Esthonians, and Cour- landers. At length the successive en- croachments of the knights roused the Prussians to bitter opposition. A fierce warfare was then carried on for nearly a quarter of a century; but by 1283 the knights were masters of the territory lying between the Vistula and the Memel, and as heirs of the extinct Brethren of the Sword they had also extensive pos- sessions in Livonia and Courland. After subduing the Prussians, the order en- tered on a hundred years' contest against the Lithuanians. But a most serious blow was struck at the knights by the conversion of the Lithuanians to Christi- anity and the accession (1386) of their prince to the throne of Poland. From this time, having lost their main raison d'etre — fighting against the heath- en — the order began to decline. During the period of its prosperity, however, it had acted as the principal force in the politics of Baltic countries; and both by its own exertions and by the encourage- ment it gave to the Hanseatic traders it was the means of spreading German civil- ization and manners throughout what are now the Baltic states. The order suffered an incalculable loss of prestige through the terrible defeat inflicted on them by the Poles and Lithuanians at Tannenberg in 1410. A desperate at- tempt to recover their power resulted (1466) in the loss of West Prussia and the alienation of the esteem and affec- tion of their subjects in East Prussia, which they could only retain as a fief of Poland. In 1525 the order was secular- ized; its grand-master, Albert of Bran- denburg-Anspach, being created heredi- tary Duke of Prussia under the suzerain- ty of Poland. The headquarters of the or- der — for it still possessed several estates scattered throughout the German em- pire and in one or two other countries — • was fixed at Mergentheim in Swabia, and its possessions were reorganized in 12 bailiwicks. Thus it existed till 1801, when the estates W. of the Rhine were annexed by France; in 1809 the order was en- tirely suppressed by Napoleon in all the German states. This left only a couple of bailiwicks in Austria and one at Utrecht; and these still exist, severely aristocratic in both countries. The Austrian branch, reorganized in 1840, justifies its existence by maintaining an organization for the care of the wounded in war. TEUTONIC PEOPLES, a term now applied: (1) to the High Germans, in- cluding the German inhabitants of Upper and Middle Germany and those of Switz- erland and Austria. (2) The Low Ger- mans, including the Frisians, the Platt- deutsch, the Dutch, the Flemings, and the English descended from the Saxons, Angles, etc., who settled in Britain. (3) The Scandinavians, including the Nor- wegians, Swedes, Danes and Icelanders.