Teutonic Knights Read Online Free PDF Page A

responsible for one of the three keys to the giant chest that kept the treasury of the order. This responsibility underlined the limits on the authority which was entrusted to any one individual, whatever his office. Important decisions were always made by a group, often by the grand master and his subordinate officials, but also often including the membership assembled as a grand chapter.
    The treasurer was responsible for monetary affairs. Although the knights had taken oaths of poverty, the Teutonic Order could not survive without food, clothing, weapons, good horses, and the services of artisans, teamsters, and sea captains that often only money could buy. In theory only the chief officers were supposed to know the financial status of the organisation, but those who attended the grand chapter were given sufficient information to make responsible plans for building castles, churches, and hospitals, and embarking on military campaigns, and they passed on their information to fellow knights and priests.
    The grand commander was responsible for day-to-day supervision of activities that were not directly related to warfare. He directed the minor officials in their functions, supervised the treasurer in collecting and dispersing funds, conducted correspondence, and kept records. His duties were obviously much the same as those of the grand master, although on a lesser scale, and he commanded the order’s forces in the Holy Land when the grand master was absent. There were also regional commanders in the Holy Roman Empire (Austria, Franconia, and so forth), and local castellans who presided over the many convents and hospitals.
    The marshal was responsible for military preparation. His title, which originally referred to a keeper of horses, indicates how important the equipping and training of the cavalry was to battlefield success, and he gave more time to that duty than to his other responsibilities. In theory the master of the robes and the commander of the hospital were subordinate to him, but in practice they were essentially self-sufficient. It is perhaps better to think of the titles as honorific rather than as the equivalent of heads of modern bureaucracies. Together they formed an experienced inner council that the grand master could rely on for advice and counsel.
    Business involving the order’s subjects, trading partners, and other rulers was conducted in a court atmosphere, the grand master hearing requests, listening to arguments, and making responses after decisions had been reached. The decisions were carefully recorded and filed away. Eventually the archives of the order encompassed hundreds of thousands of documents. The most important were kept by the grand master’s scribes for easy reference; others were stored in local convents.
    Few of the members had reason to interest themselves in the details of administration. The priests had their own duties to perform. The sergeants (or men-at-arms) were limited to minor responsibilities of little prestige, such as managing small estates and caring for equipment. Few of the knights had sufficient intelligence and experience to hold high office or were of sufficiently high birth to be given responsibility without having proven themselves beforehand. Noble birth was almost essential to advancement. Nobles were assumed to have inherited ability in the same way that war-horses inherited strength and courage; and because they had important relatives and experience in court life, they could win advantages for the order that mere ability and piety could never achieve. Not all ‘nobles’ were equally noble, and few ordinary knights were of truly noble birth – German knights were often descendants of burghers, gentry, and even the so-called ‘serf knights’ or ministeriales , whose growing importance never quite erased the memory of their distant lowly origins. The number of knightly members from prominent families was always small, and a few of them were directed to