The Knights of the Teutonic Order continue…
1396 CE to 1539 CE
The Knights of the Teutonic Order continue their settlement of the east until their dissolution early in the sixteenth century, in spite of a serious defeat at the hands of the Poles at the Battle of Tannenberg in 1410.
The lands that come under the control of this monastic military, whose members are pledged to chastity and to the conquest and conversion of heathens, include territory that one day will become eastern Prussia and will be inhabited by Germans until 1945.
German settlement in areas south of the territories controlled by the Knights of the Teutonic Order also continues, but generally at the behest of eastern rulers who value the skills of German peasant-farmers.
These new settlers are part of a long process of peaceful German immigration to the east that will last for centuries, with Germans moving into all of eastern Europe and even deep into Russia.
