TEUTONIC ORDER

also called Teutonic Knights, formally House of the Hospitalers of Saint Mary of the Teutons in Jerusalem, German Deutscher Orden, or Deutscher Ritter-Orden, or Haus der Ritter des Hospitals Sankt Marien der Deutschen zu Jerusalem, Latin Domus Sanctae Mariae Theutonicorum in Jerusalem religious order that played a major role in eastern Europe in the late Middle Ages and that underwent various changes in organization and residence from its founding in 1189/90 to the present. Its major residences, marking its major states of development, were: (1) Acre, Palestine (modern 'Akko, Israel), its original home beginning with the Third Crusade (1189/90c. 1291); (2) Marienburg, Prussia (modern Malbork, Pol.), the centre of its role as a military principality (13091525); (3) Mergentheim, Wrttemberg, Ger., to which it moved after its loss of Prussia (15251809); and (4) Vienna, where the order gathered the remains of its revenues and survives as a purely hospital order (from 1834).