Grand master of the Teutonic Order (1450-1467) during the Thirteen Years’ War against the Prussian Union and Poland.
Ludwig was born into the knightly Franconian family of Ellrichshausen. His early career is unknown. From 1434 he held different offices in Prussia before being elected as grand master on 21 March 1450. The brothers of the order held him to an uncompromising policy against the Prussian Union (Ger. Preufiischer Bund), the league formed by the Prussian estates that had opposed the order’s lordship since 1440. In 1454 the quarrels turned into open war, which was mainly fought by mercenaries. Soon the order was unable to pay its soldiers, and in October 1454, the grand master pawned to them parts of the land, including the castle of Marienburg (mod. Malbork, Poland). In May 1457, the mercenaries sold the castle to Poland, which was supporting the Prussian estates. Ludwig von Erlichshausen fled to Konigsberg (mod. Kaliningrad, Russia), which became the order’s new headquarters. In 1466 a peace was concluded (the Second Peace of Thorn): the order lost the western parts of Prussia, and the grand master had to take an oath of allegiance to the Polish king. A few months later, Ludwig died (4 April 1467). He was buried in Konigsberg cathedral.
-Axel Ehlers
Bibliography
Burleigh, Michael, Prussian Society and the German Order: An Aristocratic Corporation in Crisis, c. 1410-1466 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984).
Jahnig, Bernhart, “Ludwig von Erlichshausen
(Ellrichshausen),” in Die Hochmeister des Deutschen Ordens, 1190-1994, ed. Udo Arnold (Marburg: Elwert, 1998), pp. 131-138.
Urban, William, Tannenberg and After: Lithuania, Poland, and the Teutonic Order in Search of Immortality (Chicago: Lithuanian Research and Studies Center, 1999).
World History
