A peace treaty between the king of Poland and the grand master of the Teutonic Order that ended the territory of the order in Prussia.
After the failure of attempts by Grand Master Albrecht von Brandenburg-Ansbach to revise the Second Peace of Thorn, he and his advisors began to ponder the idea of secularizing the Teutonic Order in Prussia. A four-year truce with Poland was to expire in spring 1525, and war seemed inevitable. The order’s German and Livonian branches declined to provide any support for the grand master against the order’s enemies, and so Albrecht started negotiations with Poland. A peace treaty comprising thirty-one articles was drafted in Krakow on 8 April 1525 that declared Prussia a secular duchy under Polish suzerainty. King Sigis-mund I of Poland (1506-1548) and representatives of the order and the Prussian estates confirmed the agreement the
Aerial view of Krak des Chevaliers. (Courtesy Graham Loud)
Next day. On 10 April Albrecht paid homage to the king, which finally made him the new “duke in Prussia” (Lat. dux in Prussia). Prussia thus became a hereditary fief of the Ans-bach line of the Hohenzollern dynasty. The Teutonic Order in Prussia was dissolved, and its some sixty remaining brothers either emigrated to the Holy Roman Empire or joined the secular nobility of the duchy.
-Axel Ehlers
Bibliography
Biskup, Marian, “The Secularization of the State of the Teutonic Order in Prussia in 1525. Its Genesis and Significance,” Polish Western Affairs 22 (1981), 3-23.
Hubatsch, Walther, Albrecht von Brandenburg-Ansbach: Deutschordens-Hochmeister und Herzog in Preufien, 1490-1568 (Heidelberg: Quelle & Meyer, 1960).
Die Staatsvertrdge des Herzogtums Preufien, Teil I: Polen und Litauen. Vertrdge und Belehnungsurkunden, 1525-1657/58, ed. Stephan Dolezel and Heidrun Dolezel (Koln: Grote, 1971).
World History
