Teutonic Knights

Who built the imposing castles of Poland and Lithuania? Dr. Eleanor Janega is joined by archeologist Aleksander Pluskowski to discuss the riveting history of the Teutonic Knights, to find out how a small military-religious order evolved during the Third Crusade into a formidable power controlling vast territories in the Baltic. They explore the nuanced differences between the Teutonic Knights and other Crusading groups, their complex relationships with pagans, their dramatic militarisation and how modern Eastern Europe grapples with this complex heritage. Gone Medieval is presented by Dr. Eleanor Janega. The audio editor is Nick Thomson, the producer is Joseph Knight. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff. All music used is courtesy of Epidemic Sounds. Gone Medieval is a History Hit podcast. Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. You can take part in our listener survey here https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/6FFT7MK: https://uk.surveymonkey.com/r/6FFT7MK Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Matt Lewis?

  From long-lost Viking ships and kings buried in unexpected places, to tales of murder, power, faith, and the lives of ordinary people across medieval Europe and beyond. Join me, Matt Lewis, Dr. Eleanor Yanega, and some of the world's leading historians as we bring history's most fascinating stories to life, only on History Hit. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries with a brand new release every week, exploring everything from the ancient world to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com/subscribe.

• 0:42Speaker 01

  Hey, it's Adam Grant from TED's Rethinking Podcast. As businesses scale, success depends on how well knowledge is captured, shared, and kept up to date. Camtasia Pro turns teams' expertise into engaging training, onboarding, and documentation. No professional editing experience required. With the industry's best screen recording, video editing, and AI-powered workflows, you can train faster and boost operational efficiency. Get over $100 off your first year at camtasiapro.com and start building a smarter way to educate customers, onboard employees, and ensure valuable expertise is shared across teams.

• 1:16Speaker 02

  I've got big news. I switched to Verizon and got the new iPhone 18 Pro. Shh. I can keep my old phone. And I also get the latest iPhone every year. Shh. Anything else? Verizon let me choose Apple Watch Series 12 or iPad on them. Everybody, listen up. Shh. Switch to Verizon and get the new iPhone 18 Pro now. No trade-in needed. And the latest iPhone every year with Simplicity Plan. Plus, choose Apple Watch Series 12 or iPad on us. Simplicity Plan with Simplicity Pro required. Plan and device payment purchase are separate agreements with separate terms. Service plan for Watch or iPad required. Additional terms apply for all offers.

• 1:51Eleanor Janega?

  Hello, I'm Dr. Eleanor Yanega, and welcome to Gone Medieval from History Hit, the podcast that delves into the greatest millennium in human history. We uncover the greatest mysteries, the gobsmacking details, and the latest groundbreaking research from the Vikings to the Normans, from kings to popes, to the Crusades. We delve into the rebellions, plots, and murders that tell us who we really were and how we got here.

• 2:30Eleanor Janega?

  When people think about religious fighting orders in the medieval period, which I am assured they do, it's the Templars that usually spring to mind first. After all, their rise and dramatic fall allows for a dramatization and questions about influence and power. But further to the east, there's a fighting order that, for my money, offers much, much more. They control their own kingdoms, convert swathes of what they call pagans, and were successful enough at navigating political vagaries that they still exist to this day. I'm Dr. Eleanor Yanaga, and today on Gone Medieval from History Hit, I'm speaking with Alexander Plukowski, professor of archaeology at the University of Reading and the author

• 3:14Eleanor Janega?

  of The Teutonic Knights: Rise and Fall of a Religious Corporation, about, you guessed it, the Teutonic Order, where we'll consider castles, converts, corporations, and cultural memory.

• 3:41Eleanor Janega?

  Alexander, welcome to Gone Medieval.

• 3:44Speaker 04

  Thank you very much, Eleanor. Thanks for inviting me, and it's great to be on the show.

• 3:48Eleanor Janega?

  I am absolutely delighted to have you here today because today we're going to talk about one of these things that we've been asked about a lot, and it's one of my favorite topics, which is the Teutonic Knights. And I think this is one of these groups that people have heard of. They're sort of aware of them as a group of individuals, but it doesn't necessarily get taught to us in Western Europe as one of the building blocks of medieval history. So I'm going to start you out with a nice, general one to get us into this discussion. Who were the Teutonic Knights?

• 4:24Speaker 04

  Okay, well, the Teutonic Knights started off as a very humble field hospital at the Siege of Acre during the Third Crusade. Literally, a group of... Laybrethren, we can call them, in other words, a small organisation dedicated to hospital care, set up by German crusaders to cater for German speakers at the Siege of Aker during this time. So they were doing the basic things you do in a hospital, ministering to the infirm, to the injured, and also soon started administering last rites to the dead, which made them a bit more serious. This was something that at the time, in the Holy Land, the Hospitallers had a monopoly over.

• 5:09Speaker 04

  And so this caused a bit of tension and saw this group sort of try to fight for its independence as the Hospitallers tried to subsume and take over what they saw as this little upstart hospital. At which point, they turned to the Templars for protection and got it. And this saw them, I suppose you would say, begin the path to what we would call militarisation. So groups like the German Hospital were expected, maybe pull their weight is not really the correct term, but to contribute to the defence of the Crusader states in the Levant.

• 5:49Speaker 04

  And so when you then have more German Crusaders subsequently coming at the end of the 12th century, there is this sense that you've got here an organisation that has already got some crusading experience that can contribute to the crusading effort. And so, following the model of the Hospitallers, but also the Templars, you have this group becoming militarised, so they're given weapons, they're given training, they're given the responsibility to participate in crusading actions or the general defence of what's left of the Crusader states. And because they are a German organisation, they just become referred to as the German Order.

• 6:32Speaker 04

  And the Teutonic Order is the Latin rendering of that, that's just become popular in the Anglophone literature, for whatever reason, for historical reasons. So they then attract a lot of donations, a lot of support, they become wealthier, they become bigger, they become proficient fighters, diplomats, administrators, as they're given more land to deal with. And so over time, they grow into a very significant and also independent institution.

• 7:01Speaker 04

  Largely also because of their main supporters, the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor. As so they become independent from the Templars and the Hospitallers and become their own organisation. That is their Teutonic Order in a nutshell, in terms of their origins. They then become a big international corporation, much like the Hospitallers and the Templars. So they sort of follow the same trajectory, if you like.

• 7:29Eleanor Janega?

  What's the major difference between the Teutonic Knights and the other crusading orders? Is it literally just the Germanists and the connection to the Holy Roman Empire in this case?

• 7:41Speaker 04

  Pretty much, yeah. They do tweak their rule ever so slightly because they take on the Templar rule. And they've also included elements from the Hospitaller rule for organising how they're dealing with welfare. Because you've got to remember, they started off as a hospital and they continue to have hospital functions. But they then sort of tweak it so they do, they have little things like they're allowed to eat a bit more meat than the Templars. But it's a, but it's a way of differentiating themselves, you know, to say that we're separate and we're our own organisation, we do things the way we want and the Pope's happy with that. So because there's this constant fear of being merged with the other military orders, with these other big organisations that are dedicated to the defence of what's called the Latin East,

• 8:25Speaker 04

  the Crusader states and the Levant. So all of these groups are fighting for independence or sort of trying to maintain independence. And of course, we all know what happens with the Templars. Once the Holy Land is lost and that order becomes susceptible to those who would like to seize its wealth. And then we know what happens in France. And so groups like the Teutonic Order are always wary of maintaining their independence. So they do tweak things like the rule, they adopt their own emblem, the Black Cross. But otherwise, they're more or less the same, you could say, as the Hospitallers in many respects. But I suppose famously they become known for their wars against pagan societies in North Eastern Europe.

• 9:10Speaker 04

  And that is something that separates them from the other military orders that are much more known for their role in the Mediterranean Crusades and Holy Wars.

• 9:21Eleanor Janega?

  I absolutely love this. I'm sorry. It's very, very funny to think of such a German adaptation to a rule. You know, we're different. We eat a lot of meat. Okay, yes, it's a beautiful Holy Roman Imperial invention. This is wonderful to me, but you've already hit on sort of the big thing, I think, that when we talk about the Teutonic Knights is, I think, most people associate them very specifically with military activity in the Baltic region. And perhaps this is something to do with why they are such a successful order, whereas we see, you know, the downfall of the Templars, because, you know, the Templars, you lose the Holy Land,

• 10:02Eleanor Janega?

  and then you just have this really rich organization hanging out in France, and, you know, the king doesn't really like that. Whereas the Teutonic Knights seem to have managed to redeploy in a way that was useful to Imperial ends.

• 10:18Speaker 04

  Yeah, absolutely. They're incredibly versatile, and I think they have some very insightful leaders, particularly their fourth master, Herman of Salsa, who is the one who basically gets them involved on all these different fronts, firstly in the Kingdom of Hungary, in Transylvania, and then in the Baltic. And it happens over a relatively short period of time, you know, within a couple of decades. So by the time everything's gone wrong in the Mediterranean, and they're thrown out, they're forced to relocate the headquarters to Venice, and they're sort of umming and ahing, do we stay committed to the defense of the Holy Land, or do we focus our energies on the war against pagans in the North? And they make that decision. But behind

• 11:02Speaker 04

  all of that is a tug of war within the Order's leadership. There are people in there who say, no, especially in Venice, you know, they want to keep hold of that leadership role. And they're like, okay, we've got the headquarters in Venice now, let's fight to keep it here and try to restrict what the other members of the Order are doing elsewhere. So there's a bit of an internal tug of war. In the end, the Baltic factions, especially the group in Prussia, what is today Northern Poland, in terms of a larger historical Territory of Prussia, they win the argument and the headquarters gets relocated to the north. And it is very astute because like you said, it gives them a reason for continuing. Rather than just sort of sitting there accruing money. Okay, you know, we've got all these estates and houses.

• 11:46Speaker 04

  And they had many within the empire itself, where they were very much part of the Imperial Church, if you like. They didn't wield sovereign power as they did in the Baltic. So they made good decisions, even though those were decisions that were the result of internal politics and in many cases. But obviously proved to be much more successful.

• 12:07Eleanor Janega?

  So they kind of leave the Holy Land, go to Venice, then up to, so would you say Transylvania is the first major port of call continentally after this?

• 12:18Speaker 04

  It is the first continental port of call, but actually it happens very early on. While they're still operating in the Holy Land. So Transylvania, they're invited by the Hungarian King Andrew the Second in twelve eleven. So actually that's only really just over a decade after they're officially militarized by the Pope's approval. So early on, there is this recognition that, okay, the Holy Land is a crowded space, the Templars and Hospitallers are calling the shots. We need to find our own niche and oh, look. The Hungarians are interested because the Hungarians have good German connections through the Queen of Hungary and her German court.

• 12:57Speaker 04

  Who, you know, her daughter is getting married to the Duke of Thuringia's son, who is happens to be best friends with a master of the order. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. They get wheeled in there quite quickly. They don't last there for very long, only fourteen years. And then they relocate to the Baltic immediately after that. So I guess what's important to remember for your listeners is that this is an organization. That is operating on multiple fronts simultaneously. So they're in the Holy Land until twelve ninety one. By which point, pretty much all of the lands they rule in the Baltic have already been conquered. So that incredibly. Successful at operating as a multinational corporation for want of a better term.

• 13:39Speaker 04

  A militarized religious organization essentially that can operate in multiple regions at the same time. And obviously these are risks, they're risk takers, they commit resources, they make difficult decisions, but they're successful and their gamble pays off.

• 13:56Eleanor Janega?

  How do they end up in the Baltic? You know, we see them in Transylvania as a result of an invitation, you know, where they are in Venice because they've already got property there. But what brings these guys to the Baltic more specifically?

• 14:09Speaker 04

  So a similar kind of situation to Transylvania. They're invited by the Duke of Muzovia, who is probably the most powerful statesman in Poland, which at this time is fragmented into these little principalities. And everybody is jostling for control of the throne of Poland, of the overlordship, if you like. So this guy, the Duke of Muzovia, Konrad, is very keen on getting the throne in Krakow, in the capital. But the northern borders of his duchy, Muzovia, are one of the frontiers of Catholic Christendom. And the neighboring pagan groups, the Prussians have been raiding, there's a state of war going on. And Konrad can't afford to focus on his

• 14:53Speaker 04

  main ambition, which is the Polish throne, and have pagans harassing his borders in the north. So he figures, okay, well, the German order, the Teutonic Order, they did their thing in Transylvania, maybe they can help me here. And this is how they get invited. And actually, they're quite reluctant to begin with, because they're probably thinking, uh, didn't work out in Transylvania, we got kicked out, lost money, lost men, we're overcommitted in the Holy Land, it's all going wrong, and we want to be committed to Poland. So it took a few years for him to convince them. And the way that he did that, and this was also with the support of the Pope

• 15:34Speaker 04

  and the Emperor, was to give them land and to go, okay, this land that is on the frontier, that is my land, that is being taken over by the pagan Prussians. It's yours if you can take it back and basically secure my frontier. And they go, okay, so after a few guarantees, the emperor said, we can have it. The pope said, we can have it. You said, we can have it. Great, we're in and we're going to take back this land and we're going to establish ourselves in this frontier region. And that is the beginning of a long period of conquest because they take this land quite quickly and then proceed to conquer the rest of the region that is occupied by these Prussian groups.

• 16:16Speaker 04

  At the same time, they then get involved in the Eastern Baltic, what is today Latvia and Estonia, previously in Latin, this was called Livonia. They get involved in 1237 when the previous military order that is running the conquests there, what are called the Sword Brothers, suffer a catastrophic defeat at the hands of the Lithuanians and Samogitians that kills most of their membership. And so the remnants are amalgamated into the Teutonic Order. Basically, the pope goes, can you take this on? The remnants of the Sword Brothers go, please help us out here. And so they then take on the ongoing crusades in Livonia.

• 16:58Speaker 04

  And by that point, they're operating across the whole of the eastern frontier of Christendom, really, from the north to the far south in the Mediterranean. And then just become very successful. Decades and decades later, they've conquered large territories in northeastern Europe and entrenched themselves. So that is how they become involved, really through invitations, not really by deliberate design on their part to begin with.

• 17:24Eleanor Janega?

  So what's going on on the sort of Livonian pagan side of things in here? Because we know lots about who wants the Teutonic Knights in. Who would rather not see them around in the area? I guess, do we know?

• 17:38Speaker 04

  So similar to.

• 17:41Speaker 04

  What's going on in the south and Prussia? You've got lots of individual groups who we would call Bolts and Baltic Finns, two separate linguistic groups, who are basically pagan from a, it's a, it's a Christian time, but similar sort of polytheistic religions that we see also in Finland, in Lithuania, and then in Prussia. And they're the target of German missionary activity, follows on the heels of merchants establishing new trade routes, which ultimately they want to link up to the big markets of what is today Western Russia. That's what the German merchants are looking for.

• 18:24Speaker 04

  And on the way, they encounter these pagan groups inhabiting what is Latvia and Estonia today. And the missionaries follow them and go, oh, great, you know, we can establish missions here, convert pagans and establish a foothold for our own churches. And then these missions become threatened. In 1198, the leader of the German mission asks the Pope to declare a crusade so that he can bring an army along to protect the mission and the new converts. And as usual, start a chain reaction that results in the conquest of the entire region. Because of course, it's a self fulfilling process, that the more converts you create, the more you need to protect them, the more problems you have with pagan neighbours.

• 19:08Speaker 04

  And so this becomes this cumulative process of conquest. The Sword Brothers, that they created this local military order for the same reason the Templars were created and the Teutonic Order were created, to meet a shortage of manpower, basically, in terms of military protection for these new Christian footholds, these new Catholic footholds. So these various groups in Livonia, some of them side with the Crusaders, these early converts groups like the LIVS, who give their name to Livonia, as in the Christian Latin name that is used. Others, like the Estonians, resist for a long, long, long time. And the Estonians themselves are made up of many different groups.

• 19:50Speaker 04

  The problem is, we only really know the details of these groups from the Christian sources, because these cultures don't have a literate record of their own. We have to basically rely on archaeology for reconstructing how these different groups were organised, how their societies functioned. Of course, we have the Christian record from the observers, from the missionaries, from the crusaders, from priests largely, who were witnessing the events. So we know about these groups often through their eyes, which of course you can imagine are problematic in various ways. But we're talking about small-scale societies with extended kinship groups dominated by local dynasties of aristocrats. That

• 20:32Speaker 04

  much the missionaries recognise. They're like, "Oh, okay, you have nobility like we do in Western Europe." So they also approach the mobles, the leaders of these indigenous groups, and they're the first often to convert, or resist, depending on how these alliances go. Just to finish, I know it is a complicated situation, but there is a big backdrop in what's going on in the Eastern Baltic, and that is a tug-of-war between the Russian principalities, who are Christian also, but Eastern Orthodox, and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, who are pagan. And these two superpowers are fighting for the trade routes and for influence in these regions. And all of these little, small pagan groups are caught in

• 21:17Speaker 04

  between, and then the Germans come along and join in, basically. So it's quite a complicated sort of struggle between these various groups. And the native pagan groups are sort of caught in between everything.

• 21:31Eleanor Janega?

  I find that such an interesting thing, because in the first place, we have to do so much work to kind of get any understanding of what's going on with our non-literate friends from the medieval period. And also, you have this terrible tendency on the part of Christians to just say, "Pagans are like us, but evil." And they kind of extrapolate that pagans have exactly the same hierarchical system in place, and that everything is happening in the same way, but nefarious somehow. And it can be such a difficult thing to attempt to weed your way out of as a historian.

• 22:07Speaker 04

  Yeah, and it gets worse when the pagans convert on mass, you know, in their hundreds or sometimes in their thousands, at which point they become Christian overnight from the perspective of these clerics and missionaries. And then they become even worse because then they become apostates, having thrown off their baptismal oath. And obviously, it's all one big imagined event in the minds of these chroniclers, because the reality on the ground is probably there isn't much going on in terms of changes in beliefs, or suddenly this acceptance of a completely new way of thinking about the world. We know this is a much slower process. So these overnight conversions and then the rejection of a

• 22:49Speaker 04

  conversion prompts even more venom and hostility in the written sources. You know, there's nothing worse than an apostate in the minds of these clerics. So you're right, it is just very confusing to really know what's going on from the native perspective, from the indigenous perspective.

• 23:17Matt Lewis?

  This time of year can easily just feel a bit off. The days get shorter, the routines change, and honestly, you might just find yourself feeling irritable, perhaps a little less motivated or a bit more tired. Just getting through things feels like more of a slog than normal. It might feel easier to just push through it, or even try and ignore how you're feeling and just blame the season. But if it's starting to affect your day-to-day life, talking to a therapist can help you to better understand why you're feeling like this, and can genuinely help. That's where Ruler comes in. Ruler makes it easier to find a licensed therapist who meets your needs and importantly, takes

• 23:59Matt Lewis?

  your insurance. You don't have to spend weeks searching or sitting on a waitlist. They partner with over 120 insurance plans, and the average copay for Ruler patients is just $15 a session. Ruler helps you pick a therapist based on your goals, preferences, and needs, with appointments available as soon as tomorrow. Getting support shouldn't add another layer of stress, so let Ruler lighten the mental load.

• 24:27Matt Lewis?

  If this time of year has you feeling less like yourself, talking to someone can be a good place to start. Visit ruler.com/medieval to get started. That's R-U-L-A dot com forward slash medieval. You deserve mental health care that works with you, not against your budget.

• 24:50Speaker 02

  I've got big news. I switched to Verizon and got the new iPhone 18 Pro. Shh. I can keep my old phone and I also get the latest iPhone every year. Shh, anything else? Verizon let me choose Apple Watch Series 12 or iPad on them. Everybody listen up. Shh. Switch to Verizon and get the new iPhone 18 Pro now. No trade in needed and the latest iPhone every year with Simplicity Plan. Plus, choose Apple Watch Series 12 or iPad on us. Simplicity Plan with Simplicity Pro required. Plan and device payment purchase are separate agreements with separate terms. Service plan for Watch or iPad required. Additional terms apply for all offers.

• 25:20Speaker 05

  Your sausage McMuffin with egg didn't change. Your receipt did. The sausage McMuffin with egg extra value meal includes a hash brown and a small coffee for just $5, only at McDonald's for a limited time. Price and participation may vary. Promotion pricing may be lower than meal pricing.

• 25:37Speaker 06

  What started the Civil War? What ended the conflict in Vietnam? Who was Paul Revere? And did the Vikings ever reach America?

• 25:49Speaker 06

  I'm Don Wildman and on American History Hit, my expert guests and I are journeying across the nation and through the years to uncover the stories that have made America. We'll visit the battlefields and debate floors where the nation was formed, meet the characters who have altered it with their touch, and count the votes that have changed the direction of our laws and leadership. Find American History Hit twice a week, every week, wherever you get your podcasts. American History Hit, a podcast from History Hit.

• 26:37Eleanor Janega?

  So we've got the Teutonic Knights up around in the Baltic region. They've come in, they've absorbed the Sword Brothers. And you can completely understand why, from their standpoint, like this is the opportunity to be the hospitalers, right? You know, they're the guys. Yeah, that makes perfect sense, you know, and here's some people who have some on the ground knowledge, but haven't been particularly successful. How do they go from being some guys who showed up, though, into being people who have their own state, essentially?

• 27:09Speaker 04

  I suppose because you can say they drive the territorial conquests of these regions. So they, over time, have complete control of the military enterprises that are crusades. So in Prussia, we're talking about five decades of warfare, which, you know, is a long time for sustained warfare. It's not constant, but over this time, we have pretty much recurring episodes of military conflict. And yes, they bring in crusaders from neighboring regions, from the Empire, even from Poland, that they're in charge at the end of the day. And the crusaders, when they fulfill their vow, they go home and the Teutonic Order

• 27:50Speaker 04

  remain behind to garrison these lands that have been slowly conquered bit by bit. So they become the dominant power and the Pope gives them free rein. No one else really tries to claim these territories. You've got sort of nominal interest from the German emperors, but it's only nominal. They've got their own internal problems to deal with. And so the Teutonic Knights almost handed carte blanche for you guys can secure these lands for Christendom and you can rule them and the Pope's keeping an eye on you, et cetera. Let's give credit to the Order themselves. They've become very good as territorial administrators.

• 28:32Speaker 04

  And maybe after their experience in Transylvania, where they gained and then lost their land, they are keenly aware of what it takes to secure territory and to be a legitimate ruler. So they do a lot of things to legitimize their rule in Prussia and then in Livonia, when they secure this territory. So they introduce their own coinage, they start introducing...

• 28:57Speaker 04

  Laws and appointing officials to govern on their behalf. Later on, they will build these spectacular castles, which are really symbols of authority. It's almost like a symbol of legitimate rule. So they do lots of things to give themselves credibility in the eyes of the people they've conquered, but also in the eyes of incoming Christian settlers, who then become their subjects, their tenants. They do spend a lot of energy becoming territorial rulers. It's not something that happens overnight, but they do make a concerted decision to do this. And actually, the Hospitallers are doing the same in the Eastern Mediterranean. It's not unusual for the military orders to act as territorial rulers. So they're not different, shall we say, to other military orders.

• 29:42Speaker 04

  And actually, in Iberia, we see the same with the Templars and Hospitallers. They're given land to govern at the frontier. So I suppose the Teutonic Order do it on a much bigger scale. And they're much more successful. And they do it in such a way that no one else can touch them. So their membership becomes huge. They build castles in all of these places that they've conquered. And no one else can basically do anything to take that land back. So they secure themselves. And this becomes much more prominent in the 14th century when they annex a neighboring region of Eastern Pomerania. And that sort of completes the construction of their state. So yeah, they really become entrenched.

• 30:25Speaker 04

  Worth mentioning that in Livonia, they're not the only rulers. So this is a region that originally was conquered by German bishops and in the north by the Danish king. So by the time the Teutonic Order get involved, the land's been divvied up between these various powers, including four bishops. And so here, they're one player in a field with lots of other powers. Whereas in Prussia, they have a sole power, pretty much. So we just have to bear that in mind because they have constant problems with these other groups who hold territorial power in Livonia. And there's constant jostling for power going on there.

• 31:09Eleanor Janega?

  How are they organizing themselves within this? Because, you know, we can see they're building castles. They're making coinage. How are they administering this? How do they break up these chunks of land into parcels, I suppose?

• 31:23Speaker 04

  Yeah, okay, so it's worth explaining that at the beginning of the two-timer order has quite a basic hierarchy, like the Templars, like the Hospitallers, they've got their master, they've got a chapter that elects the master with these higher-ranking officials. As they acquire more land in the Baltic, they start to appoint provincial masters, so essentially deputies who control these regions, they become very powerful figures, essentially rivaling the master in the Holy Land, in a way, who then becomes referred to as the Grand Master, to distinguish himself from the other provincial masters. So you start to have the formation of this international hierarchy.

• 32:04Speaker 04

  And the masters themselves then start introducing these organisational units into the conquered territories. So these are, the term is used as commanderies, they're basically units of land where a group of brothers from the order is in control in terms of its security and administration. This community of brethren is based in a building called a convent, and traditionally there should be 12 of these brothers to emulate the number of apostles, but in reality, it's often a lot more. Sometimes into the 40s, the biggest convents become massive.

• 32:45Speaker 04

  And they function as a corporate group, ruling these individual territories, these commanderies, which varied in shape and size, and their boundaries change over time. So there's a lot of organisation and reorganisation. We have to remember that many of these brothers come from the noble families of the Holy Roman Empire. They are brought up with territorial administration as their lifeblood. That is what the sons of the noble German families are doing a lot of the time, is running estates, running complicated estates with complicated neighbours in the empire. So they come to the order with some experience of land management, some of them, and they rise up the ranks and they become good territorial administrators.

• 33:27Speaker 04

  And so you have this, this network of commanderies that ultimately answer to... The masters of the provinces who then answer to the Grand Master. Later on, these commanderies are broken up into smaller districts when it becomes obvious that you need more people to manage this land effectively. So you start to see these little districts run by individuals called advocates and procurators. These are judicial posts brought in from the empire, but they're used by the order to delegate management of land to make it easier for these commanders who are the heads of a convents running these commanderies. Yeah, so it's quite a sort of logical hierarchical structure

• 34:09Speaker 04

  and it persists all the way through the order's history. They maintain this organizational structure. But we have to remember it's a corporation. So there isn't a monarch, there isn't, if you like, an elite executive, even though there are higher officials who make decisions. Everything is done by election. There are sort of nested chapters within the organizational structure who elect their leaders, who in turn elect the main leadership of the order. So I suppose we talk about it as a corporate structure in terms of organization and management.

• 34:45Eleanor Janega?

  That makes a lot of sense. And also frankly, it's why they are so interesting, I think, for medieval historians such as ourselves, because it isn't the sort of organization that we get to see every day. And they're doing incredibly complex things over a huge range of land. But you've touched on this already. One of the things that I think we think about a lot now when we are thinking about the Teutonic Knights is their castles, right? Because we're saying convent here, but that means castle quite often. And so what are some of the great examples of the Teutonic Knights castles that we see in this region?

• 35:24Speaker 04

  So the best preserved are in Prussia, which is today primarily northern Poland. There's a little sliver of it in western Lithuania and in Russia, the Kaliningrad Oblast. But Poland's got the lion's share after the Second World War. And there the Order built brick castles and the best preserved really have survived here. A number of them have been reconstructed or conserved from the 19th century onwards. But obviously, probably the best known is the headquarters of the Order, which is today called Malbork Castle, previously Marienburg, the Castle of Mary.

• 36:04Speaker 04

  This becomes the Order's headquarters officially in 1309 when they relocate from Venice. But in practice, from sort of a 1330s, late 1330s, when the Grand Master actually moves there permanently. This castle is then built up over the 14th century. Its final form takes about 100, 120 years to build. It encompasses an area of around 21 hectares within its walls, which makes it the biggest castle in Europe, one of the biggest castles in the world. It is massive.

• 36:37Eleanor Janega?

  That's enormous. Oh, God.

• 36:39Speaker 04

  It is enormous. It is huge because its outer walls include multiple systems of moats and embankments. But it is a huge sprawling castle. And that is probably the one people should go to see if they want to see the power of the Order. Because that reflects the wealth that the Order accrued and was able to pour into the building of these structures. And it's built almost entirely from brick, something that's constructed from the 1280s onwards. And that's been restored and you can get a sort of sense of it, of what it would have looked like, even though the restorations were creative in a number of respects, as you can imagine, with these 19th century, early 20th century restorations and then post-war restorations. But there are lots of other castles, brick castles in Poland that you can see.

• 37:24Speaker 04

  Radzin is another one, Radzin-Helminski, Raiden in German. This only preserves well the front wing of a castle, the main entrance of the towers. The rest of it is a ruin, but it's one of the better preserved frontages of these castles. And then in Livonia, unfortunately, a lot of those castles were destroyed in subsequent wars. And so you only really have shells or partial shells surviving. So even the main convent of the order, which would have been in Riga, was destroyed and rebuilt three times. So its current form, which is also where the presidential residence is in Riga today in Latvia, is from the 16th century. So the earlier forms of the order's castle,

• 38:09Speaker 04

  we know of partially through archaeological investigation. But you can get a sort of sense of it from going to see what it's like there. Otherwise, the best preserved is in Cessus, which is in the middle of Latvia, central Western Latvia. This was Bendem Castle by its original German name. And this probably has the best preserved castle fabric of all of the Livonian castles. So this is built from dolomite, from the local sandstone and limestone, and is very different to the brick castles that you see in Prussia. Obviously, it was also rebuilt, developed. What you actually see today is what it would have looked like primarily at the end of the 15th century, beginning of the 16th century, when you saw more investment in that castle.

• 38:55Speaker 04

  But still, it gives you a better sense than a lot of the castles that are ruins, just walls, nothing else really, maybe some of the moat systems. Some of the Estonian castles are well preserved, but again, they've been rebuilt or restored. So there's one on the Russian border, on the Estonian-Russian border called Nava, that pretty much looks intact, but has been restored, has been rebuilt. It gives you an idea of the kind of compact castles the order built. Because it's worth mentioning that the castles are part of the brand of this corporation. So there is a unity in their design. And this is something I think the Order did deliberately across its territories.

• 39:39Speaker 04

  Obviously, it depended on how much money was allocated to build these castles, so they vary. But generally speaking, it meant that wherever you went, you knew who was in charge. Because it was part of the branding. So you would immediately go, oh, okay, the Teutonic Order is here. This is their branding. This is their castle. It looks exactly the same or similar wherever you go, the same format, the same design. There was a lot of variation in Livonia for various reasons, including topography that meant castles were fitted to the land they were built on to a certain extent. But I think the Order had this corporate mindset where they wanted a standardized approach, even to their buildings.

• 40:17Eleanor Janega?

  What does that look like, you know, aside from brick castles, which I guess we've already established, they don't all get made out of brick. But is there something in your mind that just screams, I'm looking at a Teutonic castle right now?

• 40:31Speaker 04

  Yeah, so they're not perfect squares, but rectilinear castles that are almost form these perfect squares. They're a few meters out in the measurements, but generally speaking, if you saw them from the air, you think, wow, this is a completely symmetrical building. With the identical uses of space. So in terms of having the chapel on the first floor across from the refectory, which is the communal eating area, above the main entrance. You've got corner towers and then you've got a massive corner tower that is essentially like a keep. So you've got one fortified tower.

• 41:09Speaker 04

  Many of these castles then had a projecting tower, often called a latrine tower or a dansk, to use the German technical term. So these castles had replicable features. And people have speculated this was deliberate as well to create a sense of harmony, of visual harmony, essentially reflecting celestial harmony. So it contributes to this idea of the Order as legitimate rulers. They've been divinely mandated to rule, and this is the earthly perfection that is mirrored in heaven.

• 41:43Eleanor Janega?

  I absolutely love that. You know, medieval people are such a one for attempting to to mirror heavenly perfection. And I love that about them. As you stated, these castles are still part of the political fabric of a lot of the areas that the Teutonic Knights have ruled. So we can see them get recycled as presidential palaces. Do we see other massive impact from them in the area, be that archaeological or textual? Are these things that natives write about and think about as well?

• 42:16Speaker 04

  So they are now because since the 1990s, there's been a lot more international interest in the Eastern Baltic countries in terms of tourism, which in turn has stimulated local interest in developing these castles. And there is there is more of a sense of local pride in these buildings. There was scholarly interest, academic interest already from the late 19th, 20th century. But unfortunately, these buildings were tainted by association with nationalism and with this reimagining of the medieval past as an ethnic war between

• 42:58Speaker 04

  the Germans and the native populations. And the castles were branded as as symbols of German rule, which was something that the German Empire in the 19th century and early 20th century and then the Nazi regime encouraged that view. So obviously, this then became very influential. And it's only really in recent decades have people gone back to it and thought, okay, so this is interesting heritage. And this actually happened in Poland relatively soon after the Second World War. So Prussia was part of Germany. It got allocated to Poland after 1945. And with that came all these castles. And it included the big

• 43:38Speaker 04

  castle in Marienburg, which had also seen a German garrison fighting against the Red Army in the final months of the Second World War. The town was obliterated. The castle was badly damaged. The town was mined for Bricks to rebuild Warsaw that had been destroyed by the Nazis completely. But a decision was made to leave the castle, not to dismantle it. And that was quite enlightening. Originally, I think the plan was to restore the castle to the time of Polish rule, because the castle in the later 15th century passed unto Polish control. And this then became a residence of a Polish king. So originally, it was, we're going to claim this castle back from, from Germany by, by emphasizing how it was the residence

• 44:23Speaker 04

  of a Polish kings. But over time, the curators, the directors of what became the Castle Museum in the 1960s, decided that they were going to rehabilitate the Teutonic Order and they became serious medieval scholars. This was a time when medieval scholarship developed within Poland, concerned with a Teutonic Order, more so in Germany, where it became a taboo subject after the Second World War, a little bit. It still remained a focus of, of, of scholarship. But in Poland, it really took off. And, you know, in the eighties and in the nineties, it really took off. Once Poland also had gained independence from the Soviet Union. And there you saw a new form of medieval studies where they wanted to recognize a

• 45:08Speaker 04

  Teutonic Order on its own terms, not in this concept of a German power, basically waging ethnic war on its neighbors. And so the castle became redeveloped as a center of learning, of research, of education, of entertainment for the Teutonic Order. And I think this really contributes to rehabilitating the Teutonic Order's view. So in Poland today, you can go and see the castles of a Teutonic Order and they are very much framed in that medieval sense, rather than being framed in a sort of Soviet era sense of evil German heritage. They're now seen as part of the medieval history of the region. Some of them have become hotels. This is another side. This is another story.

• 45:53Speaker 04

  Another story that is part of Central European treatment of castles and historical monuments, where private ownership can do a lot of things to these buildings. And in a way, it preserves them. Okay, they become hotels and restaurants, but they conserve the fabric. But there are some horror stories with how this fabric's been conserved and what's been done to the archaeology. But we don't need to go into that. But you can go and stay in some of these castles and, you know, kind of experience a disanified form of what these castles used to be. So in a way, I suppose they're positively treated. Having said that, there are a lot of ruins that are falling apart, being ripped to pieces by undergrowth. There's no money to care for them.

• 46:34Speaker 04

  Some of them are under private ownership and they're just left as follies on people's land. So there is a lot that is crumbling and falling down, largely because of a lack of money. I wouldn't say out of a lack of interest, because I think people in the Baltic countries are very interested in their medieval heritage. You have lots of history festivals taking place at these castle sites, reenactments, food festivals. I think there's a lot of local heritage organizations that are very invested and interested in these buildings, not just from the medieval period, but from their post-medieval history as well. So they have quite complex, lengthy biographies all the way through to the Second World War in the modern day.

• 47:17Speaker 04

  So I'd say that the heritage is of interest now. But of course, in the back of people's minds, you do still have this narrative of a struggle with a foreign invader. I think that's going to take a long time to shed, especially as the shadow of Russian imperialism is hanging over the Eastern Baltic to some extent. And it's not helping that the Russian regime is invoking the ethnic struggle of the historical period in its own propaganda.

• 47:45Eleanor Janega?

  I'll tell you what, this is all incredibly familiar as someone who specializes in the Czech lands, but...

• 47:50Speaker 04

  Right, I bet.

• 47:51Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, you know, a little bit of that, some of that, yeah.

• 48:07Speaker 02

  I've got big news. I switched to Verizon and got the new iPhone 18 Pro. Shh. I can keep my old phone. And I also get the latest iPhone every year. Shh, anything else? Verizon let me choose Apple Watch Series 12 or iPad on them.

• 48:20Speaker 01

  Everybody, listen up.

• 48:21Speaker 02

  Shh. Switch to Verizon and get the new iPhone 18 Pro now. No trade in needed. And the latest iPhone every year with Simplicity Plan. Plus, choose Apple Watch Series 12 or iPad on us. Simplicity Plan with Simplicity Pro required. Plan and device payment purchase are separate agreements with separate terms. Service plan for Watch or iPad required. Addition terms apply for all offers.

• 48:37Speaker 01

  Hey, it's Adam Grant from TED's Rethinking Podcast. As businesses scale, success depends on how well knowledge is captured, shared, and kept up to date. Camtasia Pro turns teams' expertise into engaging training, onboarding, and documentation. No professional editing experience required. With the industry's best screen recording, video editing, and AI-powered workflows, you can train faster and boost operational efficiency. Get over $100 off your first year at camtasia pro.com and start building a smarter way to educate customers, onboard employees, and ensure valuable expertise is shared across teams.

• 49:25Eleanor Janega?

  We have already been talking about what was happening in Prussia and Estonia. But by the time you get to the 14th century, the Teutonic Order is starting to cast its eyes up to Lithuania. And this is very interesting to me because it's still such a stronghold of, quote, unquote, paganism at the time, which is an incredibly durable legacy. And it also seems to prove to be a bit of an issue for the Teutonic Order as well. How does this all play out, I guess, is my question.

• 49:57Speaker 04

  So the Teutonic Order are already encountering Lithuanians when they're conquering the Prussians, because Prussians are getting support from the Lithuanians to fight against the Order. I think the Lithuanians understand the threat, the long-term threat this poses. And you have to remember that, just to give your listeners a bit of context, Lithuania is a grand duchy, so a centralized state governed by grand dukes. And this creates a very powerful model of governance that is different to the previous model of governance that was based on local chieftains essentially, very much like Prussia and Livonia. So this is, it may be easier to overwhelm by groups like the Teutonic Order, but when you have this centralized form of government,

• 50:42Speaker 04

  but also centralizes what we can call pagan religion and pagan religious institutions, you've quite a significant power. And so their borders, their western borders are with Prussian lands, their northern borders are with what becomes Livonia. So the Lithuanians are already experiencing Christian aggression, shall we say, from both the Catholics and the Eastern Orthodox, from the Rus, and are aware of the threat. So they support the Prussians and they raid southern Livonia as well. They're also fighting with the local groups for control. So, you know, they're attacking Estonia, they're taking Estonians as slaves back to Lithuania. So there's quite a complex power dynamic going on.

• 51:24Speaker 04

  The Teutonic Order, I think, set their sights on Lithuania quite quickly. They're pushing and pushing and pushing the boundaries of Catholic Christendom to the east. And ultimately, they reach the lands that they refer to in Latin as Sudovia, which is basically this large area on the borders of Lithuanian territory. And they conquer this by 1283. And in the Chronicle of the Conquest, written by Peter of Dussburg, who is our principal source for the crusade against the Prussians, he's writing a few decades later, he's a priest of the Teutonic Order. And he writes, "The war with the Prussians ends and the war with Lithuania immediately begins." It's almost like a continuous struggle against pagans.

• 52:09Speaker 04

  But of course, we know this has already been ongoing. So for the Order, it's a natural continuation. And in fact, the Lithuanians then take the initiative, raid the Orders, conquered lands. And so there's a sort of tit for tat set of raids going on. But the Order very cleverly institutionalized this into a new crusading front. So they obviously see the writing on the wall. The Templars have been arrested by this point. They're going, "We need to give ourselves a reason for being here." And it can't just be ruling the lands we've conquered.

• 52:48Speaker 04

  It's got to be this higher mission, which is to protect Christendom and to expand the lands of the Catholic community. And the way we do that is to continue the war against the pagans in Lithuania and make Lithuania our own. Bring it into the Catholic fold. And so this sees a century more even of warfare with Lithuania. Where the Teutonic Order organized seasonal crusades, typically twice a year, and invite knights from all over Europe to participate. And people do, people come literally from everywhere, especially the French, especially the English, who love going on crusade in the East.

• 53:32Speaker 04

  For all sorts of reasons. And the Order sustained this for, even when the Lithuanians convert officially to Catholicism in 1386, the Grand Duke marries the Polish monarch, Jadwiga, and the whole country converts, comes under the Pope's protection. But the Teutonic Order's response is, "No, this is lies. This is false conversions. We're going to keep going." In fact, we're not just going to keep going, we're going to intensify our attacks, which they do. But eventually that line sort of wears a little thin. And people from around Europe go, "Hold on, these people actually are now part of..." The Catholic community, you can't just keep attacking them pretending they're pagans.

• 54:12Speaker 04

  So enthusiasm fizzles out and by the early 15th century, the Teutonic Order's campaigns wind down and just turn into four blown wars. With Lithuania and Poland because the two are now united. So then this becomes more of a secular war between two neighboring powers, if you like. The crusading rationale ends officially. So it's incredible, the Teutonic Order sustain a century of crusading. Now, historians have traditionally been skeptical about this. They've said, this isn't really crusading. This is just opportunities for glory seeking and to take land and money.

• 54:52Speaker 04

  And yes, there is an element of that, of course, for renown, for all these crusaders coming along, all these knights come along. But, you know, these are expensive journeys. We know the Teutonic Order are also issuing indulgences, which are the spiritual rewards for crusading. And I think recent scholarship has convincingly demonstrated there is a pious element to these expeditions that goes beyond just going and giving donations to your local monastery. I think there is this desire to be seen to crusade against pagans or against Muslims in the Mediterranean where you can, people still did at that time.

• 55:32Speaker 04

  And we know that knights sometimes would go to the Baltic and then go to the Holy Land, then go to Iberia, you know. So they do all the crusading, like a tour of all the crusading front lines. If you could afford it, you know, because it gets expensive after a while. But this is the price of of spiritual salvation at the time in the minds of contemporaries. So I think that it was seen by by many people as something you you should do if you want to be like Richard the Lionheart. If you want to be like the old crusader kings, this is what you can do in the 14th century to live up to that kind of reputation. Because you're not going to get any land out there, really. You might gain wealth, booty, slaves.

• 56:16Speaker 04

  Weirdly, you can grab people to convert and. They did. Nobles brought back native captives to re-educate as Christians. But the real prize, I suppose, is that renown, that feeling that you can you can place yourself on the same level as kings like like Richard, like like Edward the First, who who did crusade, you know, so it's and then you can say I'm better than my claimant of a throne who didn't do this, you know, didn't go on crusade like Richard the Second, didn't go on crusade, you know, therefore I'm better. So there is a there is a feeling of that as well, that sort of spiritual renown.

• 56:53Eleanor Janega?

  Well, I think that one of the dates that we tend to bring up when we're talking about the Teutonic Order is, well, historians love to have a hinge point, don't we? And I think one of the ones we bring up all the time is the Battle of Grunwald in fourteen ten in this. And I'm wondering if you can tell our listeners a little bit about that and why this is one of the things that we look to throw around as a as a handy way in.

• 57:19Speaker 04

  This is the culmination of what's called the Great War between Poland, Lithuania and the Teutonic Order. It's a continuation of a previous conflict, basically. This is a Teutonic Order pushing to try to split Poland and Lithuania by encouraging internal candidates within Lithuania to fight each other and basically encouraging a sense of civil war to try to weaken this Polish Lithuanian union that surrounds the order's Prussian lands. Unfortunately for them, it doesn't work and and the union remains pretty solid despite some internal problems.

• 57:57Speaker 04

  What basically happens is that the Lithuanians encourage an uprising in Samogesia, which is the westernmost region of Lithuania that essentially becomes part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. But it's the region that the Teutonic Order had been trying to get hold of for over a century, and eventually they do. They managed to get hold of it, but only for a short period of time. They faced several uprisings. The uprisings were always supported by the Lithuanians, and in this case, it's a pretext for war. And so the Teutonic Order.

• 58:32Speaker 04

  End up fighting Poland and Lithuania. They meet not far from their border in Prussia at the place you mentioned, Grinwald or Tannenberg in German. And the reason people go on about this battle ad nauseam is because because of the casualties, a lot of people are killed. It is a defeat for the Teutonic Order. The grand master of the Teutonic Order is killed along with many of the leading officials and many of the brethren. So it is a massive defeat for the order, but it is a symbolic defeat. Because the Polish and Lithuanian forces then rush to the headquarters,

• 59:15Speaker 04

  to Marienbo Castle, besiege it, but fail to take the castle and withdraw. And basically, the order remain intact. They have to pay war reparations, which actually is the beginning of the end for them financially. That is a big crippling issue, but they remain intact. And because they're a corporation, they just elect a new leader and everything's fine, you know? So in a way, they hold their structure. They get reinforcements from their Livonian houses. And so it's a long, slow death. But historians love this as a hinge point. A, because it's a spectacular battle that is then promoted in national histories in the 19th century as the great struggle between the Germans and the Slavs and the Bolts.

• 59:59Speaker 04

  And so this becomes celebrated as this is the time we defeated the Germans by Polish nationalists, by Lithuanian nationalists. And that is why, because then all the historians writing the first histories, so the first histories of Poland that are written in the 19th century, the first, shall we say, national histories, the first national Lithuanian histories that are written, all of these celebrate the battle as part of this narrative of this big ethnic struggle. And that is why it's come down to us today as one of the greatest battles of Middle Ages. It is a great battle insofar as, yeah, symbolically, the leader of the order was killed. It is a massive blow to the order in terms of its image.

• 1:00:40Speaker 04

  But in terms of what happens afterwards, it's not that quick victory that people think it is in terms of a battle, you know, the order sustained themselves for another century. Okay, they lose half of their lands in fourteen sixty-six, fifty years, fifty-six years later, but still it's a slow death, really. But I think it's because of this national image, you know, and this battle's reenacted every year in Poland. Still today, this big sort of national narrative is there, you know, where the Teutonic Order is defeated. I think it's more tongue in cheek these days.

• 1:01:16Eleanor Janega?

  I'm afraid that, you know, my answer, when people ask me about it, I've got the unsexy answer, where I'm like, ah, the Reformation, you know, which is, that's not what nobody wants to hear, right? But I mean, fundamentally, you've sort of hit the nail on the head here, right? These guys had so much land that you can lose half your land in reparations and it's, uh, yeah, still pretty good going, you know?

• 1:01:38Speaker 04

  Still pretty good going, yeah. And actually, they, they last in Eastern Prussia and in Livonia, in Livonia even longer. It takes a Russian invasion to finish off Livonia and to finish off the Teutonic Order in Livonia, or rather to persuade them to secularize, adopt Lutheranism. But that's what it takes, really, is a massive sort of regional conflict that really pushes them over the edge. So they're incredibly resilient and versatile. And then, of course, they survive in the empire as they have done throughout the Middle Ages, where they just become an institutional part of a church, as they had been throughout the course of the medieval period. Like you said, Lutheranism is the, is the final death knell, but it's just the Teutonic Order swapping clothes for, you know, dropping

• 1:02:23Speaker 04

  the white garment, putting on black robes, getting rid of a cross, keeping the eagle, and turning its convents into, into manors and castles. So it's basically just maintaining power, but under a different name. I suppose crucially, losing that core per organization.

• 1:02:41Speaker 04

  And severing ties with the papacy and with the Catholic Church. So it is a break. It is a real break. It's not an artificial, superficial switch over in that sense. So we can say that those worlds end in 1525 in Prussia, 1561 in Livonia, and that is the real end of the crusading world of the Teutonic Order in the Baltic. But of course, the Teutonic Order is around today. It is continued in Vienna. It relocated to Vienna in the early 19th century, and its headquarters remain there to this day. And the order is an active branch of a Catholic Church today. And it does reflect upon its crusading heritage critically.

• 1:03:21Speaker 04

  But it is still there. So in a way, the Teutonic Order never really went away.

• 1:03:27Eleanor Janega?

  It's a hell of a run.

• 1:03:28Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's impressive.

• 1:03:31Eleanor Janega?

  Alexander, this has been such an incredible pleasure to speak to you today. Thank you so much for taking the time to come on.

• 1:03:38Speaker 04

  Thank you for having me. It's been wonderful. Thank you.

• 1:03:42Eleanor Janega?

  Thanks so much again to Alexander for joining me. And thank you for listening to Gone Medieval from History Hit. If you're interested in learning more about the fighting orders, you can check out our episode on the Knights Templar or the Rise of the Crusader States. Remember, you can enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original TV documentaries that are released weekly and ad-free podcasts by signing up at historyhit.com/subscription. If you can't bear to be apart from me for a whole week, there are some fabulous films that we've made to enjoy, including my recent series, Meet the Normans. Or for more on knights, you can check out my series, Going Medieval, where I cover the lives of the nobles or those who fight. Remember that you can also follow Gone Medieval on Spotify,

• 1:04:26Eleanor Janega?

  where you can review the show and leave us comments on episodes or requests for future ones. You can also drop us a review or rate us wherever you listen to podcasts. It really does help new listeners to find us. As always, my co-host Matt Lewis will be back on the Gone Medieval throne on Friday. And once again, I'll see you again on Tuesday. Until next time.

• 1:04:57Speaker 02

  I've got big news. I switched to Verizon and got the new iPhone 18 Pro. Shh. I can keep my old phone. And I also get the latest iPhone every year. Shh. Anything else? Verizon let me choose Apple Watch Series 12 or iPad on them. Everybody, listen up. Shh. Switch to Verizon and get the new iPhone 18 Pro now. No trade-in needed. And the latest iPhone every year with Simplicity Plan. Plus, choose Apple Watch Series 12 or iPad on us. Simplicity Plan with Simplicity Pro required. Plan and device payment purchase are separate agreements with separate terms. Service plan for watch or iPad required. Additional terms apply for all offers.