32 engage in study.

If to the brethren of the Teutonic. Order Latin was a foreign tongue, then it would be useless to teach the statutes to the brothers in Latin; there­ fore, the requirement that a copy of the Rule and the Laws be kept in every house of the order so that the brethren may hear and study them makes sense only if they kept a copy of the statutes in German. The phraseology of this L a w , mugen gehSren unde gelernen, may be significant.^^ When Eberhard of Sayn (ca.1250) gave instructions to the brethren in Prussia that every Sunday chapters from the Rule, the Customs, and the Laws be read to the brethren, it may be assumed

that these were in German, possibly brought by Eberhard from the Holy Land. Thus, it seems that about the time

^^Liv-, Est-und Kuriandisches Urkundenbuch, ed. Friedrich A. Bunge, et. al., Cvols. I-XII, 1853- 1910; Abt. 2, vols. I-III, 1900-1914, Reval et alibi) XI, No. 831. This fifteen-volume edition of original

Livonian, Estonian and Couronian historical documents contains the largest collection of documents of the Livonian branch of the Teutonic Knights.

'^See below, p. 248, Laws III, 1. ^ S e e below, p. 257, Laws III, 17.

the statutes may have been compiled in Latin under Master Henry of Hohenlohe (1244-1249), they were probably at the same time translated into German for practical use within the Teutonic Order. So the German text of the statutes was seemingly the official version already in use in the Holy Land. It should be noted also that all the supplements of later masters, which are, in fact, the decisions of the chapter (including the earliest extant chapter decisions which are pre- 1264), are written only in German, with translation of some paragraphs into D u t c h , ^ which would seem to indicate that already in the Holy Land the chapter*s business was conducted in German. Altogether five Latin manuscripts of the statutes are extant, one of which, dating from the late fourteenth or early fifteenth century, contains also a German version, which indicates that the German text was the commonly

used version. Similarly, the only extant manuscript in French, dating from the fourteenth century, probably written in Lorraine or Franche-Comte, contains also the German version. But the French text is much closer to the Latin than to the German, and contains a concluding sentence, given in the Latin but omitted in the German

^ S e e Perlbach, pp. 134-139, for the pre-1264 chapter decisions, the Laws 1264-1289, and the Laws of Burchard of Schwanden from 1289.

and Dutch versions. This is another probable proof that the version of the statutes from which the trans­ lations were made, was the Latin text. There are four extant manuscripts in Dutch, evidently from commanderies in and bordering on the Netherlands, which made up the Province of Utrecht in the Order.

The extant German manuscripts number well over thirty, in various dialects, for every commandery had to have a copy of the Ordenbftch. Naturally, as more and more copies were made, they began to differ not only in language, but also in accuracy, and various supplements were made. Therefore in 1442 the chapter of the order decided to revise the Book of the Order and make three master copies, one to be kept in the main house in Marienburg, another in the German Master’s residence in Horneck, and a third in the Livonian branch in Riga. All further copies were to be made only from these three master c o p i e s . ^ Thus, in 1442, the German version was made legally the offi­ cial version of the Statutes of the Teutonic Knights. There is no evidence that approval was sought from the pope.

The statutes themselves contain evidence that the German text was the version which was read to the

35

For the extant manuscripts see Perlbach, pp. x-xxx, lix; also Hennig, pp. 29-30.

brethren. The concluding section of the statutes gives 36

instructions for private prayers. These instructions, fifteen in number, appear for the first time in the fourteenth century manuscripts, written in German and Dutch, but are missing from all the Latin manuscripts. The first instruction reads as follows: "Brethren, pray to our Lord God for holy Christendom that He comfort you with His grace and that peaceful converse protect you from all evil." Then the brethren are instructed to pray for the pope and the prelates of the church, for the order, its grand master and the other command­ ers , for the other brethren and for themselves, and so on, till the last paragraph concludes: "Brethren, now you have well heard our Rule, our Laws, and our Customs for the present as well as for the coming days; act in accordance with them, as is proper." It would have been ridiculous to give instructions to the illit­ erate brothers in Latin or to read the Book of the Order to them in Latin. So these last directions, which in fact repeat (in condensed form) their obliga­ tions to God, to Christendom and to the Order, were omitted from the Latin text, or rather, were added to the German text, as the text which was read to the brethren. Perhaps still more interesting is the Dutch

^ G e b e t , ed. Perlbach, pp. 131-133.

version of these directions. They begin: "As we have gathered here to the honor of God and of the Order, we should begin Christian living, and we pray for all things which are changeable, that God change them for the best." And they conclude: "Brethren, we say our prayer: we have heard the Lord* s teachings and all good teachings, and we act accordingly, as it is proper that we heed good teachings."

THE STATUTES OF THE TEUTONIC KNIGHTS: