Tea at Trianon: Origins of the Teutonic Order

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Monday, April 4, 2022

Origins of the Teutonic Order

From Ancient Origins:

The origins of the Teutonic Order may be traced back to the middle of the 12th century. In 1143, the Hospitallers were ordered by Pope Celestine II to take over the running of the German Hospital in Jerusalem. This hospital had been set up to cater to the pilgrims and crusaders from Germany who were neither able to speak French (the local language) nor Latin. Although the hospital was to be managed by the Hospitallers, the prior and the brothers of the hospitals themselves should be Germans. This arrangement allowed the tradition of a German-led religious institute to develop in the Holy Land. Jerusalem fell in 1187, and the first significant counter-attack by the crusaders against the Muslims was the Siege of Acre, which began two years later. It was during this siege that some merchants from Lübeck and Bremen, inspired by the German Hospital, decided to run a field hospital for the duration of the siege. Acre fell to the crusaders in 1191, and in the following year the field hospital, which formed the nucleus of the new Teutonic Order, was recognized by the pope, and the monks received Augustinian Rule. In 1198, the Teutonic Order became a military order. (Read more.)