Landsknecht Guild

A couple of weekends ago there was a large group at the faire dressed as Teutonic Kinghts.  I couldn’t remember my timeline history well enought right off the bat, but I knew that the group was undergong a major collapse in power at the time, specificly the Grand Master converting to Lutheranism. They give an excellent example of the changes rocking the HRE at this time.  Here are some highlights snagged from wikipedia:

The Order was completely ousted from Prussia when Grand Master Albert of Brandenburg, after the Polish–Teutonic War (1519–1521), converted to Lutheranism in 1525, secularized the Order’s remaining Prussian territories, and assumed from King Sigismund I the Old of Poland, his uncle, the hereditary rights to the Duchy of Prussia as a vassal of the Polish Crown in the Prussian Homage. The Protestant Duchy of Prussia was thus a fief of Catholic Poland.

Although it had lost control of all of its Prussian lands, the Teutonic Order retained its territories within the Holy Roman Empire and Livonia, although the Livonian branch retained considerable autonomy. Many of the Imperial possessions were ruined in the German Peasants’ War from 1524 to 1525 and subsequently confiscated by Protestant territorial princes.^[20] [...]

After the loss of Prussia in 1525, the Teutonic Knights concentrated
on their possessions in the Holy Roman Empire. Since they held no
contiguous territory, they developed a three-tiered administrative
system: holdings were combined into commanderies which were administered by a commander (Komtur). Several commanderies were combined to form a bailiwick headed by a Landkomtur. All of the Teutonic Knights’ possessions were subordinate to the Grand Master whose seat was in Bad Mergentheim.

Altogether there were twelve German bailiwicks:

• Thuringia,
• Alden Biesen (in present-day Belgium),
• Hesse,
• Saxony,
• Westphalia,
• Franconia,
• Koblenz,
• Alsace-Burgundy,
• An der Etsch und im Gebirge (in Tyrol),
• Utrecht,
• Lorraine,
• and Austria.

Outside of German areas were the bailiwicks of

• Sicily,
• Apulia,
• Lombardy,
• Bohemia,
• “Romania” (in Greece),
• and Armenia-Cyprus.

The Order gradually lost control of these holdings until, by 1810, only the bailiwicks in Tyrol and Austria remained.

Following the abdication of Albert of Brandenburg, Walter von Cronberg became Deutschmeister in 1527, became Administrator of Prussia and Grand Master in 1530. Emperor Charles V combined the two positions in 1531, creating the title Hoch- und Deutschmeister, which also had the rank of Prince of the Empire.^[21] A new Grand Magistery was established in Mergentheim in Württemberg, which was attacked during the German Peasants’ War. [...]