Teutonic Order - Sub Commandery of California - Herzlich willkommen auf der page des Deutschen Ordens - German Order - Teutonic Order - Founded In Acre, Kingdom of Jerusalem in the Year of Our Lord 1190. The Teutonic Order, as a new institution was confirmed by the German Crusader leader, Duke Frederick of Swabia, on November 19th, in the year 1190 and with the capture of Acre, the founde
rs of the hospital were given a permanent site in the city. Mariae Hiersolymitanae" by the Bull Quotiens postulatur of February 6, 11, 91 and, within a few years, the Order had developed as a Religious Military institution comparable to the Hospitallers and Templars, although initially subordinate to the Master of the Hospital. This subordination was confirmed in the Bull Dilecti filii of Pope Gregory IX of January 12, 1240 addressed to the "fratres hospitalis S. The distinct German character of this new Hospitaller Order and the protection given to it by the Emperor and German rulers, enabled it to gradually assert a de facto independence from the Order of Saint John. The first Imperial grant came from Otto IV who gave the Order his protection on May 10, 1213 and this was followed almost immediately by a further confirmation by Frederick II on September 5, 1214. These Imperial confirmations each treated the Teutonic knights as independent from the Hospitallers. By the middle of the fourteenth century this independence was acknowledged by the Holy See.
