Gerhard von Malberg

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Grand Master's coat of arms of Gerhard von Malberg

Gerhard von Malberg (* before 1200; † November 26, 1246 ) was Grand Master of the Teutonic Order from 1240 to 1244 .

family

Gerhard von Malberg came from the town of the same name in what is now the Eifel district of Bitburg-Prüm . His father was the Margrave Theodorich von Aere , who married Agnes von Malberg and from whose right held the castle and rule Malberg and named himself after her. Gerhard was married and had two sons, Thedorich and Otto. After the death of his wife, he traveled to Outremer , where some of his relatives had been resident for a long time and held higher offices in the Knights Templar .

Outremer

Career in the Teutonic Order

Presumably in 1217 Gerhard joined the Teutonic Order in Acre . By 1227 at the latest, Gerhard was nominal commander of Toron , one of the most important religious castles in the Holy Land .

His position in Outremer and his family ties to the Knights Templar brought him into increasing opposition to Grand Master Hermann von Salza , when he was in the Holy Land in the wake of Emperor Frederick II on the occasion of his crusade in the years 1228-1229. In the following years Gerhard swung himself up to be the spokesman for the "Fraction of the Teutonicum Order in the Holy Land". This strongly opposed the politics of the grand master, who followed the interests of the then banned emperor and drove the expansion in the Pruzzenland , while Gerhard's faction advocated concentrating more on the Holy Land. In 1240 Gerhard became Supreme Marshal of the order, based in Acre.

Grand Master

It was only after the death of Hermann von Salza and his immediate successor Konrad von Thuringia that Gerhard succeeded in asserting himself on the chapter of the order. In 1240 or 1241 he was elected Grand Master of the Order. In view of the increasing fragmentation of the order's forces, now in the Eastern European theaters of war such as Prussia and Livonia, as well as the threat in the Holy Land itself, Gerhard resigned and led the life of a troubadour , contrary to the statutes of the order , which, according to tradition, corresponded most closely to his nature - but his to the Friars who adhered to the statutes became increasingly bitter. In addition there was his one-sided determination of the order in the Holy Land. There he insisted on the mediating role of the Teutonic Order in view of the conflict between the Templars and Hospitallers , but his sympathies were too clearly on the side of the Knights Templar, which contributed significantly to his isolation within his own order.

At a general chapter in Toron, Gerhard von Malberg was urged to resign, which he subsequently complied with. After he left office and the German Order in 1244, little is known about Gerhard von Malberg.

Change to the Knights Templar and death

Pope Innocent IV allowed him to convert to the Knights Templar. But there is no evidence that he made this change of order.

He died on November 26, 1246.

literature

personal data
SURNAME Gerhard von Malberg
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Grand Master of the Teutonic Order
DATE OF BIRTH around 1200
DATE OF DEATH November 26, 1246