Gerhard von Malberg

Gerhard von Malberg (ca. 1200 – 26 November 1246) was the sixth Grand Master of the Teutonic Order, serving from 1240 to 1244. After being forced to resign, he joined the Knights Templar.

Life

Von Malberg hailed from what is now Rhineland-Palatinate. His father was Margrave Theodoric von Aere, who married Agnes von Malberg and took her last name and the castle Malberg. Von Malberg did not plan to join the priesthood. He was married and had two sons, Thedoric and Otto.

After the death of his wife, von Malberg traveled to Outremer, where his kinsmen were members of the Knights Templar. He joined the Teutonic Knights in Acre in 1217 and had become the Komtur of Toron by 1227 at the latest. In 1240 he became the Grand Marshal of the Order in Acre. His position in the Kingdom of Jerusalem and his ties with the Templars brought von Malberg into conflict with Grand Master Hermann von Salza during the Sixth Crusade. Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II and von Salza supported the movement of most of the Teutonic Knights to Prussia, while von Malberg wanted the Order to focus on the Holy Land.

After the death of von Salza's successor Conrad of Thuringia in 1240, von Malberg was chosen Grand Master in 1240 or 1241 in order to build closer ties with the Middle East; Dietrich von Grüningen was the president of the electoral chapter.cite book|last=Wyatt|first=Walter James|title=The History of Prussia: Tracing the Origin and Development of her Military Organization|publisher=Longman, Green and Co.|location=London|year=1876|pages=326] Von Malberg had clear support from Pope Innocent IV, although von Malberg was also favored by the emperor. Frederick II dispatched the new Grand Master, the Archbishop of Bari, and the Magister Roger Porcastrello to pressure the papal conclave to elect Otto of St. Nicholas as pope, but Pope Celestine IV was chosen instead.

In 1243 Pope Innocent IV gave an apostolic ring, representing Prussia as a papal fief of the knights, to von Malberg, in return for annual tribute from the Order; Frederick had also claimed the territory. The knights fought against Świętopełk II of Pomerania during von Malberg's service.

As tension grew from the splintering of the Order's forces between Prussia, Livonia, and Outremer, support for von Malberg among the Order fell; the Grand Master traveled to Montfort in Outremer after Innocent fled to Lyon. The Teutonic Knights organized a general chapter in Toron and requested von Malberg's resignation. Although he initially proceeded with this, von Malberg then rejected the demand and appealed to the pope. After a papal investigation revealed the Grand Master's poor leadership, he and some of his followers were allowed to leave the Teutonic Order and join the Knights Templar.

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