BOOK VI.

A.D. 1236.

A.D. 1237.

pardon upon promising obedience, and paying a heavy fine.

At this period the Prussians, (Pruterii,) a barbarous people who dwelt on the southern shore of the Baltic sea, began to excite the attention of their neighbours, by the cruelties they committed in their plundering excursions, and the zeal which they manifested in destroying the Christian churches. The pope ordered a crusade against them, and the Teutonic knights were called upon to defend their Christian brethren.

The Grand Master of the order was residing at Venice, when it became necessary for him to take the field in the north of Germany. On his way to take the command of the army, he had to pass through Brunswick, and as the duke's dominions were enjoying peace, and reaping the advantages of a well-ordered government, the Grand Master invited him to take a part in the conquest of his heathen countrymen. Otho consented, if it should be found that his assistance was required; and when he understood towards the end of this Joins the Teutonic year, that the Grand Master and his knights were in great jeopardy, he set out with a num

Knights against the

Prussians:

ber of his best troops, to effect their rescue.

He found the Christians shut up in the fortress of Balga, which the Prussians had invested, with a determination to starve them into terms, and he arrived at a moment when famine began seriously to affect the besieged.

Knowing the advantages of secrecy and despatch, he advanced with great caution, kept his troops out of view of the enemy, and sent a confidential messenger to the Grand Master to announce his arrival. This messenger, luckily, found his way into the fortress, and it was arranged, that at a certain hour the besieged should make a sally from the castle, and thus bring the enemy into the field, and that while the garrison attacked them in front, Otho should emerge from his place of concealment, and assail them in the rear.

BOOK VI.

A.D. 1237.

A.D. 1238.

The Prussians, seeing the besieged advance from the walls, considered it the effect of despair, and drawing back, gave them time to form; but Otho and his troops pouring in upon them from behind, they most unexpectedly found themselves between two armies. Their force was much greater than that of the Christians; but the sudden and unexpected attack Fights a battle with made by Otho, and their ignorance of the

the infidels :

1

M

BOOK VI. strength of his force, produced a confusion and terror, from which they could not recover, and And gains a signal they were put to flight after a great many

A.D. 1238.

victory.

A.D. 1239.

A.D. 1240. Arrival of the Tartars in Hungary:

of

their chiefs had fallen. The whole of their fortresses in that part of the country were destroyed, and the Teutonic order gained possession of the provinces of Ermeland, Natangen, and Barthen, (their first property in the modern kingdom of Prussia,) and which they owed to the prudence and valour of the Duke of Brunswick and his troops.

Otho returned to his own dominions in December, 1238, and we find that he remained firmly attached to the interests of the emperor, during the stormy period that followed the usurpation of Sardinia by the natural son of Frederick, and the mutual recrimination betwen him and the Pope, that led to a sentence of excommunication and actual hostilities in 1239.

In 1240, the Tartars, whose name had first became known to Europeans in 1221, made an irruption through Russia into Poland and Hungary, destroying and carrying off every Otho sends troops thing that came in their way. Otho sent troops to the aid of the Duke of Breslau against these infidels, and received the cross from the Bishop

against them:

BOOK VI.

A.D. 1240.

of Brandenburg a

of Hildesheim; but he did not proceed with the expedition, as the news arrived of their having evacuated Hungary. He was called Joins the Marquis upon, however, to take a part with his brothers-gainst the Bishop of in-law Otho and John, Margraves of Branden- Magdeburg. burg, in a dispute which they had with the Archbishop of Magdeburg, and the Bishop of Halberstadt, about some territorial boundary, or the property of a petty village, which led as a matter of course to a civil war, and was compromised after many valuable lives had been lost.

A.D. 1243.

A.D. 1244.

In 1243, Otho purchased from his uncle's widow, Agnes of Landsberg, the right which she enjoyed in the tenths of the mines of Goslar, and paid to her eleven hundred marks of pure silver for the same. In 1244, we find him occupied in ornamenting and improving the City of Hano- Otho improves the ver, and abrogating some old and burdensome city of Hanover. laws, which, as a part of the Saxon code, regulated the succession of heirs to the property of their male and female relations.

Munden becomes a

In 1246, the City of Munden, on the Weser, A.D. 1246. was ceded to Otho. It had formerly belonged city of Hanover. to the Landgrave of Hesse, but from this period it has continued a part of the Brunswick territory, and is now a city of the kingdom of Hanover.

BOOK VI.

A.D. 1246.

The war between the pope and the emperor which commenced in 1239, had again raised up the spirit of faction in Italy, but though the sentence of excommunication was transmitted to Germany, it had little effect, at first, The state of the em- in prejudicing either the princes or the religious orders against the emperor, and the north remained tranquil, while Italy was deluged with blood.

pire considered.

Frederick marched against Rome in 1240, but was repulsed, and the pope, to maintain his influence, sent the Bishop of Palestine into France, to publish the sentence of excommunication and deposition, which had been pronounced, and to offer the crown to Robert, the brother of St. Louis. The King of France was too sensible of the selfish and unjust views which actuated the Pontiff, to pay much attention to his legate's demands. He suffered his clergy to act as they pleased in regard to the subsidy demanded from them, and to publish the sentence; but he absolutely refused to grant him any aid, either in troops or money, and instead of accepting the crown for his brother, he wrote to reproach the pope, for having dared to depose a sovereign.

Gregory, after this refusal, applied to Eng