The Livonian Brothers of the Sword (Latin: Fratres militiæ Christi Livoniae, German: Schwertbrüderorden) were a military order founded by Bishop Albert of Riga in 1202. Pope Innocent III sanctioned the establishment in 1204. The membership of the order comprised German "warrior monks". Alternative names of the Order include the Christ Knights, Sword Brethren, and The Militia of Christ of Livonia.
Following their defeat by the Samogitians and Semigallians in the Battle of Schaulen (Saule) in 1236, the surviving Brothers merged into the Teutonic Order as an autonomous branch and became known as the Livonian Order.
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Famous quotes containing the words brothers and/or sword:
“When you gonna get married, Marty? You should be ashamed of yourself. All your brothers and sisters, younger than you, they get married and got the children. I meet your mother in the produce store. She say to me “Eh, you know a nice girl for my boy Marty?” What’s the matter with you? That’s no way!”
—Paddy Chayefsky (1923–1981)
“We soon saw, as he saw, that he was not to be pardoned or rescued by men. That would have been to disarm him, to restore to him a material weapon, a Sharp’s rifle, when he had taken up the sword of the spirit,—the sword with which he has really won his greatest and most memorable victories. Now he has not laid aside the sword of the spirit, for he is pure spirit himself, and his sword is pure spirit also.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)