retired, after serious loss from sorties and sickness. A series of
battles followed, and finally a treaty of peace was signed, by which
the order gave up some portion of its territory to Poland.

But a new enemy was on its way to inflict upon the order greater and
more lasting injury than that which the sword could effect. The
doctrines of Wycklif had for some time been spreading throughout
Europe, and had lately received a new impulse from the vigorous
efforts of John Huss in Bohemia, who had eagerly embraced them, and
set himself to preach them, with additions of his own. Several knights
accepted the teaching of Huss, and either retired from the order or
were forcibly ejected. Differences and disputes also arose within the
order, which ended in the arrest and deposition of the grand master in
1413. But the new doctrines had taken deep root, and a large party
within the order were more or less favorable to them, so much so that
at the Council of Constance (1415) a strong party demanded the total
suppression of the Teutonic order. This was overruled; but it probably
induced the grand master to commence a series of persecutions against
those in his dominions who followed the principles of Huss.

The treaty that had followed the defeat at Tannenberg had been almost
from the first disputed by both parties, and for some years appeals
were made to the Pope and the Emperor on several points; but the
decisions seldom gave satisfaction or commanded obedience. The general
result was the loss to the order of some further portions of its
dominions.

Another outbreak of the plague, in 1427, inflicted injury upon the
order. In a few weeks no less than eighty-one thousand seven hundred
and forty-six persons perished. There were also about this time
certain visions of hermits and others, which threatened terrible
judgments upon the order, because, while it professed to exist and
fight for the honor of God, the defence of the Church, and the
propagation of the faith, it really desired and labored only for its
own aggrandizement.

It was said, too, that it should perish through a goose (_oie_), and
as the word "Huss" means a goose in Bohemian _patois_, it was said
afterward that the writings of Huss, or more truly, perhaps, the work
of the goose-quill, had fulfilled the prophecy in undermining and
finally subverting the order. There were also disputes respecting the
taxes, which the people declared to be oppressive, and finally, in