ROMSO Cyprus Knowledge Base

The German Order was formerly a clerical order of chivalry and today is exclusively a religious order of the Roman Catholic Church. The Order of Germany was the forerunner of the Duchy of Prussia.

Until the 19th century, the religious conventions of the Order were called Coming. In these comers lived both knight brothers and priest brothers and Greyman or Servants. Under the direction of a superior, called Comtur, a monastic life with choir prayer took place in these coming ones. It was only after the Reformation that communal life was dissolved in the German Order and those who came became pure sources of income for the Order’s knightly brothers, who were usually in the military service of a landlord.

Coming ones were grouped into larger administrative units, the ballies; The latter were comparable to the provinces of the Dominicans.

With the conversion of the German Order into a clerical order after the First World War, the element in this order was dissolved. Thus, the Order’s ballies merged into the provinces/priorities of the German Order, which nowadays consists mainly of priest brothers, whose prior is always called Landkomtur and thus follows the tradition of the Knight Brothers.

The coming ones were transformed into convents, whose head is now called Superior and no longer Comtur.

First arrivals in the Holy Land, still without balls

Ballei Armenia

The possessions in Cyprus did not form their own ballei, but belonged to the ballei Armenia

Ballei Puglia
In 1483 Stephan Grube died, the last governor of the Ballei. As successor, Pope Sixtus IV appointed a cardinal. Despite all the protests, the German Order could not recover the Ballei and was lost for the Order.

Ballei bees

Bohemia Chamber Balloon

Ballei Schwaben-Alsace-Burgundy

Ballei on the Adige and in the mountains (Tirol)

Ballei Franken

Ballei France

Ballei Hessen

Kammerballei Koblenz

Ballei Lamparten (Lombardei)

Ballei Lorraine

Ballei Central Italy

Chamber Balloon Austria

Ballei Romanien (‘Greece’)

Ballei Saxony

Ballei Sicily

Ballei Spain

Ballei Thuringia

Ballei Utrecht

Ballei Westfalen

Mastery of Livonia

The mastery of Livonia was also under the court of the German Order in Lübeck.

Mastery of Prussia

Today's religious provinces

Priority Germany
Priorat Weyarn
Darmstadt Convention
Convention of Frankfurt-Sachsenhausen
Monastery of Maria Birnbaum
Convention Weather
Frankenberg branch
Branch of Rheinbach
Koblenz Branch

Former Conventions of the German Province:
Nuremberg Branch (2008–2011)

Priority Austria
Convention at the High Master's Office in Vienna

Priority South Tyrol
Priority Lana

Priority Slovenia
Priority Laibach

Priority Czech Republic — Slovakia
Priorat Troppau
Convention Freudenthal
Convention Topol’cany

Today's family ballies
independent consultancy “Alden Biesen” in Belgium

Ballei Austria