ABSTRACT
The origins and the early history of the Teutonic Order have been the subject of numerous studies, including recent work by Marie-Luise Favreau-Lilie, Dieter Wojtecki, and Udo Arnold. Their attention has been attracted by the difficult problem of the connections between the Order and the German hospitals in Jerusalem and Acre, the constitutional development of the Order, and its growth in Germany. 1 Although Kurt Forstreuter has written extensively on the Order in the Mediterranean, like them, he has given relatively little attention to relations between Frederick II and the Teutonic Order in the kingdom of Sicily. Even the biographers of Frederick, who have dealt in detail with the relationship between Frederick II and the Master of the Order, Hermann of Salza, have been chiefly content to describe the importance of Hermann's role in Frederick's crusade and in his relations with the papacy without focusing directly on the kingdom of Sicily. 2
