One of the Teutonic knights slept with a 10/10 Nordic stacy for an entire year and didn't even touch her once just to prove how strong he was in his chastity.
As for chastity, the knight-brother was exposed to strong temptations, because war and power continually put women at his mercy. They were booty, and the expectation of raping them was what kept his native auxiliaries up to the mark. Some Brothers must have joined in, as witness the partisan but not unbelievable evidence of Polish deponents describing incidents in the war of 1329-32. A knight testified that the Brothers of the Order had raped more women than had their Old Prussian underlings, and a burgher had watched the women being dragged to their tents. The temptations of active service must often have proved irresistible, but it does not follow that the vow of chastity was ignored or taken lightly. It may well have been taken all the more seriously. The chronicler Peter of Dusburg quoted with approval the example of the commander of Konigsberg, Berchtold Bruhave (1289-1302), who went through the reverse of a trial marriage before joining the Order. He chose the prettiest girl he could find, and slept with her for a year without touching her. 'Ecce, mira res et stupenda', wrote Dusburg. Those who lacked Bruhave's strength of mind had to use pain as an antidote, wearing their mail-shirts next to the skin until the raw flesh rusted the metal. Some were said to have been helped by miracles. The terrible Johann von Gilberstedt of Halle had been so vigorous in secular life that even after receiving the last rites he had been moved to rape his nurse. However, devils had then picked him up and thrown him into a distant marsh, from which he had crawled into the Order as a humbled penitent. It seems that in the minds of most Brothers sexual passion and the cult of chastity fought a continual war, which neither could win; but it is worth noting that Commander Albert of Meissen composed a special prayer to avert incontinence: 'O highest joy, give us a true love of thee, and a pure life, give us a clean conscience, and protect us from lust.'
From: Eric Christiansen, The Northern Crusades: The Baltic and the Catholic Frontier 1100-1525
As for chastity, the knight-brother was exposed to strong temptations, because war and power continually put women at his mercy. They were booty, and the expectation of raping them was what kept his native auxiliaries up to the mark. Some Brothers must have joined in, as witness the partisan but not unbelievable evidence of Polish deponents describing incidents in the war of 1329-32. A knight testified that the Brothers of the Order had raped more women than had their Old Prussian underlings, and a burgher had watched the women being dragged to their tents. The temptations of active service must often have proved irresistible, but it does not follow that the vow of chastity was ignored or taken lightly. It may well have been taken all the more seriously. The chronicler Peter of Dusburg quoted with approval the example of the commander of Konigsberg, Berchtold Bruhave (1289-1302), who went through the reverse of a trial marriage before joining the Order. He chose the prettiest girl he could find, and slept with her for a year without touching her. 'Ecce, mira res et stupenda', wrote Dusburg. Those who lacked Bruhave's strength of mind had to use pain as an antidote, wearing their mail-shirts next to the skin until the raw flesh rusted the metal. Some were said to have been helped by miracles. The terrible Johann von Gilberstedt of Halle had been so vigorous in secular life that even after receiving the last rites he had been moved to rape his nurse. However, devils had then picked him up and thrown him into a distant marsh, from which he had crawled into the Order as a humbled penitent. It seems that in the minds of most Brothers sexual passion and the cult of chastity fought a continual war, which neither could win; but it is worth noting that Commander Albert of Meissen composed a special prayer to avert incontinence: 'O highest joy, give us a true love of thee, and a pure life, give us a clean conscience, and protect us from lust.'
From: Eric Christiansen, The Northern Crusades: The Baltic and the Catholic Frontier 1100-1525
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