From the Preface: The purpose of this study is to examine the role of the religious military orders, and of the Teutonic Knights in particular, within the process of change in developing the concept of a religious and a Christian warrior during the Crusades, or, in other words, how the existing Latin ideal of religious retreat was adapted, blended and attached to the chivalric image of Western Europe in the Holy Land, as reflected in the statutes of the Teutonic Knights. For this purpose the statutes of the other two prominent religious military orders, the Knights Templars and the Knights Hospitallers, and also the Rules and Constitutions of other contemporary religious orders are compared with, and studied as possible sources of, the statutes of the Teutonic Knights. Also the organization and membership of the Teutonic Order are described and analyzed. Basic to all this is the first English translation of the statutes, the Book of the Order, made from the German text of 1264, found in the oldest extant manuscript.