By adopting and adapting practices from the world of monasticism while also taking on practices reflective of courtly-noble culture, the Teutonic Knights sought to justify and lay claim to their dual status and function in medieval society. The current article seeks to show how the dual social identity of the Teutonic Knights, that is, their belonging to the estate of the praying as well as that of the fighting or ruling, was incorporated and embodied in their rituals of mobility and hospitality. Considerable instances from pre-modern history can be found in the communal acts of the Teutonic Order.
It is a basic feature of human existence that we engage in acts of mobility and hospitality and thereby seek to infuse liminal moments marked by ambiguity or disorientation with symbolic meaning.
