The Livonian Order was established in 1237 as an autonomous branch of the Teutonic Order in Livonia, corresponding to present-day Estonia and Latvia, formed from the remnants of the Livonian Brothers of the Sword after that order's defeat in 1236. A Catholic military-religious organisation dedicated to crusading and territorial conquest in the Baltic region, it maintained the military-monastic tradition of its parent Teutonic Order under elected regional masters nominally overseen by the grandmaster in Prussia. It ceased to exist in 1561 after defeat in the Livonian War, when its last master, Gotthard Kettler, secularised its remaining territories and converted to Lutheranism, its lands then divided among Poland-Lithuania, Sweden and Denmark.
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