In the fifteenth century, the Hospitallers and Teutonic Knights still adhered to their original aims and tasks, which continued the traditionally close connection between military Orders and crusading. The “struggle against the infidel” remained at the core of crusading ideas within the Orders, though their actual participation changed during the fifteenth century. While the Hospitallers reached a climax of their activities with the siege of Rhodes in 1480, after 1466 the Teutonic Knights could only muster smaller contingents for the Polish armies directed against the Ottomans. The Teutonic Knights claimed that they could not fight the infidel without their lordship in Prussia, while the Knights of St John portrayed the defense of Rhodes against the Muslims as an important element in the defense of Christianity as a wole.