As usual, chronicles give implausible figures for the combatants in battle. Some historians have estimated roughly 27,000 Germans and 39,000 Slavs. However, such figures do not hold up. Others have estimated the Germans at 3,850 knights, 3,000 squires, and 4,000 mounted archers and crossbowmen, compared to 16,500 Polish-Lithuanians. These numbers still seem excessive.
From feudal service records, we know that the Order theoretically numbered 426 knights, 3,200 servants, 5,872 sergeants, 1,963 militia from six cities, and 1,500 more from the abbeys, totaling 13,000 fighters between 1398 and 1408. However, England had 6,000 knights in its Doomesday Book, but no more than 15% or 30% of them were finally called for campaign, as was the case with the 19,000 warriors in the lists of the Kingdom of Sicily, of whom only…
