Northern Crusades - Background

Background

The official starting point for the Northern Crusades was Pope Celestine III's call in 1193; but the Christian kingdoms of Scandinavia and the Holy Roman Empire had begun moving to subjugate their pagan neighbors even earlier. The non-Christian people who were objects of the campaigns at various dates included:

  • the Polabian Wends, Sorbs, and Obotrites between the Elbe and Oder rivers (by the Saxons, Danes, and Poles, beginning with the Wendish Crusade in 1147)
  • the peoples of (present-day) Finland in 1154 (Finland Proper; disputed), 1249? (Tavastia) and 1293 (Karelia) (Swedish Crusades, although Christianization had started earlier),
  • Livonians, Latgallians, Selonians, and Estonians (by the Germans and Danes, 1193–1227),
  • Semigallians and Curonians (1219–1290),
  • Old Prussians,
  • Lithuanians and Samogitians (by the Germans, unsuccessfully, 1236–1316).

Armed conflict between the Baltic Finns, Balts and Slavs who dwelt by the Baltic shores and their Saxon and Danish neighbors to the north and south had been common for several centuries prior to the crusade. The previous battles had largely been caused by attempts to destroy castles and sea trade routes and gain economic advantage in the region, and the crusade basically continued this pattern of conflict, albeit now inspired and prescribed by the Pope and undertaken by Papal knights and armed monks.

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