Northern Crusades
The Northern Crusades[1] or Baltic Crusades[2] were Christianization campaigns undertaken by Catholic Christian military orders and kingdoms, primarily against the pagan Baltic, Finnic and West Slavic peoples around the southern and eastern shores of the Baltic Sea, and also against Orthodox Christian East Slavs.
For the film, see Northern Crusades (film).The most notable campaigns were the Livonian and Prussian crusades. Some of these wars were called crusades during the Middle Ages, but others, including most of the Swedish ones, were first dubbed crusades by 19th-century romantic nationalist historians. However, crusades against Estonians, but also against "other pagans in those parts" were authorized by Pope Alexander III in the bull Non parum animus noster,[3] in 1171 or 1172.[4]
At the outset of the northern crusades, Christian monarchs across northern Europe commissioned forays into territories that comprise modern-day Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Russia. The indigenous populations of Pagans suffered forced baptisms and the ravages of military occupation. Spearheading, but by no means monopolizing these incursions, the ascendant Teutonic Order profited immensely from the crusades, as did German merchants who fanned out along trading routes traversing the Baltic frontier.[5]
The official starting point for the Northern Crusades was Pope Celestine III's call in 1195,[6] but the Catholic kingdoms of Scandinavia, Poland and the Holy Roman Empire had begun moving to subjugate their pagan neighbors even earlier (see Christianization of Pomerania).[7] The non-Christian people who were objects of the campaigns at various dates included:
Armed conflict between the Finnic peoples, 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 before the crusade. The previous battles had largely been caused by attempts to destroy castles and sea trade routes to gain an 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.
Livonian missionary and crusade activity in Estonia caused conflicts with Novgorod, who had also attempted to subjugate, raid and convert the pagan Estonians. The Estonians also sometimes attempted to ally with the Russians against the Crusaders.[21]
Wars between the two sides continued intermittently on several occasions, and halted the eastward expansion of the Teutonic Order, but Novgorodian attempt to take Estonia and Livonia also failed, and the area was firmly dominated by the Teutonic Order.