Baltic Crusades

by

Anti Selart

• LAST MODIFIED: 23 September 2024
• DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199791279-0257

Introduction

In the context of the Baltic Crusades, the “Baltic” (“Livonian”) roughly corresponds to the territory of modern republics Estonia and Latvia. The region was settled by Finnic-speaking peoples (Estonian groups, Livs, and Finnic Curonians) in its northern and, to some extent also in its western part, and by Baltic-speaking groups (Letts, Semgallians, Selonians, Baltic Curonians) in the south. As the original center of the crusading conquest lay in the Liv settlement area, the toponym “Livonia” spread to the whole territory. During the thirteenth century, five ecclesiastic territories formed there. The most significant part of the country was controlled by the Teutonic Order, which started its activities here in 1237. The archbishop of Riga and bishops of Tartu, Saaremaa, and Curonia were, besides their ecclesiastical duties, territorial lords as well. Northern Estonia was part of the Danish realm until 1346, when it was sold to the Teutonic Order. Traditionally, the authors start their historical narrative of the Baltic Crusades in 1180/1200, when, according to the chronicle by Henry of Livonia, the activities of German missionaries on the lower reaches of the Daugava River started. However, this Germanocentric interpretation tends to shade the Scandinavian efforts to connect the attempt to control the Baltic areas with the crusading ideology which started a few decades earlier. Livonia was eventually conquered by 1300/1310. The crusading warfare continued until 1400 against Lithuania, first of all as the “Preussenreisen” (the expeditions of western European knights against Lithuania) organized by the Teutonic Order. Especially in the English-language publications, the whole history of the Livonian medieval bishoprics and the Livonian Teutonic Order until their dissolution during the Livonian War in 1558–1562 have been treated under the heading of Baltic Crusades, yet the crusading ideology had only sporadic and minor importance in Livonia after the fourteenth century.

General Works

The Baltic Crusades have been typically discussed in the “German expansion” framework, evaluated dominantly positively in Baltic-German and German historiography, and negatively as colonial aggression in Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish, and Russian history-writing. At the same time, the religious aspects of the wars held in the area were almost neglected, except by a few individual pioneering studies. Urban 1994 and Christiansen 1980 were the first monographs that changed the picture. Especially Christiansen 1980, adept at the “pluralist” approach to the history of the Crusades, succeeded in generalizing reasoning about the role of the Crusades in North European history. Eventually, the merit of integrating the Baltic Crusades into the research field of the general history of the Crusades has Danish (Bysted, et al. 2012) and British scholars (Murray 2001 and Murray 2009). Brüggemann, et al. 2018 and Leighton 2022 offer the most up-to-date overview and bibliography. Knowledgeable for the administrative system is Czaja and Radzimiński 2015.

• Brüggemann, Karsten, Detlef Henning, Konrad Maier, and Ralph Tuchtenhagen, eds. Das Baltikum. Geschichte einer europäischen Region. Vol. 1: Von der Vor- und Frühgeschichte bis zum Ende des Mittelalters. Stuttgart, Germany: Hiersemann, 2018.

  The first volume of the three-volume handbook of Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian history covers the period from prehistory to the mid-sixteenth century. The chapters, written by scholars from several countries, are not of homogenous quality and approach. However, the reader still finds a competent overview of the main events and processes with a voluminous and up-to-date bibliography in the footnotes.

• Bysted, Ane, Carsten Selch Jensen, Kurt Villads Jensen, and John H. Lind. Jerusalem in the North: Denmark and the Baltic Crusades, 1100–1522. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2012.

  The book, originally published in Danish in 2004 and written by a group of Danish medievalists, focuses on Danish involvement in the Baltic and Northern Crusades. Simultaneously, it still represents an important presentation of general Baltic history in the Middle Ages based on the “pluralist” understanding of the Crusades.

• Christiansen, Eric. The Northern Crusades: The Baltic and the Catholic Frontier, 1100–1525. London: Macmillan, 1980.

  DOI: 10.1007/978-1-349-16288-8

  It is probably the most influential monograph on the Baltic Crusades, which has seen several editions. It played a central role in making the Baltic Crusades a relevant research topic outside the Baltic regional academic sphere. At the same time, the monograph is mostly based on random literature, which was available in England in the 1970s. Several factual mistakes and some ignorance of geographical space are to be found in the monograph.

• Czaja, Roman, and Andrzej Radzimiński, eds. The Teutonic Order in Prussia and Livonia: The Political and Ecclesiastical Structures 13th–16th C. Toruń, Poland: Towarzystwo Naukowe w Toruniu, 2015.

  Despite the book’s title, the volume gives a general overview of Livonian history, including ecclesiastical institutions and towns. However, the chapter about Livonian architectural heritage does not represent the current state of research. Of interest are the instructive maps of territorial divisions of medieval Baltic lands.

• Leighton, Gregory. “The Baltic Crusades (1147–1300).” In The Routledge Handbook of East Central and Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 500–1300. Edited by Florin Curta, 393–408. London: Routledge, 2022.

  The short but competent contribution to the handbook is a good English-language introduction to the research field. It also provides an updated elementary bibliography of source publications and secondary literature.

• Murray, Alan V., ed. Crusade and Conversion on the Baltic Frontier, 1150–1500. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2001.

  The first selection of English-language papers on Livonian history (compare Murray 2009) concentrates both on the crusading activities and crusading theory in the Baltic and the impact of crusading conquest and mission in the target countries. A particular group of articles deals with contemporary narrative sources of the Baltic Crusades.

• Murray, Alan V., ed. The Clash of Cultures on the Medieval Baltic Frontier. Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2009.

  Another volume of selected papers (compare Murray 2001) focuses on identity and religious changes in the region due to the Crusades. Instead of proclaiming the “clash of cultures” in the title, many contributions discuss the mutual adaptation and cohabitation processes of peoples of different cultures, religions, and geographical descent.

• Murray, Alan V., ed. The North-Eastern Frontiers of Medieval Europe. The Expansion of Latin Christendom in the Baltic Lands. Farnham, UK: Ashgate Variorum, 2014.

  The volume includes reprints of nineteen articles on medieval Baltic and Prussian history initially published in the 1966–2009 period and represent valuable contributions to the up-to-date understanding of the Baltic Crusades. Some are primarily of historiographic value, but several papers demonstrate the relevant knowledge.

• Urban, William L. The Baltic Crusade. 2d ed. Chicago: Lithuanian Research and Studies Center, 1994.

  The study, first published in 1975 and later thoroughly updated, was the pioneering monograph that discussed the Baltic’s 13th-century history in the framework of the general history of the Crusades. Available in English, it has remained influential, especially in the Anglo-American world, albeit outdated in many aspects.

• Urban, William L. The Livonian Crusade. 2d ed. Chicago: Lithuanian Research and Studies Center, 2004.

  First published in 1981 and later revised, the monograph presents the continuation of the former book and discusses Livonian history from the fourteenth to the mid-sixteenth century. It provides a summary of the political history of Livonia according to the research situation of the 1990s.