The 'Northern Crusades', inspired by the Pope's call for a Holy War, are less celebrated than those in the Middle East, but they were also more successful: vast new territories became and remain Christian, such as Finland, Estonia and Prussia. Newly revised in the light of the recent developments in Baltic and Northern medieval research, this authoritative overview provides a balanced and compelling account of a tumultuous era.

"The Popes and the Baltic Crusades" examines the formulation of papal policy on the crusades and missions in the Baltic region in the central Middle Ages and analyses why and how the crusade concept was extended from the Holy Land to the Baltic region.

'God wills it, God wills it ' - this was the response to the sermon of Pope Urban II at Clermont in 1095, in which he exhorted his audience to take the cross and liberate Jerusalem. And his words spread, even to the remotest islands in the north of Christendom. For the first time since the mid-nineteenth century, historians have investigated Latin, Danish, German, and Russian source materials about the Danish Crusades in the Baltic region. This team of four Danish medievalists describe how the idea of crusading reached the North and how Scandinavia became involved in the Western European crusading movement. Crusading ideology inspired Danish wars for hundreds of years against the Wends, Prussians, Lithuanians, Estonians and other pagan peoples along the coasts of the Baltic Sea so that in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries Denmark became the dominant crusading power in the region: a Jerusalem in the North. Indeed, crusading remained an important political reality in Denmark until the Lutheran Reformation in the early seventeenth century. Ane L. Bysted holds a Ph.D. from the University of Southern Denmark with a dissertation on the development of the crusade indulgence, and has written on crusade theology and preaching. Carsten Selch Jensen is Associate Professor in Church History at the University of Copenhagen. Has written on crusading history, especially in the Baltic Region as well as on holy and just war in the Middle Ages. Kurt Villads Jensen is Associate Professor in Medieval History at the University of Southern Denmark and chair of the Medieval Centre. He has written on Christian mission and crusades, especially in the Baltic region and Iberia.John H. Lind has written extensively on the Baltic crusades and on relations between Scandinavia, Finland and Russia from the Viking Age up to modern times.

The Wendish Crusade of 1147, one of the Northern Crusades and a part of the Second Crusade, took place at a critical phase in the evolution of crusading rhetoric. The initiators and apologists of the campaign employed rhetorical devices to justify the occupation of a region and conversion of a population under the auspices of a crusade. A detailed examination of the primary sources shows that the justification of a crusade against apostates was not only a German endeavour, or the pope’s will, but a political reality of the twelfth century. Therefore, the attitude of the papacy is shown to be reactive rather than proactive.

This volume represents a major contribution to the history of the Northern Crusades and the Christianization of the Baltic lands in the Middle Ages, from the beginnings of the Catholic mission to the time of the Reformation. The subjects treated range from discussions of the ideology and practice of crusade and conversion, through studies of the motivation of the crusading countries (Denmark, Sweden and Germany) and the effects of the crusades on the countries of the eastern Baltic coast (Finland, Estonia, Livonia, Prussia and Lithuania), to analyses of the literature and historiography of the crusade. It brings together essays from both established and younger scholars from the western tradition with those from the modern Baltic countries and Russia, and presents in English some of the fruits of the first decade of historical scholarship and dialogue after the collapse of the Iron Curtain. The depth of treatment, diversity of approaches, and accompanying bibliography of publications make this collection a major resource for the teaching of the Baltic Crusades.

This book investigates into the Polish participation in the Crusades to the Holy Land, as well as the organisation of the campaign of preaching of the Cross and the collection of resources for the support of the Crusades by the Church. By broadening the scope of enquiry to consider the application of the motifs of crusading against Poland’s pagan neighbours, local heretics or political opponents of the Church it provides conclusions which may interest the international reader. Finally, it shows the wider context of the Crusades, looking at the influence of the crusading ideology on different areas of life in medieval Poland – one of the countries of ‘young Europe’ (to use J. Kłoczowski’s term) – thus making an interesting contribution to our knowledge of European culture in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Forgotten Crusaders, being an attempt to take a wider look at the relationships between Poland and the crusading movement, therefore has the potential to make a valuable contribution to the state of research.

Osprey's study of Teutonic Knights from 1190 to 1561. The Military Order of Teutonic Knights was one of the three most famous Crusading Orders; the others being the Templars and the Hospitallers. Like these two, the Teutonic Knights initially focused upon the preservation of the Crusader States in the Middle East. Wielding their swords in the name of their faith, the crusading knights set out to reclaim Jerusalem. Unlike the Templars they survived the crises of identity and purpose which followed the loss of the last Crusader mainland enclaves in the late thirteenth century and, like the Hospitallers, they managed to create a new purpose - and a new field of combat - for themselves. Whereas the Hospitallers focused their energies in the eastern Mediterranean battling against Muslim armies, the Teutonic Knights shifted their efforts to the Baltic, to the so-called Northern Crusades against pagan Prussians and Lithuanians and, to a lesser extent, against Orthodox Christian Russia. As a result the Order of Teutonic Knights became a significant power, not only in the Baltic but in north-central Europe as a whole. Paradoxically, however, it was their fellow Catholic Christian Polish neighbours who became their most dangerous foes, breaking the Order's power in the mid-fifteenth century. The Teutonic Knights lingered on in what are now Estonia and Latvia for another century, but this was little more than a feeble afterglow. This title will examine this fascinating military and religious order in detail, revealing the colourful history of the crusades within Europe itself which inexorably changed the future of the continent.

In twelth-century Jerusalem, orphaned sixteen-year-old Pagan is assigned to work for Lord Roland, a Templar knight, as Saladin's armies close in on the Holy City.