The Northern Crusades Read Free

apologize for the gaps, and hope that the reader will recognize, even in the darkest passages, that there is a plan.
    Telling this story means keeping at least three balls in the air at the same time: a narrative of campaigns; a survey of ideological developments; and a sketch of political history. The crusades can be understood only in the light of, for example, the Cistercian movement, the rise of the papal monarchy, the mission of the friars, the coming of the Mongol hordes, the growth of the Lithuanian and Muscovite empires, and the aims of the Conciliar movement in the fifteenth century. Dealing briefly with all these big subjects, and linking them to the far north of Europe, has not been easy; and an English reader may well ask, is it worthwhile?
    There are several reasons for answering yes. In the first place, the Northern crusades were a part of a wider Western drive, and if that is to be studied it should be studied in full – in the most unlikely places, and in the most peculiar forms. The Holy Wars of the Mediterranean brought about spectacular conquests, and enduring obsessions, but amounted in the end to a sad waste of time, money and life. After 200 years of fighting, colonization, empire-building, missionary work and economic development, the Holy Places remained lost to Christendom. The Saracens won. The two faiths remained invincibly opposed, and if the cultures mingled it was not because the Christians had attempted to conquer the Near East; there were more enduring and less explosive points of contact.
    The Northern crusades were less spectacular, and much less expensive, but the changes they helped to bring about lasted for much longer, and have not altogether disappeared today. The southern coast of the Baltic is still German, as far as the Oder; and it is not sixty years since the Estonians and Balts lost the last traces of their German ascendancy and fell under a new one. Western forms of Christianity survive in all the coastlands opposite Scandinavia, and the Finns remain wedded toWestern institutions and tolerant of their Swedish-speaking minority. The reborn republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania look west for support and sympathy. For seven centuries these east-Baltic countries were colonial societies, bearing the mark left by their medieval conquerors whatever outside power tried to annex or change them. If ever the crusades had any lasting effect, it was here, and in Spain.
    Secondly, the Northern crusades were a link between this region and Western Europe; they helped bring it into a common ‘Latin’ civilization. Not the only link, but a steely one, and difficult to ignore. New Catholic societies were founded in hostile and unfamiliar territory. How to run them, defend them and develop them were problems to be met with on all the frontiers of Europe, both in the Middle Ages and later, and they have an interest that is more than local. Here were the great central institutions – churches, manors, castles, boroughs, feudal law-codes, church law, guilds, and parliaments – translated into a cold, dark and inhospitable outer world, forced to adapt, grow, or go under. This was not a promised land, glittering with the allurements of Spain or Palestine; the victories, profits, and the harvest of souls had to be wrested painfully in the face of exceptional obstacles. The study of these institutions on their home ground, or in hot-house colonies, is well established and keenly pursued; but at least as much can be learned about them by looking at them under stress, beyond the pale. The story of the Northern crusades can provide one such insight, and make the picture of medieval culture a little clearer.
    And, finally, the story concerns England more than many other countries. Despite the Norman conquest, and the involvement of English kings in France, England was never cut off from the Baltic world, and after 1200 became more and more firmly connected by trade, by political alliances and by the