Northern Crusades
Medieval Baltic conquest
The Northern Crusades were a series of religious military campaigns in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, waged by Catholic Christian forces against pagan peoples of the Baltic region—Prussians, Lithuanians, Estonians, and others.
Unlike the Crusades to the Holy Land, these aimed to convert and subjugate northern European populations.
The Teutonic Knights played a central role, establishing a monastic state in Prussia.
The Northern Crusades permanently altered the demographics and religion of the Baltic.
- LithuaniaBaltic European republic
- LivoniaHistoric Baltic region
- PrussiaFormer German kingdom
- EstoniaNorthern Baltic republic
- Teutonic KnightsMedieval German military order
military orders · holy war · Novgorod Republic · medieval · cavalry raids · Christianization · Pomerania · resistance movements · papal authority · forced baptism · religious wars · cultural assimilation · syncretism · Latvia · sieges · pagans · sacred groves · Finland
- CrusadesKnights Templar, Saladin, Holy Land, Richard the Lionheart, Templars
- religious conflictreligious war, holy war, sectarianism, Great Schism, schism
- Baltic CrusadesLivonian Order, crusaders, military orders, knightly orders, Prussians
- Estonian HistorySinging Revolution, Soviet occupation, deportations, Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, German occupation
- Baltic paganismMara, thunder god, sun goddess, earth goddess, world tree
- LithuaniaVilnius, statehood, dukes, interwar period, partisans
Northern CrusadesFirst Crusade
1096 expedition to Jerusalem
Third Crusade · Reconquista · Albigensian Crusade · Outremer