History of the Crusades

the Crusades Episode 192, the Baltic Crusades, the Wendish Crusade, the Wendish Crusade Part 3 in the Shadow of the Crusade.

Hello again. Last week we embarked on the first military campaign of this series,

which was not exactly a resounding success for the Crusaders.

With the Wendish leader Nicklot managing to maintain his lands and his stronghold in return

for the conversion to Christianity of the garrison at Dobin, while the forces led

by the Papal Legate marched way off course to the east to attack a town which turned

out to be Christian. With even the most optimistic

crusader having to concede that the garrison would be likely to abandon their

new religion and return to their pagan ways, as soon as the Crusaders marched

back over the Elba, it's difficult to see how the venture ended up achieving anything at all for the Crusaders. So did they throw

their hands into the air and declare that they would leave the Baltic region un-Christianized

and never again stray out of Western Christendom into pagan territory?

No, no they didn't. Otherwise this would be a very short series.

From a non-cruiding point of view the campaign had borne some fruit. Some

fighters had managed to score themselves some loot and some slaves had been freed.

The Saxon incursion into pagan lands made the Saxon settlers already on the Slavic side of the river Elba feel more secure,

and the Wendish leader Nicklot had been negotiated with and had agreed to become an ally of the Saxons.

But of course the main goal of the campaign had been spiritual,

and the mass conversion of pagans and the establishment of permanent Christian churches in

Slavic lands, which had been the outcome desired by the church, had not occurred. So that led Bernard of Clervo and other church leaders to

ponder the question, was military force the best method to spread the word of Christ? The answer, after much pondering, was a

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