History of the Crusades

the Crusades Episode 230. Episode 213, the Baltic

the Baltic Crusades, the Lavonian Crusade Part 19, Danish Ascendancy.

Hello again.

Last week we saw the Danes conquer the Estonian stronghold of Ravelle with the loss of Bishop Theodoric who had been the Bishop of Estonia.

King Valdema appointed his chaplain as the new Estonian Bishop,

naming him the Bishop of Ravel.

The Germans meanwhile headed in a southerly direction,

conquering the Semigalian stronghold of Masotan and naming it the new administrative site for Bishop Bernard, who completed his transition from famous Saxon Warrior to head of a monastery in Livonia to the new Bishop of

Semagalia. Now the Crusaders and German fighters who defeated Miss Oton marched back to Riga, but had only

rested for two weeks when word came in that they were needed in Estonia. The pirates of Isal, who had remained

defiantly pagan, had taken advantage of the frozen sea around their island to march to mainland Estonia and

deconvert some of the Christianized Estonians there.

They didn't march all the way north to the Danish centre of power in

Reval, but instead attacked some Estonians further south who had converted to the Livonian Church.

So an army was assembled composed of Germans Letts Livonians and Christianized Estonians and they all marched into Estonia to drive back the invading

Estonian pirates.

The German Crusaders were the first fighters to come across the pirates.

Ar chronicler Henry of Lovonia reports that Duke Albrecht of Saxony with his army, together with the

master of the Sword Brothers with men from his order, came across some fleeing Estonian villages who reported that the pirates had and I quote

Struck our land an exceedingly great blow end quote

The Germans advanced and soon came upon burning villages, and then upon the men from

...