History of the Crusades

the Crusades Episode 218, the Baltic, the Baltic Crusades, the Levonian Crusade Part 24, 1227, a finishing point.

Hello again.

Last week we saw the Papal Legate, William of Moderna,

effectively bring Livonia and Estonia under

people control after he visited the region and established a raft of rules

under which the area ought to be governed.

In the Holy Roman Empire we saw King Valdemar II of Denmark, finally freed after two years in captivity, move to reclaim the territory he had

occupied in Saxony, after Pope Honorius III deemed the terms of his release to be invalid.

When we last left King Valdema, he was having a break for the winter, having scored some easy victories against his three opponents.

His former captor Henry the Black, Archbishop Gerhard the second, and Count Adolf of Holstein.

He had also blocked the Port of Lubeck with the Danish Navy. Now, as I mentioned last time, everyone expected King Valdamar to defeat his opponents

when he returned to the battlefield in early 1227.

And in anticipation of this taking place, everyone scrambled to shore up their positions

and protect their interests with some surprising results.

In his book the Baltic Crusade William Urban reports that Bishop Albert of Riga and Bishop Herman of Estonia had

travelled to the Imperial Court at Nuremberg in December 1225 and had both been recognized as princes of the Holy

Roman Empire, a move which elevated the status of the two bishops and gave them more power to resist advances by the Danish king into the Baltic region.

They then approached Pope Honorius and asked him to place some people

pressure on King Valdermar to lift the blockade of Lubeck, a move which was, according to William Urban, only partially effective.

Then something weird happened.

It seems that the impending victory of the Danish monarch posed such a threat to the interests of the bishops of Riga and Estonia and the Sword Brothers and the

...