History of the Crusades

the Crusades Episode 225. Episode 229, the Baltic Crusades, the Livonian Crusade Part 26, Overreach.

Hello again.

Last week we saw two contenders emerge for the position of Bishop of Riga following Bishop Albert's death.

Someone needed to travel to Livonia to assess the support for each candidate from the

various interest groups in Livonia, and that someone really

should have been William of Moderner, the people legate with extensive knowledge of the region. But William of Moderner was heading

back to Rome following a year-long stint in Prussia, so he hand bald the matter to Cardinal Otto, who then hand bald

the matter to a random monk from a random monastery. That random monk, Baldwin of Aona, travelled to Livonia, but soon began

to get caught up in the tangled web of the toxic politics of the region and instead of just

assessing the suitability of the candidates for Bishop, Baldwin of Aona started acting like a full-blown

papal legate, even going so far as to enact a treaty with the local curs, declaring their land to be under

Papal Protection, a move which angered the Sword Brothers who were just about to

move in and conquer the land of the curs with a view to keeping it for

themselves.

In the end, Baldwin of Aulna so angered the Sword Brothers and their ally in this dispute, the

merchants, that he was forced to flee to the castle at Dornamunda. He tried to deflect from the matter by

recommending that the candidate Nicholas of Magdeborg be chosen as the new

Bishop. To his horror however once Nicholas became Bishop

of Riga he sided with the Sword Brothers on this issue. Unable or unwilling to let the matter rest there, Baldwin decided to go and have a word to Pope Gregory about the whole debacle.

This issue must really have got under Baldwin's skin, because he travelled back to the Holy

Roman Empire via Gotland, travelled the length of Germany, and then

...