History of the Crusades

the Crusades Episode 232, the Baltic, the Baltic Crusades, the Crusade to Novgorod.

Hello again.

Last week we saw the end of the Sword Brothers as the order was absorbed into the ranks of the Teutonic Knights. We also saw the two parties with competing claims to

Estonia. King Valdemar the second of Denmark and the Teutonic Order sign a treaty in the year 1238 which gave one of the regions formerly administered by the Sword Brothers, the region of Yerwan to the Teutonic Order, leaving the rest of Estonia for Denmark.

Not everyone was happy about this arrangement, particularly many of the German noblemen who had settled in Estonia and now found themselves being ruled by King Valderma, but William of Moderna had a nice distraction lined up for them all.

A distraction which would make the fighting men of Estonia put aside their

petty quarrels and unite behind a single cause. What was that single cause? Well it was a crusade to Novgorod. Now some of

you at this stage may be scratching your heads and thinking, wait on, aren't the Russians

Christians? And if so, isn't a crusade against Christians? Not so much of a thing when there are still pagans in

Prussia and Lithuania who needs subduing? Well I have three words for you in response.

The fourth crusade.

Yes, just over 30 years ago,

the Orthodox city of Constantinople had been the subject of a crusade and had been sacked and brought

under Latin Christian rule.

Constantinople was currently still under Latin Christian control and since the fall of

Constantinople in 1204 the Western Papersey had been attempting to impose Latin Christianity on all the

Eastern Christian churches. This included not just the Greek Orthodox churches of the Byzantine Empire,

but the Russian Orthodox churches in the Russian principalities.

Most of the conflict between the Latin Christians and the Russian Orthodox Christians to date

had just involved isolated skirmishes in the border regions of Estonia.

But in more recent times the Prince of Novgorod, Prince Yaroslav the fifth, had been growing a little troublesome.

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