History of the Crusades

the Crusades Episode 254, the Baltic, the Baltic Crusades, the Prussian Crusade Part 20, a fuzzy end. Hello again.

Last week we saw a succession of Master Conrad's proceed to lead the Teutonic order in Prussia. We started out with Conrad von Teerberg, who was replaced by Conrad

von Foycht-Vangen, who served as master of both Prussia and Livonia, and then we ended with our final

master Conrad, who had served as Marshall before being raised to the position of Master of Prussia. So the current

master situation in the Baltic region is as follows. We have a new Master for Livonia, master Villican who will work under the direction of the Master for Prussia.

The Master for Prussia is Master Conrad as we have just seen and there's also a new

Grand Master of the Teutonic Order Grand Master Birchrand.

Now unlike the new Grand Master, who had no first-hand knowledge of the Baltic Crusades,

Master Conrad was all over the situation in Prussia, so he was able to hit the ground running.

The first item on his to-do list was to kick-start negotiations with Duke Mestvin about the region around Meva, a Pomeralian

town on the Pomeralian side of the Vistula, a short distance down river from Marion Verda.

Now, we saw in last week's episode that Duke Mestvin sought to head off a possible takeover by the order by directing in his

will for his lands to pass to Great Poland after his death, which was likely to result in Pomeralia being Dukless on account of the fact

that Duke Mestvin had no male heirs and had just taken a vow of chastity.

Duke Mestvin's uncles, both of whom appeared to loathe their nephew with a passion,

had small but important holdings of land in Pomeralia.

Interestingly, both of those uncles also had no sons, and both uncles had directed their lands in their wheels to pass to the

Teutonic order a move which no doubt was designed to irritate Duke Mestven to the max.

Now one of Duke Mestven's uncles, Uncle Sambor, was in possession of Miva.

Uncle Sambore, in a move probably designed to irritate his nephew even further,

decided in his old age to join the Teutonic Order, but due to his advanced age he wasn't

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