History of the Crusades

the Crusades Episode 200 and Episode 272, the Baltic Crusades, the Livonian Crusade Part 48, the Great Estonian Insiraction, Part 1.

Hello again.

Last week we saw the commencement of the reign of King Kazimir of Poland and we saw the Samagitzian

crusade roll along with no decisive victories or losses on either side of the conflict. This week we return to

Lovonia. Now while we've been crusading in Samagetsia, Livonia has been at peace.

Ah, lovely, fabulous peace.

During these restful years, the Livonian chapter of the Tutonic Order has been kept

busy trying to keep the Samagetsians from raiding into Kurland and Semagalia and has also been campaigning in Skof and Novgorod against

Lithuania's Russian allies.

We last left Livonia at the end of the Civil War in the year 1330.

And now we will zoom down back into Livonia some 13 years later at the beginning of the year 1343.

Now as you land down in Riga, the first thing you will notice is that the

Teutonic order seems to be quite at home in the city and the merchants and citizens of Riga and the members of the

Tutonic Order seem to be tolerating each other's presence with no problem. You will also notice that there is no Archbishop

in Riga. Yes, the Archbishop of Riga is still Archbishop Friedrich, and yes, he is still in Avignon, where he has become, in the words of William Urban in his book, the Levonian Crusade, and I quote,

an embarrassingly permanent fixture, end quote.

The current master of the Livonian chapter of the Order is

Burchard von Drylevin. You may remember that when we left Livonia at the end of the Civil War, the master was

Master Eberhard.

Master Eberhard ended up resigning his post in the year 1339 to take up a position in Cologne in the Holy Roman Empire.

Now the interesting thing about Master Bertrand was that he had been raised in Livonia and in fact had lived in

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