History of the Crusades

the Crusades Episode 277

the Baltic Crusades

the Samagits in the Samagitzian crusade part 10 grand master vinick Von Kniproder.

Hello again, and we're back.

Welcome to another year of podcasting.

If you stretch your mind all the way back to the end of last year you

might remember that in the early 1350s just about everyone in the Baltic region was having a bad time.

The Teutonic Order had scored a major victory in the battle on the Streeba, but had been unable to follow up on their success

due to the double blow of the illness resignation and death of Grand Master Heinrich Dusama and and the coming

coming of the plague.

The plague appears not to have affected Lithuania

as badly as neighbouring Prussia. But the rulers of Lithuania,

Algirdis and his brother Kestutis, were still trying to come to terms with their first major military defeat at the hands of the

Teutonic Order.

Right, that's where we're at.

Let's get back to Crusading. Now, the first thing that's going to need to happen is that

a new Grand Master needs to be appointed. Everyone pretty much knew who the next Grandmaster would be,

because waiting in the wings was a man who seemed

to have been born to take up the position. A rising star in the Teutonic ranks, he had

been elevated to positions of command within the order from a young age. By the time he was 29 he had been appointed to the position

of Castellan of the convent at Dan Seag, considered to be one of the most prestigious roles within the Order.

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