History of the Crusades

the Crusades Episode 270. Episode 278, the Baltic, the Baltic Crusades, the Samagitzian Crusade Part 11, Dobrin.

Hello again. Last week we returned to the Baltic Crusades, more specifically to the regions of Poland,

Prussia and Lithuania. Lithuania, seemingly less affected by the

plague than surrounding countries has been acting aggressively, conducting frequent raids into Prussia and Poland.

Grand Master Vinrich von Kniproder is keen to take the fight to the Lithuanians, but he just can't muster up enough

crusaders to deal a large enough blow to them.

King Kazimir is keen to push the boundaries of his kingdom across the regions of Volhina and

Galicia to provide a buffer zone against both the Lithuanians and the Russians, but he has been

struggling to raise enough cash to finance the near constant military campaigns that the Tata and Lithuanian invasions are provoking.

So as we saw at the conclusion of last week's episode, the Teutonic Order agreed to purchase the Polish

town of Dobrin or Dobgen in Mesovia on a temporary basis so that King Casimir could resume his pushback against the invasions.

Now, while the decision by King Casimir to mortgage Dobran to the Teutonic Order seems to indicate

that the Kingdom of Poland and the Teutonic Knights enjoyed a strong mutually beneficial alliance. The truth was that

tension was brewing between the two powers behind the

trouble had started in Mesovia, the region located between the Kingdom of Poland proper and Prussia.

The dukes of Mesovia were independent sort of operators who were

only loosely under the control of the Polish crown. They had never really made aggressive moves towards Prussia.

There were vast stretches of Mesovia which were covered in dense forests.

Both the Dukes of Mesovia and men from the Teutonic Order had isolated outposts which were

garrisoned inside these forests to protect the region from pagan invasions.

The trouble was no one was really sure where the exact boundaries between Prussia and Mazzovia were located

...