History of the Crusades

the Crusades Episode 312, the Baltic Crusades, the Lithuanian Conflict Part 17, the Council of Constance, Part 1.

Hello again.

Last week we took a look at the Hunger War,

a conflict between the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania on the one side

and the Teutonic Order and the people of Prussia on the other side.

Both sides ended up trying to starve each other into submission

and eventually the invaders were forced to withdraw from Prussia.

A two-year-long truce was brokered between the parties, but as we saw in last week's episode, Grand Master Michael Kookmeister was

concerned that the Teutonic Order remained vulnerable to Polish aggression. The Order didn't possess sufficient resources to either hire enough mercenaries to plug its depleted ranks or to equip and

re-arm the order to the level it was at prior to the Battle of Tannenberg, so the Grand Master began to look for outside help.

A foreign power, which would be able to protect Prussia, should it find itself facing future attacks from its Polish neighbor.

Handily for the Grandmaster, a general counsel of the Latin Christian church was about to convene in the picturesque town of

Constance in the kingdom of Germany so the Grandmaster decided to do all he could to add the due tonic order to the agenda of items to be discussed at the general counsel with a view to hopefully obtaining some sort of an outcome

which would ensure the ongoing viability and protection of both Prussia and the Teutonic Order.

Now this general counsel was going to be a major event in the Latin Christian calendar. It will run on and off for a period of four years

and it will end up achieving its primary objective,

which was to end the decades-long papal schism.

Before we turn to the Council and the important outcomes it managed to achieve,

we first need to take a look at the background leading up to the event.

Now around the time the hunger war from last week's episode was in full swing King Wensselas of Bohemia was particularly cranky. Two events had increased his anger levels,

those events being firstly the failure of the Teutonic Order to hand him the overlord ship of Prussia

...