History of the Crusades

the Crusades Episode 315, the Baltic, the Baltic Crusades, the Lithuanian Conflict Part 20, catching up on news from home.

Hello again.

Last week we concluded our look at the determinations made at the Council of Constance.

After spending a number of years hearing arguments from both the

Judonic Order and the Kingdom of Poland, the Council of Constance eventually came down on the side of the

Teutonic Order.

It rejected Poland's submissions that the Teutonic Order should be disbanded on the basis that there were no more pagans to convert in the Baltic region, and it also rejected the more ambitious argument made by

Poland that all the actions taken by the Teutonic Order in the Baltic region had been invalid and that therefore all territory

conquered by the order should be handed back to the locals, with Prussia of course going to Poland.

We should remember of course that the Council of Constance was, after all, a church council and it probably shouldn't have come as a surprise

to anyone to learn that the church decided to rule in support of Crusades in general and in support of the Teutonic

order in particular.

Now while the Council of Constance has been sitting for a number of years taking up

everyone's time, everyone's energy and our last three podcast episodes life drama and politics have all

been continuing a pace inside Prussia Lithuania Lithuania, Poland and the Kingdom of Bohemia. So we should take a quick look at what has been playing out away from Constance on the Baltic home front and bring everyone up to speed to

the year 1420 when the council at Constance handed down its final determination.

First up for examination, we have Grand Duke V. Tortoise of Lithuania.

Now, at this point in time I should point out that V. Tortoise is no longer a young man.

In fact he is approaching 70 years of age, which is a pretty impressive feat for a warrior leader in

medieval Europe.

As a consequence, the idea of racing off to the faraway Russian principalities and to Samagetia

...