The Northern Crusades: Second Edition

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Binding: Paperback Dewey Decimal Number: 909.07 EAN: 9780140266535 ISBN: 0140266534 Label: Penguin (Non-Classics) Manufacturer: Penguin (Non-Classics) Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 320 Publication Date: 1998-06-01 Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) Studio: Penguin (Non-Classics)
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Editorial Reviews: "For a one-volume history of the northern crusades, the reader has but one choice; this is it". -- William Urban, American Historical Review The crusades to Catholicize and conquer the pagan and Orthodox Baltic regions were far more successful in leaving long-term effects than the campaigns in the Mediterranean. This lucid study begins when the first holy war against the heathen north was declared by the Pope in the twelfth century and concludes in the sixteenth century, when Rome issued its last crusading bull.
Spotlight customer reviews: Customer Rating: Summary: Good source for those who are merely interested in Baltic history, not just Crusades Comment: This book is essential reading for those who want to learn more about the eastern Baltic region in the few centuries immediately following the establishment of a Christian presence. The book not only informed me, but also whet my appetite to learn more about this important group in Baltic history. I am trying to read everything I can about Latvian and Baltic German history, not the spread of Christianity, per se. That being said, this is an essential book to read if one wants to further their knowledge of Latvia and, for that matter, Lithuania, Estonia, old Prussia, and Poland. For example, after reading this book, I had learned that there was ongoing conflict (sometimes leading to war) between the Catholic bishops (ironically), the German merchants and the Teutonic knights. This isn't something that I had expected. I thought it would be, understandably I think, mostly about the Crusaders and their fight with pagans and orthodox Christians. Some who might know more about this group might be surprised at my expectation, but this is not my area of specialty. A second interesting example I will mention from the book describes in some surprising detail, given the time that had passed, a series of meetings with Papal authorities in which the knights argue their right to exist and act in a certain manner, with those of another view who challenge, among other things, the notion of "crusading" being a just cause. Importantly, the book ends with a bibliography that a reader can peruse to learn more about the specific topic of the book as well as those that are related in some tangible way. The author organizes these based upon which area and aspect of Baltic history the reader might be most interested. For example, given my aforementioned interest in Latvia and Baltic Germans, you can imagine how pleased I might have been when I discovered two more books that dealt with Latvia in this era that I hadn't ever seen before. Overall, the book is an important contribution to my library of books that focus on the Baltic Germans and Latvia, in general. The only reason I gave the book 4/5 stars and not 5/5 stars is because of the focus of my interest, not any errors on behalf of the book. The book certainly should be 5/5 stars for someone who is very interested not merely in the eastern Baltic, but also very interested in Christian history and the introduction of Christianity to said region. Remember, according to amazon.com, 4/5 stars means "I like it", while 5/5 stars mean "I love it". Because of this book, I am now sure that I should read more about the Teutonic knights and their impact on Baltic German and Latvian history. Customer Rating: Summary: COMPANION TO TEUTONIC ORDER Comment: THE NORTHERN CRUSADE IS AN EXCELLENT BOOK TO UNDERSTAND THE LITTLE KNOWN CRUSADES IN GERMANY, POLAND AND LITHUANIA. THIS BOOK, AND THE BOOK TITLED, THE TEUTONIC KNIGHTS, GIVES AN EXCELLENT OVERVIEW OF THIS CRUSADE IN NORTHERN EUROPE Customer Rating: Summary: Interesting overview of a relatively unknown period of history Comment: _The Northern Crusades_ by Eric Christiansen is an attempt to shed light on a relatively poorly known aspect of European medieval and early modern history, that of the Northern Crusades. Less well known than the Spanish Crusade and certainly less known to the average non-specialist reader than the Crusades in the Middle East, the Northern Crusades of the Baltic Sea region can essentially be summed up as the struggles of Scandinavian rulers - chiefly those of Denmark and Sweden - and German military monks (the Teutonic Knights) to conquer and settle non-Christian Finland, Estonia, and Prussia before coming into conflict with the considerably more powerful and organized eastern empires of Orthodox Novgorod and pagan Lithuania (and later Catholic Poland). The period lasted roughly from 1147 (the launch of the First Northern Crusade, against the Baltic Slavs) to at least as far as the book is concerned 1562 (the partition and secularization of Livonia, ending the rule of the Teutonic Knights there, their last outpost). Though less celebrated than the other crusades, the Northern Crusades were far more successful. Initially many areas were only thinly Christian after their conquest, as for centuries in many regions for instance Teutonic outposts existed like "knots in a net," a net that was full of holes and encompassed areas where "alien subjects lived unredeemed lives within sight of the steeple" and castle, thin scraps of Christian settlement squeezed between the coast and primeval forest, though in the end vast areas became and remain Christian to this day. In stark contrast to the efforts of the Crusaders in the Middle East, the Order and the Scandinavians were able to establish lasting settlements in formerly very hostile areas in the wilderness, lands with difficult terrain, fearsome winter weather, impassable roads (if they existed), and unwelcoming natives. The Order for example established over ninety towns and a thousand villages in Prussia and Livonia. Sweden was able in the course of two centuries to transform Finland from a mainly non-Christian, illiterate, and ungoverned world into a society recognizable as European and Catholic. Even though these outside powers lost the lands that they colonized, they still held them much longer than the Crusaders held the lands of the Middle East (Denmark held on in Estonia for more than a century, the Teutonic Order kept Prussia and Livonia for nearly 300 years, and Sweden remained in Finland for nearly 600 years). In this book Christiansen sought to show what the world of north-east Europe was like before the Crusades, chronicle the history of the Crusades themselves, detail a little about the personalities involved, detail in particular the history, role, goals, and organization of the Teutonic Knights, the reasons for the Crusades, and the theological debates and political struggles associated with the Northern Crusades as well as the concept of crusade in and of itself. I found the book interesting and fairly well written though a bit dry and sometimes difficult going in parts. I was hindered a little by the many very unfamiliar place names and had to reference many times one or more of the six maps at the beginning of the book, though by the end of the book several places I had once never heard of were quite familiar. Particularly striking to me in the book was though that particularly in the early centuries the religious aspect of the Northern Crusade was important, in the end the wars were basically examples of imperialism and fought for temporal reasons, for resources and for geopolitical considerations. Though Christiansen cautioned in his concluding chapter that one should not view the wars as fought for "matters of interest disguised as matters of conscience," and indeed until close to the end the religious pull of the Northern Crusade drew in outside forces, whole retinues of warriors or individual knights, absolutely vital to the survival of in particular the Teutonic Knights, it is obvious that religious considerations were but one of many for those who fought. Often political control could only be established by changing the religious affiliation of the inhabitants, owing to the general lack of any other shared cultural identity between ruler and ruled; what type of Christianity prevailed in a region (Latin or Greek) was a way of staking political claims (important in the continuing struggle in later centuries between the Latin Crusade lands and Orthodox Novgorod). In Sweden new lands gained in Finland meant more people paying the tithe (good for the Swedish church and for the Pope in Rome to fund his various goals in Italy) and more fiefs and offices for the more adventurous of the lesser nobility. The Danes went to war in the 1100s as much or more to stop Slavic piracy and slave raids than anything else. The rich fur, feather, wax, amber, fish, whale, and seal resources of the Baltic Sea region were highly sought after by many in northern Europe; the "fur-clad, pickled-herring eaters lolling on the feather-beds" of Western Europe (mainly those of the Hanseatic League) were one of the chief beneficiaries of the Northern Crusades. The Teutonic Knights towards the end of their existence in Prussia were often more concerned with ruling than with crusading and many were hardly monastic, with new ordinances forbidding them to hoard money, keep packs of hounds, to use private seals, to wear fine clothing, and otherwise act as traditional feudal lords appear to have often been ignored. A very interesting aspect of the book was as noted the discussion of the nature and organization of the Teutonic Order. Christiansen described its existence as both a military organization and a monastic order. From the Order's beginning to near its end there was a continual debate about whether or not one could be a monk and a warrior, if Christianity could be spread at the point of a sword, what the nature of a just war is, and if even the original papal orders establishing the Order were legally or spiritually correct. Customer Rating: Summary: History as it should be written! Comment: Eric Christiansen's 'The Northern Crusades,' is much more than just a global over-view of a particular time and place. With mind-numbing erudition and almost painful attention to detail, Mr. Christiansen has single-handedly resurrected an extremely important chapter in the European story, that of the Baltic 'Crusades.' Not only does he give the reader fact upon fact, but more importantly, he has laid out the ideological background as to why thousands of Europe's noble sons sought glory and salvation in the crusade for the North. The work's strongest part is its beginning. Christiansen put downs the base: where did these 'crusades' take place and against who. He meticulously outlines Baltic geography and ethnography, although the latter runs a little thin. Then, the story travels eastwards, starting from the very first crusades which the Danes took against their Wendish neighbors. What was later to become a defined struggle of the 'faith' against the 'heathen,' was not so at the beginning. Christiansen points out that the Danes were more interested in securing their coastline from Wendish pirate attacks than converting the pagan to the Roman church. Soon though, as the Wendish coastline was secured, land-hungry German nobility sought to expand eastwards. This drang nach osten soon acquired a singularly religous flavor. Meeting the strong and vibrant pagan cultures of Prussia and Lithuania, the German knights realized that they couldn't defeat such stalwarts on their own. A fanatical ideology was needed to feed the war machine. Christiansen details how a monastic war-machine was built up to combat the heathen. These German knights needed to know that what they were fighting was a 'holy war' and who they were fighting against were abominations in the eyes of the true faith. Thus was born that most foul of medieval brotherhoods, the Teutonic Knights. Armed monks dedicated to the spreading of the Roman church, they followed a crusading creed not unlike their 20th century descendants, the Waffen SS. They blindly believed in their own cultural and spiritual superiority over the non-Christian peoples of Prussia, Lithuania, Livonia (present-day Latvia) and Estonia and thus had no qualms about slaughtering, pillaging and raping, all in the name of the Cross. Christansen states that the knights (and their mercenary friends from all across Europe) were motivated to participate in such atrocities by the promise of absolution of sins. The Papacy had longed preached the gospel of atonement through action even if that meant singularly un-Christian action. Ironically though the Teutonic Knights heavy-handed tactics eventually backfired. While eventually subduing the Letts to some degree, and all but completely exterminating the ancient Prussians, the Lithuanians remained firm and independent. When they eventually took up the cross for political reasons (the last European people to 'convert' to Christianity), they did so only superficially, their indigenous culture and language remaining strong to the present day. If the Teutonic Knights had truly practiced what they claimed to believe, Christianity might have taken a much stronger hold in this region than it did. With the prickly question of the moral merits of these crusades, Christiansen strives to remain unbiased, presenting both sides without preference, warts and all. The chapter on the most significant crusade---the Lithuanian---is comprehensive and the gives the facts, but a more in-depth examination of Lithuanian paganism would have been a helpful addition. Moreover, the extremely important battle of Grunwald/Tannenberg in 1410 which effectively castrated the Teutonic Order, is given only cursory discussion. Despite the his objective tone, Christiansen attempts somewhat to rehabilitate the Order. He attempts to insinuate that despite the barbarity of the Order, it did bring 'civilization' (read here Catholic Christianity) to the Baltic. This 'we helped the savages by offering them baptism or the sword' argument is specious indeed, not to mention, anything but humane. Christiansen implies that the pagan cultures were even more barbaric than that of the knights, thus forced conversion and cultural annihilation was, in a way, the right thing to do. Christiansen ends 'The Northern Crusades' with an interesting aside about the crusade's ominous and unsuccessful clash with Orthodox Russia. Here, Western Europe's crusade lost its ideological raison d'etre. How could the Christian knight fight against his fellow (albeit very different) Christian brother? The Northern Crusade failed to provide an answer to that very prickly question which has continued to dog Europe up to the present time: Does Russia belong to the idea of Europe? Another fascinating element of Christiansen's work is his examination of the ideological and theological wars which waged within Western Christendom over the idea of 'crusade.' At the Council of Constance, Western theologians supported the idea of force against the non-Christian. The heathen must be violently stripped from his/her idolatrous surroundings (on pain of death even) before true proselytizing can begin. First, the sword, then the Gospel. Christiansen mentions that Polish lawyer, Paul Wlodkowic, posed a heady challenge: Is the true Christian ever justified in using force to spread the Good News? As apt a question then as now, as the West once again seeks conversion (this time to 'democracy') at the point of a gun. Despite its shallow patches, 'The Northern Crusades' is a must-have for those interested in the history of this forgotten corner of Europe. What makes it stand apart from others written about this topic is Christiansen's colorful and sophisticated language. While you'll flaunder sometimes in the sheer mass (oft-times morass!) of detail, the language always pulls you through to the next page. Always erudite, Christiansen does go over the top in places. 'Bureaucracies have their jargons, and the eloquent Italian lawyers who formulated papal policy in the thirteenth century were presumably able to sleep the sounder for knowing that the chancery clerks would convey instructions in this rhythmical flow of officalese.' Ouch! But luckily, the good outnumbers the bad. About the Teutonic Sword Brothers in Latvia, 'They were dumb dogs, but at least they were able to bite.' 'The Northern Crusades' is anything but a dumb dog and more than that, one full of unexpected bites. Read it and learn how history should be written! Customer Rating: Summary: No need to read more.... Comment: This was the only book I ever read on Crusades along the Baltic states and after reading this book, I realized that I really don't have to read too much more. This book proves to be very nicely written, well researched and clearly unbias in nature. The writing prose flows very nicely and I was pretty much engrossed by the subject, material and information the book provided. Since it covered a subject matter not well known in the United States, we can considered it as a blessing that there is such a book like this to enlightened us. For any military historians out there, this is a "must have" book for your library. More Reviews