Many are familiar with the Crusades in which Christian forces clashed
with Muslim forces in an effort to regain access to Christian holy
sites around Jerusalem. However at the same time Crusades were underway
in the Holy Land, the Northern Crusades were occurring in Scandinavia.
In these Crusades, the goal was to eliminate the various pagan groups
and their followers.
The Northern Crusades began with the Wendish Crusade in 1147. The
Kingdoms of Denmark and Sweden, the Teutonic Order, and the Livonian
Brothers of the Sword (the latter two being religious military orders)
invaded what is now northeast Germany in an effort to subdue the
region’s pagan peoples. Following this military success, Pope Celestine
III officially called for a crusade against the pagans in 1195. The
Northern Crusades lasted into the late 1200s and resulted in the
military conquest of north Germany and the Baltic States and the spread
of Christianity to these lands.