What were the Northern Crusades?

BRY2K

The Northern Crusades or Baltic Crusades were crusades undertaken by the Catholic kings of Denmark and Sweden, the German Livonian and Teutonic military orders, and their allies against the pagan peoples of Northern Europe around the southern and eastern shores of the Baltic Sea. Swedish and German campaigns against Russian Eastern Orthodox Christians are also sometimes considered part of the Northern Crusades. In the beginning the crusaders also possessed a superior military technology. Their wooden castles, although simple in design in comparison to stone and brick fortresses in central Europe, were almost impregnable to native siegecraft, whereas the natives' forts were usually conquered by the crusaders' skilled use of siege machines and fire. The charge of a German knight was almost unstoppable in the open field, so the pagans preferred to fight in woods and swamps; the Germans soon adapted their weapons to those conditions-knights customarily armed themselves with crossbows and shorter spears, and they employed light cavalry for scouting and forest combat. http://www.the-orb.net/encyclop/religion/crusades/cruurban.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Crusades Jun 23 08, 7:24 PM