Teutonic Knights

by William Urban

  Lithuania

  In retrospect we can see that the prospect of occupying the borderlands next to Lithuania had been too tempting for the Swordbrothers. The Lithuanians had appeared to be so much like other native peoples that the crusaders probably did not consider them capable of united resistance. Like the Prussians, the Lithuanians had a single language and a single culture, and they were divided into perhaps as many as twenty different groups led by clan elders, but that was a misleading comparison for several reasons. First, there were actually only two major groupings, the highlanders (Aukštaitija) and the lowlanders (Žemaitija, or Samogitia) north of the Nemunas River. Second, one family had already made itself supreme in the highlands, that of Mindaugas, whose primacy can be dated approximately from the time of the victory over Volquin. He soon bore the coveted title grand prince. Third, the Lithuanians had a long tradition of co-operation in mounting terrifying raids on their neighbours. This was a tradition that any warlord could build upon, and Mindaugas was no ordinary warlord – he was a gifted, if cruel, upstart, who knew how to climb to the top on the ruins of collapsing states.

  The crusaders and the Mongols had taught the Lithuanians one lesson – that national unity was necessary for independence. That was an easy concept to understand, but only Mindaugas grasped its corollary: that national unity can be attained only through a ‘modernising’ autocracy. He was soon crushing domestic dissent and leading his former rivals’ armies through burning villages in Livonia, Rus’, Volhynia, and Płock. One could say that ‘a family that preys together, stays together’.

  Other than by its militarism, which was not a pagan monopoly, Lithuania was not a threat to either Orthodox Rus’ or Roman Catholic Poland. Its priests did not proselytise, and their belief system was hardly more superstitious than contemporary Roman Catholicism as practised at the local level – crusaders often believed in astrology, magic, and witchcraft. Some Western practices were based on aspects of the pre-Christian religions found throughout Europe, while others were approved by the wisest and best educated philosophers and churchmen (Friedrich II, a ruler so secular-minded that his enemies perceived him as the tool of the Anti-Christ, if not the archdemon himself, was a patron of astrology). The pagans rarely practised human sacrifice, though they occasionally burned alive a highly regarded enemy prisoner. Polygamy was already rare. Their ferocity in warfare is hard to distinguish from that practised by the Christians, other than in their preference for hit-and-run raids over slugging it out on a battlefield; all sides saw the civilian population as a legitimate wartime target. In short, since the princes and boyars would not have to modify their daily lives too much, the missionaries had reason to believe that the pagan leaders were willing to become Christians if the price was right.

  At the moment the Lithuanians hardly deserved to be considered in crusader plans. Their proto-state in the highlands was far away, only half-organised, and, it was believed, would probably disintegrate long before a crusader army again approached its frontiers. Mindaugas was to prove such calculations false. He would take advantage of the political crisis in Rus’ to enrich his followers by attacking the weakened states there, and by enriching the warrior class he made himself deserving of the title grand prince. Within a few years Lithuania would be a recognised state.

  The lesson in this was clear. The papacy had great powers, and could not be defied even when it was wrong. The Swordbrothers had relied on the emperor’s help and he had failed them. In the years that lay ahead the pope and the emperor would quarrel again, and the Teutonic Knights, who succeeded the Swordbrothers in Livonia, found it necessary to assess and reassess the position they would take in each of these disputes. This occasioned bitter disputes within the Teutonic Order, but in the end its members chose to be as neutral as they could and maintain at least an appearance of friendship toward both of their benefactors and lords.

  A second lesson, well-remembered from the long wars that followed the Wendish Crusade (1147), was that it is always easier to convert a people by working through a native lord – if you can find one, or create one able and willing to become a feudal lord, ruling over his newly Christianised people with the aid of foreign arms and the assistance of foreign advisors. An astute native lord, using the Church against his rapacious neighbours, could make himself independent and relatively powerful. That was perfectly acceptable to most Christians, who knew that marriage alliances could gain land more surely and with less expense and risk than warfare entailed. It was a solution also thoroughly acceptable to the knights of the Teutonic Order, as long as it did not cost them lands already occupied at great cost in blood and treasure.

  A third lesson was not lost either, at least not in this generation: the Swordbrothers would not have been in trouble if they had not coveted Estonia. The Teutonic Order carefully avoided territorial disputes with their powerful Christian neighbours whenever they could. That did not mean that they gave in easily whenever a duke claimed a territory or a new tax, but it did mean that they avoided warfare by calling upon neutral parties, particularly papal legates, to judge matters, and binding themselves to follow whatever decision was rendered. This averted many a potential test of arms.

  The Teutonic Knights

  Grand Master Hermann von Salza was in Vienna with the emperor when he heard the news of the Swordbrothers’ defeat, but his business was taking him south, into Italy, not north to Marburg in Germany where a special chapter meeting was ready to discuss the Swordbrothers’ desperate call for help. He sent the two Swordbrother messengers to speak to the grand chapter, which debated the request without being able to reach a decision. At last the chapter referred the matter back to Hermann von Salza at the next chapter meeting in Vienna, an assembly which must have been spectacular, with both Hermann von Salza and Hermann Balk in attendance, and the emperor Friedrich II in the city. Still unable to reach a decision, the grand chapter sent the delegation on to Gregory IX, who was then in Viterbo, a papal retreat in the hill country north of Rome. There Hermann von Salza and the Swordbrothers presented a petition to the pope, asking that the Swordbrother Order and all their lands be incorporated into the Teutonic Knights. The pope withdrew into a private conference with the grand master, after which he summoned the two Swordbrothers and a few witnesses. Ordering the Swordbrothers to kneel, he released them from all their previous oaths, explained briefly what the rule of the Teutonic Order was, and asked if they vowed to keep it. When they said yes, his servants took their mantles off and laid new white ones with a black cross over their shoulders. They and all their brethren were now members of the Teutonic Knights.

  The two messengers were so astonished at the speed of the ceremony that they could barely wait to ask the grand master about the conditions they had set for union with the Teutonic Knights. When they were told that the union had been made without conditions, and that Estonia would have to be returned to Denmark, they were bitter. Despite their disappointment, the knights honoured their vow of obedience. A papal document announcing the act of union was issued on 12 May 1237:

  Because we hold nothing higher than the spreading of the Catholic faith, we hope that the pious request of the master and the brothers will have the desired effect, that the Lord will have the Brothers of the Hospital find courageous people in Livonia . . . and so we have decided that the master and the brothers and all their possessions shall be united with that order.

  The next day Gregory IX wrote to his legate in the Baltic, William of Modena, to open negotiations between King Waldemar and the Teutonic Knights for the resolution of the dispute over Estonia. In June there was a chapter meeting in Marburg at which the assembled representatives voted to send sixty knights (about 650 men) to Livonia immediately, and to make Hermann Balk responsible for governing the region. Hermann raised his knights from the North German convents; these were men who understood the Low German language spoken by the Swordbrothers and most secular knights and burghers in Livonia. With 500 Marks contributed by the emperor he outfitted hi
s men and shipped them from Lübeck to Riga before the onset of winter weather closed the seas.

  The reinforcements saved the Livonian Crusade. Hermann Balk distributed the knights among the castles so that they would learn about the countryside, the natives, and the enemy. In 1238, at Stensby, he returned Estonia to King Waldemar, winning him as an ally for the Teutonic Order.

  This brusque dismissal of the Swordbrothers’ most significant achievement confirmed the worst fears of the surviving knights of that order. They withdrew from the reformed convents in the south of Livonia to those on the Rus’ian frontier and made life so difficult for Hermann Balk that after he sailed for Denmark he hurried to Italy to speak with Hermann von Salza and Gregory IX about the knights’refusal to recognise his authority. He got practically no hearing, however, because the dispute between emperor and pope had become so serious that they could not be persuaded to look into problems on a distant and inconsequential frontier. Shortly afterward Hermann von Salza died in Salerno. This was a crippling blow to the moderates in both church and state who had hoped against hope, if not for a peaceful resolution of the problem, then perhaps a delay in the deadly confrontation that would allow God time to work a miracle. Hermann was one of that handful of men who, with divine inspiration, might have been capable of such a feat.

  Conflict with Novgorod

  Even before Herman Balk’s arrival in Livonia, the crusade there was taking an unexpected turn: a combination of events suddenly made the entire Orthodox world seem vulnerable to conversion.

  Orthodoxy had been on the defensive ever since the later decades of the eleventh century, when the Turks had suddenly invaded Asia Minor and crushed the Byzantine army. In fact, it was the near collapse of the Byzantine empire that had provoked the call for help that ultimately became the First Crusade. Although the resultant crusader armies had smashed the Turkish forces sufficiently to relieve the immediate pressure on Constantinople, they had moved on toward Jerusalem rather than eliminating the nearest Moslem threat altogether. In time the Turks recovered and became even stronger, while during the same period Byzantines and Westerners became ever more suspicious of one another. This mutual fear and resentment ultimately combined with internal turmoil in the Byzantine state to result in the Fourth Crusade being diverted from Egypt against Constantinople. From 1205 to 1261 Constantinople was ruled by Roman Catholics, and several of Byzantium’s most important island possessions were seized by Italian city-states.

  Rus’ was the next Orthodox state to be hit by an onslaught of eastern horsemen. This time it was the Mongols, sent west by Genghis Khan. Although their principal goal was the conquest of Turkestan, one army went after the steppe peoples south of Kievan Rus’. The Rus’ian princes led their armies of mounted infantry onto the steppe in1223, only to be overwhelmed by the unexpected tactics of the new enemy – sudden rushes and retreats, showers of arrows, and then the final deadly encirclement. Fortunately for the surviving princes, the Mongol army withdrew to the east as silently and mysteriously as it had come. The death of Genghis Khan in 1227 might have persuaded some princes that the danger was past, but there is little evidence that they were well informed on Mongolian affairs, and the new grand khan was very ambitious. The Mongols returned in 1237 with new fury, and this time they did not go home at the end of the campaigning season; by 1240 they had conquered every Rus’ian state except Novgorod. Orthodoxy was reeling. Rus’ians sent appeals for help to their Western neighbours, Poland and Hungary, to the pope, and even to the pagans in Lithuania. Only Mindaugas of Lithuania offered help, and that was under stiff conditions – he would respect the Orthodox religion as long as the Rus’ian merchants and boyars paid well for his services. They paid. It was the beginning of the great expansion that would eventually make the grand duchy of Lithuania into the largest state in Europe.

  At this moment Livonian crusaders moved against Novgorod – a town so wealthy and powerful that it was called Lord Novgorod the Great. Compared to the cities of Byzantium and the Moslem world, this was a considerable exaggeration. To anyone who knew Constantinople, Samarkand, or even Venice, every northern city was small and poor. Still, to those who had only seen Lübeck or Kiev, Novgorod was impressive enough. Although Eisenstein’s inspired movie, Alexander Nevsky, places the Teutonic Knights at the centre of this attack, apparently the order had little to do with the ensuing ‘Battle on the Ice’ at all. Instead, the attacking army comprised a loose coalition of forces brought together by the papal legate, William of Modena, who had returned west before any fighting actually started. He seems to have believed that if a crusade against Novgorod could be mounted successfully, it would overthrow the last Rus’ian citadel of Orthodoxy and thus reunite Christendom; if the attack was a failure, it would rid the region of some malcontents.

  The malcontents were mostly German knights. Some were former Swordbrothers, unresigned to the fate ordained by the papacy. Some were secular knights who had settled in Estonia at the invitation of an earlier papal legate or the Swordbrothers who on one hand feared that King Waldemar might confiscate their estates and on the other lusted for larger holdings. But there was also King Eric XI of Sweden (1222 – 50), whose forces were moving east along the northern coast of the Gulf of Finland, subduing the local tribes and threatening to extend royal authority over the entire region that supplied the finest furs to the European trade. Lastly, there were crusaders. Most likely some of these were from North German cities, burghers who knew Novgorod and would have liked to dictate more favourable conditions of trade.

  At first all went well. In early 1240 the Swedes occupied the mouth of the Neva River, the waterway flowing from Lake Ladoga, whence ships could continue sailing up the Volkhov River to Novgorod. Meanwhile, crusaders from Livonia moved across the Narva River; others attacked Pskov. The Swedish invasion, led by Karl Birger and a Finnish prelate, Bishop Thomas, threatened to prevent the Rus’ians from purchasing Western grain. (Novgorod was dependent on food supplies from the West as long as southern Rus’ was in Mongol hands.) Since the merchants from Lübeck and Visby would not voluntarily sacrifice their commerce for royal benefit, the only way a Swedish blockade could be imposed was by controlling the river mouths. The Novgorod merchants, understanding the seriousness of the threat, called back their young duke, Alexander, who had just left the quarrelsome city, and pleaded with him to drive the Swedes away from their lifeline to the West. Alexander swallowed his anger and brought his skilled archers to Novgorod. A Rus’ian chronicler in Novgorod recounted the ensuing events thus:

  The [Swedes] came with their [ruler] and with their bishops, and halted on the Neva at the mouth of the Izhera, wishing to take possession of Ladoga, or in one word, of Novgorod, and the whole Novgorod province. But again the most kind and merciful God, lover of men, preserved and protected us from the foreigners since they laboured in vain without the command of God. For the news came to Novgorod that the [Swedes] were going toward Ladoga, and [Prince Alexander] with the men of Novgorod and of Ladoga did not delay at all; he went against them and defeated them by the power of St Sophia and the prayers of our Sovereign Lady the Holy Mother of God and eternally Virgin Mary on the 15th day of July [1240] . . . And there was a great slaughter of [Swedes].18

  Novgorod was saved from Swedish economic blackmail by this battle on the Neva, and Novgorod’s duke, Alexander, was thereafter known by the sobriquet derived from his victory: Alexander Nevsky.

  Bishop Thomas resigned in 1245, certain that he had failed in his life’s mission of converting the Finns and Karelians. But he was too pessimistic. Four years later Karl Birger led what Swedes called ‘the Second Crusade’ to the region around modern Helsinki. In subsequent years Swedish immigration to this ‘New Land’ reached significant proportions and permanently changed the ethnic composition of the region. In future years some Swedish fishermen would find their way across the gulf to Estonia, where they established themselves in small villages along the coast.

  The Battle on the Ice

&n
bsp; The Livonian threat to Novgorod was more dangerous than the Swedish one had been. A combined force of former Swordbrothers, petty knights from Estonia, Danes under princes Canute and Abel, Germans under the bishop of Dorpat, Hermann von Buxhoevden (Bishop Albert’s brother), and Rus’ians under Prince Jaroslav (then in exile from Pskov) pushed into Novgorodian territory from the west. In September 1240 this army captured Isborg (Izborsk) and smashed a relief force from Pskov. After a week’s siege of Pskov, they obtained its surrender on terms. Apparently relying upon allies inside the city (probably friends of Prince Jaroslav who gave their children as hostages) the crusaders placed a garrison of two knights and their retinues in the citadel – probably thirty to fifty men in all. The crusader leaders must have spent the winter dreaming about the likelihood of closing Novgorod’s trade routes in the next campaign, especially after hearing the news that Duke Alexander had quarrelled with the burghers of Novgorod, who favoured peace with the Germans (probably because they considered trade with the West to be essential to the city’s survival), and had withdrawn to distant Perejaslavl, where his father Jaroslav ruled.

  When Waldemar II of Denmark died in March and his sons remained home in case civil war erupted, the former Swordbrothers saw in this succession crisis not the loss of an ally but rather an opportunity to reclaim Estonia for themselves. They had already been conspiring with Danish vassals in Estonia who were willing to violate the 1238 Treaty of Stensby and simultaneously attempt the conquest of Novgorod. The records are too sparse to tell us absolutely to what extent former Swordbrothers were providing the leadership and men for this attack on Novgorod, acting without official permission and without the money and reinforcements the Teutonic Knights could have provided, but one of the ringleaders of the coup against Master Volquin that had forced him to occupy Estonia against his will seems to have been prominent among the leaders of the invasion.