Northern Crusades

The Northern Crusades, or Baltic Crusades, were military campaigns conducted by several Catholic kingdoms and military orders in an effort to Christianize all the pagans (Balts, Finns, and West Slavs) around the southern and eastern shores of the Baltic Sea. The most notable of these campaigns were the Prussian and Livonian Crusades, the latter of which also fought against the Orthodox Christian states of Novgorod and Pskov. In some cases, such as with the Wendish Crusade, the conflicts were partly aimed at controlling the rich resources found in these lands.

Some of these wars were explicitly regarded as crusades during the Middle Ages. For example, the war against the Estonians and the "other pagans in those parts" was authorized by Pope Alexander III's 1171 crusade bull, Non parum animus noster (Our mind is deeply [troubled/distressed]). However, others—such as the (possibly mythical) 12th-century First Swedish Crusade and several subsequent incursions undertaken by Scandinavian Christians against the then-pagan Finns—were dubbed "crusades" only in the 19th century, by romantic nationalist historians.