Reddit reviews The Northern Crusades: Second Edition

The Lithuanians didn't convert, their leader did. Paganism was still everywhere in the Lithuanian holdings and the leaders also joined in on pagan rituals. This was part of the reason why the Order kept fighting the Lithuanians. The biggest reason they fought them was that the Lithuanians kept fighting them as well. There are a few easy to read books on the subject, but The Northern Crusade by E. Christiansen should give you a good overview of the Baltic situation.


Feel free to ask if you got more questions. I don't know everything, but know a fair bit about the TO in the Baltic.

Here's an old list I made a long time ago:

If you want to learn about motivations for the Crusades, then AskHistorians has a fantastic series of threads on just that issue.

For books, here are a few that I would recommend:

The Oxford Illustrated History on the Crusades is composed of 15 chapters written by various history professors that cover not only motivations but also topics such as daily life in the Crusader States, art, music, and historiography.

The Concise History of the Crusades is just what it says on the tin - it gives a great run-through of the various Crusades, and includes detailed maps.

The First Crusade: a New History gives a detailed account of that conflict, and includes many references from Byzantine and Islamic primary sources.

The Second Crusade: Scope and Consequences is similar to the first book I mentioned in that is in an anthology from a variety of scholars.

The Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople describes that conflict and its aftermath up to the eventual collapse of the Latin Empire.

The Northern Crusades describes a set of Crusades that are often forgotten - the ones fouth in Northern Europe and the Baltic by groups such as the Teutonic and Livonian Orders.

Byzantium and the Crusades gives insight onto a perspective that is sometimes overlooked - the historical role the Byzantine Empire played in these wars, Byzantine views of these conflicts, and the long-term effect that the Crusades had on the development of the Byzantine State.

Finally, primary sources:

The First Crusade is an annotated anthology of sources for the First Crusade, and includes Western, Islamic, Byzantine, and Jewish accounts. Very important, because this was the war that started the movement.

The Jews and the Crusaders includes both all known Jewish chronicles of the First and Second Crusades.

The Conquest of Lisbon is an exciting bilingual Latin-English account of the conquest of Lisbon during the second Crusade.

Finally, The Arab Historians of the Crusades is probably my favorite primary source anthology, and the accounts reference not only the wars but also life in the Latin East, side-stories about internal politics in both the Crusader and Islamic states, and poetic lamentations about the Mongol invasions.

Thank you so much for writing this! I'll be coming back to this comment for a long time.

I'm specially grateful as many of the books you've listed have Kindle versions. I'm Ecuadorian and I've been very saddened by the fact that a lot of the books that I want to read are only available on paper... that's troublesome for me! I actually have to import them which is hard and expensive.

After a quick look I saw that your recommendation on the 4th crusade is actually listed as a penny book! That's just so nice as I'm actually on a tight budged and can't afford everything I want. It's actually an insane deal as somehow it's a 400 page book and yet it only weights 10 ounces! I'm limited to 4 Kg max per import so that's why I'm specially exited.

I actually have a few more questions right now. Sorry to pester you even more, but these are really the final ones.

Are you familiar with the northern crusades? One of the things that kick-started this whole thing was my interest in the Teutonic Order which led me to buy "Teutonic Knights" by William Urban (conveniently available on Kindle).

I've found the book to be good but I feel a bit lost as I'm missing the big scope of things: the author—focusing mostly on the POV of the order and its enemies—sometimes refers to events related to the area that I just don't understand (me being very unfamiliar with eastern Europe). For instance, he mentions the Wendish crusade and other conflicts several times but does not explain, which I imagine is because he assumes that reader is acquaintance with these events.

Anyhow I'm asking if you've heard good things about The Northern Crusades by Eric Christiansen. I was hoping it would help me better understand the big picture.

And lastly, there seem to be a lot of books from Osprey which cover an insane range of topic (a lot of which I'm interested). Would you recommend them?

I'm very cautious as it seems that most of the are exactly 64 pages long, which seems not that of a good deal are most of them are around $12, which to me is a lot as most of them are paperback only, which means I have to import them. Plus some like the one on mounted archers are very critiqued are the books were called "too superficial". Maybe the others that are not as broad won't have the problem but I'm still wary.

Thanks for reminding me about that period! http://www.amazon.com/The-Northern-Crusades-Second-Edition/dp/0140266534

This is the book I read, also after playing said campaign. It was a long time ago, but as far as I recall I enjoyed this book a great deal and it was pretty comprehensive on the subject. I seem to have misplaced my book though :( goddamnit.

Can't be of much help when it comes to Eastern/ Central Europe. This book is quite good though, so perhaps start there. Sorry!