The Northern Crusades or Baltic Crusades were Christianization campaigns undertaken by Catholic Christian military orders and kingdoms, primarily against the pagan Baltic, Finnic and West Slavic peoples around the southern and eastern shores of the Baltic Sea, and also against Orthodox Christian East Slavs.
Henry was a medieval English clergyman. He came to Sweden with Cardinal Nicholas Breakspeare in 1153 and was most likely designated to be the new Archbishop of Uppsala, but the independent church province of Sweden could only be established in 1164 after the civil war, and Henry would have been sent to organize the Church in Finland, where Christians had already existed for two centuries.
Lalli is an apocryphal character from Finnish history. According to the legend, he killed Bishop Henry on the ice of Köyliönjärvi on 20 January 1156.
Sund is a municipality of Åland. It is an autonomous territory of Finland, and one of the official 27 national landscapes of Finland.
Saint Erik, also called Erik Jedvardsson, Eric IX, Eric the Holy, Saint Eric, and Eric the Lawgiver, was a Swedish king in the 12th century, c. 1156–1160. The Roman Martyrology of the Catholic Church names him as a saint memorialized on 18 May. He was the founder of the House of Erik, which ruled Sweden with interruptions from c. 1156 to 1250.
The Archbishop of Uppsala has been the primate of Sweden in an unbroken succession since 1164, first during the Catholic era, and from the 1530s and onward under the Lutheran church.
Finnish literature refers to literature written in Finland. During the European early Middle Ages, the earliest text in a Finnic language is the unique thirteenth-century Birch bark letter no. 292 from Novgorod. The text was written in Cyrillic and represented a dialect of Finnic language spoken in Russian Olonets region. The earliest texts in Finland were written in Swedish or Latin during the Finnish Middle Age. Finnish-language literature slowly developed from the sixteenth century onwards, after written Finnish was established by the bishop and Finnish Lutheran reformer Mikael Agricola (1510–1557). He translated the New Testament into Finnish in 1548.
The Catholic Church in Finland is part of the worldwide Catholic Church, under the spiritual leadership of the Pope in Rome.
The Swedish–Novgorodian Wars were a series of conflicts in the 12th and 13th centuries between the Novgorod Republic and medieval Sweden over control of the Gulf of Finland. The area was vital to the Hanseatic League, and part of the trade route from the Varangians to the Greeks. The clashes between Catholic Swedes and Orthodox Novgorodians had religious overtones, but before the 14th century there is no knowledge of official crusade bulls issued by the pope.
The Second Swedish Crusade was a military expedition by the Kingdom of Sweden into Tavastia (Häme) in southern Finland described by the Erik's Chronicle. According to the chronicle, the Swedes defeated the pagan Tavastians under the leadership of Birger Jarl, and started building a castle in Tavastia.
There are scattered descriptions of early Finnish wars, conflicts involving the Finnish people, some of which took place before the Middle Ages. The earliest historical accounts of conflicts involving Finnish tribes, such as Tavastians, Karelians, Finns proper and Kvens, have survived in Icelandic sagas and in German, Norwegian, Danish and Russian chronicles as well as in Swedish legends and in birch bark manuscripts. The most important sources are the Novgorod First Chronicle, the Primary Chronicle and the Eric Chronicle.
Thomas is the first known bishop of Finland. Only a few facts are known about his life. He resigned in 1245 and died in Visby three years later.
Fulco was the first known missionary Bishop of Estonia. He was appointed in 1165 by Eskil, the Danish Archbishop of Lund. Before his appointment, Fulco was a Benedictine monk in the abbey of Moutier-la-Celle, near Troyes in France. His nationality is not known.
The Finnish–Novgorodian wars were a series of conflicts between Finnic tribes in eastern Fennoscandia and the Republic of Novgorod from the 11th or 12th century to the early 13th century.
St. Henry's Chapel is a neogothic style brick chapel in the town of Kokemäki, Finland. The chapel was built in 1857 to cover a medieval wooden granary which was used by St. Henry, the first bishop of Finland. The chapel is located by the river Kokemäenjoki, one kilometre east of the town center of Kokemäki.
Saint Henry's Way is a pilgrim path in the regions of Southwest Finland and Satakunta in Finland.
Suomen kronikka is a chronicle written in the 1670s describing the history of Finland up to the middle ages.
Ancient kings of Finland are kings of Finland mentioned in early historical sources. The word kuningas is an old Finnic word deriving from the ancient Germanic word kuningaz. In the time the sources were written, "Finland" mainly referred to the Finland Proper area, and depending on the source, the "kings of Finland" could also refer to kings of the Sami people.
Ako was a Livonian ruler and elder of Livonian Daugava from modern-day Salaspils who fought during the Livonian Crusade against the German crusaders and the Livonian Brothers of the Sword in the beginning of the 13th century. In June 4, 1206, Ako died during the Battle of Salaspils, and as a result of the death, his head was brought to Riga for Albert of Riga as a sign of victory against Ako.
