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.
Karelians are a Baltic Finnic ethnic group who are indigenous to the historical region of Karelia, which is today split between Finland and Russia. Karelians living in Russian Karelia are considered a distinct ethnic group closely related to Finnish Karelians, who are considered a subset of Finns. This distinction historically arose from Karelia having been fought over and eventually split between Sweden and Novgorod, resulting in Karelians being under different cultural spheres.
Karelia is a historical province of Finland, consisting of the modern-day Finnish regions of South Karelia and North Karelia plus the historical regions of Ladoga Karelia and the Karelian isthmus, which are now in Russia. Historical Karelia also extends to the regions of Kymenlaakso, Northern Savonia and Southern Savonia (Mäntyharju).
Korela Fortress is a medieval fortress in the town of Priozersk, Leningrad Oblast, Russia.
Knut Eriksson, also known as Canute I, was King of Sweden from 1173 to 1195. He was a son of King Erik the Saint and Queen Christina, who was a granddaughter of the Swedish king Inge the Elder.
Sigtuna is a locality situated in the eponymous Sigtuna Municipality, in Stockholm County, Sweden with 9,689 inhabitants in 2020. It is the namesake even though the seat of the municipality is in another locality, Märsta. Sigtuna is for historical reasons still often referred to as a stad.
The Battle on the Ice, also known as the Battle of Lake Peipus or Battle of Lake Chud, took place on 5 April 1242. It was fought on or near the frozen Lake Peipus between the united forces of the Republic of Novgorod and Vladimir-Suzdal, led by Prince Alexander Nevsky, and the forces of the Livonian Order and Bishopric of Dorpat, led by Bishop Hermann of Dorpat.
Johannes was the second Archbishop of Uppsala, Sweden, with a short-lived reign between 1185 and 1187.
The Swedish–Novgorodian Wars were a series of armed conflicts during the 12th and 13th centuries, fought between the Novgorod Republic and medieval Sweden over control of the Gulf of Finland. Part of the trade route from the Varangians to the Greeks, the area was vital to the Hanseatic League. 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 Third Swedish Crusade to Finland was a Swedish military expedition against the pagan Karelians from 1293 to 1295 in which the Swedes successfully expanded their borders eastwards and gained further control of their lands in Finland.
The Second Swedish Crusade was a military expedition by the Kingdom of Sweden into Tavastia (Häme) in southern Finland described by 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 Erik's Chronicle.
Jon Jarl was a Swedish jarl at the end of the 12th and in the early 13th centuries. He is mentioned in Erik's Chronicle from the 1320s to have spent years fighting against Russians and Ingrians in the early Swedish–Novgorodian Wars.
The Livonian crusade consists of the various military Christianisation campaigns in medieval Livonia – modern Latvia and Estonia – during the Papal-sanctioned Northern Crusades in the 12th–13th century. The Livonian crusade was conducted mostly by the Holy Roman Empire and the Kingdom of Denmark. It ended with the creation of Terra Mariana and the Danish duchy of Estonia. The lands on the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea were one of the last parts of Europe to be Christianised. The available information is largely based on Livonian Chronicle of Henry.
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.
The siege of Tartu took place in 1224 and resulted in the fall of the last major center of Estonian resistance in the mainland provinces to the Christian conquest of Estonia.
The Curonians or Kurs were a medieval Baltic tribe living on the shores of the Baltic Sea in the 5th–16th centuries, in what are now western parts of Latvia and Lithuania. They eventually merged with other Baltic tribes contributing to the ethnogenesis of present-day Latvians and Lithuanians. Curonians gave their name to the region of Courland (Kurzeme), and they spoke the Curonian language.
The Viking Age in Estonia was a period in the history of Estonia, part of the Viking Age. It was not a unified country at the time, and the area of Ancient Estonia was divided among loosely allied regions. It was preceded by the Bronze and Early Iron Ages in Estonia, during which an agrarian society had developed, the Migration Period, and Pre-Viking Age with the Viking Age itself lasting between 800 and 1050 AD. It is often considered to be part of the Iron Age period which started around 400 AD and ended around 1200 AD. Some 16th-century Swedish chronicles attribute the Pillage of Sigtuna in 1187 to Estonian raiders.
Sten Bielke's war against Novgorod was a war between Sweden and Novgorod lasting from 1338 to 1339. It started when the Novgorodians attempted to take revenge on Karelian rebels that had fled to Viborg in 1337.
