ABSTRACT
The thirteenth century was the time when Western, Eastern and local cultures met in the eastern Baltic lands, a crossroads located on the eastern periphery of medieval Western civilization, but also within the sphere of influence and interests of Russian principalities. From the end of the twelfth century, missionaries from Germany began to preach the Roman Catholic faith on the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea, in the area later known as Livonia, corresponding to the present-day territories of Latvia and Estonia. These territories were inhabited by various heathen Baltic peoples (Lettgallians, Semgallians, Selonians and Curonians) and Finnic peoples (Livs and Estonians). An important role was played in the Baltic region from the middle of the twelfth century by the Hanseatic League, especially the towns of Lübeck and Visby, and so merchants and missionaries, and later aristocrats too, went eastwards side by side, but moved by different aims. Nowadays these activities of Western Christendom in Livonia, as well as in Prussia and Lithuania, are covered by the general term ‘Baltic Crusades’.1
