ABSTRACT
By the end of the first quarter of the thirteenth century, the crusaders pressing against the Estonians had firmly established themselves on the border with North-Western Russia. The crusaders would have gained access to Lake Ladoga and beyond. In the winter of 1221–22 the first recorded incursion into the lands of the Votians and the Izhorians was staged from the territory of Livonia. Some of the crusaders were captured, while the elders of the Chudtsa and Votians, who had gone over to the Livonians, were hanged. L P. Shaskol'skii believed that the wish to embrace Christianity expressed by the Votians, Izhorians and Karelians was an invention of the North Estonian knights. The pooling of the forces of the Livonian Order, the archbishopric of Riga and Denmark was very important for the planned crusade. The war against the Kurs and Semgallians was extremely exacting, while the influx of new crusaders to Livonia was rather modest.
