ABSTRACT
The pilgrimage and captivity of Henry I of Mecklenburg and his servant Martin Bleyer has not received much attention from historians of the crusades, although Reinhold Röhricht – who else? – had already pulled together most of the hard charter evidence and assembled it conveniently in the Meklenburgisches (sic) Urkundenbuch.1 Henry is not mentioned at all in Yvonne Friedman’s book on captured crusaders.2 It was not until 2009, more than a century after Röhricht had provided the references, that Nicholas Morton mentioned Henry’s captivity,3 but only in 25 lines, partly misinterpreting the relevant charters, and completely ignoring the evidence from chronicles. In the historiography of the medieval Baltic campaigns and of the Teutonic Order the case was only mentioned, as far as I can see, by William L. Urban.4 In the regional historiography of Mecklenburg Henry did, of course, fare better.5 For the benefit of students of the crusades the case is well worth rescuing from this partial oblivion because of the wealth of detail available.
