ABSTRACT
The church, the Christian kingship and a chivalric class of knights were also the pillars upon which the crusades and crusading movement rested. The establishment of Sweden as a Christian kingdom and province within the church meant that Sweden became involved in crusading activities, although those were confined to the eastern Baltic region. The articulation of crusading ideology and the foundation of the Cistercian Order were not only contemporaneous, but closely connected. Another indication of crusading interests in twelfth-century Sweden is the establishment of the Order of St John in Scandinavia. Crusading ideology, however, helped to legitimize these wars for the new Christian kingdom. Swedish crusades are, however, mostly associated with the incorporation of Finland into the Swedish realm. The social base for the Swedish crusades varied, but in general it was of a very different character from those of the Teutonic Order and in the Levant.
