ABSTRACT
In 1204, when the crusader army was standing at the gates of Constantinople, Scandinavia was still a remote part of medieval Europe. However, when the news of the fall of Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade reached Scandinavia the concept of crusading was nothing new for the population. It is likely that at least some Scandinavians were in the armies that were sent from western Europe to Jerusalem during the First Crusade. 1 Other crusading armies had probably been sent to Finland by the Swedish kings as early as the 1150s, 2 and in 1201, only a few years before the attack on Constantinople, German crusaders started a colonizing project in what is now the Riga area in Latvia. 3 Even the Danish kings were interested in taking part in this Baltic crusading enterprise. 4 These Swedish, Danish and German campaigns quickly expanded the frontiers of Latin Christianity into the Baltic area.
