Project Overview

"The Seated Virgin", amber, first half of 15th century

Over the course of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, a great host of western Europeans spilled into the modern-day Poland, Russia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Finland with the intent to convert, conquer, and colonize the region. It was a slow and difficult process, but by 1400, the physical, cultural, social, and political geography of northeastern Europe had radically transformed such that it closely resembled the western homelands of the aggressive newcomers. As an early chapter of a well-known historical narrative—the expansion of Christian Europe across the continent and, ultimately, across the world—the Europeanization of the region had far-reaching consequences still relevant today. Many of the newcomers arrived as crusaders aiding efforts lead by popes, emperors, and military orders (especially the Teutonic Knights) bent on molding the territory and its pagan peoples to their own ends, whether to pay taxes, work the land, or pray to the true God. Thus the movement is generally known as the “Northern Crusades.”[1]  

The Northern Crusades proceeded in multiple stages identified by the geographic region primarily targeted by crusading forces during certain stretches of time. My particular interest lies in the “Prussian Crusade” which began c. 1230 and lasted about fifty years, culminating in the Teutonic Knights’ consolidation of the territory which would form the basis of the nineteenth-century Prussian state (spanning modern-day Germany, Poland, and Russia).[2] Although Western interest in the region began with peaceful missions to Christianize the pagan Prussians in earlier decades, it escalated into protracted and costly warfare throughout the latter half of the thirteenth century. German-speaking crusaders entered via the waterways—especially the river Vistula—which webbed through the dense forests and marshes of Prussia, establishing castles and towns along the way.

An effort which began with small, beleaguered wooden forts protecting choke points along the river eventually resulted in a patchwork of farms, duchies, towns, and bishoprics governing both western colonists and converted natives. I would like to explore this dramatic transformation of space in this project.