From Pagans to Crusaders: How the Baltic Crusades Transformed Europe

Between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries, crusading armies unleashed a relentless holy war against the last pagan societies in northern Europe, particularly in the Baltic Sea region. Led by Catholic rulers, churchmen and warrior monks, they sought to expand Christendom through conquest and conversion.

In the process they forged a new world with a profound legacy that resonates into the present.

With Jonathan Phillips, join authors Thomas Williams and Aleks Pluskowski for a lively conversation exploring the dramatic centuries of conquest, conversion, migration and resistance that reshaped northern Europe.

Drawing on their new books, God's Hammer: A History of the Viking Crusades and Black Cross: A History of the Baltic Crusades, they will trace how warfare, faith and ambition combined to transform societies and cultures around the Baltic Sea.