The crusades bring up images of the ancient cities and harsh deserts of the Levant, of Saladin, Richard Coeur de Lion and King Louis IX of France. The crusades to the Holy Land were a consuming obsession of Latin Christianity for four centuries and remain among the most famous episodes of the Middle Ages. Yet, in the perspective of history, they made almost no difference. The crusaders were defeated and expelled, leaving no trace in the life of the Middle East apart from a handful of churches and some spectacular ruined castles.

By comparison, very little attention is paid to other crusades – in the Baltic and against the Moors in Spain and Portugal – which were truly transformative. Over three centuries, from the 12th to the 15th, the Baltic crusades altered the destinies of a vast region extending from the river Elbe to the isthmus of Karelia, populating it with German settlers and imposing Christianity on Europe’s last pagan cultures. Their legacy endured until modern times.

The black cross of Aleksander Pluskow-ski’s title was the symbol of the Teutonic Order. This was not the only force behind the Baltic crusades; important contributions were also made by the Danes and the Swedes. But the Teutonic knights were the main instrument of the German settlement of the southern shores of the Baltic, and they are the........

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