27.4 Europe: a.d. 1201 to 1300  (Page 11/14)

Finland

It was a bad century for Finland. There were continued, intermittent beatings by Swedish armies who first conquered and baptized the Tavastians and then forty years later did the same for the Karelians. In the meantime the Principality of Novgorod had seized a large part of Karelia in 1220. (Ref. 89 )

Overseas scandinavian centers

Iceland remained the most active literary center in the Scandinavian world. The colonies on Greenland also thrived and more will be written about them under NORTH AMERICA, this chapter.

Eastern europe

Southern baltic area (see map in this section of the next chapter)

Lithuanians and Latvians were remnants of the eastern Balts, but all these people had gradually been Slavonized in the 5 or 6 centuries leading up to this 13th. We noted in the discussion above that the Danes conquered and tried to Christianize Livonia and Estonia early in the century. Tallinn, which was a Danish castle, was the Estonian name for the town of Reval, citadel of the Danish king, Waldemar II. Later, German merchants transformed it into a port for the Hanseatic League. The Danes were followed by the German Teutonic Knights along with various crusaders, monks, and Knights of the Sword, offering either conversion to Christianity or decapitation. They forged continually eastward almost completely exterminating the pagan Prussians and thinning out the Livonians. Teutonic orders were established in Riga as early as 1201, causing the disintegration of the Curonians and Semigallians, who were two of some eleven separate, Prussian tribes. The Lithuanians, alone, resisted the Teutonic Knights and absorbed the Knights of the Sword, so that in a sense they protected the Russians. Written history of the Balts begins only at that point, as the Lithuanians consolidated themselves into a powerful state. Various Lithuanian tribes were first united about the middle of the century under Mindaugas. He was baptized a Christian in 1251 but after he and his two sons were assassinated in 1263, the people reverted to paganism. All Balts worshiped a goddess of fate, Laima, closely connected to the sun but they also had multiple demi-gods and goddesses. After they finally became Christianized permanently the Lithuanians became chiefly Roman Catholic while the Latvians became divided between Catholicism and Lutheranism. (Ref. 61 )

At the beginning of the century in a period of some German civil wars, the Danish king also seized Holstein, Mechlenburg, Pomerania and the cities of Lubeck, Hamburg and Bremen, but after 1220, Frederick II defeated Denmark and reconquered these lands, thereafter redoubling the efforts to colonize them. An abundance of grain from the Baltic region helped to supply famine areas in the rest of northern Europe and barley malt allowed a large brewing industry to develop in Hamburg and adjacent areas. (Ref. 222 ) In this entire northern zone along the Baltic it was difficult to keep farm animals alive through the hard winters and there were long periods when no fresh meat or fish could be had, so there was much salting of meat - chiefly pork and fish - and herring was the most important in the salt fish trade. One could buy 20 pounds of meat for 5 cents, but then had to use 2 more for 2 pounds of salt, plus some peppercorns, cloves, etc., for the preservation. In all medieval cooking something had to be used to absorb the salt - bread crumbs, grain, spices, etc. in the form of sauces. (Ref. 211 )