The Crusade of the Teutonic Knights against Lithuania Reconsidered

Abstract

To call the war against the Lithuanians a crusade is common among historians, but most scholars do not give any reasons for this characterization. Finally, many historians appear to use the term 'crusade' because the war against Lithuania stood in a long tradition of 'holy wars' in north-eastern Europe. The priest-brothers were also allowed to redeem crusade vows, to confer the crusade indulgence on crusaders in Prussia and to absolve crusaders from excommunication. It therefore comes as no surprise that the spiritual rewards granted to the guests also had their origins in the thirteenth century. Probably the spiritual rewards attached to the Reisen were also announced outside Prussia. Among the canonistic criteria which make a war a crusade, papal authorization is the most important. The Knights relied on their own crusading tradition which included several privileges and which enabled them to establish a crusade without additional bulls in the fourteenth century.