When we talk about the Crusades We fundamentally think of the nine expeditions that Christianity undertook for two centuries against the Muslims to settle the domain of the Holy Land.
However, there were also them in Europe, some carried out in the Iberian Peninsula during the Reconquest and others to stop the Ottoman advance (in the Balkans), but also to fight against pagan peoples (in the Baltic) or even against heresies such as that of the Albigensians or Cathars (in France), among others. In this last group of Christians against Christians is the so-called Stedingen Crusade .
Stedingen is a region in the northwest of today's Germany , a place where that geographical name is still used as a surname, a historical legacy whose origins date back to the year 1106, when a handful of emissaries from what are now the Netherlands asked the Archbishop of Bremen for permission so that their community could settle in a swampy area on both sides of the Weser river delta.
The contract authorized them to cultivate it in exchange for the payment of the sheaf (a tax on the harvest), the tithe on the cattle and the pfennig (annual extra tax); in return, the land could be hereditarily passed from father to son, with the settlers retaining their freedom . In this way, Stedingen was populated with emigrants.
With great effort, given the adverse terrain, those people managed to drain the water and drain a considerable area by building ditches and dykes to start planting. A decade of hard work took them to make the swamp fertile, but in the end they succeeded and the community took root, also satisfied because, compared to the neighboring native peasants, they were not serfs but free .
This was their great prerogative but, in the long run, also their downfall, since the fact that they were not subjected as strictly as the other Germans not only brought them their envy but also favored a certain ideological autonomy that made the archbishopric suspicious a century later. .
The continental context, in which the Cathars they were constituting themselves as an important social and religious group increasingly outside the established power, they did not invite confidence. So the prelate agreed with the Count of Oldenburg to build two fortresses in Stedingen, those of Lechtenburg and Lineburg, from which he would carry out a Machiavellian subjugation campaign of the peasants, based on sowing terror among them:the women were kidnapped and taken to those castles, where a ransom was demanded for their release, and discontent began to spread among those affected, giving an excuse to intervene against them.
This is how they manifested it in the Thing , curious name that was given to the Germanic popular assemblies, where the free men exposed their complaints to the legislators. The sentence of the Thing , dictated in 1204, was favorable to them , prosecuting the soldiers of the fortresses and ordering their demolition, but the peasants did not have them all with them and organized themselves into militias to prevent new attacks.
The fields of the delta were filled with parapets and fences, trenches and fortified walls. The diplomatic bridges between both parties had been broken and the situation went a step further when Archbishop Gerhard I he was informed that no more taxes were to be paid to him, since the people of Stedingen were free and not subject to his authority. Between the sentence of the assembly and the attitude of those affected, Gerhard had no choice but to give in.
But his successor, Gerhard II , he saw things differently and demanded the payment agreed in the original agreement. The religious-type threats launched against the peasants, comparing their disobedience to idolatry and heresy They only inflamed them even more. In reality, two opposing sociopolitical models were facing each other on the table. , the traditional Germanic rural against the power of Roman inspiration.
Gerhard II received the support of his brother Herman de Lippe , a powerful lord who put his host at the disposal of the cause, quartering himself at Sclutterburg Castle. From there they unleashed hostilities, facing the peasants in what was the first battle in the open field, that of Yule ; it took place in 1229 and Herman's troops were repulsed, and he himself was killed in combat.
The following year, the bishop summoned the clergy to deal with the problem. The meeting took place in Bremen and ended with the common decision to generally excommunicate to all the seditious, not for a doctrinal reason but for the denial of the archiepiscopal authority; the practical consequence of that resolution was the call for a crusade by Pope Gregory IX. The Dominicans were in charge of preaching it throughout the region, as they had also done against the Cathars, getting numerous troops to enlist, attracted by the announced spiritual rewards (the same as for those who went to the Holy Land).
In the spring of 1233, a veritable army had already been formed. , which fell brutally on the east bank of the Weser, the least protected. All the peasants were put to the knife without distinction of sex or age and the few who managed to survive ended up burned at the stake, having been excommunicated.
However, the attack on the western part of the river was very different; There the defenses had been properly prepared - even more so when they saw the fate of their brothers on the other side - and the Crusaders suffered an unexpected defeat . They then tried to break the dikes to flood their fields and defeat them by hunger and cold -it was winter-, but the plan failed because the people from Stedingen defended said dikes desperately.
Meanwhile, the Dominicans continued to preach the crusade, presenting those people as authentic demons, thanks to which volunteers continued to arrive which, the following year, returned the army to its potential. Led by the Duke of Brabant, supported by the counts of Holland and Cleves, they again marched on Stedingen, threatening not only by land but also by sea thanks to a fleet of three hundred ships.
Among the peasants a trio of leaders had already distinguished themselves for their strategic ability:Bolko von Bardenfleth, Tammo von Huntrop and Detmar tom Diek. This time the crusaders managed to envelop the former's contingent, opening a breach in their lines and massacreing them. . The two companions of his presented a dramatic battle in Altenesch which also ended in defeat and slaughter, with nearly five thousand dead, many of them drowned while trying to escape. The total number of fallen exceeded eleven thousand and the survivors scattered across the country.
Ten years later the last focus of Cathar resistance in Montségur was extinguished, putting an end to religious and social freedom in Europe for three centuries.