Stedinger Crusade

The battle of Altenesch (peasants on the left, crusaders on the right), from a manuscript of the *Sächsische Weltchronik*

The Stedinger Crusade (1233–1234) was a Papally sanctioned war against the rebellious peasants of Stedingen.

The Stedinger were free farmers and subjects of the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen. Grievances over taxes and property rights turned into full-scale revolt. When an attempt by the secular authorities to put down the revolt ended in defeat, the archbishop mobilized his church and the Papacy to have a crusade sanctioned against the rebels. In the first campaign, the small crusading army was defeated. In a follow-up campaign the next year, a much larger crusader army was victorious.

It is often grouped with the Drenther Crusade (1228–1232) and the Bosnian Crusade (1235–1241), other small-scale crusades against European Christians deemed heretical.^[1]

^ Megan Cassidy-Welch (2013), "The Stedinger Crusade: War, Remembrance, and Absence in Thirteenth-Century Germany", Viator 44 (2): 159–174.

[MCW-1] Megan Cassidy-Welch (2013), "The Stedinger Crusade: War, Remembrance, and Absence in Thirteenth-Century Germany", Viator 44 (2): 159–174.

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