Waldemar I pacifies the Baltic

1165

The Danish king Waldemar the Great completed a series of campaigns against the pagan Wends of Rugen, demolished their temple of Svantovit at Arkona, and opened Jutland and the Danish isles to Christianization and Cistercian foundations. The campaigns established Denmark as the dominant naval power in the western Baltic, a position Waldemar's successors would leverage to build a short-lived Scandinavian empire stretching from Estonia to the Elbe.