Teutonic Knights absorb the Livonian Brothers

1237

After their catastrophic defeat by Lithuanians at Saule, the surviving Brothers of the Sword in Livonia were incorporated into the larger Teutonic Order. The northern crusade against Baltic pagans intensified under new leadership, forging what would become medieval Latvia and Estonia. The merged order now controlled a vast arc of territory from the Vistula to the Gulf of Finland, an armed monastic enterprise without parallel.