The forgotten wars that redefined Europe

Alex Plaskowski's 'The Black Cross' examines the Baltic Crusades and the rise of the Teutonic Order, situating these conflicts within broader crusading culture and medieval European state-building. The book covers campaigns across the eastern Baltic from the 12th to the 15th centuries, analyzing religious, political, and economic motives behind conquest and conversion. Plaskowski draws on chronicles, church records, and archaeology to assess sources and recover indigenous perspectives where possible. He traces how crusading ideology, papal authority, and migration reshaped the region, enabling German and Scandinavian expansion and the growth of trade networks like the Hanseatic League. The work argues that these campaigns were pivotal in forming the borders, societies, and polities that led to entities such as the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.