Early Finnish saga 8. - Third Swedish Crusade...

The Third Swedish Crusade to Finland was a Swedish military expedition against the pagan Karelians in 1293. It followed the First Crusade and the Second Crusade to Finland. As the result of the attack, Viborg Castle was established and western Karelia remained under Swedish rule for over 400 years. The name of the expedition is largely unhistorical, and it was a part of the Northern Crusades.

Kolmas ristiretki Suomeen

According to Eric Chronicles, the reason behind the expedition was pagan intrusions into Christian territories. Birger Magnusson's letter of 4 March 1295 states that the motive of the crusade was long-time banditry and looting in the Baltic Sea region by Karelians, and the fact that they had taken Swedes and other travellers as captives and then tortured them. 

Karelians had also been engaged in a destructive expedition to Sweden in 1257 which led Valdemar to request Pope Alexander IV to decleare a crusade against them, which he agreed.
According to Eric Chronicles, Swedes conquered 14 hundreds from the Karelians.

                   
The earliest period of Swedish colonization of Finland proper (in the area around the city of Turku) occurred at the end of the 12th century, and could be considered a part of the religious and political movement known as the Northern Crusade. 
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The Northern Crusades or Baltic Crusades were religious wars undertaken by Catholic Christian military orders and kingdoms, primarily against the pagan Baltic, Finnic and Western Slavic peoples around the southern and eastern shores of the Baltic Sea, and to a lesser extent also against Orthodox Christian Slavs (East Slavs). The crusades took place mostly in the 12th and 13th centuries and resulted in the subjugation and forced baptism of indigenous peoples.

                     
Viborg Castle, was founded by the swedish in 1293
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The 12th century is poorly documented in Sweden, and Russian documents are fragmented. From the surviving sources, however, it seems evident that the newly founded republic and Sweden drifted into hostilities that could not be permanently settled ever again.

According to the First Novgorod Chronicle, the Swedish troops attacked the Novgorod merchants somewhere in the Baltic Sea region and killed 150 Novgorodians in 1142. It is the first known case of hostilities between Sweden and Novgorod. In 1164, a strong Swedish fleet approached Ladoga but was soundly defeated with most of its ships captured by Novgorod.

According to Swedish sources, the Novgorodians and their Karelian allies launched pirate raids against mainland Sweden during the 12th century. During one of such raid, they brought to Novgorod the doors of the Sigtuna cathedral as loot. 


In the eyes of the northern crusaders, such actions justified war against Novgorod, although Novgorodian sources do not mention these events. Swedish sources refer to the attackers of Sigtuna as "heathens". Swedish sources also document that Jon jarl spent nine years fighting against Novgorodians and Ingrians at the end of the 12th century. These expeditions are not documented in Russian sources