How to get the Knights Hospitaller up north?

Prodigal

Banned
I've been toying around with the idea that along with the Teutonics, the Hospitallers are invited to help fight the pagans of the Baltic Sea. They fight along with the other Northern Crusaders and end up carving out a state in southern Sweden or Finland.

Is this possible? Would this Pod work for what I'm going for?

EDIT: If not, what about the Order taking over somewhere in Italy? Maybe a crusade on Genoa after a Genoese alliance with the Ottomans? A crusade against a Muslim Sardinia?

Another EDIT: What about Normandy? The Vikings were pagan when it was established. The Hospitallers were mostly Frenchmen anyways.. could they have 'liberated' Normandy and pulled what the Teutonics did in Prussia?
 
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When the Knightly orders came to be Normandy had already been Christian for a long time not to mention that the Norman invasion of Britain was approved by the Pope as a holy war.

As for the nothern crusades you can either have them be invited rather than the Teutonic order (probably better for Poland) or have Sweden and Denmark much weaker so that they accept the creation of a buffer state in Finland/Estonia.

My favorite PoD would be that the parlament in one of the iberian states (cant remember which) honours its Kings testament that left the country to the Knights of St John and the Templars
 
I've been toying around with the idea that along with the Teutonics, the Hospitallers are invited to help fight the pagans of the Baltic Sea.
They would need be to be patroned by Imperials, which wouldn't be that hard, but their main legitimacy base was about Holy Land and Mediterranean protection IOTL, with strong links with maritime cities and Yerosolemite Kingdom. Switching this wouldn't be done without a small crisis IMO.

They fight along with the other Northern Crusaders and end up carving out a state in southern Sweden or Finland.
Southern Sweden was mostly, politically speaking at least, Christianized at this point, and with a strong focus on Finland. Safe big changes, it's unlikely Sweden would patronize Hospitaleers as HRE did with Teutonic Order or their predecessors as in Riga.

If not, what about the Order taking over somewhere in Italy?
Taking over, as a conquest? Probably not. Having holdings in Italy, as they did in France? Well they already have so, and I suppose they could grab more with a more critical Mediterranean situation.

Maybe a crusade on Genoa after a Genoese alliance with the Ottomans?
Unlikely : Hospitaleers and Genoese had important links with each other, and the maritime city would have few interest forging an alliance with Ottomans, if at all.

A crusade against a Muslim Sardinia?
Sardinia, when religious knights orders were established, were clearly outside Muslim influence since decades.

Another EDIT: What about Normandy? The Vikings were pagan when it was established.
Most of Scandinavian settlers were actually Anglo-Scandinavians, which means at least partially Christianized. Note that Rollo and his men went Christian road as a condition of their establishment, making a mix of Frankish and Scandinavian population realized after one, maybe two generations at latest.

By the end of the XIth century, Normans were entierly part of the French cultural continuum, including religiously.

not to mention that the Norman invasion of Britain was approved by the Pope as a holy war.
It probably wasn't the case, and added later.

My favorite PoD would be that the parlament in one of the iberian states (cant remember which) honours its Kings testament that left the country to the Knights of St John and the Templars
Alfonso the Battler tried to do so, but it meet a large resistence : he simply couldn't have gave away lands that he inherited (at best, the lands he personally conquered).
It may even be possible that issuing an half-absurd will was his original attempt, in order to fend off foreign influences on Aragon's succession.

For mere matters of legitimacy, and maybe legality, the pareage inheritence by knights orders wouldn't pass; and the fierce opposition of Navarra and Aragon's nobility would make it extremely hard. (We're not talking of Parliments there : they simply didn't existed)
 
When the Knightly orders came to be Normandy had already been Christian for a long time not to mention that the Norman invasion of Britain was approved by the Pope as a holy war.

William's invasion was only labelled a "Holy War" because Harold had refused to submit to the Pope's demands to cede his throne to William. It was a war against an excommunicated ruler, not a war against a pagan land. When Kings were charged by the Pope with a mandate to attack an excommunicate, they were only tasked with deposing them and restoring a "true Catholic" to the throne, it wasn't anything to do with having to (re)convert the kingdom.
 
William's invasion was only labelled a "Holy War" because Harold had refused to submit to the Pope's demands to cede his throne to William. It was a war against an excommunicated ruler, not a war against a pagan land. When Kings were charged by the Pope with a mandate to attack an excommunicate, they were only tasked with deposing them and restoring a "true Catholic" to the throne, it wasn't anything to do with having to (re)convert the kingdom.

That misses the point, the Normans had fought for (among other things) the Pope so I cant seeing another Pope callibg a Crusade against them
 
That misses the point, the Normans had fought for (among other things) the Pope so I cant seeing another Pope callibg a Crusade against them

They probably didn't. Safe one later mention, that arguably seems trustworthy on other matters, it's not present on other contemporary sources, including this monument of Norman propaganda that is the Bayeux's Tapestry.
 
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