inhabitants, who then embarked on a spate of anti-clerical violence, sacking monasteries and killing clergy. The Archbishop, resolved on enforcing his demands, built Schlutterburg Castle on the border of the Stedinger territory, in which he installed his brother, Lord Herman II of Lippe. On Christmas of 1229 came the first battle between the peasantry and the knights of the Archbishop; Herman was killed, and the rest of the knights took in flight. On the 17th of March 1230, Gerard convened a council at Bremen, where the abbots and higher clergy of the archbishopric were to try the Stedingers for their refusal to obey feudal law, for rioting, sacrilege, and murder, and for allegedly worshipping images of wax, seeking counsel from soothsayers, and consorting with evil spirits. Having found the peasants guilty, the council decreed an interdict and the excommunication of all those who opposed the archbishop's decrees; the church doors were nailed shut and the priests left the territory. The archbishop himself went to Rome to persuade Pope Gregory IX to call for a crusade against the Stedingers. He succeeded in this and Dominican friars were dispatched throughout northern Germany to preach the crusade, for which the pope promised the same spiritual rewards as for the crusades in the Holy Land. In spring of 1233, a large number of German noblemen, supported by the citizenry, assembled for the campaign in Bremen. The population on the east bank of the Weser had not prepared adequate defenses, so the crusading army attacked there first, massacring most of the population; the few survivors were burnt at the stake. The crusaders then returned to Bremen to prepare the attack against the more heavily fortified west bank of the Weser. They made their assault on the West Stedingers on the 6th of July, 1233, but were repelled with heavy losses. In the winter of that year, Gerhard attempted to drown the rebels by having holes bored into the levees of the Weser to weaken them, but the workers were driven off by the levees' guards. In spring of the year 1234, the Dominicans throughout northern Germany preached a new crusade against the Stedingers. A large army was assembled at Bremen under the command of Henry I, Duke of Brabant, while Stedingers were led by Bolko von Bardenfleth, Tammo von Huntrop, and Detmar tom Diek. The Stedingers under Bolko von Bardenfleth advanced against the crusaders at