The Wendish Crusade was a religious military campaign in central and eastern Europe, initiated in 1147. As one of the Northern Crusades, it was led primarily by the Catholic Kingdom of Germany — a constituent of the Holy Roman Empire — and directed against the then-pagan Polabian Slavs. The Wends were made up of the Slavic tribes of Abrotrites, Rani, Liutizians, Wagarians, and Pomeranians who lived east of the River Elbe in present-day northeast Germany and Poland.