This collaborative collection provides fresh perspectives on Christianity and the conduct of war in medieval East Central Europe and Scandinavia, investigating the intersection between religion, culture, and warfare in territories that were only integrated into Christendom in the Central Middle Ages. The contributors analyze cultures that lay outside Charlemagne's 'limes' and the frontiers of the Byzantine Empire, to consider a region stretching from the Balkans to the Baltic and Scandinavia. The volume considers clerics as military leaders and propagandists, the role of Christian ritual and doctrine in warfare, and the adaptation and transformation of indigenous military cultures. It uncovers new information on perceptions of war and analyzes how local practices were incorporated into clerical narratives, enabling the reader to achieve a complete understanding of the period.
Author(s): Radosław Kotecki, Carsten Selch Jensen, Stephen Bennett (eds.)
Series: Beyond Medieval Europe
Publisher: Arc Humanities Press
Year: 2021
Language: English
Pages: 324
City: Leeds
List of Illustrations vii
Editors’ Preface ix
List of Abbreviations xi
Christianity and War in Medieval East Central Europe and Scandinavia: An Introduction / RADOSŁAW KOTECKI, CARSTEN SELCH JENSEN, and STEPHEN BENNETT 1
PART ONE: THE CHURCH AND WAR
Chapter 1. The Role of the Dalmatian Bishops and Archbishops in Warfare During the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries: A Case Study on the Archbishops of Split / JUDIT GÁL 25
Chapter 2. Thirteenth-Century Hungarian Prelates at War / GÁBOR BARABÁS 39
Chapter 3. The Image of 'Warrior-Bishops' in the Northern Tradition of the Crusades / SINI KANGAS 57
Chapter 4. Memory of the 'Warrior-Bishops' of Płock in the Writings of Jan Długosz / JACEK MACIEJEWSKI 75
Chapter 5. Preachers of War: Dominican Friars as Promoters of the Crusades in the Baltic Region in the Thirteenth Century / JOHNNY GRANDJEAN GØGSIG JAKOBSEN 97
Chapter 6. Depictions of Violence in Late Romanesque Mural Paintings in Denmark / MARTIN WANGSGAARD JÜRGENSEN 117
PART TWO: RELIGION IN WAR AND ITS CULTURAL EXPRESSIONS
Chapter 7. Religious Rituals of War in Medieval Hungary Under the Árpád Dynasty / DUŠAN ZUPKA 141
Chapter 8. Pious Rulers, Princely Clerics, and Angels of Light: 'Imperial Holy War' Imagery in Twelfth-Century Poland and Rus’ / RADOSŁAW KOTECKI 159
Chapter 9. Religion and War in Saxo Grammaticus’s 'Gesta Danorum': The Examples of Bishop Absalon and King Valdemar I / CARSTEN SELCH JENSEN 189
Chapter 10. Rhetoric of War: The Imagination of War in Medieval Written Sources (Central and Eastern Europe in the High Middle Ages) / DAVID KALHOUS and LUDMILA LUŇÁKOVÁ 207
Chapter 11. Civil War as Holy War? Polyphonic Discourses of Warfare During the Internal Struggles in Norway in the Twelfth Century / BJØRN BANDLIEN 227
Chapter 12. Martyrdom on the Field of Battle in Livonia During Thirteenth-Century Holy Wars and Christianization: Popular Belief and the Image of a Catholic Frontier / KRISTJAN KALJUSAAR 245
Chapter 13. Orthodox Responses to the Baltic Crusades / ANTI SELART 263
Selected Bibliography 279
Index 285
