This book examines how the military orders and the ideology of crusading gave rise to a new sacred landscape in the medieval Baltic region, an outpost of Latin Christianity. Drawing on a wide variety of sources and international scholarship, the book discusses the paganism of the landscape in written sources pre-dating the crusades, in addition to the narrative, legal, and visual evidence of the crusade period. It draws out the key sacralizing elements as expressed in those sources, which structure the definition of sacred landscape, particularly martyrdom, the manifestation of the sacred, and use of relics in battle. By analyzing these aspects with Geographical Information Systems (GIS), a map of the Baltic campaigns emerges that provides a fresh approach to studying contemporary views of holy war in a region with no initial links to the 'loca sancta' of Jerusalem or Europe.
Author(s): Gregory Leighton
Series: War and Conflict in Premodern Societies
Publisher: Arc Humanities Press
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 224
City: Leeds
List of Illustrations vi
Acknowledgements x
Introduction 1
Chapter 1. Landscape Imagery in the Texts Documenting the Baltic Crusades 17
Chapter 2. Literary Themes and Landscape Sacralization in the Written Evidence for the Baltic Crusades 31
Chapter 3. Mapping Landscape Sacralization during the Baltic Crusades, Thirteenth to Fourteenth Centuries 65
Chapter 4. Relics, Processions, and Sacred Landscape in the Baltic, Thirteenth to Fourteenth Centuries 101
Chapter 5. Space, Visual Culture, and Landscape Sacralization in the Baltic 129
Conclusion 161
Concordance of Placenames 166
Appendix. Relics in the Baltic Region (Thirteenth to Sixteenth Centuries) 169
Abbreviations and Short Titles 179
Bibliography 181
Index 205
