First published 2009 by Ashgate Publishing.
The conversion of the lands on the southern and eastern shores of the Baltic Sea by Germans, Danes and Swedes in the period from 1150 to 1400 represented the last great struggle between Christianity and paganism on the European continent, but for the indigenous people of Finland, Livonia, Prussia, Lithuania and Pomerania, it was also a period of wider cultural conflict and transformation. Along with the Christian faith came a new and foreign culture: the German and Scandinavian languages of the crusaders and the Latin of their priests, new names for places, superior military technology, and churches and fortifications built of stone. For newly baptized populations, the acceptance of Christianity encompassed major changes in the organization and practice of political, religious and social life, entailing the acceptance of government by alien elites, of new cultic practices, and of new obligations such as taxes, tithes and military service in the armies of the Christian rulers. At the same time, as the Western conquerors carried their campaigns beyond pagan territory into the principalities of north-western Russia, the Baltic Crusades also developed into a struggle between Roman Catholicism and Orthodoxy.
This collection of sixteen essays by both established and younger scholars explores the theme of clash of cultures from a variety of perspectives, discussing the nature and ideology of crusading in the medieval Baltic region, the struggle between Catholicism and Orthodoxy, and the cultural confrontation that accompanied the process of conversion, in subjects as diverse as religious observation, political structures, the practice of warfare, art and music, and perceptions of the landscape.
Author(s): Alan V. Murray, Anne Huijbers, Elizabeth Wawrzyniak (eds.)
Edition: Reprint
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2016
Language: English
Pages: XXIV+370
List of Maps and Figures ix
Contributors to the Volume xi
Acknowledgements xv
A Note on Names xvii
Modern Equivalents of Place-names and Regional Names xix
Abbreviations xxi
Introduction / Alan V. Murray 1
Part I. Culture and Identity
1. A New World into Old Words: The Eastern Baltic Region and the Cultural Geography of Medieval Europe / Marek Tamm 11
2. The Baltic Crusades: A Clash of Two Identities / Eva Eihmane 37
3. The Emergence of Livonia: The Transformations of Social
and Political Structures in the Territory of Latvia during the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries / Andris Šnē 53
4. Sweden’s Conquest of Finland: A Clash of Cultures? / Philip Line 73
Part II. Crusade and Mission
5. Pope Honorius III and Mission and Crusades in the Baltic Region / Iben Fonnesberg-Schmidt 103
6. Violent Victims? Surprising Aspects of the Just War Theory in the Chronicle of Peter von Dusburg / Rasa Mažeika 123
Part III. Converting Landscapes, Converting Peoples
7. Sacralization of the Landscape: Converting Trees and Measuring Land in the Danish Crusades against the Wends / Kurt Villads Jensen 141
8. How to Convert a Landscape: Henry of Livonia and the 'Chronicon Livoniae' / Carsten Selch Jensen 151
9. Rural Society and Religious Innovation: Acceptance and
Rejection of Catholicism among the Native Inhabitants of Medieval Livonia / Tiina Kala 169
10. Saints’ Cults in Medieval Livonia / Anu Mänd 191
Part IV. Catholicism and Orthodoxy
11. Sterile Monsters? Russians and the Orthodox Church in the Chronicle of Henry of Livonia / Torben K. Nielsen 227
12. Archbishop Vasilii Kalika of Novgorod, the Fortress of Orekhov and the Defence of Orthodoxy / Michael C. Paul 253
13. Orthodox Churches in Medieval Livonia / Anti Selart 273
Part V. Warfare on the Baltic Frontier
14. Music and Cultural Conflict in the Christianization of Livonia, 1190–1290 / Alan V. Murray 293
15. Crossbows or Catapults? The Identification of Siege Weaponry and Techniques in the Chronicle of Henry of Livonia / Stephen Turnbull 307
16. The Significance of the Local Baltic Peoples in the Defence of Livonia (Late Thirteenth–Sixteenth Centuries) / Kaspars Kļaviņš 321
The Eastern Baltic Lands in the Age of the Crusades: A Select Bibliography of Publications in English / Compiled by Alan V. Murray 341
Index 357
