The North-Eastern Frontiers of Medieval Europe

The Expansion of Latin Christendom in the Baltic Lands

Alan V. Murray, Alan V. Murray

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351884839
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Historia
• Subtopic: Historia europea medieval

By the mid-twelfth century the lands on the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea, from Finland to the frontiers of Poland, were Catholic Europe's final frontier: a vast, undeveloped expanse of lowlands, forest and waters, inhabited by peoples belonging to the Finnic and Baltic language groups. In the course of the following three centuries, Finland, Estonia, Livonia and Prussia were incorporated into the Latin world through processes of conquest, Christianisation and settlement, and brought under the rule of Western monarchies and ecclesiastical institutions. Lithuania was left as the last pagan polity in Europe, yet able to accept Christianity on its own terms in 1386. The Western conquest of the Baltic lands advanced the frontier of Latin Christendom to that of the Russian Orthodox world, and had profound and long lasting effects on the institutions, society and culture of the region lasting into modern times. This volume presents 21 key studies (2 of them translated from German for the first time) on this crucial period in the development of North-Eastern Europe, dealing with crusade and conversion, the establishment of Western rule, settlement and society, and the development of towns, trade and the economy. It includes a classified bibliography of the main works published in Western languages since World War II together with an introduction by the editor.

PART ONE–HISTORIOGRAPHICAL APPROACHES

1
Crusades and Colonisation in the Baltic: A Historiographic Analysis

Sven Ekdahl

INTRODUCTION

The term ‘crusade’ has traditionally been used primarily to refer to the martial enterprises that went out from Christian Europe during the high Middle Ages with the particular goal of reconquering Muslim Palestine (1096–1291).¹ Yet at that time and later there were other enterprises that have been likewise designated as crusades and that have during the last few decades been attracting increasing attention from Anglo-Saxon historians. They included the Christianising and subjection of heathen Slav, Finnish-Ugric and Baltic tribes south of the Baltic Sea, in Finland and in Livonia – the modern states of Estonia and Latvia – enterprises that the pope legitimised and accomplished by peaceful means or by force. Parallel to these enterprises, or as result, occurred the colonisation and incorporation of these territories into Latin Europe. In all cases the most important carriers of the expansion were the Roman Catholic Church, the European aristocracy up to kings and emperors and the merchants of the expanding cities. Except in Livonia, farmers came in as settlers. This was a complex, important and often also cruel chapter of European history, which Pope John Paul II once appropriately described as a hard road of suffering, of both light and darkness: ‘Fu un cammino duro e sofferto, con le sue luci e le sue ombre’.²

Subsequent generations’ judgements on this epoch have accordingly been various and contradictory. Roman Catholic and Russian Orthodox Christians, Protestants, Marxists with or without Soviet connections, communists, national socialists, nationalists, romantic admirers of the military Orders and opponents of war have all felt drawn to this topic and delivered different interpretations and evaluations. Hence modern concepts and personal judgements have often been projected on to the Middle Ages, which have easily led to anachronistic conclusions.

In the more precise sense ‘the Baltic’ generally refers to the territory of the modem states of Estonia, Latvia, and – since 1991 – Lithuania. In this article however the term is also used in a much broader sense to cover the crusaders’ ‘target countries’ in the entire eastern and southeast Baltic Sea area.

There are many publications on English on the integration of the Baltic into Latin Europe, among them important monographs,³ anthologies,⁴ essays and encyclopaedia articles.⁵ Leading scholars include Eric Christiansen and Robert Bartlett.⁶ William Urban has written a whole series of books on the crusades in the Baltic, which are meant not only for scholars but also for a wider circle of readers.⁷ An anthology, Crusade and Conversion on the Baltic Frontier 1150–1500, edited by Alan V. Murray, contains a bibliography of English-language literature.⁸ A modem textbook by Baltic archaeologists and historians can be recommended as a clear introduction to the history of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania into recent times.⁹ The English summaries in newer works on for example Latvia or Lithuania are also useful.¹⁰ Likewise there are extensive newer German publications available on Estonia and Latvia as well as Prussia with summaries of German literature in particular.¹¹

Description and evaluation is difficult because recorded history is written by the winners, while usually only a few and indistinct memories remain of the losers. The Christianisation, crusades and colonisation in the Baltic are particularly clear instances of this. The ‘heathen’ peoples did not have a written culture, no chroniclers to be their spokespersons to future generations, and therefore information about them, apart from archaeological finds, derived only from their detractors, the Christians. This naturally led to a distorted perspective, because in the sources events are described through the eyes of the conquerors. Only the Orthodox Russians, with whom the Roman Catholic Church, the military Orders and the crusaders frequently struggled for human souls, power, money, trade routes and territories, had a written culture like that of the Latin West. In heathen Lithuania the gradually developing diplomatic correspondence took place not in Lithuanian, but in the Belorussian, Polish, German, and Latin languages. The first Lithuanian chronicles appeared only at the beginning of the 16th century, in Belorussian.

Although, despite great efforts, the crusades to the Holy Land did not finally lead to success, the situation was different in the Baltic, because the Christian conquerors were able to maintain themselves there for centuries and establish the foundations of later states. So, for example, today’s states of Estonia and Latvia can, due to the crusades which Christianised and colonised them, look back on a long affiliation to the Roman West rather than the Byzantine east Slavonic cultural region, whether they now like this or not. The certain conclusion is that history must be based on known fact, even if this is bound up with painful national memories.

This survey will begin with a survey of the course of the Baltic crusades, followed by a consideration of colonisation in the region, and then move on to a discussion of the historiography.

THE CRUSADES

The Wendish Crusade of 1147

Christian expansion was directed first against the Wends, various Slavic tribes which had settled south of the Baltic Sea. The 1147 crusade against them is very significant, because then for the first time a papal bull allowed crusaders to redeem their crusading vow in Northern Europe rather than in the Holy Land.¹² This was of the greatest importance for future development in the Baltic region.

Swedish Christianisation and colonisation of Finland

Sweden’s most important contribution to mission and settlement in the eastern Baltic region was the integration of Finland into the Swedish kingdom. Various heathen Finnish-Ugric tribes now lost their independence and were united under the Swedish crown. This was not only a result of the Swedish race against the Danes for domination of the Baltic Sea, but also particularly of rivalry with the Novgoro-dians to the east, who were making the heathen pay tribute and converting them to Russian orthodoxy.

There are different views over how Finland was colonised. Was the settlement of the country the result of forcible subjection by military expeditions and crusades from the mid 12th century onwards, as the older historiography believed, or was it rather a predominantly peaceful and complex process beginning much earlier, as is maintained by many historians today?¹³

For Finland, subjection and colonisation meant that the country became a part of the Swedish realm until 1809. In the southwest coastal regions a powerful Swedish population developed, from whom for many centuries the upper level of society was drawn. The country became bilingual and there were tensions between the Swedish and Finnish subpopulations. This contrast still exists today in strikingly different archaeological and historical evaluations of the country’s Christianisation and colonisation: Finnish ‘nationalists’ support the theory of forcible conquest by the crusaders.¹⁴

Danish expansion into Estonia

Not only Germans but also Danes and Poles had participated in the 1147 Wendish Crusade. In the 12th and 13th centuries Denmark was the most powerful country on the Baltic Sea, competing with the Germans for supremacy over the southern Baltic coast and with Sweden for supremacy in Finland. The Finnish-Ugric Ests became the principal target of armed Danish pilgrims. The northern part of Estonia was conquered by the Danes and remained with some interruption in Danish possession until the year 1346, when it was sold to the Teutonic Order, the successor of the Order of Swordbrothers. Three years before an extremely bloody rebellion had been crushed by the Teutonic Order’s troops. Thus Estonia was wholly in German hands.¹⁵

German crusades to Livonia

Toward the end of the 12th century missionaries from Germany began to spread Roman Catholic teachings in Livonia. This was possible only through previously-existing external conditions. The establishment of Lübeck, the first German city on the Baltic Sea, in 1143 and the gradual expansion of the Hanse contrib...