Historian of crusading and papal history in the middle ages. Denmark in the middle ages is among my fields as well. I also teach courses on the use/abuse of history. Phone: +45 9940 8288 Address: Aalborg University
Kroghstraede 1, 3.011
DK-9220 Aalborg OE
Legacies of the Crusades. Proceedings of the Ninth Conference of the Society for the Study of the Crusades and the Latin East, Odense, 27 June – 1 July 2016, 2021
’Vara, zeme un sabiedrība: politiskās un sociālās transformācijas Austrumbaltijā 12. un 13. gadsimtā.’’, 2020
The process of conversion and Christianisation of the Eastern Baltic Region and medieval Livonia ... more The process of conversion and Christianisation of the Eastern Baltic Region and medieval Livonia was highly violent. An initially peaceful Christian mission very soon turned into violent crusades with the city of Riga as its centre. Mounted warriors from Northern Germany would come to serve a year of penance under the command of the bishop of Riga. Early in the thirteenth century a permanent military force was established with the founding of a new military order, the Livonian Brothers of the Sword. Crusades were launched to force pagan tribes between the rivers Dvina and Aa to convert to Christianity. From 1208 the crusades targeted Estonia. This article discusses the strategic use of violence during the Christianisation of Livonia and Estonia, by crusading armies and their local auxiliary armies of converted Livs and Letts. Obviously, war is a bloody and violent affair by nature, but the article argues that the crusades to the Baltic were special in this respect. The article discusses the specific raiding warfare deployed in the Baltic during the crusades with a focus on the level of violence and the systemic character of the violence wrought upon the local population. The warfare involved massacres to bring about the submission of the pagan tribes. In this sense, the applied warfare was terroristic. The massacres were indiscriminately yet strategically deployed. The article discusses further how this violence was encompassed by Christian rituals to alleviate the perpetrators of sin and guilt. It is argued that rituals were not only focused on the perpetrators but also on the victims, who were forcedly baptised. By this ritual, the Baltic tribes not only formally accepted a new faith. The baptism also signalled an adherence to a new kind of Christian rulership. In this sense, the Christian sacrament of Baptism was brought in close relationship with carnage and downright murder.
The Fourth Lateran Council and the Crusade Movement, 2018
Modern crusade scholarship has long recognized the crusades that targeted the pagans in the north... more Modern crusade scholarship has long recognized the crusades that targeted the pagans in the north as very important to the history of the crusade movement at large, and on a par with other theatres of war outside the Levant, in Iberia and elsewhere. In the last few decades much new research has surfaced that discusses multiple (e.g. military, missionary, political, canon law) aspects of the thirteenth century Baltic crusades and the violent conversion of the many pagan tribes inhabiting the regions then known as Livonia and Estonia. Scholars have investigated the relationship between the papacy and the Baltic, analysing, among other things, papal privileges and crusade indulgences issued to Baltic addressees, seeking in particular to establish the papal ‘policy’ (if any) towards the Christian peripheries vis-a-vis the papal centre.
We know representatives of the young church in the Baltic were present at the Fourth Lateran Council. These representatives surely looked to the papacy for legal and political backing, and this article traces how arguments for such papal backing may have been presented and, eventually, how this presentation may have been received and evaluated. Judging from arguably the most important narrative on the fight for conversion, a lively chronicle written around 1227 by the German priest Henry, one key to this admittedly elusive subject was how protagonists in the Baltic configured the Virgin Mary. As it turns out, the Mother of God would play a decisive role in the violent establishment of Christian Livonia and she would be acknowledged as patron by a number of its ecclesiastical institutions. What follows below is the dramatic story of the Baltic representatives’ travel from the crusading scene in Livonia to the Fourth Lateran Council in Rome. The deliberations in the Council included a report on the situation in the Baltic, involving a direct association of the Virgin Mary with the Livonian cause. This and other literary and institutional appropriations of Mary in the Baltic setting will be analysed before finally considering how such use of the Mother of God may have been received by Innocent III in Rome.
This article investigates the numerical research output of crusade studies over the past thirty y... more This article investigates the numerical research output of crusade studies over the past thirty years. The article compares its findings to the output of medieval studies in general in the same period. It shows in detail how the applied bibliometric statistics are generated and elaborates on some of the methodological considerations necessary in carrying out this kind of quantitative research. On the basis of bibliometric statistics generated from the International Medieval Bibliography (IMB) and Bibliographie de Civilisation Médiévale (BCM), the article identifies a numeric decrease in research output both in crusade studies in particular and in medieval studies in general. The article proposes further discussion on the " why " and " how " of this somewhat surprising result.
The Uses of the Bible in Crusading Sources, ed. Elizabeth Lapina & Nicholas Morton, Brill Publishers: Leiden, 2017
This article examines two medieval chronicles dealing with the crusades in the Baltic. The Chroni... more This article examines two medieval chronicles dealing with the crusades in the Baltic. The Chronicon Livoniae by Henry, a German priest — and interpreter — in the region, provides an account of the crusades in Livonia and Estonia from c.1184 to c.1227. Henry was an eyewitness, even if surely biased, to many of the events covered in his chronicle, which today is the prime source for our knowledge of this early period of the Baltic crusades, marked as they were by the characteristics of the crusades to these pagan regions: a prolonged forcible process of Christianization and conquest. The other chronicle examined in this article is the Chronicon terre Prussie. This chronicle, authored by a Teutonic Knight named Peter of Dusburg and written c.1326, relates the arrival and history of the Teutonic Order in Prussia from c.1230, also covering the initial submission of the Prussian pagans to Christian rule (largely effective from c.1283) along with the wars against the Lithuanian Grand Duke. Following its ousting from the Holy Land in 1291, the Teutonic Order set up an Order State in Prussia but it would soon find itself involved in numerous skirmishes with other Christian powers in the region, creating a struggle for autonomy and dominance. The two chronicles made considerable use of Scripture, albeit in different ways. This article investigates the uses of the Bible in both chronicles with a special eye to how ideas of providential history — that is the role assigned by the authors to their protagonists in the history of salvation — play out in the chronicles. This providential history involved a special perspective in the two chronicles on, for example, the Virgin Mary, Old Testament warriors such as the Maccabees, and the virtuous warfare waged by Christian knights. The article further argues that both chronicles, also in the ways they use Scripture, display an acute awareness of political circumstances contemporary to their time of writing underlining the great importance of the Bishop of Riga and the Teutonic Order in Prussia, the two main loyalties for the authors of the chronicles under consideration.
Contribution to: De måske udstødte. Historiens marginale eksistenser, ed. Lars Andersen, Poul Due... more Contribution to: De måske udstødte. Historiens marginale eksistenser, ed. Lars Andersen, Poul Duedahl & Louise N. Kallestrup (Aalborg University Press: Aalborg, 2005), pp. 43-75.
Discusses aspects of medieval asceticism and bodily strategies for salvation. The article claims the dual status of professed religious men and women as admired and despised.
Contribution to: Isolated Islands in Medieval Nature, Culture and Mind, eds. Tosterin Jørgensen &... more Contribution to: Isolated Islands in Medieval Nature, Culture and Mind, eds. Tosterin Jørgensen & Gerhard Jaritz (CEU Medievalia 14), Budapest 2011, pp. 45-56.
The article discusses different bodily strategies applied by professed religious in the (high) middle ages. The article argues that medieval religious displayed a two-sided understanding of their own bodies – and indeed the human body as such – as instruments for salvation as well as the locus for sin, hereby showing the permeability of the traditional borders between body and soul. The article argues that extreme bodily strategies might have been perceived as troublesome in enclosed (monastic and other) communities.
The arcticle investigates different categories of historical agents as they appear in the 13th ce... more The arcticle investigates different categories of historical agents as they appear in the 13th century chronicle, Chronicon Livoniae, by Henry, a German priest and missionary to the Baltic during the early 13th century.
The article is a contribution to Cultural Encounters during the Crusades, ed. Kurt Villads Jensen, Kirsi Salonen & Helle Vogt (University Press of Southern Denmark: Odense, 2013), pp. 55-74. ISBN: 978-87-7674659-9
The article investigates the conception of landscape in the Chronicle of henry of Livonia (c. 122... more The article investigates the conception of landscape in the Chronicle of henry of Livonia (c. 1227), arguing that the representations herof in the chronicle reflects ideas of conquest, paganism and a certain anxiety of the 'unknown' in the author.
A chapter in Pope Innocent II (1130-43) : The World vs The City, eds. John Doran and Damian J. Sm... more A chapter in Pope Innocent II (1130-43) : The World vs The City, eds. John Doran and Damian J. Smith. Routledge: 2016 ISBN: 978-1-4724-2109-8
By analysing the extant source material this article discusses the struggle by the Danish church to uphold an independent church province against claims from the German Archbishopric of Hamburg-Bremen during the pontificate of Innocent II. The article assesses the strategy and actions of especially Danish Archishop Asser (d. 1137).
Legacies of the Crusades. Proceedings of the Ninth Conference of the Society for the Study of the Crusades and the Latin East, Odense, 27 June – 1 July 2016, 2021
’Vara, zeme un sabiedrība: politiskās un sociālās transformācijas Austrumbaltijā 12. un 13. gadsimtā.’’, 2020
The process of conversion and Christianisation of the Eastern Baltic Region and medieval Livonia ... more The process of conversion and Christianisation of the Eastern Baltic Region and medieval Livonia was highly violent. An initially peaceful Christian mission very soon turned into violent crusades with the city of Riga as its centre. Mounted warriors from Northern Germany would come to serve a year of penance under the command of the bishop of Riga. Early in the thirteenth century a permanent military force was established with the founding of a new military order, the Livonian Brothers of the Sword. Crusades were launched to force pagan tribes between the rivers Dvina and Aa to convert to Christianity. From 1208 the crusades targeted Estonia. This article discusses the strategic use of violence during the Christianisation of Livonia and Estonia, by crusading armies and their local auxiliary armies of converted Livs and Letts. Obviously, war is a bloody and violent affair by nature, but the article argues that the crusades to the Baltic were special in this respect. The article discusses the specific raiding warfare deployed in the Baltic during the crusades with a focus on the level of violence and the systemic character of the violence wrought upon the local population. The warfare involved massacres to bring about the submission of the pagan tribes. In this sense, the applied warfare was terroristic. The massacres were indiscriminately yet strategically deployed. The article discusses further how this violence was encompassed by Christian rituals to alleviate the perpetrators of sin and guilt. It is argued that rituals were not only focused on the perpetrators but also on the victims, who were forcedly baptised. By this ritual, the Baltic tribes not only formally accepted a new faith. The baptism also signalled an adherence to a new kind of Christian rulership. In this sense, the Christian sacrament of Baptism was brought in close relationship with carnage and downright murder.
The Fourth Lateran Council and the Crusade Movement, 2018
Modern crusade scholarship has long recognized the crusades that targeted the pagans in the north... more Modern crusade scholarship has long recognized the crusades that targeted the pagans in the north as very important to the history of the crusade movement at large, and on a par with other theatres of war outside the Levant, in Iberia and elsewhere. In the last few decades much new research has surfaced that discusses multiple (e.g. military, missionary, political, canon law) aspects of the thirteenth century Baltic crusades and the violent conversion of the many pagan tribes inhabiting the regions then known as Livonia and Estonia. Scholars have investigated the relationship between the papacy and the Baltic, analysing, among other things, papal privileges and crusade indulgences issued to Baltic addressees, seeking in particular to establish the papal ‘policy’ (if any) towards the Christian peripheries vis-a-vis the papal centre.
We know representatives of the young church in the Baltic were present at the Fourth Lateran Council. These representatives surely looked to the papacy for legal and political backing, and this article traces how arguments for such papal backing may have been presented and, eventually, how this presentation may have been received and evaluated. Judging from arguably the most important narrative on the fight for conversion, a lively chronicle written around 1227 by the German priest Henry, one key to this admittedly elusive subject was how protagonists in the Baltic configured the Virgin Mary. As it turns out, the Mother of God would play a decisive role in the violent establishment of Christian Livonia and she would be acknowledged as patron by a number of its ecclesiastical institutions. What follows below is the dramatic story of the Baltic representatives’ travel from the crusading scene in Livonia to the Fourth Lateran Council in Rome. The deliberations in the Council included a report on the situation in the Baltic, involving a direct association of the Virgin Mary with the Livonian cause. This and other literary and institutional appropriations of Mary in the Baltic setting will be analysed before finally considering how such use of the Mother of God may have been received by Innocent III in Rome.
This article investigates the numerical research output of crusade studies over the past thirty y... more This article investigates the numerical research output of crusade studies over the past thirty years. The article compares its findings to the output of medieval studies in general in the same period. It shows in detail how the applied bibliometric statistics are generated and elaborates on some of the methodological considerations necessary in carrying out this kind of quantitative research. On the basis of bibliometric statistics generated from the International Medieval Bibliography (IMB) and Bibliographie de Civilisation Médiévale (BCM), the article identifies a numeric decrease in research output both in crusade studies in particular and in medieval studies in general. The article proposes further discussion on the " why " and " how " of this somewhat surprising result.
The Uses of the Bible in Crusading Sources, ed. Elizabeth Lapina & Nicholas Morton, Brill Publishers: Leiden, 2017
This article examines two medieval chronicles dealing with the crusades in the Baltic. The Chroni... more This article examines two medieval chronicles dealing with the crusades in the Baltic. The Chronicon Livoniae by Henry, a German priest — and interpreter — in the region, provides an account of the crusades in Livonia and Estonia from c.1184 to c.1227. Henry was an eyewitness, even if surely biased, to many of the events covered in his chronicle, which today is the prime source for our knowledge of this early period of the Baltic crusades, marked as they were by the characteristics of the crusades to these pagan regions: a prolonged forcible process of Christianization and conquest. The other chronicle examined in this article is the Chronicon terre Prussie. This chronicle, authored by a Teutonic Knight named Peter of Dusburg and written c.1326, relates the arrival and history of the Teutonic Order in Prussia from c.1230, also covering the initial submission of the Prussian pagans to Christian rule (largely effective from c.1283) along with the wars against the Lithuanian Grand Duke. Following its ousting from the Holy Land in 1291, the Teutonic Order set up an Order State in Prussia but it would soon find itself involved in numerous skirmishes with other Christian powers in the region, creating a struggle for autonomy and dominance. The two chronicles made considerable use of Scripture, albeit in different ways. This article investigates the uses of the Bible in both chronicles with a special eye to how ideas of providential history — that is the role assigned by the authors to their protagonists in the history of salvation — play out in the chronicles. This providential history involved a special perspective in the two chronicles on, for example, the Virgin Mary, Old Testament warriors such as the Maccabees, and the virtuous warfare waged by Christian knights. The article further argues that both chronicles, also in the ways they use Scripture, display an acute awareness of political circumstances contemporary to their time of writing underlining the great importance of the Bishop of Riga and the Teutonic Order in Prussia, the two main loyalties for the authors of the chronicles under consideration.
Contribution to: De måske udstødte. Historiens marginale eksistenser, ed. Lars Andersen, Poul Due... more Contribution to: De måske udstødte. Historiens marginale eksistenser, ed. Lars Andersen, Poul Duedahl & Louise N. Kallestrup (Aalborg University Press: Aalborg, 2005), pp. 43-75.
Discusses aspects of medieval asceticism and bodily strategies for salvation. The article claims the dual status of professed religious men and women as admired and despised.
Contribution to: Isolated Islands in Medieval Nature, Culture and Mind, eds. Tosterin Jørgensen &... more Contribution to: Isolated Islands in Medieval Nature, Culture and Mind, eds. Tosterin Jørgensen & Gerhard Jaritz (CEU Medievalia 14), Budapest 2011, pp. 45-56.
The article discusses different bodily strategies applied by professed religious in the (high) middle ages. The article argues that medieval religious displayed a two-sided understanding of their own bodies – and indeed the human body as such – as instruments for salvation as well as the locus for sin, hereby showing the permeability of the traditional borders between body and soul. The article argues that extreme bodily strategies might have been perceived as troublesome in enclosed (monastic and other) communities.
The arcticle investigates different categories of historical agents as they appear in the 13th ce... more The arcticle investigates different categories of historical agents as they appear in the 13th century chronicle, Chronicon Livoniae, by Henry, a German priest and missionary to the Baltic during the early 13th century.
The article is a contribution to Cultural Encounters during the Crusades, ed. Kurt Villads Jensen, Kirsi Salonen & Helle Vogt (University Press of Southern Denmark: Odense, 2013), pp. 55-74. ISBN: 978-87-7674659-9
The article investigates the conception of landscape in the Chronicle of henry of Livonia (c. 122... more The article investigates the conception of landscape in the Chronicle of henry of Livonia (c. 1227), arguing that the representations herof in the chronicle reflects ideas of conquest, paganism and a certain anxiety of the 'unknown' in the author.
A chapter in Pope Innocent II (1130-43) : The World vs The City, eds. John Doran and Damian J. Sm... more A chapter in Pope Innocent II (1130-43) : The World vs The City, eds. John Doran and Damian J. Smith. Routledge: 2016 ISBN: 978-1-4724-2109-8
By analysing the extant source material this article discusses the struggle by the Danish church to uphold an independent church province against claims from the German Archbishopric of Hamburg-Bremen during the pontificate of Innocent II. The article assesses the strategy and actions of especially Danish Archishop Asser (d. 1137).
This volume brings together contributions from fifteen historians and art historians working on t... more This volume brings together contributions from fifteen historians and art historians working on the history of the crusades, focusing on Iberia and the Baltic region. The subjects treated include the historiography of the Iberian and Baltic crusades; the transfer of crusading ideas from the Holy Land to Iberia and the Baltic region and the use of such ideas in local rhetoric and propaganda; the papal attitudes towards the Iberian and Baltic campaigns; the papal attitudes towards Muslims living in Christian Spain; ther interaction between conquered and conquerors as reflected in art and architecture; and the exchange of information about the crusades in Iberia and the wider Baltic region. The collection thus throws light not only onto events in the Iberian Peninsula and the Baltic region but also onto the development of the crusade movement in general. It constitutes a valuable resource for both undergraduates and postgraduates studying the crusade movement in the Middle Ages.
The thirteenth century Baltic crusades targeting the regions of Livonia and Estonia must be under... more The thirteenth century Baltic crusades targeting the regions of Livonia and Estonia must be understood as prolonged missionary wars. The mostly German and Danish crusading powers the aimed at converting the pagan population and submitting them to a new Christian rule. The primary account of these wars is found in the Chronicon Livoniae by Henry, a German priest. Henry’s chronicle covers the Christian expansion and conquest from ca. 1184-1227. Over the pages of Henry’s chronicle women and children appear again and again as numberless and nameless victims of the crusading warfare. For this session, thus, this paper asks two questions: In which ways and for what reasons were women and children used strategically in the crusading warfare of the Baltic? Since Henry’s chronicle is as well an historical account as a piece of medieval literature, this paper also asks: May we ‘read’ the appearance of female and under-age victims as a rhetorical and literary device in Henry’s text? If so, in which ways? And what would have been the motives of the author?
Discusses the uses of the figure of the Virgin Mary in the Chronicon Livoniae by Henry of Livonia... more Discusses the uses of the figure of the Virgin Mary in the Chronicon Livoniae by Henry of Livonia (completed c. 1227) and asks how Henry's appropriations of the Virgin may have been received in Rome during the pontificate of Innocent III (1198-1216)
A presentation from IMC 2014 which deals with the Baltic crusades and analyses the chronicles of ... more A presentation from IMC 2014 which deals with the Baltic crusades and analyses the chronicles of Henry of Livonia (c. 1227) and Peter og Dusburg (c. 1331) with a special interest to their different kinds of providential history. It seems that Henry was keenly interested in establishing the land of Livonia as a key element in his providential history, whereas Peter of Dusburg used his ideas of providential history to highloght thew importance of his own Teutonic Order.
A presentation from IMC 2013 that deals with the Baltic crusade. I investigate the representation... more A presentation from IMC 2013 that deals with the Baltic crusade. I investigate the representation of death and martyrdom and the ue of the Bible in two chronicles, the Chronicle of Henry of Livonia (c. 1227) and the Chronicle of Peter of Dusburg (c. 1331).
The Ninth quadrennial Conference of the
Society for the Study of the Crusades and the Latin East
... more The Ninth quadrennial Conference of the Society for the Study of the Crusades and the Latin East Odense 27 June - 1 July 2016 last chance to submit paper proposals!
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Articles by Torben Kjersgaard Nielsen
This article discusses the strategic use of violence during the Christianisation of Livonia and Estonia, by crusading armies and their local auxiliary armies of converted Livs and Letts. Obviously, war is a bloody and violent affair by nature, but the article argues that the crusades to the Baltic were special in this respect.
The article discusses the specific raiding warfare deployed in the Baltic during the crusades with a focus on the level of violence and the systemic character of the violence wrought upon the local population. The warfare involved massacres to bring about the submission of the pagan tribes. In this sense, the applied warfare was terroristic. The massacres were indiscriminately yet strategically deployed.
The article discusses further how this violence was encompassed by Christian rituals to alleviate the perpetrators of sin and guilt. It is argued that rituals were not only focused on the perpetrators but also on the victims, who were forcedly baptised. By this ritual, the Baltic tribes not only formally accepted a new faith. The baptism also signalled an adherence to a new kind of Christian rulership. In this sense, the Christian sacrament of Baptism was brought in close relationship with carnage and downright murder.
We know representatives of the young church in the Baltic were present at the Fourth Lateran Council. These representatives surely looked to the papacy for legal and political backing, and this article traces how arguments for such papal backing may have been presented and, eventually, how this presentation may have been received and evaluated. Judging from arguably the most important narrative on the fight for conversion, a lively chronicle written around 1227 by the German priest Henry, one key to this admittedly elusive subject was how protagonists in the Baltic configured the Virgin Mary. As it turns out, the Mother of God would play a decisive role in the violent establishment of Christian Livonia and she would be acknowledged as patron by a number of its ecclesiastical institutions.
What follows below is the dramatic story of the Baltic representatives’ travel from the crusading scene in Livonia to the Fourth Lateran Council in Rome. The deliberations in the Council included a report on the situation in the Baltic, involving a direct association of the Virgin Mary with the Livonian cause. This and other literary and institutional appropriations of Mary in the Baltic setting will be analysed before finally considering how such use of the Mother of God may have been received by Innocent III in Rome.
Discusses aspects of medieval asceticism and bodily strategies for salvation. The article claims the dual status of professed religious men and women as admired and despised.
The article discusses different bodily strategies applied by professed religious in the (high) middle ages. The article argues that medieval religious displayed a two-sided understanding of their own bodies – and indeed the human body as such – as instruments for salvation as well as the locus for sin, hereby showing the permeability of the traditional borders between body and soul. The article argues that extreme bodily strategies might have been perceived as troublesome in enclosed (monastic and other) communities.
The article is a contribution to Cultural Encounters during the Crusades, ed. Kurt Villads Jensen, Kirsi Salonen & Helle Vogt (University Press of Southern Denmark: Odense, 2013), pp. 55-74.
ISBN: 978-87-7674659-9
By analysing the extant source material this article discusses the struggle by the Danish church to uphold an independent church province against claims from the German Archbishopric of Hamburg-Bremen during the pontificate of Innocent II. The article assesses the strategy and actions of especially Danish Archishop Asser (d. 1137).
This article discusses the strategic use of violence during the Christianisation of Livonia and Estonia, by crusading armies and their local auxiliary armies of converted Livs and Letts. Obviously, war is a bloody and violent affair by nature, but the article argues that the crusades to the Baltic were special in this respect.
The article discusses the specific raiding warfare deployed in the Baltic during the crusades with a focus on the level of violence and the systemic character of the violence wrought upon the local population. The warfare involved massacres to bring about the submission of the pagan tribes. In this sense, the applied warfare was terroristic. The massacres were indiscriminately yet strategically deployed.
The article discusses further how this violence was encompassed by Christian rituals to alleviate the perpetrators of sin and guilt. It is argued that rituals were not only focused on the perpetrators but also on the victims, who were forcedly baptised. By this ritual, the Baltic tribes not only formally accepted a new faith. The baptism also signalled an adherence to a new kind of Christian rulership. In this sense, the Christian sacrament of Baptism was brought in close relationship with carnage and downright murder.
We know representatives of the young church in the Baltic were present at the Fourth Lateran Council. These representatives surely looked to the papacy for legal and political backing, and this article traces how arguments for such papal backing may have been presented and, eventually, how this presentation may have been received and evaluated. Judging from arguably the most important narrative on the fight for conversion, a lively chronicle written around 1227 by the German priest Henry, one key to this admittedly elusive subject was how protagonists in the Baltic configured the Virgin Mary. As it turns out, the Mother of God would play a decisive role in the violent establishment of Christian Livonia and she would be acknowledged as patron by a number of its ecclesiastical institutions.
What follows below is the dramatic story of the Baltic representatives’ travel from the crusading scene in Livonia to the Fourth Lateran Council in Rome. The deliberations in the Council included a report on the situation in the Baltic, involving a direct association of the Virgin Mary with the Livonian cause. This and other literary and institutional appropriations of Mary in the Baltic setting will be analysed before finally considering how such use of the Mother of God may have been received by Innocent III in Rome.
Discusses aspects of medieval asceticism and bodily strategies for salvation. The article claims the dual status of professed religious men and women as admired and despised.
The article discusses different bodily strategies applied by professed religious in the (high) middle ages. The article argues that medieval religious displayed a two-sided understanding of their own bodies – and indeed the human body as such – as instruments for salvation as well as the locus for sin, hereby showing the permeability of the traditional borders between body and soul. The article argues that extreme bodily strategies might have been perceived as troublesome in enclosed (monastic and other) communities.
The article is a contribution to Cultural Encounters during the Crusades, ed. Kurt Villads Jensen, Kirsi Salonen & Helle Vogt (University Press of Southern Denmark: Odense, 2013), pp. 55-74.
ISBN: 978-87-7674659-9
By analysing the extant source material this article discusses the struggle by the Danish church to uphold an independent church province against claims from the German Archbishopric of Hamburg-Bremen during the pontificate of Innocent II. The article assesses the strategy and actions of especially Danish Archishop Asser (d. 1137).
Over the pages of Henry’s chronicle women and children appear again and again as numberless and nameless victims of the crusading warfare. For this session, thus, this paper asks two questions: In which ways and for what reasons were women and children used strategically in the crusading warfare of the Baltic? Since Henry’s chronicle is as well an historical account as a piece of medieval literature, this paper also asks: May we ‘read’ the appearance of female and under-age victims as a rhetorical and literary device in Henry’s text? If so, in which ways? And what would have been the motives of the author?
Society for the Study of the Crusades and the Latin East
Odense 27 June - 1 July 2016
last chance to submit paper proposals!