Holy War – Holy Wrath!
Baltic Wars Between Regulated Warfare and Total
Annihilation Around 1200
Kurt Villads Jensen
The Baltic crusades of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries were in principle
aimed at converting inijidels and establishing a new Christian plantation in
the wilderness, but the contemporary narrative sources repeatedly tell of
crusaders systematically chasing down pagans and annihilating them with
the sword. Men, women, and children were killed without discrimination,
and fertile and inhabited land laid waste. Field crops, houses and villages,
wooden idols and their sacred buildings, and pagan prisoners of war were
burned and cremated into ash and nothing.1
Two apparently opposing understandings of warfare seem to have existed
simultaneously among the religiously well-educated authors whose writings
from the decades around 1200 open a fascinating – and often scary – window
to the religious border societies in the north. On the one hand, it was argued
theologically and legally that warfare should be regulated, limited, and
aimed at creating peace.2 The inijidels shared with Christians certain basic
human rights which protected them against arbitrary violence, and it was
repeatedly emphasized that belief could only be given willingly, and thus
that conversion could never be forced. On the other hand, the same authors
argued for compulsory conversion and indiscriminate killing, if crusaders
were inflamed by the zeal of God, and in order to avert the wrath of God
from befalling the Christians.3
These apparently contradictory concepts of conversion could perhaps be
explained as formulations from a period of transition, from a traditional
1 The literature on Baltic crusades and warfare has grown markedly within the latest generation. An important overview is Christiansen, Northern Crusades, published in 1980 and in a
revised edition in 1997. Christian Krötzl has discussed the relation between regulated and total
missionary warfare in more publications, e.g., Pietarin ja Paavalin nimissä. The collection of
articles in Heidenmission, ed. by Beumann, is valuable, but must be supplemented by Crusade
and Conversion on the Baltic Frontier, ed. by Murray; The Clash of Cultures, ed. by Murray, and
for Henry of Livonia by Crusading and Chronicle Writing, ed. by Tamm, Kaljundi, and Jensen.
See also Urban, The Baltic Crusade; Fonnesberg-Schmidt, The Popes and the Baltic Crusades;
and Bysted et al., Jerusalem in the North.
2 See Russell, The Just War.
3 Althoff, “Selig sind die Verfolgung ausüben”; Schwertmisson, ed. by Kamp and Kroker.
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peaceful mission of individuals to a more powerful and violent mission of
organized armies. This has been argued for the Baltic area by a number
of scholars who have traced this transformation to the last decade of the
twelfth and the early thirteenth centuries. One of today’s most widelyrespected scholars on mission and the spread of Christianity in northern
Europe, Professor Christian Krötzl, wrote in his book from 2004 about ‘The
return of the sword mission to the Baltic’ and the change in the ideology of
mission in the twelfth century. One of the chapters in his book is programmatically entitled ‘Livonia: From Preaching to the Sword’. 4 Christian Krötzl’s
work has contributed to and reijined a discussion that has been ongoing
throughout the twentieth century and likely began among historians much
earlier – the use of force in spreading the faith of Christianity. This discussion received a more distinct formulation after the First and Second World
Wars, when discussions about the relation between warfare and ideology
took on vital importance. Should ideology – such as Nazism or Communism
or religion in general – be imposed by force or solely by oral persuasion? Is
Christianity fundamentally opposed to force and violence? Can we ijind,
in the Middle Ages, the ijirst tolerant and paciijistic European criticizing
crusades and the use of force in conversion, as the American historian
Palmar A. Throop believed in 1940?5
In studies of the Mediterranean crusades, this alleged contradiction
between peaceful and armed conversion was challenged in 1984 with the
publication of Benjamin Kedar’s extremely influential book on Crusade and
Mission.6 Since then, most scholars would agree that there was no inherent
contradiction between crusade and mission, and that the ‘mission of the
word’ was not a criticism, but rather a supplement to the ‘mission of the
sword’. In studies of the Baltic crusades, some scholars still ijind a transition
during the twelfth century from peaceful to violent mission, while others
claim that missionaries and ecclesiastical authorities always accepted the
use of force, although it was not always applied for practical reasons such
as lack of manpower.7
The aim of this chapter is to discuss what I believe are two different
attitudes to warfare which found expression in some of the narrative sources
4 Krötzl, Pietarin ja Paavalin nimissä, p. 207: ‘Miekkalähetyksen paluu Itämerelle’; p. 219:
‘Liivinmaa: Saarnasta miekkaan’.
5 Throop, Criticism of the Crusade.
6 Kedar, Crusade and Mission. Independently of Kedar, Elizabeth Siberry reached a similar
conclusion in her book published the following year; Siberry, Criticism of Crusading.
7 Fonnesberg-Schmidt, The Popes and the Baltic Crusades, p. 74: ‘He [Meinhard] instigated a
change of strategy from one of peaceful mission to one which used force.’
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from around 1200 describing the mission and crusades in the Baltic area.
One attitude was that warfare should be regulated, limited, and only used
to defend missionaries and enable them to preach the Word to the inijidels.
The other attitude was an acceptance of total war, in which conversion
and preaching was of much less importance than the annihilation of the
pagans. These two approaches were not mutually exclusive, but different
aspects of the same discussion. The same author could express both of these
understandings of warfare in the same text.
Authors of War
The sources explored here are primarily Henry’s Chronicle of Livonia 12251227,8 the historian Saxo’s History of the Danes, written probably in the ijirst
decade of the thirteenth century,9 and the Chronicle of the Kings and Princes
of Poland, written by Bishop Vincent of Cracow sometime between 1207 and
1223.10 These texts are chosen because they are almost contemporaneous,
and because they describe religious wars in Baltic areas that are geographically close to each other.
Henry of Livonia was creating a grande narrative of the foundation of
the church of Riga and the Christianization of Livonia – of present day
Latvia and southern Estonia.11 The history of the bishops of Riga and of the
German crusaders became holy history and imitated closely the battles of
Israel against the idolaters of the Old Testament; God and the Holy Virgin
Mary supported the righteous course of Riga against pagans and apostates,
but also against competing Christian powers, mainly the Russians and the
Danes. Henry’s language is imbued with biblical phrases and expressions
from the liturgy. Measured against the oratorical standards of the teaching
of classical Latin in the twelfth century’s renaissance, he was neither brilliant nor sophisticated, but as a biblical-inspired missionary with a message,
his language is outstanding.12
8 Heinrici Chronicon Livoniae, ed. by Arbusow and Bauer (henceforth: HCL).
9 Saxo, Gesta Danorum, 1-2, ed. by Friis-Jensen.
10 Magistri Vincentii dicti Kadlubek Chronica Polonorum, ed. by Plezia (henceforth: Vincent).
11 For Henry, see the comprehensive Crusading and Chronicle Writing, ed. by Tamm, Kaljundi,
and Jensen, with further references to literature.
12 This is my own ijirm impression from reading the text. The opinions on Henry’s linguistic
and oratorical skills, however, divide his readers into two opposing groups. Arbusow, for
example, who edited his text dismisses Henry as ‘ein sehr unselbständiger Sprachgestalter’,
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Within this biblical framing, Henry described with detailed precision
battle after battle of continuous warfare. His work is an invaluable source
for military history, demonstrating great knowledge about – and also great
enthusiasm for – war. In 1215, he followed Bishop Albert of Riga to Rome
and may have participated in the Fourth Lateran Council, during which
Pope Innocent III, on the instigation of Albert, recognized Livonia as the
land of the Mother, as Terra Mariana.13
Vincent of Cracow created the great narrative of the Polish people and its
dukes and kings, and the foundation of Poland. It began in a mythical past
beyond time when the Poles conquered lands even beyond the sea, namely
the Danish islands. They put the Danish King Canute in chains and forced
the Danes to grow long, feminine hair and dress up like women, and to
pay tribute. This is obviously a fabulous construction.14 More important in
this context is that Vincent described the creating of a Polish kingdom in
the eleventh and twelfth centuries during great battles with Hungarians,
Bohemians, and the German emperor as well as the pagan Pomeranians
and Prussians along the Baltic. Some of these expeditions were aimed at
converting the pagans or getting apostates back into the Christian fold;
most of them were bloody and entailed great manslaughter, regardless of
the enemy.
Vincent wrote an excellent classical Latin and quoted a great number
of Roman authors, but also Church fathers, canon and Roman law, and
referred extensively to the Bible. His work is constructed as a dialogue
between the venerable and wise bishops Matheus and Johannes, discussing
concepts such as patria, justice, and the government of the res publica of
Poland with its balance between kings and people, that is, the nobility. He
differs very much from Henry of Livonia when it concerns the concepts of
history. Vincent’s tale is no unfolding of providential history, but the result
of human agents and how they conform to classical virtues. Nevertheless,
he does now and then explain events in history as the result of individual
rulers choosing for or against what was right in the eyes of God. Polish rulers
could lose battles because of their sins, but also for other reasons.
Vincent had studied in Bologna, and it is tempting to speculate whether
he at this new university followed lectures together with the later Danish
while Anninski, who translated his Chronicle into Russian, called him a masterly orator. See
the discussion and examples in Undusk, Sacred History, pp. 48-49.
13 See the chapter by Kivimäe in this volume.
14 ‘Ceterum victoriae illae Polonorum de Danis latae fabulosae videntur’, wrote the editor of
Vincent’s text in 1994, p. 7, note to 2,3.
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Archbishop Andreas Sunesen, but it is impossible to know for sure. Vincent
attended the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 and was clearly well informed
about contemporary theology. It is uncertain whether he wrote his Cronica
while still a bishop in Cracow, or after he resigned in 1218 and entered the
Cistercian monastery of Brysinch (in present day Jędrzejów). He died in
1223. The ijirst part of Vincent’s work is based on an older Polish chronicle,
by the so-called Gallus anonymous from c. 1115.15 It makes it possible to
compare the two narratives with one hundred years between them. Both
describe missionary wars, both present them as crusades, but with different
emphasis and with very different logic for the necessity of mass killing.16
Saxo created the grandiose narrative of the Danes and the Danish empire
intended to match other great foundation narratives of the origo gentis
genre of the twelfth century. Denmark was not founded by outsiders or immigrants, for Danes have always lived in Denmark, Saxo claimed. Through
wars for centuries against Germans, English, other Scandinavians, other
Danish rulers, and everybody else, the Danish kings created a political entity
that could match the German-Roman Empire, again according to Saxo. The
last books of his huge narrative include detailed accounts of the regular
Danish expeditions against the pagan Wends in what is now northern
Germany. Expeditions were launched every year, and slowly expanded both
the territories under Danish rule and Christianity. Saxo shows an interest
in military matters on a practical level, which is comparable to Henry of
Livonia, but which is much more downplayed in Vincent of Cracow. Saxo
also openly approved of Danish kings’ total annihilation of enemies: their
destruction of the land and burning of pagan homes.
Saxo wrote a highly sophisticated Silver Age Latin ijilled with hundreds
of quotations from a wide selection of Classical authors, but almost no
medieval sources: a single one from Beda, a single one from Bernard of
Clairvaux, one from liturgy, one single reference to the Bible. The ecclesiastical language of Saxo’s contemporaries was replaced by a conscious
archaic Latin in which ‘church’ is ‘temple’, not ecclesia, but templum, etc.
Nevertheless, it is sometimes possible to look through this linguistic veil
for a glimpse of the theological and legal discussions about war from Saxo’s
own time. Saxo probably began writing in the 1180s, continuing into the
ijirst decade or two of the thirteenth century. The introduction to his work is
most probably written after 1208, formulated as a dedication to Archbishop
Andreas Sunesen of Lund, who attended the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215
15 Galli anonymi Cronica et gesta ducum sive principum polonorum, ed. by Maleczynski.
16 See now v. Güttner Sporzynski, Poland, Holy War.
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and, in spite of severe health problems, continued in his function until he
retired in 1223; he died ijive years later.
In spite of all the differences in style and scope of these three works,
they are worth comparing. They all include references to contemporary
discussions about conversion and about justiijication of warfare, to greater
or lesser extent. The following explores some selected themes on this matter
in these texts, and relates them in the conclusion to recent discussions about
the role of emotions in medieval religious warfare.
Coacta Servitia Non Placet Deo
Forced service is not pleasing to God. This maxim was reiterated and
analysed throughout the Middle Ages, and the general inhibition against
use of force in conversion was nuanced in various ways. When Gratian in
the mid-twelfth century discussed it in Causa 23, he could refer to a number
of biblical examples – Saint Paul had been forced to believe – as well as to
psychology. Man will consider repulsive what he is not used to, so if the evil
one is forced to abstain from evil, he will eventually begin to hate evil. On
the other hand, God does not like forced service, so it is of no use to force
anyone to believe.17
During the last part of the twelfth and the early thirteenth centuries,
canonists and theologians discussed at length how to understand the
prohibition against forced conversion. Some interpreted it as strictly literal
and binding in all cases, while others modiijied it substantially. Already in
the mid-1160s, Ruijinus of Bologna distinguished between absolute coercion
– which was strictly forbidden – and conditional coercion, which was acceptable. If a pagan protested loudly during baptism while restrained by strong
Christians, it was absolute coercion and the baptism not valid. If he was
beaten up and threatened with death, if he did not consent to convert, and
he then in this situation agreed to be baptized, the baptism was valid. If he
then afterwards took up pagan practises, he would now be an apostate and
could lawfully be forced to profess Christianity and live a Christian life.18
17 Gratian, Decretum II, C. XXIII, q. 6, c. 4, § 1: ‘Ex his omnibus colligitur, quod mali sunt
cogendi ad bonum. § . 1. Sed obicitur, quod nemo est cogendus ad id, ad quod inutiliter cogitur.
Ad bonum autem quisque cogitur inutiliter, cum Deus aspernetur coacta seruicia.’
18 Cf. Brundage, ‘Introduction’, p. 14. Ruijinus’s distinction between absolute and conditional
coercion was adopted by many. Among the most widely read authors was Raymondus de Pennaforte in his Summa de paenitentia from c. 1235 (here 1.4.2).
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Around the same time as Gratian composed his collection of canon law,
Bernard of Clairvaux preached the so-called Second Crusade, conceding to
princes in the north that they could join the crusade movement by ijighting
against the Slavic pagans around the Baltic, instead of going to Jerusalem
in the Middle East. They should arm themselves and ijight against the
pagans, ‘until these peoples are utterly destroyed or ijirmly converted to
Christianity’.19 This theology of ‘baptism or death’ represents a radical position in the discussions about conversion and force. Historians have attempted
to modify it by claiming that Bernard talked about destroying pagan political
entities or pagan social life, not literally about killing pagans. This is much too
benevolent an explanation. There is no reason to doubt that Bernard, in these
speciijic circumstances, actually gave his permission for forced conversion.20
The position of Saxo in this respect is difijicult to establish with certainty.
He described more instances of Christian victories followed by conversion
of pagans. In 1168, King Valdemar I eventually conquered Arkona on the
island of Rügen, the central sanctuary of the Wends and the strongest pagan
fortiijication in northern Europe. When negotiations about surrender had
begun, the King had among other conditions demanded the release of all
Christian prisoners, the conijiscation of the pagan temple treasure, the
Rugians’ military support to the Danish kings in the future, and their acceptance of Christianity, or rather ‘all elements of the true religion according
to the Danish rite’.21 A discussion followed among the leaders of the Danish
army on whether to accept the surrender of the Rugians or to kill them all,
and Archbishop Eskil of Lund argued that the greatest victory one could
hope for was not only to force the people of another religion to pay tribute,
but also to submit to the Christian Church. He added that it is better to
subjugate an enemy than to kill him because mercy is better than severity.22
19 ‘Ad delendas penitus aut certe convertendas nationes illas’. Bernard of Clairvaux, letter 457,
ed. in Mecklenburgisches Urkundenbuch, 1, no. 31.
20 Discussed in Fonnesberg-Schmidt, The Popes and the Baltic Crusades, pp. 32-33; Kamp, ‘Der
Wendenkreuzzug’, pp. 128-30.
21 Saxo 14,39,25; II, p. 366: ‘Probato consilio rex oppidanos in ij idem hac lege recepit, ut
simulacro cum omni sacra pecunia tradito captiuos Christianos ergastulo liberatos absque
redemptione dimitterent omniaque vere religionis momenta Danico ritu celebranda susciperent.
Quinetiam ut agros ac latifundia deorum in sacerdotiorum usus conuerterent seque, quoties res
posceret, Danice expeditionis comites exhiberent nec unquam accersiti regis militiam prosequi
supersederent. Preterea annuatim ex singulis boum iugis quadragenos argenteos tributi nomine
penderent totidemque obsides in earum conditionum ijirmamentum prestarent.’
22 Saxo 14,39,28; II, p. 368: ‘Qui autem optabiliorem uictoriam acquiri posse quam aliene religionis
populum non solum tributis, uerum etiam Christianis sacris subiectum efijicere.’ […] ‘subiugare
hostem quam necare tanto prestantius esse, quantum pietas a seueritate distare cognoscitur.’
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Saxo’s formulations were carefully chosen. The Rugians should accept
the true religion ‘according to the Danish rite’, indicating that they had
already confessed some kind of Christianity, but incorrectly. Elsewhere,
Saxo related how the Rugians had been converted in the mid-1130s by King
Erik Emune, but had relapsed from the faith when the Danish army left the
island.23 He also claimed that the area had been converted to Christianity by
Charlemagne in the ninth century, but that the newly converted later had
perverted the veneration for Saint Vitus into an idolatrous cult for Svantevit
(Slavic for ‘Saint Vitus’) with four heads.24 Saxo is clearly presenting a picture
of the Wends on Rügen as apostates and not pagans, and without saying so
directly, he therefore argues that it is fully justiijiable to force them to return
to the faith they had once accepted. That is, to the true form for Christianity
that the Danes confess, danico ritu. Archbishop Eskil’s wording is more
ambiguous. He talks about a people of aliena religio, ‘of another religion’, not
pagans or idolaters or inijidels or similar. In Saxo’s archaic Latin, adherence
to another religion may perhaps designate a heretic rather than a pagan? To
most medieval ecclesiastics around 1200, paganism would not be called a
religio, but a superstition or something similar. In any case, Archbishop Eskil
continues, it is better to subjugate the enemy than to kill him, because it is
better to show mercy, clemency, leniency, pietas, than severity. It is better,
but the alternative is not forbidden. Eskil does not directly adhere to the
dictum of ‘baptism or death’, but his words seem in any case to imply that
it can be justiijiable (and laudable) to show severity and kill the enemy. It
is, however, also an acknowledgment that it can be a religiously better act
to spare him instead.
All in all, Saxo is not explicit about his opinion on use of force in conversion. He apparently related that it was common to use severe military
force during the Danish crusades in the Baltic, but a close reading of his
wording may also support the interpretation that he took care to describe
the enemies as apostates rather than pagans, although he nowhere states
directly that it should make any difference in how they were treated.
Henry of Livonia, in contrast, demonstrated clearly that he was aware of
some of the consequences of distinguishing between apostates and pagans.
Right from the beginning of his chronicle, he relates how the later Bishop
Theoderic of Estonia in 1195-1196 went to Pope Celestine III in Rome, when
the ijirst Livonians were converted from paganism to Christianity. When
the Pope heard the report from Theodoric about the incipient mission, he
23 Saxo 14,1,6-14,1,7; II, pp. 142-44.
24 Saxo 14,39,13; II, p. 360.
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decreed that the new Christians should not be let down and abandoned,
but that ‘they should be forced to observe the faith, that they had by their
free will promised to accept’. In addition, the Pope promised plenary
indulgence to all who took the cross and came to support this new and
emerging church.25 The situation is crystal clear: Pagans had converted to
Christianity voluntarily and without being forced to do so, but afterwards
they should be forced to remain within Christianity, and the crusaders
could now ijight against those who had remained pagans in order to protect
the newly converted.
Even the pagans themselves expressed the same understanding of
conversion and force, Henry claimed. When Bishop Bertold of Riga in 1198
prepared an army against a group of Livonians, they sent a messenger to
him to inquire the reason. The Bishop answered that the Livonians who
had been baptized often returned to paganism, as dogs to their vomit
(Proverb 26:11; 2 Peter 2:22).26 The Livonians who sent the messenger were
still pagans, so they answered that the Bishop would thus have no cause for
war against them, but could dismiss the army and return to his see. ‘Those
who have accepted the faith, you can coerce to observe it, the others you
must persuade to accept it by words and not by whipping.’27
Henry of Livonia knew the basic, simple principle that no one should be
forced to believe. Nevertheless, as Christian Krötzl has remarked, the reality
as presented in his missionary narrative seems to contradict this directly.28
In particular, the many descriptions of sieges sometimes entail the crusaders’ demand that the pagan defendants convert or be killed. In 1211, Bertold
of the Order of the Sword Brethren and the commander Russinus laid siege
to the castle of Viljandi (Fellin) in Estonia. They raided the surrounding
25 HCL I, 12, pp. 6-7: ‘Summus itaque pontifex audito numero baptizatorum non eos deserendos
censuit, sed ad observationem ijidei, quam sponte promiserant, cogendos decrevit. Remissionem
quippe omnium peccatorum indulsit omnibus, qui ad resuscitandam illam primitivam ecclesiam accepta cruce transeant.’
26 The proverb about dogs returning to their vomit was used to characterize heretics since
the second letter of Saint Peter and throughout the Middle Ages, and for different kinds of
apostacy, not only from faith but also e.g. for breaking a monastic vow and leaving a religious
order; Sullivan, The Inner Lifes, p. 35.
27 HCL II, 5, pp. 9-10: ‘Tu tantum remisso exercitu cum tuis ad episcopium tuum cum pace
revertaris, eos, qui ijidem susceperunt, ad eam servandam compellas, alios ad suscipiendam
eam verbis non verberibus allicias.’
28 Krötzl, Pietarin ja Paavalin nimissä, pp. 224-25: ‘Todellisuus oli kuitenkin usein toisenlainen,
kuten Henrikin kuvauksista voi nähdä. Henrik ei tosin kerro suoraviivaisista “kaste tai kuolema”
tilanteista, joissa pakanoita olisi pakotettu kääntymään kristinuskoon miekka kaulalla, mutta
varsinkin monet kronikan piiritystilanteet muistuttavat niitä läheisesti.’
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areas and came back with a number of prisoners, whom they brought near
to the castle, and gave the defendants the following ultimatum: ‘If you
renounce the cult of your false gods and believe together with us in the
true God, we will return these captives to you alive, and you will be bound
to us in brotherly love with the chain of peace.’ The proposal is rejected,
and both sides prepare for war. Russinus and his men therefore kill all the
prisoners, throw them into the moat, and promise the pagans inside the
castle that they will meet the same fate.29 Other examples could be added to
this, but would not change the impression that Henry was certainly aware
of the distinction between pagans and apostates, that he knew Christians
ought not to force pagans into Christianity, that he admitted it happened,
and that he showed no great interest in discussing the problem.
Among our three authors, Vincent of Cracow most directly addresses
the problem, in a sophisticated and detailed manner considering the genre
within which he was writing. His work was not a theological treatise, but
a work of history supplemented with a great number of philosophical
considerations and common sense morals. Nevertheless, he posed the
question directly: ‘If it is offered enforced, does it then bind?’30 The answer
begins with the statement that wicked is the promise fulijilled with a wicked
deed. We are not bound by any promise that is followed by wickedness or
temptation to lose faith (scandalum). If fear is the cause, it has no binding
effect (ratum). The example to prove this is the story of a bishop who was
caught by robbers and promised, out of fear, not to persecute them when
he was released. The pope absolved him from his promise, exactly because
it had been extracted from him through fear.
There is one exception, however, where fear is not a justiijiable reason for
breaking an obligation: when it concerns faith, Vincent explained:
When anyone has received the faith of the Christian religion even if he
has been forced to, he is obliged to keep it, although no one should be
forced to something to which he is forced in vain (inutiliter), although the
Lord rejects forced service, although it is not a favour what is imposed
29 HCL XIV, 11, p. 84: ‘“Si”, inquit, “renunciaveritis culture deorum vestrorum falsorum et
nobiscum in Deum verum credere volueritis, vobis captivos istos vivos restituemus et vos
in fraternitatis caritate nobiscum vinculo pacis colligabimus.” […] Russinus autem et Letti
comprehensis captivis omnibus et trucidatis in fossatum proiciunt et eis, qui in castro erant,
id ipsum comminantur.’
30 Vincent III, 12,1, p. 98: ‘Id si coactus prestitisset, teneretur an non? Et sponsio suppliciis
extorta obligat an non?’
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under protest, as it is not a sacriijice what is pressed out against the will.
However, often a favour is shown towards the reluctant.31
In this short passage, Vincent succeeded in condensing six different passages from Gratian and from Roman law to provide a coherent legal and
theological argument: Enforced promises are not binding, except when it
concerns Christian faith. There are more arguments against it, e.g. that such
promises are in vain, making it a realistic expectation that forced converts
will often apostatize. However, even the reluctant will often receive a favour,
Vincent concluded with a quotation from Saint Augustine. It must mean
that baptism will help and be advantageous in any case, no matter whether
or not it is voluntarily received.
These very general principles were applied to concrete historical reality.
It means therefore, that it was not without just cause that the severity of
King Boleslaw flamed up against the sacrilegious idolaters, and that it
was not without just cause that he added revenge upon revenge. Because
hardly had this revenger against the plague of sacrilege rested for a moment, before they did not show reverence to the sacred faith, before they
were no longer faithful to what they had promised.32
The apostates did not fear to flight from faith, as the dogs do not resist
from returning to their vomit. Therefore Boleslaw III collected his forces
and struck with all his might against the Pomeranians. Not for a human
cause, but for a divine, because Saint Vitus himself led the army in battle
and wielded his spear against the enemy.
This episode in Vincent’s narrative describes the battle for the city of
Naklo in 1109, one of the instances where a saint appeared miraculous and
fought together with the Polish king. The concrete events were none of
Vincent’s own inventions. He had taken them over from the older work of
Gallus anonymous. The difference is that Vincent put much less emphasis
on the military aspects and descriptions of siege techniques. Instead, he
31 Vincent III, 13,1, p. 99: ‘Est autem, ubi nec iusto metus pretextu rescindi potest obligatio; puta
christiane ijidem religionis cum quisquam etiam coactus susceperit, tenere tenetur, quamuis
nemo sit cogendus ad id, ad quod inutiliter cogitur, quamuis coacta seruitia Dominus aspernetur,
quamuis non sit beneijicium, quod ingeritur recusanti, nec sacriijicium quod exprimitur inuito.
Sepe tamen inuitis beneijicia prestantur.’
32 Vincent III, 14,1, p. 99: ‘Non inuste igitur Boleslai seueritas in sacrilegos idolatras incanduit,
non iniuste ultionem adiecit ultioni. Vix enim illa sacrilegii ultrix pestis quieuerat, cum nec
sacre ijidei reuerentiam nec pollicitis ullam tenuere ijidem.’
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added the introduction with a theological justiijication of warfare against
apostates, absent in Gallus anonymous. Compared to Henry of Livonia and
Saxo, Vincent was much more explicit, spelling out the arguments they
implicitly assumed or did not discuss at any length.
All three authors had knowledge of contemporary theories and discussions of justiij ication of religious warfare and acknowledged that war
should be regulated and fought according to rules. At the same time, they
all described indiscriminate killing of enemies, apostates, inijidels, and
sometimes also Christians. They operated with a parallel set of justiijications
for a different kind of warfare, the unlimited kind. How, and why?
Ira Domini, Vindicta Domini
The wrath of God and the revenge of God are concepts that appear again
and again in these sources. Historians have recently suggested that a new
theology of war was formulated by the papal reform movement during the
last half of the eleventh century, a theology that emphasized the obligation
of Christians to ijight physically against non-believers.33 The argument was
strengthened with passages from the Old Testament known by theologians
from the beginning of Christianity, but which before the eleventh century
did not have a prominent place in theology and had not been understood
as literally binding for contemporary Christians. This theology became,
however, fundamental for the crusading movement from 1100 onwards.34
In modern Christian exegesis, it is called herem-theology from the
Hebrew term, in English often translated as ‘utterly destroy’.35 It concerns
the passages in the Old Testament in which the Lord demands Israel to
annihilate another people. King Saul was told: ‘Now go and smite Amalek,
and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man
and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass’ (1 Sam. 15:3).36
Such very explicit passages were supplemented by eleventh-century theologians with references to more general statements, including Jeremiah’s
warning: ‘Cursed be he that doeth the work of the LORD deceitfully, and
cursed be he that keepeth back his sword from blood’ (Jer. 48:10). Bonizo de
33 Most coherently argued by Althoff, “Selig sind die Verfolgung ausüben”.
34 Throop, Crusading as an Act of Vengeance. Similar analyses in Tamminen, Ad crucesignatos
et crucesignandos.
35 Hoffman, ‘The Deuteronomistic Concept’.
36 Biblical quotations in translation are taken from the King James Bible, authorized version.
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Sutri attributed to Saint Augustine the line, ‘Blessed are those who persecute
for the sake of justice, as much as those who suffer persecution for the sake
of justice.’37 This phrase was never actually used by Saint Augustine, but it
neatly summarizes the understanding of the reform papacy. This theology
of utter destruction was justiijied by reference to strong emotions: wrath,
zeal, revenge.
The wrath of the Lord would fall upon those who did not obey the Lord
and associated with idolaters. The main reference point for this understanding was the story of the men of Israel’s adultery with the daughters of Moab,
with some joining the cult for the false god Baal-Peor (Num. 25). An Israelite
took a Midjianit woman into his tent in the middle of the camp, provoking
the rage of the priest Phinehas, who rushed into the tent and thrust his spear
through the genitals of the copulating couple, killing them both. Then the
plague stayed away from the children of Israel. The Lord spoke to Moses and
said: ‘Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, hath turned
my wrath away from the children of Israel, while he was zealous for my sake
among them, that I consumed not the children of Israel in my jealousy.’
(Num. 25: 11). The Maccabees later claimed to descend from Phinehas and
to have inherited his covenant with the Lord, when they were zealous and
circumcised by force, all un-circumcised, and did not let the sinner triumph
(1 Macc. 2: 46-54). The Maccabees were the role models of crusaders and
military orders, and they appear again and again in crusader narratives.38
Zelus – zeal for the Lord could justify indiscriminate killing of inijidels
and turn the wrath of God from the crusaders to the inijidels. The concept
was used in very different ways by our three authors. Saxo simply found the
word itself too modern for his taste, and has not in one single instant used
‘zelus’. He applied, however, a number of related words from good Classical
Latin, such as aemulatio, ardor, and cupiditas. He wrote about the crusaders
being ‘eager to revenge the Christian religion’39 or how they ‘longed for the
booty and the blood of the pagan enemy’. 40 The Danish King Valdemar I the
Great was ‘led by his zeal to shed blood’ and began the siege of the pagan
fortress of Arkona. 41 Saxo did not refer to the Old Testament for justifying
37 ‘Dixit [Augustinus] beatos eos, qui persecutionem inferunt propter iustitiam, acsi qui
persecutionem paciuntur propter iustitiam’, quoted from Althoff, “Selig sind die Verfolgung
ausüben”, p. 11.
38 Fisher, ‘The Book of the Maccabees’; Poleg, ‘On the Books of Maccabees’; Dying for the Faith,
ed. by Signori.
39 Saxo 14, 3,6; II, p. 162: ‘vindicandae religionis cupientissimi.’
40 Saxo 14, 39,26; II, pp. 366-68: ‘hostilisque praedae ac sanguinis cupidus.’
41 Saxo 14, 39,2; II, p. 354: ‘fundendi sanguinis aviditate perductus.’
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the war against the pagans – he did not even use the word zelus – but in his
description of the religious warfare, he actually used a vocabulary of strong
emotions that wholly conforms to the contemporary crusade theology.
Henry of Livonia used the concept of zelus only once in the beginning
of his history. In 1205, the crusaders realized that the new converts as dogs
had returned to their vomit and forgotten the faith they had accepted. The
crusaders now were ijilled with zelus Dei, the zeal of God (or the zeal for
God) and pursued the fleeing new-pagans who sought refuge with other
pagans. The crusaders had to give up their pursuit, returned and put ijire to
the pagans’ village and burned it all down. 42 Henry here directly connects
zelus to religiously motivated warfare, but it is not a theme he pursues at
any length or by referring directly to the Phinehas story. However, Henry
describes the religious zeal with other words, much like Saxo. He employs
variations of cupio, which could be used in a broad, general sense, but
sometimes was a direct argument for waging war.
In 1210, the crusaders discussed whether to wait for reinforcement or
move toward the pagan Estonians immediately. A large group including the
Sword Brethren could not wait, because they were cupientes, ‘eager’, and
opened the war without further hesitation. It was not a brilliant idea: the
Christians suffered a crushing defeat, and many martyrs were produced
on that day.43
The word has similar connotations when Henry uses it to describe an
incident in 1218: the Osilians’ attack on the Christians in Livonia. The priest
Godfried in Loddiger (Ledurga) saw them coming, jumped to his horse, and
rode around his parish summoning the men to ijight against the pagans. He
sent messengers to ask help from the neighbouring parishes and from the
bishop of Treyden. They came from everywhere and were ready the next
morning. ‘Only seven of the bishop’s men were Germans, and the eighth was
the priest Godfried. He tucked up his arms of wars and put on his breastplate
as a giant, eager (cupiens) to snatch his sheep from the claws of the wolfs.’44
The imagery of breastplate and giant is taken from the Book of Maccabees
(1 Mac 3:3) and therefore connects to the Phinehas story. Godfried was driven
42 HCL IX, 8, p. 30: ‘Peregrini itaque dum vident neophitos Lyvones in tantum exhorbitare et
tamquam canes ad vomitum redire, eo quod ijidei olim suscepte obliviscantur, zelo Dei accensi
insequuntur fugientes. Sed mox ut conspiciunt eos se aliis paganis de Leneworde coniunxisse
relictisque villis silvarum latebras cum ipsis adiisse, urbem ipsorum adhibito igne succendunt.’
43 HCL XIV, 8, pp. 59-60.
44 HCL XXI, 7, p. 146: ‘Et erant septem tantum ex servis episcopi Theuthonici, et octavus erat
sacerdos Godefridus. Qui succinxit se armis bellicis suis et induit se lorica sua tamquam gygas,
oves suas luporum faucibus eripere cupiens.’
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by eagerness, by zeal similar to Phinehas’s, and it justiijied the warfare and
the killing of a substantial number of pagans. Cupio is, however, a much
more inclusive concept than zelus and could also be applied by Henry simply
to mean ‘an interest in’ or ‘an attempt to’. As when the Danes to his great
disapproval ‘attempted to’ (cupientes) send their priests to baptize in the
land of the church of Riga, to harvest in a foreign ijield. 45
Henry continued the passage about Godfried, saying, ‘They rushed from
the back upon them, killing bravely among them.’46 This could be interpreted
to mean that Godfried himself personally took part in the killing of inijidels,
but that is highly unlikely. There is no other clear example of priests actually
killing in the narratives of the Baltic crusades. Henry’s wording covers the
whole group of warriors, of which Godfried was a member, but does not
necessarily mean that he wielded the sword himself. James A. Brundage
similarly discusses whether Henry’s participation in the wars implied that
he actually served as a soldier. Brundage believes so, but the passage he
refers to cannot substantiate this interpretation.47
Vincent of Cracow was, again, much more detailed and thoughtful when
dealing with the argumentation for killing. He relates from the early twelfth
century how the city of Alba (Bialogard, Belgard) in western Pomerania was
besieged by King Boleslaw III, who threatened that if the Pomeranians took
up arms, their city would have to change its name from Alba to Cruenta,
from ‘White’ to ‘Blood Red’. The city surrendered, the inhabitants were
spared, and Prince Gneuomir was baptized with Boleslaw as his godfather
and installed as Boleslaw’s local ruler in Pomerania. Because of the leniency
of the King, the other Pomeranian cities along the coast surrendered. 48 Not
much later, however, Gneuomir rebelled. His only faith was being unfaithful, Vincent said, a general remark about a certain type of human, but
also realization that Gneuomir’s conversion had not been in earnest. 49 He
remembered his paternal traditions, but the beneijices bestowed upon him
by Boleslaw he had forgotten.
He certainly came to remember, but late, and only when forced, Vincent
continues. Boleslaw conquers one coastal city after another, the last being
Gneuomir’s stronghold. The rebel was beheaded, and ‘everybody else was
45
46
47
48
49
HCL XXIV, 2, p. 170.
HCL XXIV, 2, p. 170: ‘Et irruerunt post tergum super eos, occidentes ex eis fortissime.’
Brundage, ‘Introduction’, pp. 17-18.
Vincent III, 2,2-6, pp. 88-89.
Vincent III, 5,1, p. 91: ‘talium ijides sit ipsa perijidia’.
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absorbed by the mouth of the sword’: total annihilation of all inhabitants
in the city, probably of the whole local population.
The next paragraph in the text opens with a direct formulation of the
problem: ‘Ardour is laudable, but harshness is not, except if it is used in zeal
for justice, not because of hate or arrogance.’ The text continues, stating
it is not a sin to kill another human if it is your ofijice to do so, and that a
soldier is not guilty of manslaughter if he is obeying orders when killing a
human. It was laudable of Phinehas, Vincent stressed, to kill the Israelite
and the Midjanite woman, of Mathias Maccabeus to kill the idolaters,
and of Moses to kill 23,000 Israelites who worshipped the calf of gold, to
‘consecrate his hand in the blood of his neighbours’.50 Vincent goes on to
say that sometimes it is a sin not to kill, if commanded by the Lord.51 All in
all, Vincent summarizes the most important arguments for killing inijidels
as they were formulated in the late eleventh century’s reform papacy and
reijined during the twelfth century.
Vincent uses zelus again and again as a just reason for killing inijidels
and apostates, but in this matter he distinguished between the role of
the clergy and of the secular authorities. Two bishops in Plock in Masuria
around 1100 were armed with zeal for the house of God. It was inscribed
with a golden pen in their hearts, and they fought to defend the arch of the
Lord against the local Masurians and against Prussians and Pomeranians
who came from everywhere, again and again. Organizing the religious wars
in the 1140s, Bishop Alexander of Plock was at the same time a lamb and
a lion, a priest and a knight, armed and pious, and he never neglected his
work of devotion because of the work of guarding the church. He always
remembered the words of Saint Ambrose, that the weapons of the bishop
are tears and prayers.52
50 Vincent III, 7,1-2: ‘Laudo animositatem, truculentiam non laudo, nisi forte zelo iustitie
factum sit, non odii animo uel typo superbie. Non est peccatum ex ofijicio hominem occidere
nec est reus homicidii miles, qui potestati obediens hominem occidit. Laudatur Finees qui cum
Madianitide confodit Hebreum et Mathathias idolatram et Moyses cum Leuitis per medium
castrorum transiens manus consecrabat in sanguine propinquorum, quando propter uitulum
cesa sunt XX tria milia.’
51 Vincent refers here to King Saul, who did not kill King Agag of the Amalekites, despite
the Lord’s command to do so. This passage from 1 Reg. 15, 11-23 was important in the eleventh
century reform movement, also because it stressed unconditional obedience toward spiritual
authority. Cf. Althoff, “Selig sind die Verfolgung ausüben”, pp. 46-53 and passim.
52 Vincent III, 8,3, p. 93: ‘arma episcopi lacrime sunt et orationes.’
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Bishop Alexander was great in battles, but greater in divine matters, Vincent concludes.53 Alexander founded a church dedicated to the Holy Virgin,
and he had thereby superseded King David of the Israelites. The Lord had
forbidden King David to build a temple for the Ark of the Covenant, because
David was a vir bellator et sanguinem fuderis, a warrior stained by blood
(1 Par. 28:3). He therefore had to leave it to his son Salomon to erect the temple
in Jerusalem. With his allusions to this episode in the Old Testament, Vincent
clearly intends to stress that Bishop Alexander did not with his own hand
spill any human blood. Thus he could establish the church for the Virgin and
enrich it inside with spiritual devotions and studies, while protecting it from
outside with material weapons. ‘Truly you can say: “Thou art beautiful and
comely, daughter of Jerusalem, terrible as an army ready for war”’ (Cant. 6:3).54
Masuria, with Livonia, seems to have been dedicated to the Virgin Mary,
placed under Her protection in Her role as the terrifying organizer of wars – at
least according to Vincent, writing more than half a century after the events.
He may have been inspired by accounts of the Lateran IV meeting, of how
Henry of Livonia and Bishop Albert of Riga successfully claimed that Livonia
was the land of the Mother, as much as Palestine was the land of the Son.
Vindicta Sacrorum
The last concepts to be explored here concern vindicta and ultio, ‘vengeance’.
The Lord’s vengeance of the Old Testament was closely connected to mass
killing, as was zelus. ‘For it is the day of the Lord’s vengeance, and the year of
recompenses for the controversy of Zion’ (Isaiah 34:8). The saints of the Lord
shall praise God with their mouth, while they with a double-edged sword
kill the pagans (Ps. 148:7).55 The idea of vengeance became incorporated
53 Gladysz suggests that Bishop Alexander, coming from Liège, brought the vocabulary and
the ideology of crusading from Lotharingia and probably maintained contact with this centre
for Western European crusades. It is possible, but in reality we know almost nothing about
Alexander except from Vincent’s narrative, written much later and with the hindsight of knowing
about the fate of Jerusalem in the late twelfth century, and about the Danish and German
crusades in the Baltic. Gladysz, Forgotten Crusaders, pp. 21, 35-36.
54 Vincent III, 8,5, p. 94: ‘uere dici possit: pulchra es et decora, ijilia Ierusalem, terribilis ut
castrorum acies ordinata.’ Vincent has slightly changed the standard bible text in his rendering
of this passage from the Song of Songs, so I have made my own translation and not followed the
King James Version here.
55 Psalm 148: 5-7: ‘5 Let the saints be joyful in glory: let them sing aloud upon their beds. 6 Let
the high praises of God be in their mouth, and a two-edged sword in their hand; 7 To execute
vengeance upon the heathen, and punishments upon the people.’
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in crusading ideology, according to Susanna Throop, not from the ijirst
generation of crusade narratives dating from the early twelfth century,
but signiijicantly so from the last third of the century.56 It is a motive that
ijigures predominantly in the texts under discussion here.
Saxo noted with appreciation how crusading could re-direct violence
from internal wars to external ones, to be used for a good purpose. In the
mid-twelfth century, a civil war was fought in Denmark between different claimants to the throne. Two kings eventually concluded a truce and
went on a common expedition against the Wends in connection with the
Second Crusade in the Baltic, in 1147. Saxo commented that they turned
their swords away from ijighting each other and towards ‘revenging the
sacred’, ad sacrorum vindictam.57 The Danish contingent met with a Saxon
army that was ‘eager to revenge religion’.58 They succeeded in conquering
Dobin and forcing the pagans to be baptized, but when they went back
home, the newly converted immediately lapsed from faith.
In 1168 with the conquest of Arkona, the common crusaders complained
and almost rebelled against the king’s peace treaty with the pagans, because
they would then be deprived of ‘a most beautiful revenge’, speciosissima
vindicta. They would gain nothing for all their work except wounds and pain,
and they could not take revenge for the injuries against them ‘according
to their free will’, or by arbitrary killing of inijidels.59 Saxo described a very
secular, mundane longing for revenge after hard battles in this episode, but
the wording and context balance the religious longing for revenge: revenge
and religion become two sides of the same coin. Shortly afterwards, Saxo
relates how the mission and the new Christians were supported by miracles,
the sick were cured, the bodily debilitated recovered totally, while those
showing contempt towards the faith were crippled as punishment. God
Himself had taken revenge over the pagans, Saxo concludes.60
56 Throop, Crusading as an Act of Vengeance, pp. 74-76.
57 Saxo 14,3,5; II, p. 162: ‘rei melius gerendae gratia pacem pro tempore statuunt revocatumque
a suis visceribus ferrum ad sacrorum vindictam convertunt.’
58 Saxo 14,3,6; II, p. 162: ‘Saxones, et ipsi vindicandae religionis cupientissimi, militiae socii
Danis futuri.’
59 Saxo 14,39,26; II, pp. 366-68: ‘[…] propinquae victoriae praemiis spoliatus nihil ex tanta
fatigatione praeter ictus et vulnera retulisset, quodque sibi de paene victo hoste tot iniuriarum
ultionem proprio arbitrio exigere non licuerit, praefatus illorum saluti iam consuli, de quibus tot
spoliorum, tot domesticarum cladium minimo negotio speciosissima vindicta accipi potuisset.’
60 Saxo 14, 39,47; II, p. 378: ‘Nec praedicationis eorum ministerio miracula defuere: siquidem
compluribus debilitate corporis resolutis per eorum salutares preces bonae valetudinis habitus
recuperatus est […] A quibusdam etiam detractae religionis supplicia varia membrorum strage
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The motive of revenge is much more common in Henry of Livonia’s
chronicle, appearing in many different combinations. He states directly at
an early point in the narrative that the crusaders were signed with the cross
in remission for their sins and ‘to take revenge over the inijidels and subjugate them to the faith’.61 This was allegedly the formulation of Archbishop
Andreas Sunesen of Lund before the Danish crusade to Oesel (Saaremaa) in
1206. Revenge is here very close to becoming a license to forced conversion.
As was the case with Saxo, the revenge of humans is ultimately God’s
own revenge. Henry tells how the pagan Estonians killed and cremated
some of the newly converted Lets – trucidaverant et igne cremaverant.62
It is unclear from the wording whether they were burned alive, as both
pagans and Christians did to their enemies on more occasions according
to Henry, or whether they were killed and given a proper pagan burial by
cremation to help them into a pagan afterlife. In any case, the other Lets
collected their forces and ‘if God gave them’, they could take revenge over
their enemies. Now follows a longer description of their expedition in which
they kill Estonians and kill and kill, from morning to evening, until their
arms and hands were totally exhausted from using the sword. All villages
were coloured red by the blood of the pagans, and before returning the
Christians collected as booty the animals and also the young women, ‘who
were the only ones whom the army used to spare in these areas’. When they
met the crusaders and the Order of the Sword Brethren, these ‘gave thanks
to God, because He through the newly converted had taken revenge over the
pagans’.63 Not the Christians, old or new, but the Lord himself. The human
revenge was also God’s revenge, and could justify even the most extensive
extermination of pagans. A successful revenge was the cause of gratitude
and of joy among the crusaders.64
The idea of human and divine revenge was not foreign to Vincent at all,
but he was much more cautious than Henry of Livonia and seems to restrict
graviter exigebantur, ut manifeste Deum et cultus sui praemium et contemptus vindictam
afferre putares.’
61 HCL X, 13, p. 43: ‘archiepiscopus Lundensis Andreas, qui in remissionem peccatorum
inijinitam multitudinem signo crucis signaverat ad faciendam vindictam in nationibus et ad
subiugandas gentes ijidei Christiane.’
62 HCL XXII, 6, p. 64.
63 HCL XII, 6, p. 65: ‘omnes unanimiter cum gaudio Deum benedicebant, eo quod [per] noviter
conversos Dominus tantam fecerit vindictam eciam ceteris in nationibus.’
64 Sometimes celebrated with dance and music; HCL XXVIII, 6, p. 205: ‘Interfectis autem viris
omnibus facta est exultatio magna et ludus christianorum in tympanis et ijistulis et instrumentis
musicis, eo quod vindictam vindicaverant de malefactoribus et omnes perijidos de Lyvonia et
Estonia ibidem collectos interfecerant.’
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it carefully to be used against apostates. It has already been mentioned
how Boleslaw III flamed up against the Pomeranians and decided to add
vengeance upon vengeance upon them – ultionem adiecit ultioni.65 They are
called sacrilegious idolaters, but we hear immediately after that they had
not kept the faith they had received; they were apostates. In the ensuing
battle, the losses were immense, and the Poles found it difijicult to resist
killing. The number of the fallen Pomeranians is like the sand of the sea,
the stars of heaven. Nobody can count them, not even the arithmeticians
or the specialists in the use of the abacus, and to this day, piles of bones
of the unburied testify to the number of fallen, Vincent wrote a couple of
generations later. Since then, the cities of the Pomeranians have belonged
to the kingdom of Poland. All this is justiijied because it is revenge, but
against apostates.
Revenge was an obligation for the King of Poland as it was for King Saul.
Both disobeyed the command of the Lord, and both were punished. To
populate the provinces of the Prussians after all the warfare, Boleslaw IV
decreed that all who had chosen to become Christians would be granted
full liberty for their person and their belongings. But those who would
not abandon the sacrilegious rites of paganism should be punished with
capital punishment. But ‘their religion was as smoke and lasted ye shorter,
ye more it had been enforced upon them’.66 They apostatized and returned
to idolatry. Boleslaw now found it sufijicient that he as the prince got his
share, not caring about the share denied to God. He did not exact revenge for
the apostasy, as long as he himself received payment in tribute. That was an
unwise decision. ‘The motionless who is not moved by the soft zeal of God,
will be woken up from his snoring by the hard stroke of tribulations.’67 The
Prussians rebelled and defeated the Poles severely in 1166. Since then, Boleslaw IV and his sons no longer enjoyed success in war, Vincent concluded.
A Theology of Strong Emotions
There seem to be two different ways of arguing for ijighting against the
inijidels and the apostates, which are intertwined in these narratives about
65 Vincent III, 14,1, p. 99.
66 Vincent III, 30,15, p. 126: ‘Set ad modicum parens uapor illorum fuit religio, tanto uidelicet
breuior quanto coactior.’
67 Vincent III, 30,17, p. 127: ‘Vnde factum est, ut quem zelus Dei molliter torpentem non mouit,
durior saltem tribulationis ictus stertentem excitaret.’
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the Baltic wars from around 1200. One is formalistic and juridical, based
very much on the formal status of the enemies and their standing as real
pagans or apostates. The other is based on strong emotions such as zeal for
God, lust for vengeance, and an aim to avert divine wrath.
Emotions are the inner feelings of the individual and have normally
been considered the opposite of rational reasoning, both in medieval and
modern theories about psychology.68 They are, however, not totally arbitrary,
but expressed within socially accepted limits. Barbara H. Rosenwein has
suggested that we should rather operate with ‘emotional communities’,
whose members agree what emotions they can or are expected to show in
certain situations.69 Thereby, emotions become not solely an expression of
individual feelings, but also phenomena with a history that can be studied
diachronically.
How did the emotional communities change during the ijirst century of
crusading to the Middle East and in the Baltic? That question can only be
answered by a much larger investigation and comparison over time than the
short presentation offered in this chapter. Susanna Throop claims that the
theme of revenge became important for crusaders only in the late twelfth
century, but this seems to contradict the conclusions of Gerd Althoff and
his analysis of the herem-theology of the reform papacy, which he argues
was formulated a hundred years earlier. Throop’s interpretations can be
supported by other studies; Karen Sullivan has recently suggested that
the Church in Western Europe saw a gradual change from the mid-twelfth
century to the mid-fourteenth from charity to zeal, from a lenient attitude
to deviants in the faith to a much harsher one that included among other
features the establishing of the inquisition.70 This would ijit well with the
idea of a change from mission of the word to mission of the sword in the
Baltic, mentioned at the beginning of this chapter.
Other studies, however, point to a signiijicant change in the late eleventh
century with a new devotion to Christ, which has even been called ‘the
greatest revolution in feelings that Europa has ever witnessed’.71 This devotion made it natural for the crusaders, within their emotional communities,
to share their feelings with Christ, to feel pain when he was tortured by
the injuries of the pagans and apostates, to be beset with rage and wrath,
and to be ijilled with the zeal to take revenge, with Him and for Him. This
68
69
70
71
Knuuttila, Emotions in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy; Rosenwein, ‘Thinking Historically’.
Rosenwein, Emotional Communities.
Sullivan, The Inner Lives.
McNamer, Affective Meditation, p. 2.
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supports the interpretation of Gerd Althoff and would mean that there
was no signiijicant change in the approach to inijidels in the Baltic during
the twelfth century.
Saxo, Henry, and Vincent all wrote their large narratives shortly after
1200. They expressed themselves in different, well-deijined genres in a
formal language that was highly dependent upon their literary models,
be it classical, medieval, biblical, or the reformulation of earlier narratives
describing the same events. They wrote about religious feelings, about
conversion of inijidels, and about bloody wars driven by logical concerns,
but also by strong emotions. It is easy to dismiss their reports of motives as
literary constructions, far removed from everyday realities of the warriors.
But if we accept that individuals act within emotional communities, we
must also accept that they describe feelings commonly expressed by their
contemporaries. In return, their way of describing emotions helped deijine
the proper way of feeling and acting for a true crusader in the Baltic.
Saxo, Henry, and Vincent were struggling with the same problem of
justifying warfare, but they did so in very different ways and with very
different emphasis. This reflects dilemmas which must have also concerned
the ijighting crusaders.
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