Divine Vengeance and Human Justice in the Wendish Crusade of 1147

5
Divine Vengeance and Human Justice
in the Wendish Crusade of 1147
Mihai Dragnea
Most of the sources for the First and Second Crusade contain references to
divine vengeance. After the conquest of Jerusalem in 1099, the idea of crusading
as vengeance spread among the clergy and laity. In a direct sense, what the
Muslims experienced during the First Crusade was the just punishment of God,
also known as ‘divine vengeance’ (ultio Dei, vindicata).1 Therefore, the inhumanity
of the Muslims encouraged vengeance and war, rather than conversion.
This is why in the powerful rhetoric of the First Crusade, the seizure of Jerusalem
by the Muslims had been avenged. The liberation of Jerusalem as being
part of a divine retribution is expressed in a letter written by Pope Paschal II
(1099-1118) to the Pisan consuls in 1100, where he praises the piety and devotion
of the Pisan people and their achievements in the Holy Land: ‘the Christian
people…most strenuously avenged [Jerusalem] for the tyranny and yoke of the
barbarians and, with God helping, restored those regions, sanctified by the blood
and presence of Jesus Christ, to their former refinement and majesty with
adornment and veneration.’2
In Eastern Germany, the idea of crusading as divine vengeance had been
expressed in the so called ‘Magdeburg letter’ which was written between 1107
and 1110, most probably in late 1107 or 1108. The anonymous author is believed
to have been a Flemish clerk from the circle of the archbishop of Magde-
1 For more details regarding the idea of crusading as vengeance in the Holy Land see Susanna
A. Throop, Crusading as an Act of Vengeance, 1095–1216 (Farnham: Ashgate, 2013).
2 ‘Christianus populus in nomine Domini exercituum congregatus, atque Syriam vel potius
Terram promissionis ingressus, sanctam anno iam praeterito civitatem, terrestrem nempe
lerusalem, urbem equidem perfecti decoris et gaudium universae terrae, in qua praestantissima
redemptoris nostri monumenta refulgent, a barbarorum tyrannide et iugo strenuissime
vindicavit atque plagas illas, lesu Christi sanguine et praestantia sanctificatas, pristino
cultu, maiestati decori atque veneration.’ Epistulae et chartae ad historiam primi belli
sacri spectantes quae supersunt aevo aequales ac genvinae. Die Kreuzzugsbriefe aus den
Jahren 1088-1100; eine Quellensammlung zur Geschichte des ersten Kreuzzuges, ed. Heinrich
Hagenmeyer (Innsbruck: Verlag der Wagner’schen Universitäts-Buchhandlung 1901;
reprint Hildesheim: Olms, 1973), 180; Throop, Crusading, 44.
6
burg.3 The letter had the form of an appeal for help against the Wends4 and it
seems to have been addressed to prelates and princes from the West, such as
Robert of Flanders who had participated in the First Crusade with great success.
The author of the letter described the Wendish attacks on the Christian territory
across the Elbe5 made by ‘the most cruel gentiles,’ who destroyed churches and
sacrificed Christians in the name of their pagan gods.6 Therefore, these actions
need divine vengeance, because the ‘inhuman’ pagans are ‘men without mercy’
and their souls cannot be saved through conversion but only through
subjugation.7 Also, the land across the Elbe is described as ‘our Jerusalem’
3 Giles Constable, Crusaders and Crusading in the Twelfth Century, (Farnham: Ashgate,
2008), 200.
4 From the sixth century onwards the exonym Wenden had been used by the Germanic
peoples to refer to speakers of Western Slavic languages, from Holstein in the north to
Carinthia in the south. Most of the Latin sources connected with the crusades do not use the
exonym Wends, but the terms Slavi or Sclavi. Ane L. Bysted et al, Jerusalem in the North:
Denmark and the Baltic Crusades, 1100-1522 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2012), 24, 27. However,
in his Chronicon, Henry of Livonia uses the exonym Wendi five times. The Wends of
Henry have been considered a small tribe of uncertain ethnic origins, either Slavic, Baltic or
Finno-Ugric. Thus, Henry uses the name which probably is taken from the local
pronunciation, without connecting it to the ancient Veneti and also not to the Slavs.
Wolfgang Laur, “Die sogenannten Wenden im Baltikum,” Jahrbuch für fränkische
Landesforschung 21 (1961): 431-38. Some historians argued that the Wends of Livonia
were most probably of Slavic ethnicity. By the end of the thirteenth century, they were
largely assimilated with the Lettgallians and disappeared. The Chronicle of Henry of
Livonia, trans. James A. Brundage (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1961), 66, 93,
100, 170, 201, 232; Alan V. Murray, “Henry of Livonia and the Wends of the Eastern
Baltic: Ethnography and Biography in the Thirteenth-Century Livonian Mission,” Studi
Medievali, 54 (2013): 807-33; Nils Blomkvist, The Discovery of the Baltic: The Reception
of a Catholic World-System in the European North (AD 1075-1225) (Leiden: Brill, 2005),
320-21. It seems that the hypotheses connecting the Wends with the Western Slavs is not
confirmed by the archaeological record. Thus, the idea that the Wends were a separate
Finnic ethnic group from Kurzeme has been advanced. Zigrīda Apala and Jānis Apals, “The
Vendic hill fort on Riekstu kalns in Cēsis,” in Strongholds and Power Centres East of the
Baltic Sea in the 11th-13th Centuries, ed. Heiki Valk (Tartu: University of Tartu, 2014), 115-
38. For a more extensive discussion of this terminology in Byzantium and the Western
world in the Early Middle Ages see Florin Curta, The Making of the Slavs: History and
Archaeology of the Lower Danube Region, c.500–700 (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2001), 36-73.
5 Iben Fonnesberg-Schmidt, The Popes and the Baltic Crusades: 1147-1254 (Leiden: Brill,
2007), 29-30.
6 The original title for this letter is Epistola pro auxilio adversus paganos (Slavos). In this
paper, I use the original text in Latin by Wilhelm Wattenbach, “Handschriftliches,” Neues
Archiv VII (1882): 623-24 and the English translation by Louise and Jonathan Riley-Smith,
The Crusades: Idea and Reality, 1095-1274 (London: E. Arnold, 1981), 75.
7 ‘Qui Gallos ab extremo occidente progressos in brachio virtutis sue contra inimicos suos in
remotissimo triumphavit Oriente, ipse tribuat vobis voluntatem et potentiam hos affines et
inhumanissimos gentiles subjugare et in omnibus bene prosperari.’ Wattenbach, “Handschriftliches,”
626; Riley-Smith, The Crusades, 75. In fact, the author of the letter proposes
7
(Hierusalem nostra). Therefore, the Wendish territory needs to be liberated by
the Christians like the Holy Land was liberated by ‘Gauls’ in a ‘holy war’
against the ‘enemies of Christ’ (Wends).8 Like the First Crusade, the appeal
promised to Christians of Saxony, France, Lorraine and Flanders some spiritual
rewards which can be ‘an occasion for you to save your souls.’9 But what are
these spiritual rewards and how can they be achieved? It is interesting that, in
our case, the author of the letter offered no indulgence or remission of sins,
which were papal privileges. In Spain, in 1101, the crusaders received from
Paschal II the same indulgences as the crusaders in the Holy Land when fighting
against the Muslims. In 1108, Paschal II refused to authorize any preaching for
this planned campaign which never took place and in which the Danish king
Niels (1104-1134) was ready to participate.10 In that time, the Danish king
sought to enlarge the power and influence of the monarchy through the aid of
the church. This policy led to an issue regarding clerical celibacy which had
strong feelings among the Danish laity. It was obvious that Paschal II would be
against this policy since he exhorted Niels to help to impose clerical celibacy
through cooperation between the clergy and the Danish laity.11 This explains the
struggle between the papacy and Niels and the refusal of Paschal II to authorize
the proposed campaign of 1108, in which the Danish king sought to extend his
realm.12
an expedition against the Wends similar to the expedition of 1096-1099 to the Holy Land,
in which the “crusaders” could be certain of spiritual and material gains (acquisition of land
and spiritual salvation). See Klaus Guth, “The Pomeranian Missionary Journeys of Otto I of
Bamberg and the Crusade Movement of the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries,” in The
Second Crusade and the Cistercians, ed. Michael Gervers (New York: Palgrave Macmillan,
1992), 15.
8 ‘Sanctificate bellum, suscitate robustes. Surgite principes, contra inimicos Christi arripite
clypeos… Erumpite et venite omnes aratores Christi et ecclesie, et sicut Galli ad
liberationem Hierusalem vos preparate.’ Wattenbach, “Handschriftliches,” 625-26.
9 Louise and Jonathan Riley-Smith, The Crusades, 77.
10 Kurt Villads Jensen, “Martyrs, Total War, and Heavenly Horses: Scandinavia as Centre
and Periphery in the Expansion of Medieval Christendom,” in Medieval Christianity in the
North:New Studies, eds. Kirsi Salonen, Kurt Villads Jensen, and Torstein Jørgensen (Turnhout:
Brepols, 2013), 100.
11 For more details regarding the struggle between the Danish Church and the papacy see
Frederik Pedersen, “‘A good and sincere man … even though he looked like a Slav:’ Asger
of Lund, canon law, and politics in Denmark, ca 1085–1140,” Mediaeval Scandinavia 20
(2010): 141-62.
12 Another reason which led Paschal II not to authorize any preaching for this campaign is that
the speech from the letter corresponded so closely to the political plans of the King Henry
V. A meeting between Henry V and a great number of prelates and nobles of Germany
took place at the time set for their departure. The reign of Henry V coincided with the final
phase of the great Investiture Controversy between the papacy and the secular powers. A
supporter of Henry V was Adalgod who was appointed in 1107 as Archbishop of Magdeburg
by the German King. Some historians believe that the Flemish clerk wrote the letter at
the order of Adalgod. Constable, Crusaders and Crusading, 48.
8
The only spiritual reward offered by the author of the letter is the
salvation of soul, which is connected with the acquisition of land. In the rhetoric
of the letter, presumably crusaders could have gained spiritual rewards even if
they did not obtain lands beyond the Elbe, and the spiritual rewards are eternal,
while material ones are temporal. Friedrich Lotter emphasized that this promise
of double reward was adopted from Robert the Monk and originates from the
Bible. According to Matthew 19:29, Christ himself said: ‘Every one that has
forsaken houses or lands … for my name’s sake shall receive an hundredfold’;
and according to Exodus 3:8: ‘Palestine is a land flowing with milk and
honey’.13 This is why in the crusading ideology the prospect of obtaining lands
was an additional inducement.14 In this case, the author of the letter uses the
rhetoric from Clermont by saying that ‘these gentiles [pagans] are most wicked,
but their land is the best, rich in meat, honey, corn and birds; and if it were well
cultivated none could be compared to it for the wealth of its produce. So say
those who know it. And so, most renowned Saxons, French, Lorrainers and
Flemings and conquerors of the world, this is an occasion for you to save your
souls and, if you wish it, acquire the best land in which to live.’15
As we have seen, the author of the letter was familiar with the development
of the idea of crusading at the Council of Clermont in 1095, when Pope
Urban II (1088-1099) had promised the crusaders both spiritual and material
rewards for their divine work. The crusaders responded enthusiastically and
undertook a successful campaign which established several crusader states in the
Holy Land. Thus, in the twelfth century, Christian settlements in former pagan
lands had proven to be the only way to advance Christianization. Therefore, the
only authority to do this came from the church.16
13 Friedrich Lotter, “The Crusading Idea and the Conquest of the Region East of the Elbe,” in
Medieval Frontier Societies, eds. Robert Bartlett and Angus MacKay (Oxford: Clarendon
Press and Oxford University Press, 1989), 276.
14 Some historians stated that the definition of indulgence originated from the theological
distinctions between eternal and temporal punishment and between forgiveness of sin and
the remission of punishment for sin. These distinctions were made in the twelfth and midthirteenth
centuries. See Bysted et al, Jerusalem, 8. Ane Bysted falls firmly on the side of
historians (including Jonathan Riley-Smith) who see the papal grant of an indulgence as
essential to crusading and as an important indicator of the ideology and theology of
crusading. The debate over the precise nature of the spiritual reward offered by Urban II at
Clermont in 1095 continues to shape the historiography and the very definition of the crusades.
For more details see Ane Bysted, The Crusade Indulgence. Spiritual Rewards and the
Theology of the Crusades, c. 1095-1216 (Leiden: Brill, 2014); eadem, “The True Year of
Jubilee: Bernard of Clairvaux on Crusade and Indulgences,” in The Second Crusade: Holy
War on the Periphery of Latin Christendom, eds. Janus Møller Jensen and Jason T. Roche
(Turnhout: Brepols, 2015), 35-49.
15 Riley-Smith, The Crusades, 76-77.
16 All of the accounts were written down quite a bit later than the Council and this is why
they follow different literary traditions and differ widely from one another. In the accounts
of Fulcher and Robert, Urban II offers his audience remission of their sins. Guibert has him
offer the chance to become martyrs, while in Baudry’s account the reward offered is not
9
One knows that most of the clerical writings contain biblical allusions in
order to justify their legal and moral authority, hierarchy and also material aims.
So, another question is how consciously did the author of the letter quote the
Bible? In our case, a biblical passage from the New Testament may be the key
which can help us to understand the rhetorical devices of the author, who wants
to justify the occupation of a region through the idea of violence as vengeance
ordered by divine authority: ‘For he is God’s minister to thee, for good. But if
thou do that which is evil, fear: for he beareth not the sword in vain. For he is
God’s minister: an avenger to execute wrath upon him that doth evil.’17 For the
author of the letter, the lessons of obedience to superiors and mutual charity of
St. Paul can be good examples of human justice, legal and moral authority for
the noble laity from Saxony, France, Lorraine and Flanders who can get more
land across the Elbe. These biblical themes of divine wrath and human justice
were popular among contemporary authors such as Anselm of Canterbury. In his
epoch-making book, Cur Deus Homo (1090s), he outlined a new theory of
Divine Retribution. Thus, the disobedience against those of high rank demanded
a divine punishment or, in its place, satisfaction relative to the nature of the
insult and the rank of the one offended, lest the social order be unbalanced.
Anselm developed his theory within the church’s system of penance and thought
of satisfaction as the payment of debt as a moral duty. In Cur Deus Homo, in a
dialogue with one of his students, Anselm states that the vengeance is God’s
work, who can also let His anger be executed by human justice.18
Regarding the so called ‘Wendish Crusade’ from 1147, modern scholarship
has seen this campaign in the broad framework of the Second Crusade.19
For this, the main character was the Cisterician abbot Bernard of Clairvaux, the
famous propagandist who tried to define the campaign as part of a great battle
against all of the enemies of Christendom. The Second Crusade was called by
Pope Eugen III (1145-1153) in response to the fall of the County of Edessa in
1144. Bernard recruited first the French king, Louis VII, and after the German
king, Conrad III, to take an army and reconquer Edessa from the Muslims. The
Saxons preferred to attack their pagan neighbors rather than setting out to save
the Holy Land, as Bernard intended .20 Therefore, the Saxons received papal
only spiritual but also material. For more details see Niall Christie and Deborah Gerish,
“Parallel Preachings: Urban II and al-Sulamī,” Al-Masaq: Islam and the Medieval
Mediterranean 15/2 (2003): 139-48.
17 Romans 13:4.
18 Cur Deus Homo, I, 12 in Anselm: Basic Writings, ed. Thomas Williams (Indianapolis:
Hackett, 2007), 263. For more details see Richard W. Southern, St. Anselm: A Portrait in a
Landscape (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 211-20.
19 For a bibliography of works on the Wendish Crusade, see Alan Murray, ‘Select Bibliography’
in The Second Crusade: Scope and Consequences, eds. Jonathan Phillips and Martin
Hoch (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2001), 215-16.
20 Otto of Freising tells that the Saxons refused to take the Cross for the Holy Land, because
they had neighboring tribes that were given over to the ‘filthiness of idolatry’. ‘Saxones
10
authorization (the bull Divina dispensatione II – 11 April 1147) to organize a
military campaign against the Wends.21
In determining why the Saxons refused to fight in the Holy Land, it is first
necessary to place these events in a broader context. Therefore, we need to look
at the men who led the campaign and their desire to grab Wendish land instead
of campaigning in the Holy Land. In other words, the Saxons were interested
more on conquering land rather than winning souls.22 One must understand that
for noble laity the acquisition of land played an essential role in motivating men
to go on the campaign and not to follow the opportunity for spiritual rewards in
the Holy Land.23 This suggests that for the Saxons a unity of purposes created by
material and spiritual rewards did not match the reality of the situation. In this
way one can explain Bernard’s changing attitudes towards the Wends, which
created a situation that forced Saxons to join the campaign.24
Another essential contextualization is to analyze the relationship of the
Wends with their Saxon neighbors across the Elbe. In this sense, one must pay
attention to the papal interests towards the Wends. It seems that the main
instrument of the papacy in the Wendish campaign, Bernard of Clairvaux, was
quite familiar with the struggle between the two sides. His active involvement is
highlighted by Friedrich Lotter, who believes that Bernard meant only the death
of the Abodrite state, not the massacre of the Abodrites and the rest of the
Wends. Therefore, they had only the alternatives of being submerged politically
and culturally or becoming a Christian state within the Church and the Empire.
vero, quia quasdam gentes spurciciis idolorum deditas vicinas habent, ad orientem
proficisci abnuentes cruces itidem easdem gentes bello attemptaturi assumpserunt.’
Ottonis et Rahewini Gesta Friderici I. imperatoris, eds. Georg Waitz and Bernhard von
Simson, MGH, Scriptores rerum Germanicarum in usum scholarum 46 (Hannover: Hahn,
1912), 61.
21 Alan V. Murray, The Crusades to the Holy Land: The Essential Reference Guide (Santa
Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2015), 77-78.
22 In this way, Helmold stated that the campaign against the Wends was dominated by the
material desire of the Saxon duke, Henry the Lion, who was not interested in conversion,
‘but only in money’. The Chronicle of the Slavs by Helmold, Priest of Bosau, trans. F. J.
Tschan (New York: Octagon Books, 1966), ch. I, 68. This opinion is also shared by the
chronicler Vincent of Prague who confirms Saxon intentions to grab more lands rather than
any conversion. Vincenti Pragensis Annales, ed. Wilhelm Wattenbach, in MGH, Scriptores
17 (Hannover: Hahn, 1861), 663. In the Annales Palidenses, composed between 1182 and
1197 at the Premonstratensian monastery of Pöhlde, there are reports on the quarrel
between the Saxon nobles who had already begun to distribute the Wendish land which
had not yet been conquered. Annales Palidenses, ed. Georg H. Pertz, in MGH Scriptores
16 (Hannover: Hahn, 1859), 82.
23 Even in the Holy Land the matter of land estates played a significant role, one that may
have been equal to the salvation of soul promised by the pope.
24 Friedrich Lotter suggests that the Saxon nobles refused to join the eastern crusade because
they didn’t want to submit to the leadership of Hohenstaufen king. Those who had not yet
taken the cross for the eastern crusade were allowed by the papacy to take it on equal terms
against the Wends. Lotter, “The Crusading Idea,” 287.
11
This was the choice offered by Bernard. In choosing fides catholica, the
Abodrite leaders made an end to the ancient hostility between Saxons and
Wends possible.25 The first major records of the relationship between Saxons
and Wends are from the reign of Charlemagne. In the Frankish campaign against
the pagan Saxons, Wends plays an important role as allies of the Franks. As a
reward, they received from Charlemagne a large part of the Holstein region,
which was inhabited by Saxons.26 From this time, it was obvious that the Saxons
will search for revenge against the Wends. Adam of Bremen mentions that the
Abodrites, together with the Frisians, were often used by the Franks ‘to secure
their borderlands either by treaties or by war against the Saxons who, though
peaceful at home and benignly mindful of the welfare of their tribesmen, were
excessively restless and troublesome to the settlements of their neighbors.’27
Starting with the first king of the Saxon line, Henry I, the Saxons tried to expand
their realm all the way to the Oder by creating an eastern mark and bringing the
whole territory up to the border of Poland under Saxon control.28 At the end of
the tenth century, Wends had pushed the Saxons back across the Elbe and
stopped paying tribute to the Saxons. For the next one and a half centuries, the
25 For the history of the German eastward migration, missionary activity and the Wendish-
German relations see Friedrich Lotter, Die Konzeption des Wendenkreuzzugs. Ideengeschichtliche,
kirchenrechtliche und historisch-politische Voraussetzungen der Missionierung
von Elb- und Ostseeslawen um die Mitte des 12 Jahrhunderts (Sigmaringen: Thorbecke,
1977); Hans-Dietrich Kahl, Heidenfrage und Slawenfrage im deutschen Mittelalter
Ausgewählte Studien 1953-2008 (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2011). For authors of
missionary hagiography such as Adam of Bremen and Helmold of Bosau, ‘hostility from
pagans was what missionaries usually expected.’ For more details, see the recent study of
Wojtek Jezierski, “Convivium in terra horroris: Helmold of Bosau’s Rituals of
Hostipitality,” in Rituals, Performatives, and Political Order in Northern Europe, c. 650–
1350, eds. Wojtek Jezierski, Lars Hermanson, Hans Jacob Orning, and Thomas Småberg
(Turnhout: Brepols, 2015), 139-73.
26 Charles Oman, The Dark Ages: 476-918 (London: Rivingtons, 1898), 349; Joachim Herrmann,
Die Slawen in Deutschland (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1970), 7.
27 Adam of Bremen, History of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen, I, 5, trans. Francis J.
Tschan (New York: Columbia University Press, 1959), 9; Oman, The Dark Ages, 357-60.
28 For more information about the Ottonian policy across the Elbe see Christian Lübke, “Die
Erweiterung des östlichen Horizonts: Der Eintritt der Slaven in die europäische Geschichte
im 10. Jahrhundert,” in Ottonische Neuanfänge. Symposion zur Ausstellung ‘Otto der
Große, Magdeburg und Europa’, ed. Bernd Schneidmüller (Mainz: Phillip von Zabern in
Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft 2001), 113-26; Matthias Hardt, “Kirchenorganisation
oder Aufstand. Die Christianisierung von Sorben, Elb- und Ostseeslawen in Ottonen- und
Salierzeit,” in Schwertmission. Gewalt und Christianisierung im Mittelalter, eds. Hermann
Kamp and Martin Kroker (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2013), 53-66; Laurence
Leleu, “Nobiles utraeque ripae Albiae. On both sides of the Elbe: Saxon élites facing Slavs
in the Ottonian age,” in Potestas et communitas. Interdisziplinäre Beiträge zu Wesen und
Darstellung von Herrschaftsverhältnissen im Mittelalter östlich der Elbe, eds. Aleksander
Paroń, Sébastien Rossignol, Bartłomiej Sz. Szmoniewski, and Grischa Vercamer (Wrocław
and Warsaw: Instytut Archeologii i Etnologii PAN and Deutsches Historisches Institut,
2010), 305-38.
12
Ottonians and the Salians tried to retake control across the Elbe and re-
Christianize the Wends. Therefore, from the point of view of the Saxons, the
Wends were apostates because they rejected the Saxon imperium Christianum.
Thus, at the end of tenth century and the beginning of the eleventh century, the
term pagani was applied also to designate apostates. For the missionary bishops
like Bruno of Querfurt (probably a relative of Emperor Otto III), and Thietmar
of Merseburg, the Wends were ‘apostate pagans’ within the Church.29 Helmold
of Bosau also mentioned the apostasy of the Wends. He stated that the Wendish
revolt of 1018 took place because the Wends were pursued by Margrave
Dietrich of Wettin and the Saxon duke Bernard II with such cruelty that they
were ‘villainy forced into apostasy… and finally threw off the yoke of servitude,
and had to take up arms in defense of their freedom.’30
In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, various writers expressed the view
that apostates or heretics deserved divine punishment.31 Therefore, in order to
defend Christianity, the papacy accepted the use of force against the Baltic
apostates such as the Wends,32 the Livonians and the Prussians. From the Danish
29 Henrik Janson suggests that ‘the question of fidelity to the right power structure seems
accordingly to have been of great importance in deciding the status of religion in the
North.’ Therefore, the Wendish uprising starting in 983 led by Mstivoj, who was a
Christian, had less to do with the ‘pagan resistance’ and more with the refusal to pay the
tribute. A rebellion against the Saxon nobility was a rejection of Christianity. For more
details regarding the Wendish apostasy see Henrik Janson, “What made the pagans
pagans?” in Medieval Christianitas: Different Regions, ‘Faces,’ Approaches, eds. Tsvetelin
Stepanov and Georgi Kazakov (Sofia: “Voenno Izdatelstvo” Publishing House, 2010),
171-91; Henrik Janson, “Pagani and Christiani – Cultural Identity and Exclusion Around
the Baltic in the Early Middle Ages,” in The Reception of Medieval Europe in the Baltic
Sea Region, ed. Jörn Staecker, Acta Visbyensia XII (Visby, 2009), 171-91; Bysted et al,
Jerusalem, 26, 51; Hans-Dietrich Kahl, “Compellere intrare: die Wendenpolitik von
Querfurt im Lichte hochmittelalterlichen Missions- und Völkerrechts,” Zeitschrift für
Ostforschung 4 (1955): 161-93, 360-401.
30 Helmold, The Chronicle of the Slavs by Helmold, Priest of Bosau, ch. I, 16.
31 The Cathars and the Waldensians in southern France and northern Italy were considered
heretics by the Catholic Church. Pope Innocent III attempted to end Catharism by sending
missionaries and by persuading the local nobles to act against them. The failure of these
missions made the papacy launch the Albigensian Crusade which was fairly successful in
ending heresy. For more details about the Cathars and the Crusade against them see Mihai
Dragnea, “Cruciada Albigensă și apariția Inchiziției. Considerații istorice,” Studium VII
(2014): 21-32; Constantin Zamfir, “Fecioara Maria în viziune cathară,” Hiperboreea II, 2
(2013): 4-7 (http://revistahiperboreea.ro/).
32 One Saxon contingent of the 1147 crusaders found themselves besieging the recently
Christianized Stettin, where the Pomeranians had not passed to apostasy. It seems that, in
the spring of 1125, a pagan reaction started in Wollin and Stettin and therefore, a second
mission by Otto of Bamberg was necessary. For more details about the conversion of
Stettin by Otto of Bamberg see Jay T. Lees, “’Why Have You Come with Weapons
Drawn?’ The Leaders of the Wendish Campaign of 1147,” in The Second Crusade: Holy
War on the Periphery of Latin Christendom, eds. Janus Møller Jensen and Jason T. Roche
(Turnhout: Brepols, 2015), 274-75; Friedrich Lotter, “The Crusading Idea and the
13
point of view, the Wendish apostasy was confirmed by a papal bull to Absalon,
bishop of Roskilde. The document was issued in November 1169 by Pope
Alexander III and contains arguments against the Wends in accordance with
Canon Law. There is explicit papal authorization for a crusade against the
Wends because the Danes are fighting a just – defensive – war against the cruel
enemies of Christ. Therefore, their apostasy deserves a divine punishment.33
Marek Tamm believes that ‘if the legal argument that the conversion of
pagans was grounds for a crusade was first employed in the middle of the
twelfth century, with reference to the southern coast of the Baltic, it acquired a
more specific significance and meaning during the conquest of the eastern coast
of the Baltic, at the beginning of the thirteenth century.’ Thus, in his bull issued
in 1197, Pope Celestine III seemed explicitly to emphasize that the Livonian
crusade waged by Christians was necessary for compelling apostates back to
Christendom.34 In the Chronicon Polonorum, written by Vincentius of Cracow
between 1190-1208, the Polish expeditions of Bolesław III “Wrymouth” in 1109
against the Pomeranians, Bolesław IV “the Curly” to Prussia in 1147 and 1166,
and Casimir I “the Just” in 1191-92 against the Sudovians, are all portrayed as
crusading campaigns. The author also describes the Prussians as ‘Saladinistas’,
and clearly favours the use of force against them as apostates to compel them to
accept Christianity.35
Otto III’s campaigns across the Elbe were an attempt to protect the fragile
remains of Christianity among the Wends.36 To be again part of the imperium
Christianum, it was not sufficient to submit to the Saxon dukes and pay tribute.
It was also necessary to submit to the Saxon Church in which they were
integrated in the time of Otto I “the Great” and to which they still belonged. In
the middle of the tenth century, Otto I subdued all Wendish tribes in the area
between the Elbe-Saale in the west, the Erzgebirge (Ore Mountains) in the
south, and the Oder-Bober line in the east. In his Gesta, Adam of Bremen tried
to promote the interests of the archdiocese of Hamburg-Bremen and emphasized
Conquest of the Region East of the Elbe,” in Medieval Frontier Societies, eds. Robert
Bartlett and Angus MacKay (Oxford: Clarendon Press and Oxford University Press, 1989),
279.
33 Niels Henrik Holmqvist-Larsen, “Saxo: On the Peoples beyond the Baltic Sea,” in Saxo and
the Baltic Region. A Symposium, ed. Tore Nyberg (Odense: Syddansk Universitetsforlag,
2004), 87-88.
34 For more details regarding the legal arguments of the Livonian Crusade see Marek Tamm,
“How to justify a crusade? The conquest of Livonia and new crusade rhetoric in the early
thirteenth century,” Journal of Medieval History 39 (2013): 431-55.
35 Vincentius Kadlubek, Ex magistri Vincentii Chronica Polonorum, in MGH, Scriptores 29
(Hannover: Hahn, 1892), IV, 19.
36 Jürgen Petersohn, “König Otto III. und die Slawen an Ostsee, Oder und Elbe um das Jahr
995. Mecklenburgzug – Slavnikidenmassaker – Meißenprivileg”, in Frühmittelalterliche
Studien 37 (2003): 99-139.
14
the conversion of the Wends.37 For Adam it is Christianity that triumphs across
the Elbe rather than the greed and ambition of Saxon lords who seek more land.
This is because he believes that the Saxons should not force pagans to accept
Christianity. As an alternative, Adam suggests that the Wends could be
Christianized if their nobles were Christian.38 Anyway, this idea turned out to be
impossible since the Christian Abodrite King Henry did not dare to Christianize
his Wendish subjects for fear of endangering his rule. Even in Havelberg and
Brandenburg there were Wendish nobles who were Christians, but ruled over a
pagan population.39
Indeed, the Wendish campaign was an action carried out in economic and
political interests, but its character was not an offensive one, at least not for the
Saxons,40 who wanted to reconquer their lands which had been lost after the
Wendish uprising.41 This intention is confirmed by the so called “Magdeburg
37 An alternative history of the archdiocese of Hamburg-Bremen that claims ecclesiastical
authority over the whole northern world (Swedes, Danes and Wends), is the work of Eric
Knibbs, which is based on the less-studied foundation documents of the archdiocese. Eric
Knibbs, Ansgar, Rimbert and the Forged Foundations of Hamburg-Bremen (Farnham:
Ashgate, 2011).
38 Adam mentions a Wendish ruler who was Christian (Prince Gottschalk) and who tried to
convert his people, but he was slain by the pagans who fell into apostasy. Adam von
Bremen, Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum, ed. Bernhard Schmeidler, MGH,
Scriptores rerum Germanicarum in usum scholarum 2, 3rd ed. (Hannover: Hahn, 1918),
III, 50, p. 156.
39 The Wendish count of Havelberg, Meinfrid, who was one of Henry’s governors, was
murdered by the pagans. In Havelberg, in 1136, the sons of a Christian ruler called Witikind,
who were pagans or apostates, destroyed the church in the fortress. It seems that the
Wendish leaders realized that even under German rule they could maintain their social
position by supporting the process of Christianization. Friedrich Lotter, “The Crusading
Idea,” 273, 281, 297.
40 Those who participated in the campaign in 1147 against the Wends were Saxons, Danes,
and Poles. Fonnesberg-Schmidt, The Popes, 25. For the Danish expansion in the Baltic region,
the royal ideology of Valdemar I which follows a pattern for legitimizing warfare
against heathens and the vision of a Danish kingdom with the same glory as the Roman
Empire see Janus Møller Jensen, “Sclavorum expugnator: Conquest, Crusade, and Danish
Royal Ideology in the Twelfth Century,” Crusades, 2 (2003): 55-81; idem, “Denmark and
the Holy War: A Redefinition of a Traditional Pattern of Conflict in the Baltic in the
Twelfth Century,” in Scandinavians and Europe 800-1350: Contact, Conflict, and
Coexistence, ed. Jonathan Adams and Katherine Holman (Turnhout: Brepols, 2004), 219-
36; Bysted et al, Jerusalem, 23-88; Kurt Villads Jensen, “Bring dem Herrn ein blutiges
Opfer. Gewalt und Mission in der dänischen Ostsee-Expansion des 12. und 13. Jahrhunderts,”
in Schwertmission, eds. Kamp and Kroker, 139-58. For the Polish participation in
the Wendish Crusade see Mikołaj Gładysz, The forgotten crusaders: Poland and the
crusader movement in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 67-95.
41 This opinion is also shared by Jay T. Lees who believes that ‘any (Saxon) incursion into
Wendish territory was made with the conviction that the invaders were advancing claims to
what they already considered to be their land.’ Lees, “Why Have You Come with Weapons
Drawn?” 290, 297.
15
letter” from 1107/110842 and also by the late twelfth-century chronicler Helmold
of Bosau, who tells that in the siege of Demmin in 1147, the Saxons complained
that they had made a mistake in attacking the Wends who paid them tribute: ‘Is
not this land which we are devastating our land, the people we are plundering
our people?’43 In this case, it is possible that some of the Wendish tribes
accepted paying the tribute, while most of them refused. This is why the refusal
to pay tribute to the Saxon dukes was a great sign of disobedience for both the
Saxons and the Church. The disobedience of Wends made them become
apostates, and therefore, this action needed a divine punishment.44 This was a
good exercise in the expansion of Christianity along with the Saxon intentions to
grab more land. The combination of Bernard’s persuasiveness and the changing
attitudes toward the Wends and their land created a situation that forced Saxon
dukes to join the campaign in 1147.45 In Bernard’s Frankfurt speech on 12-13
March 1147 there was to be no difference between the spiritual and material
rewards of the crusaders from the Holy Land.46 The initiative carried out by
Bernard was good enough because he was faced with the possibility of
completely losing Saxon support for his campaign against ‘Christendom’s
enemies’. In his attempts to justify the ‘crusade’ against the Wends, Bernard
gives a good example of the combination of divine vengeance and human
justice, following the same biblical rhetoric of St. Paul: ‘God has aroused the
spirit of kings and princes to take vengeance on the heathens and to extirpate
from the earth the enemies of the Christian name.’47 So, this speech suggests that
for Bernard, a crusade against the Wends could be a good opportunity for the
42 Riley-Smith, The Crusades, 76. Friedrich Lotter believes that the Christian intention to
reconquer the whole region east of the Elbe is first attested in the “Magdeburg letter”. See
Lotter, “The Crusading Idea,” 275.
43 Helmold has a critical attitude towards the Saxon material intentions and did not mention
any efforts to convert the Wends. The Chronicle of the Slavs by Helmold, Priest of Bosau,
I, 56-57, 65, pp. 166-69, 180.
44 Friedrich Lotter believes that there is no evidence that Bernard regarded the Wends as
apostates. Lotter, “The Crusading Idea,” 291.
45 Lees, ‘Why Have You Come with Weapons Drawn?’, 276.
46 Some scholars believe that only Bernard and German magnates defined the aim of the
expedition as the conversion of the Wends. Unlike them, Eugen III only supported the
expedition, but he did not initiate it and did not define its purpose as a spiritual aim for
conversion of the pagans. See Fonnesberg-Schmidt, The Popes, 37. Friedrich Lotter
suggests that Eugen promised those fighting against the Wends an analogous remission of
sins, but only on condition that nobody took money from the pagans in exchange for
allowing them to remain infidels. Eugen appointed Bishop Anselm of Havelberg as papal
legate in order to ensure ‘peace and unity’ among the crusaders and to remind them about
the main goal of the crusade: submission of the Wends to the Christian faith. Lotter, “The
Crusading Idea,” 288.
47 ‘Suscitaverit spiritum regum Deus et principum ad faciendam vindictam in nationibus et
extirpandos de terra christiani nominis inimicos.’ Bernard of Clairvaux, ‘Letter 457’ (12-
13 March 1147), Hans-Dietrich Kahl, “Crusade Eschatology as Seen by St. Bernard in the
Years 1146 to 1148,” in The Second Crusade and the Cistercians, ed. Gervers, 42.
16
Saxons to demonstrate their loyalty and win the remission of sins. Therefore, in
his mind, a crusade would have two components: spiritual and military.48
In the medieval period, most of the chroniclers were clerics who used
biblical allusions to authorize human justice when they feared that crusaders
would go to the Holy Land only for their own advantage. In 1147, Bernard tries
to bribe his audience in Frankfurt to go on the campaign against the Wends by
offering them the spiritual rewards granted to those who go to Jerusalem. From
his speech one notices his fear that the Saxons will cross the Elbe only for
material interests (to take money or to collect tribute).49 For that, Bernard tries to
forbid this kind of actions using the same rhetoric for vengeance: ‘We prohibit
completely that a truce be made for any reason with these people [Wends] either
for money or for tribute, until such time as, with the aid of God, either their
religion or their nation shall be destroyed.’50
One can assume that Bernard was familiar with the intention of the Saxon
nobility to seize more land from the Wends. Between 1140 and 1143, some
dozen Saxon noble families pushed into Wagria, built forts, and settled. Among
them were the counts Adolph II of Holstein and his rival, Henry of Badewide.
The first received Wagria and the second some parts of Holstein. New colonists
were brought to clear unsettled areas and increase the revenues of the new Saxon
landlords. With them, bishops like Vicelin of Oldenburg organized missions
among the Wends.51 Later, Count Adolph II secured the colonization by making
friends with the ruler of the Abodrites, Niclot, and his nobble followers.52
Therefore, when he saw in 1147 that Saxon nobles were interested only in
material gains, Bernard tried to convince them that a conversion would be more
important than any material rewards.53 The Cistercian abbot had already
expressed his acceptance of divine vengeance in order to justify a military
campaign against the Muslims after the fall of Edessa. In 1146, in a letter to the
English people, Bernard used a biblical quotation when he urged the protagonists
of the civil war to not kill each other and rather to ‚take vengeance on
the heathen and curb the nations‘ (Psalms 149:7).54
48 Bysted et al, Jerusalem, 48.
49 Lees, “Why Have You Come with Weapons Drawn?” 288-89.
50 ‘Illud enim ommimodis interdicimus, ne qua ratione ineant foedum cum eis, neque pro
pecunia, neque pro tributo, donec, auxiliante Deo, aut ritus ipse, aut natio deleatur.’
Bernard of Clairvaux, ‘Letter 457,’ 42.
51 Eric Christiansen, The Northern Crusades: The Baltic and the Catholic Frontier, 1100-
1525 (London: Penguin, 1980), 50.
52 Lotter, “The Crusading Idea,” 285.
53 Helmold tells that after his participation in the Wendish campaign in 1147, the margrave of
Brandenburg, Albert the Bear brought a large number of ‘Hollanders, Zeelanders and
Flemings’ to colonize the Wendish territory along the Havel and Elbe rivers. Helmold, The
Chronicle of the Slavs, I, 89, pp. 235-36.
54 An English translation of the letter no. 391 we can find in “St. Bernard Seeks English
Participation in the Second Crusade,” in The Crusades: A Documentary Survey, ed. James
A. Brundage (Milwaukee: University of Wisconsin Press, 1962), 91-93; Jonathan P.
17
All issues were fixed one month later after the speech in Frankfurt, when
Eugen III issued his bull where he stated that the Wends need to receive
Christianity by force, through subjugation – ‘eos Christiane religioni
subiugare.’55 In fact, it was a good strategy of Eugen III to reestablish the
spiritual control over the Wends by using vengeance as a primary expression of
God’s judgmental punishment.56 For the papacy it was obvious that the Saxon
loss of Wendish territory meant also a loss for the Church. This is why in 1147
the Crusade was led by many prelates who wanted to re-establish their episcopal
sees across the Elbe.57 Therefore, the military campaign against the Wends was
sanctioned by the pope, who created an alliance between the ecclesiastical and
secular authorities. War against pagans was now waged for a just cause (bellum
iustum) and Christendom could be expanded. The papacy tried to justify the
crusades by using the Augustinian ‘just war’-theory (bellum iustum), which
allowed for violence in response to injury, as a means of self-defense war. At the
end of the eleventh century, Pope Gregory VII (1073-1085) had fixed the idea of
a „holy war“ (bellum sacrum). In his texts, Gregory VII had begun to use the
term “militia Christi” – the soldiers of Christ – to encourage the use of knights
to fight in defending the rights of the Church against its enemies.
Yael Katzir believes that the Gregorian Reform movement was affected
by the First Crusade by transforming the Gregorian concept of Ecclesia. This
legislation originates from Carolingian theologians, who developed a theory of
Ecclesia that saw the papacy and the emperor as the supreme officials of two
parallel hierarchies (clerical and lay). In the mid-eleventh century, however, the
Gregorian reformers began to attack this theory, by trying to assume that
Ecclesia comprised only the clergy, and that the laity were just passive
communicants within it. With the First Crusade, ‘a new structure emerged in the
Latin West: a purely clerical Ecclesia surrounded by, and forming part of, a
larger Christian society that some contemporaries called Christianitas.’ By
participating actively in the First Crusade, the laity was able to play an essential
role within Christendom. This is why at Clermont, the call for the liberation of
Jerusalem from infidels was the main task for the new militia.58
Phillips, The Second Crusade: Extending the Frontiers of Christendom (New Haven and
London: Yale University Press, 2007), 73.
55 ‘Quidam etiam ex vobis tam sancti laboris et premii participes fieri cupientes contra
Sclavos ceterosque paganos habitantes versus aquilonem ire et eos Christiane religioni
subiugare Domino auxiliante intendunt.’ Divina dispensatione II (11 April 1147); Kahl,
“Crusade Eschatology,” 43-44.
56 In the Old Testament and also the New Testament, only God claims the right to vengeance.
See Psalms 94:1, 149:7; Deuteronomy 32:35, cf. Romans 12:19; Hebrews 10:30.
57 Lees, “Why Have You Come with Weapons Drawn?” 294.
58 Between the late 1120s and the early 1140s, the idea of the Church’s coercive power was
decisively linked with crusading. For more details about the evolution of the institution of
crusades see Yael Katzir, “The Second Crusade and the Redefinition of Ecclesia,
Christianitas and Papal Coercive Power,” in The Second Crusade and the Cistercians, ed.
Gervers, 3-11.
18
In the eyes of the papacy, the First Crusade was a war of reconquest, and
not an offensive campaign against the pagans. In a letter sent to Pope Urban II in
1098, after they had conquered Antioch in Syria, the leaders of the First Crusade
wrote that they had fought against Turks and pagans, and not against heretics
and asked Urban to eradicate all heresies.59 Both popes directed the soldier
profession to ecclesiastical ends which became the Christian knighthood,
obedient to the papacy. Therefore, the salvation could come through its
weapons. At the end of the eleventh century, Bishop Anselm of Lucca in his
collection of canon laws rediscovered and gathered the Augustinian texts
regarding the bellum iustum theory for the first time. Augustinian texts about the
just war theory appear only in some canonical collections after Anselm of
Lucca; they rarely appear in the papal letters, sermons, chronicles, and popular
literature of the crusade period. Therefore, in the ninth, tenth and early eleventh
century, popes had no unified theory on warfare and this is why they waged
aggressive warfare against anyone who stood against their policy, one in which
personal survival was the most important thing. The reform papacy from Leo IX
onwards extended warfare ideology by using scriptural imagery to show the
juridical influence of a just war theory. In this rhetoric, divine vengeance can be
used by the Christians in order to fight with enemies of Christianity. This
situation created a type of institutionalized warfare that distinguished crusades
from the holy wars of earlier ages.60 Therefore, Augustine’s theory had allowed
the use of force in ‘winning back’ the former Christians (heretics and apostates)
to justify a crusade. For Augustine, the just war theory is based on divine
vengeance, because ‘wars are usually called just which avenge wrongs, when a
nation or a state has to be punished for refusing to make amends for unlawful
deeds done by its citizens, or to restore what has been wrongfully carried off.’61
Thus, for the First Crusade, the papacy had no interest in converting Muslims.62
59 Jonathan Riley-Smith, What Were the Crusades? (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002),
10.
60 John Gilchrist believes that this theory of war widespread much later in the ninth century
within the Carolingian state, because ‚from the fifth to the eighth century, given the special
conditions in the West, the Augustinian doctrine of the just war could not take root. In the
disorder created by successive waves of Germanic invasion and settlement, the Church
viewed the profession of arms with suspicion; it forbade clerics to fight or bear arms, and
imposed penance upon soldiers for killing in battle‘. For more details about the evolution of
the ‘just war’-theory of Augustine see John Gilchrist, “The Papacy and War against the
‘Saracens’, 795-1216,” The International History Review 10 (1988): 174-97.
61 ‚Iusta autem bella ea definiri solent, quae ulciscuntur iniurias, si qua gens vel civitas, quae
bello petenda est, vel vindicare neglexerit quod a suis improbe factum est, vel reddere
quod per iniurias ablatum est.’ Questionum in Heptateuchum, ch. VI, 10; Raymond H.
Schmandt, “The Fourth Crusade and the Just-War Theory,” Catholic Historical Review 61
(1975): 199.
62 For more information regarding the ‚just war‘ theory see John R. E. Bliese, “The Just War as
Concept and Motive in the Central Middle Ages,” Medievalia et Humanistica 17 (1991):
1-26; Brand, “The Fourth Crusade: Some Recent Interpretations,” Medievalia et Human19
It seems that Augustine’s interpretation about the war gave theological
justification to the action advocated by Bernard of Clairvaux and by Vincentius
of Cracow who stated that Bolesław IV was therefore obligated to assure the
Prussians’ salvation by ‘compelling them’ to undergo baptism.63 Also, the
Wends could be saved through a forced conversion, which works as a ‘moral
agency’. Bernard sought to reconcile the holy war theory by setting limits on
ecclesiastical powers to initiate warfare. The responsibility to initiate a crusade
was morally proper for the papacy and perhaps for other bishops, but it was
quite improper for clerics. Later, Bernard would see a model for the collective
identity of the crusading army in the monastic community. This concept of
knighthood made the new crusaders dedicated to sacred violence and therefore,
forms the central theme of Bernard’s treatise on the Templars. Crusaders, after
all, took vows as monks did.64
This idea of salvation through forced conversion is also emphasized by
the bishop of Havelberg, Anselm, who participated in the campaign of 1147 as a
papal legate. Therefore, Pegatha Taylor believes that ‘the Wendish Crusade
borrowed from existing traditions of holy war, therefore, its object was not
solely to defend Christian lands or even to force a ruler and his subjects to
submit to Christian rule. Rather, it aimed to reform spiritually both of the
societies involved.’65 For the papacy, it was the mere denial of the Christian
faith which made Bernard of Clairvaux ask for divine vengeance as the only
option available; thus, the forced conversion acted as divine will which became
human justice for the Saxon dukes.
Nicholas Morton suggests that ‘the memory of the Maccabees and other
Old Testament exemplars played an important role in shaping the idea of
crusading and its subsequent evolution to encompass new frontiers in the Baltic
and Iberia, as well as structural developments in crusading, such as the establishment
of the military orders.’66 In the two books of Maccabees one finds
patterns relied on the wars fought by the Maccabees in the name of God against
istica 12 (1984): 33-46; Jill N. Claster, Sacred Violence: The European Crusades to the
Middle East, 1095-1396 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009), 36-37; Frederick H.
Russell, The Just War in the Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977),
16-39.
63 Darius von Güttner-Sporzyński, “Constructing memory: holy war in the Chronicle of the
Poles by Bishop Vincentius of Cracow,” Journal of Medieval History. 40 (2014): 284.
64 For more details about the juristic concepts of Bernard of Clairvaux on crusade ideology
see James Brundage, “St. Bernard and the Jurists,” in The Second Crusade and the
Cistercians, ed. Gervers, 25-33.
65 For more details regarding the forced conversion of the Wends in the eyes of Anselm of
Havelberg see Pegatha Taylor, “Moral Agency in Crusade and Colonization: Anselm of
Havelberg and the Wendish Crusade of 1147,” The International History Review 22
(2000): 757-84.
66 For more details about the Maccabaean ideas in sources concerning the Crusades and divine
vengeance see Nicholas Morton, “The defence of the Holy Land and the memory of the
Maccabees,” Journal of Medieval History 36 (2010): 275-93.
20
the unbelievers.67 In the Wendish question one finds a close association between
missions and defensive war against those who directly threatened Christendom.
This suggests that there was no alternative to the use of force in order to crush
those who refused to accept the conversion. For Helmold, the Wends are
compared to the Amorites who were defeated by the Maccabees and the people
of Israel (Saxons) as a result of divine vengeance.68 In this way, the Saxons
could wage a defensive war69 to take back their territories, as crusaders did in
the Holy Land. Bernard of Clairvaux used the same rhetoric in 1146, when he
accepted a Muslim conversion as a merely hypothetical possibility. Thus,
Bernard states that if the Muslims were subdued to Christian rule, as the Jews
are, the Christians would wait for their conversion, but Muslims attacked the
Christians and therefore had to be subdued.70 This happened in 1147 when the
two Saxon armies who fought against the Wends were accompanied by many
clerics who tried to achieve conversion by force.71
The idea of forced conversion and mission by the sword has provoked
much debate among modern historians. As we have shown, this action is a result
of God’s vengeance upon the Wendish apostasy. Even if forced baptism was
forbidden by both canon law and theology, there are previous examples which
go back to the end of the eighth century consisting of Charlemagne’s intention to
subdue the Saxons who were accused of apostasy. Thus, for Charlemagne, the
Saxons72 had no choice but to accept baptism ‘preached with the iron tongue’. In
67 ‘And Simon answered him, and said to him: We have neither taken other men’s land,
neither do we hold that which is other men’s, but the inheritance of our fathers, which was
for some time unjustly possessed by our enemies.’ 1 Maccabees 15:33. In the letters of the
popes from the twelfth century addressed to the military order of the Templars, the knights
are called ‘the true Israelites,’ ‘the new Maccabites’ or ‘the athletes of Christ.’ See
Gilchrist, „The Papacy and War against the ‘Saracens’,” 193-94.
68 The Chronicle of the Slavs, ch. I, 22, 34, 64.
69 Bysted et al., Jerusalem, 52.
70 Benjamin Z. Kedar, Crusade and Mission: European Approaches Toward the Muslims
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014), 60-61; Fonnesberg-Schmidt, The Popes, 32-
33.
71 The spiritual leaders of the two Saxon armies were clerics like Archbishop Adalbero of
Bremen, Archbishop Frederick of Magdeburg, Bishop Anselm of Havelberg (papal legate),
Bishop Thietmar of Verden, Bishop Wigger of Brandenburg, Reinhard of Merseburg,
Abbot Wibald of Corvey, Stavelot and Hartwig, the cathedral provost of Bremen. The
archbishopric of Bremen had claimed the legal jurisdiction in the Wendish territory since
the reign of Otto I, so this is why bishops like Vicelin were sent by Adalbero of Bremen to
preach among the pagans. Lees, “Why Have You Come with Weapons Drawn?” 289, 296.
72 Linda Kaljundi believes that ‘the genealogy of the Northern pagan barbarians goes back to
the tradition about the Saxon wars. It draws on the hagiographic sources about the early
missions to Germania and Scandinavia, and on the annals of monasteries that tell about the
persecution of Christians during the Viking assaults, which relied in biblical tradition and
gave many models for depicting the ferocity and cruelty of our enemies’. Linda Kaljundi,
“Waiting for the Barbarians: Reconstruction of Otherness in the Saxon Missionary and
21
his eyes, the resistance of the Saxons which had undergone baptism and signed a
treaty of allegiance amounted to political high treason and religious apostasy.73
It seems that each and every act of misconduct mentioned in the Annals of
Lorsch is listed in the Capitulatio de partibus Saxoniae as a capital crime.
Yitzhak Hen suggests that ‘the Capitulatio de partibus Saxoniae was issued
around 795 in order to pave the way for Charlemagne’s final attack and for the
mass deportation of Saxons from their homes’. Thus, Charlemagne’s Capitulatio
seems to have no precedent in the history of Christian mission where we could
not find any attempts to convert by force which reached the level of
legislation.74 Two centuries later, the military campaigns of the Ottonians
(Saxon dynasty) into the Wendish territory, pursued from the tenth century
onward, used the same method of conversion, which could have been inspired
by Charlemagne.75 In his sermon from Clermont in 1095, Urban II praised the
Franks because of the glory and greatness of Charlemagne who destroyed the
kingdoms of pagans. The example of Charlemagne’s forced baptism could also
be found in the Gesta Francorum of Robert the Monk.76
Another example of forced conversion is the missionary expedition led by
the German Bishop Otto of Bamberg. This missionary enterprise from 1124
included both German and Polish soldiers, but its composition was clerical
(German monks from Otto’s monasteries and Polish chaplains). Before this
missionary enterprise, in 1121, the Polish Duke Bolesław III made an expedition
to Stettin and west of the Oder in order to subdue the Wends and to ensure the
religious assimilation of his new tributaries. The conquest paved the way for the
Christianization of Pomerania by Bishop Otto of Bamberg sent by Bolesław to
Crusading Chronicles, 11th–13th Centuries,” in The Medieval Chronicle, ed. Erik Kooper,
(Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2008), 113-27, 118-19.
73 The Saxon rebellion against the Church, its members and also the apostasy are mentioned
in the Annals of Lorsch: ‘quasi canis revertit ad vomitum suum, sic reversi sunt ad
paganismum quem pridem respuerant, … conati sunt in primis rebellare contra Deum,
deinde contra regem et christianos; omnes ecclesias que in finibus eorum errant, cum
destructione et incendio vastabant, reiicientes episcopos et presbyteros qui super eos
erant, et aliqos comprehenderunt, nec non et alios occiderunt, et plenissime se ad culturam
idolorum converterunt.’ Annales Laureshamenses, ed. Georg Heinrich Pertz, in MGH,
Scriptores 1 (Hannover: Hahn, 1826), 35 (792).
74 All the eighth canon of the Capitulatio does not leave much choice to the Saxons in order
to avoid the baptism. Before the Capitulatio was issued, in October 782, at Verden, more
than 4,500 Saxon rebels were beheaded in one day at the order of Charlemagne. Yitzhak
Hen, “Charlemagne’s Jihad,” Viator 37 (2006), 34, 38-39, 47.
75 Kedar, Crusade and Mission, 68; Matthias Becher, “Der Prediger mit eiserner Zunge. Die
Unterwerfung und Christianisierung der Sachsen durch Karl den Großen,” in Schwertmission,
eds. Kamp and Kroker, 23-52; Hen, “Charlemagne’s Jihad,” 33-51.
76 Robert the Monk’s Historia Iherosolimitana is a prose chronicle describing the First
Crusade. The importance of this chronicle relies on the fact that Robert claims to have been
an eyewitness of the Council of Clermont in 1095. Georg Strack, “The Sermon of Urban II
in Clermont and the Tradition of Papal Oratory,” Medieval Sermon Studies 56 (2012): 35-
36.
22
baptize the pagans.77 After the departure of the missionaries led by the German
bishop, who left behind them only a few priests and a neophyte community, a
serious apostasy quickly followed supported by the pagan priests. They led
attacks on churches, threatened Bishop Otto with spears and set ambushes for
him. The opposition to the missionaries was, naturally, led by the men most
closely identified with paganism. Thus, a second missionary expedition by Otto
of Bamberg took place in 1128 before a Christian community and an ecclesiastical
organization was permanently established in Pomerania. Robert Bartlett
believes that the radical conversion of Pomerania implies some fundamental
changes. For the Wends, loyalty to their own gods and hostility to other gods
was part of defending their community which overrode loyalty to the prince.
This identification had been heightened by the opposition between Wendish
paganism and Pomerania’s nearest Christian neighbor and enemy, Poland.
The military campaigns of Bolesław III “Wrymouth” in Pomerania are
represented as wars of conversion not only by Vincentius of Cracow, but also by
“Gallus Anonymus,” Poland’s first chronicler. In his Gesta Principum
Polonorum, Gallus suggests that these holy wars had a just cause because they
were a response to Pomeranian pillaging raids and incursions into Poland. Also,
the author describes the apostasy of the pagan leaders and the attempts of the
Polish dukes to maintain Christianity among these pagans living nearby: ‘On the
Northern Sea, [Poland] has as neighbors three most savage nations of pagan
barbarians, Selencia, Pomerania, and Prussia, and the duke of the Poles is
constantly at war with these countries, fighting to convert them to the faith. But
neither has the sword of preaching been able to sway their hearts from
faithlessness, nor the sword at their throats wipe out this generation of vipers in
its entirety. Yet often their leaders, when defeated in battle by the Polish duke,
have taken refuge in baptism, only to deny the Christian faith when they
recovered their strength and took up arms afresh against the Christians’.78
Starting with Mieszko I, the Piast dynasty became a pillar of the Church
and facilitated deeper Christianization of the Poles and other pagan neighbors by
supporting the foundation of abbeys, churches and monasteries. As a reward, the
Church legitimized the authority of the dynasty (divine sacrum), declaring the
Piasts to be the domini naturales of Poland. By the beginning of the twelfth
century, under the first Piast rulers, the Church and the court adopted Latin as
the official language. This action opened new communication channels between
the Polish elites and Christendom, which led to a crusade ideology being
introduced among Polish clergy. The ideals of canonists such as Anselm of
77 For more details about the monastic reforms carried out by Otto and his missionary activity
in the eyes of hagiographers see Mihai Dragnea, “Otto din Bamberg: Reformă Monastică și
Misiune Apostolică,” in Timp, societate și identitate culturală. “Miniaturi” istorice, eds.
Ileana Căzan and Bogdan Mateescu (Cluj-Napoca: Academia Română, 2015), 25-48.
78 Gesta principum Polonorum: The Deeds of the Princes of the Poles, ed. and trans. Paul W.
Knoll and Frank Schaer (Budapest and New York: Central European University Press,
2003), 12.
23
Lucca (1036-1086), Bonizo of Sturi (1045-1090), and Ivo of Chartres (1040-
1115) had provided particular legitimacy for the theory of just war and
crusading ideology. In the twelfth century, the inventory of the library of the
cathedral school in Kraków indicates that the works of these canonists were
available to the Polish clergy.
The holy wars waged by the Polish ruler Bolesław III against the
Pomeranians and by his successors against the Prussians are an example of the
close cooperation between the Church and the Piasts. In order to subdue the
Prussian tribes, the Piasts copied the ideology and methods of conversion from
Otto of Bamberg (Apostle of Pomerania). Among the “architects” of the
conquest and Christianization of Pomerania were prelates such as Chancellor
Michael Adwaniec, Archbishop Jakub of Żnin, Wojciech (Bolesław III’s
chaplain and later bishop of Pomerania during the Wendish Crusade), and
Bishop Alexander of Płock.79
For the Pomeranian society, ‘this conversion represented a wrench
because it meant a reorientation in so many everyday habits and responses.’
Some examples are ‘kinship patterns’ and ‘perception of time’. Thus, for Bishop
Otto of Bamberg, his missions were attempts ‘to bring the Pomeranian family
into line with the Christian ideal’ by using two powerful instruments of
persuasion and control. In order to succeed, a precondition of Otto’s mission
was the first and most important tactic: physical violence. For the Christians,
fierceness was more than necessary. The fear of Polish reprisals made the
Wends see Otto as a preacher, and not as a warrior. Therefore, he could act like
a mediator between the Wends and the Polish armies. The only solution not to
be punished was the acceptance of Christianity. In this way, Otto could protect
them and bring peace to Pomerania.80
A Danish perspective of forced conversion is offered by Saxo Grammaticus.
In his Gesta Danorum, Saxo tries to convince his audience that the
Rugians (a Wendish tribe from Rügen island), might only pretend to have
become good Christians after they accepted forced baptism without protest.
Saxo tells that the Rugians, after their defeat to the Danish forces of King Erik
79 Regarding the forced conversion used by the Piasts, the author believes that according to
Gallus Anonymus, the pagans sought baptism as a self-preservation measure under threat
of death. Therefore, ‘their adherence to the Christian faith was short lived and as soon as
the immediate danger of the retribution from Christian rulers had passed they rejected their
forcibly acquired religion.’ For more details about the expansionary policy of the Piast
dynasty, their holy wars against the pagans and their cooperation with the Church see
Darius von Güttner Sporzynski, “Poland and the Papacy Before the Second Crusade,” in
La Papauté et les croisades/The Papacy and the Crusades: actes du VIIe congrès de la
society for the study of the crusades and the Latin East/ Proceedings of the VIIth
conference of the Society for the Crusades and the Latin East, ed. Michel Balard (Farnham:
Ashgate, 2011), 255-68.
80 For more details about the conversion of Pomerania see Robert Bartlett, “The Conversion
of a Pagan Society in the Middle Ages,” History 70 (1985): 185-201.
24
Emune in the 1130s,81 ‘they ordered to accept the solemn ritual of immersion,
but they went to the pool rather to quench their thirst, than from zeal to enter the
faith, and refreshed their weary bodies by pretending to undergo the holy rites.’
In Saxo’s mind, this false acceptance of Christianity was the reason for their
apostasy, because later the Rugians ‘cast off their feelings for the hostages they
had given, turned again to their old idolatry, and betrayed the divine truth which
they had accepted.’82 Whether or not the Rugians really believed in Christ, their
public immersion in water demonstrated their submission to the Christian
Danes.83 If, for the Church, the apostasy could be a reason for divine retribution,
for the Danes, the imminent danger from the Wends was a physical one. According
to Saxo, the Wends were pirates who pillaged Danish shores and in the
twelfth century had become a huge threat for the Danes. This danger clearly
justified the use of violence and cruelty.84 In this sense, Saxo tells that the
slaying of Wends was believed to be pleasing to God, since a Dane called Eskil
‘followed on foot after one of them who was fleeing as fast as he could go,
unarmed, across the parts that were marsh; and while the feet of the Slav sank
down into the soft mud, Eskillus ran on with ease, unencumbered either by the
slime of the marsh or by the weight of his armour. And having caught the
barbarian, he cut off his head… This deed, which deserves our pious admiration,
was performed not by the agility of his feet, but by the grace of God, and we
should ascribe it to a heavenly miracle, rather than to manly courage.’85 Even
when the Bishop of Roskilde, Absalon, had to interrupt his divine service during
a campaign to resume fighting, he did so willingly because ‘what kind of
81 During the 1120s, Duke Canute (Knud) Lavard had secured a considerable extension of his
lands east of the Elbe. He was appointed as ruler over the Abodrites by the German King
Lothar and, because of that, became a serious rival for the Danish throne. In Saxo’s eyes,
despite the struggle for the Danish throne, one common enemy (the Wends) was able to
unite all competitors. For more details see Lars Hermanson, “Saxo and the Baltic. Danish
Baltic-sea Policies at the End of King Niels‘ reign, 1128-1134. Foreign Policy or Domestic
Affairs?” in Saxo and the Baltic Region, ed. Nyberg, 105-13.
82 Saxo Grammaticus: Danorum Regum Heroumque Historia, Books X-XVI, ed. Eric Christiansen
(Oxford: BAR, 1981), XIV, 1.
83 For more details regarding the ritualization practices and manipulation in the Gesta
Danorum of Saxo Grammaticus see Kim Esmark, “Just Rituals: Masquerade, Manipulation,
and Officializing Strategies in Saxo’s Gesta Danorum,” in Rituals, Performatives,
and Political Order in Northern Europe, c. 650–1350, eds. W. Jezierski et al. (Turnhout:
Brepols, 2015), 237-67.
84 For the relations between Danes and other peoples around the Baltic Sea Kurt Villads
Jensen, „The Blue Baltic Border of Denmark in the High Middle Ages: Danes, Wends and
Saxo Grammaticus“, in Medieval Frontiers: Concepts and Practices, eds. David Abulafia
and Nora Berend (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002), 173-93.
85 Saxo Grammaticus: Danorum Regum Heroumque Historia, XIV, 32. For Saxo Grammaticus,
the opposition between Danes and Wends made him designate all the peoples of
the Baltic region as barbari. The Northern region (aquilo) played no role in Saxo’s Gesta
Danorum.
25
sacrifice could we consider more pleasing to the Almighty than the slaughter of
wicked man?’86
In conclusion, I can emphasize that the institutional religion had rejected
vindication as usurpation of right that is God’s, yet clerics approved God’s
vengeance when it served his purpose and was carried out by his human agents.
The objects of God’s wrath were always human beings, but ‘other’ people, like
pagans, could be enemies. Therefore, divine vengeance could be exacted by
Christian believers who thought to be on a mission of God.
From the primary sources we find out that for the Saxons, their wishful
vengeance must have been requests for divine vengeance, otherwise it would
have been considered a sin. This action had to be authorized by the pope, who
sought to legally and morally justify the war against the Wends as a real
crusade. Therefore, God’s vengeance was the expression of a legal justice, like a
’sanctified law‘; a punishment for the Wends’ apostasy. Thus, a crusade against
the Wends became an institutionalized warfare which could follow the
lineaments of the Augustinian ‚just war‘ theory.
Analyzing the vocabulary of vengeance, I noticed that the perception of
God and his divine justice in punishing the ‘enemies of Christ’ was the pillar of
the “holy war”-ideology which was carried out also in 1147. At the same time,
the Wendish Crusade marked further development of the institution of crusades.
Therefore, it can be concluded that vengeance was a tool of both divine and
human justice, and it had an important position within the twelfth-century
Christendom. The equality between these two components also influenced the
strengthening of the link between human vengeance and justice, which was
often represented as being divinely inspired.
86 Saxo Grammaticus: Danorum Regum Heroumque Historia, XVI, 5.
26
Appendix: Vocabulary of Vengeance and Human Justice
Source Latin English
The letter of
Paschal II (1100)
‘Christianus populus… a
barbarorum tyrannide et iugo
strenuissime vindicavit
atque plagas illas, lesu
Christi sanguine et
praestantia sanctificatas,
pristino cultu, maiestati
decori atque venerationi’.
‘The Christian people…most
strenuously avenged
[Jerusalem] for the tyranny
and yoke of the barbarians
and, with God helping,
restored those regions,
sanctified by the blood and
presence of Jesus Christ, to
their former refinement and
majesty with adornment and
veneration’.
The Magdeburg
letter (1108)
‘Qui Gallos ab extremo
occidente progressos in
brachio virtutis sue contra
inimicos suos in remotissimo
triumphavit Oriente, ipse
tribuat vobis voluntatem et
potentiam hos affines et
inhumanissimos gentiles
subjugare et in omnibus
bene prosperari’.
‘May he who with the
strength of his arm led the
men of Gaul on their march
from the far West in triumph
against his enemies in the
farthest East give you the
will and power to conquer
(subjugate) those most
inhuman gentiles who are
near by and to prosper well
in all things’.
The Magdeburg
letter (1108)
‘Sanctificate bellum,
suscitate robustes. Surgite
principes, contra inimicos
Christi arripite clypeos…
Erumpite et venite omnes
araatores Christi et ecclesie,
et sicut Galli ad liberationem
Hierusalem vos preparate’.
‘Prepare holy war, rouse up
the strong. Arise, princes,
take up your shields against
the enemies of Christ…
Sally forth and come, all
lovers of Christ and the
Church, and prepare yourself
just as did the men of Gaul
for the liberation of
Jerusalem’.
Letter of Bernard of
Clairvaux to
England to
Summon the
Second Crusade
(1146)
(Psalms 149: 7)
‘Ad faciendam vindictam in
gentibus increpationes in
populis’.
‘To take vengeance on the
heathen (nations), and curb
the nations’.
27
Bernard of
Clairvaux, ‘Letter
457’ (12-13 March
1147)
‘Suscitaverit spiritum regum
Deus et principum ad
faciendam vindictam in
nationibus et extirpandos de
terra christiani nominis
inimicos’.
‘God has aroused the spirit
of kings and princes to take
vengeance on the heathens
and to extirpate from the
earth the enemies of the
Christian name’.
Bernard of
Clairvaux, ‘Letter
457’, (12-13 March
1147)
‘Illud enim ommimodis
interdicimus, ne qua ratione
ineant foedum cum eis,
neque pro pecunia, neque pro
tributo, donec, auxiliante
Deo, aut ritus ipse, aut
natio deleatur’.
‚We prohibit completely that
a truce be made for any
reason with these people
[Wends] either for money or
for tribute, until such time
as, with the aid of God,
either their religion or their
nation shall be destroyed’.
Papal bull
Divina
dispensatione II
(11 April 1147)
‘Quidam etiam ex vobis tam
sancti laboris et premii
participes fieri cupientes
contra Sclavos ceterosque
paganos habitantes versus
aquilonem ire et eos
Christiane religioni
subiugare Domino
auxiliante intendunt’.
‚Certain of you, however,
[are] desirous of
participating in so holy a
work and reward and plan to
go against the Slavs and
other pagans living towards
the north and to subjugate
them, with the Lord’s
assistance, to the Christian
religion‘.