Torben Kjersgaard Nielsen, Aalborg University

VIRGIN MARY FOR THE SAKE OF LIVONIA - NATURE AND IMAGE OF THE VIRGIN MARY IN THE CHRONICLE OF HENRY BY TORBEN KJERSGAARD NIELSEN, AALBORG UNIVERSITY

PAPER READ AT THE CONCILIUM LATERANENSE IV. COMMEMORATING THE OCTOCENTENARY OF THE FOURTH LATERAN COUNCIL OF 1215, NOVEMBER 2015

This paper deals with the ways in which the figure of the Virgin Mary was adopted and put to use in the Baltic crusades as these are related in the chronicle of Henry of Livonia. In the second part of my paper, I shall then seek a tentative answer to the question of how such adoption of the Virgin would possibly have been received by the crusader pope par excellence, Innocent III.

I will start by relating one of the incidents in Henry’s chronicle in which the Virgin plays an essential role in the unfolding of events. I hope with this to also present at least an impression of the crusading warfare that formed the backdrop to Henry’s writing and thus also informed his appropriations of the Mother of God.1 First, however, it is necessary to offer some basic information on Henry’s chronicle.

It is written in the 1220ies as probably the earliest piece of Christian literature to be produced in the Baltic. The chronicle covers the Christian warfare and mission to Livonia and Estonia from 1184 until 1227. Its author came to Livonia around 1205 as a young priest to serve under the third bishop to the region, Albert of Riga. Henry was probably born around 1180. It is likely that his

1 Crusading and Chronicle Writing on the Medieval Baltic Frontier. A Companion to the Chronicle of Henry of Livonia, ed. Marek Tamm, Linda Kaljundi and Carsten Selch Jensen (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2011) will be an indispensable tool in future research into Henry and his chronicle. ecclesiastical training and his spiritual outlook were established in the Augustinian convent of canons-regular at Segeberg.2 Consecrated in 1198, Albert von Buxthövden, a canon from Bremen, had arrived in Livonia in 1200 with a fleet of twentythree ships3 and soon established himself firmly.4 Occasional papal crusading bulls buttressed Albert’s efforts to convert and subdue the pagan tribes of Livonia and Estonia, often in direct competition with other crusading powers in the region.5 Henry’s chronicle is first and foremost the history of Albert and the city of Riga and its missions.6

In the summer of 1215 a band of travellers embarked from Riga in nine cogs. At least some of the travellers would surely have been looking forward with pleasure to be reunited with family and friends when revisiting their homes in

2 Cf. the biographical arguments put forward in James A. Brundage, ”Introduction: Henry of Livonia, The Writer and His Chronicle”, in Crusading and Chronicle Writing p. 1-19, especially p. 1-7. See also Vilis Biļķins, ”Die Autoren der Kreuzzugszeit und das deutsche Milieu Livlands und Preussens”, Acta Baltica 14 (1975), 231-54 and Paul Johansen, ”Die Chronik als Biographie: Heinrich von Lettlands Lebensgang und Weltanschauung’, Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas N.S. 1 (1953), 1-24. Knowledge of Henry’s biography must be deduced from his chronicle alone, and it is wise to be aware that some of the allegedly biographical details discussed in the literature listed above are somewhat speculative. 3 Heinrici Chronicon Livoniae. Editionis quam paraverant L. Arbusow et A. Bauer textum denuo imprimendum curavit Albertus Bauer (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellsschaft, 1959) IV, 1 p. 16. English translation in James Brundage, trans., The Chronicle of Henry of Livonia, 2. ed. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003). References below will be given as Heinrici Chronicon Livoniae and Henry of Livonia respectively with the numbers of chapters, subchapters and pages. 4 The first bishop to the region, the Augustinian monk Meinhard, arrived from Saxony in Germany around 1184 and soon established a church in Üxküll (Latv. Ikšķile). Before Meinhard, German merchants to the area may have brought their own priests along. When Meinhard died in 1196 he was replaced by Bertold, a Cistercian abbot from Loccum who was killed in a pagan attack only two years after his arrival. Cf. Gisela Gnegel- Waitschies, Bischof Albert von Riga. Ein Bremer Domherr als Kirchenfürst im Osten (1199-1229) (Hamburg: A. F. Velmede Verlag, 1958). 5 For a thorough analysis of the relationship between the Baltic and the papacy, see Iben Fonnesberg-Schmidt, The Popes and the Baltic Crusades 1147-1254 (Leiden: Brill, 2007) 6 Cf. Henry of Livonia p. 237. Heinrici Chronicon Livoniae XXIX, 9, p. 326: “Et ne laus eadem sibi de factis tam gloriosis debita per negligenciam pigrorum oblivioni in posterum traderetur, placuit eam rogatu dominorum et sociorum humili scriptura conscribere et posteris relinquere, ut et ipsi laudem Deo tribuant et ponant in eo spem suam et non obliviscantur operum Dei et mandata eius exquirant.” Henry’s exordial topos here is obviously quite traditional, even if placed at the near end of his text. northern Germany after having served a year of military pilgrimage on the crusading frontier in Livonia under the command of Bishop Albert. Others in the company, like the two bishops Philip of Ratzeburg and Theoderich of Estonia, hoped to be able to travel further. Philip had been in Livonia since 1211, when he was hand picked by bishop Albert of Riga in his search through the Northern parts of Germany for new pilgrims and military assistance to his bishopric in Livonia. Philip arrived in Livonia in 1210, and he would perhaps have preferred to return to Germany after the ordinary one-year-pilgrimage/military service. He was hindered in doing so by the sentence of excommunication put upon Otto IV on November 18, 1210 and because of his former associations with the excommunicated emperor.7 Theoderich, the former abbot the Cistercian monastery at Dünamünde outside Riga was named bishop of Estonia in 1211 by Albert of Riga, with the promise that a province would soon be established for him from the conquests to be awaited from the military strengths in the bishop of Riga.8

At least one of the two bishops would eventually make it to Rome to join the Fourth Lateran Council.

Tensions were high at the time of departure. Since Easter of that same year, the German crusaders based in Riga had been engaged in a full-fledged war against neighbouring pagan tribes, who had formed yet another alliance to rout the German camp. To no avail, however: Many of the pagan armies that had assembled for battle eventually fled from the German strength, only to find themselves haunted down by the retaliating Germans and their Lett allies.9

7 Philip had been ‘among the chief men at the court of the emperor’. Henry of Livonia p. 120; Heinrici Chronicon Livoniae XV, 12. 8 Heinrici Chronicon Livoniae XV, 4. 9 Heinrici Chronicon Livoniae XIX, 1. Henry’s account of the events from spring and early summer of 1215 is in fact an account of the crusading warfare in the Baltic - en miniature. So, please, allow me a lengthy quote just to give an impression of the scenery:

/…/ Rameke and Drivinalde, the sons of Thalibald,10 seeing that their father was dead, were greatly angered at the Esthonians. They and their friends and relatives collected an army of Letts, and the Brothers of the Militia from Wenden and other Germans went with them. They entered Ungannia, despoiled all the villages, and delivered them to the flames. They burned alive all the men they could capture /…/ They took them out of the forests and killed them and took the women and the children away as captives. They drove off the horses and flocks, took many spoils, and returned to their own land. As they returned, other Letts again met them on the road and they marched into Ungannia. What the former had neglected, the latter performed. / …/ Some they burned, while they cut the throats of others. They inflicted various tortures upon them, until the Esthonians showed them all their money and until they led them to all the hiding places of the woods and delivered the women and children into their hands. /…/ They did not have any rest themselves, until during that same summer, devastating the land with nine armies, they made it so deserted and desolate that now neither men nor food were found there. Their aim was to fight long enough so that either those who were left would come to seek peace and baptism or they would be

10 A neophyte leader martyred by the pagans: ‘they roasted him like a fish, until he gave up his spirit and died’. Henry of Livonia p. 144; Heinrici Chronicon Livoniae CL XIX,3. completely wiped out from the earth.” /…/ by now the sons, in order to avenge their father, had killed over a hundred men, either by burning them alive or by various other tortures. 11

This killing spree had resulted in the Estonian tribes from Ungannia and Sakkala asking for peace and baptism. Thus, at the time when the two bishops were hurrying towards the papal city, priests had been sent out in the Sakkala region, only to return soon, however, since ‘they were not able to live in those parts because of the hostility of the other Estonians’.12

Consequently perhaps, the seafarers in the nine cogs were soon to realise that this would be a hard journey. Having left the harbour in Riga, the travellers were soon met by contrary winds, thunder and storm forcing the ships to seek shelter in a port on the pagan island of Ösel (Est. Saaremaa). However, the Ösilians soon discovered the troubled sea-farers and struggled to block the narrow harbour with wooden rock-filled structures, making it near to impossible for the Germans to escape to open sea. Caught inside the harbour area, the Germans now witnessed how the Ösilians launched floating fires ‘kindled from dry wood and animal fat’ against the German ships, kept close for better defence. When the flames of the floating fire, ‘taller than all of the ships’, was getting alarmingly near, the travellers found it wise to call the bishop of Ratzeburg from his cabin, where he had been praying night and day.

Bishop Philip quickly realised ‘that there was no counsel or help save in God’ and raised his eyes and hands in prayer. Miraculously, the wind shifted and bore the floating fire away. Danger was still imminent, however, since the enemies in

11 Henry of Livonia p. 144-7; Heinrici Chronicon Livoniae XIX, 3. 12 Henry of Livonia p. 147; Heinrici Chronicon Livoniae XIX, 4. their small pirate ships rowed around the German ships throwing lances and arrows. Thus, when a cunning escape trick, involving the pulling of the cogs by their anchor ropes, seemed on the verge to failure, another miracle was needed.

And it came: One pirate ship ran into another, split down the middle and quickly filled with water, drowning the men on board. The Germans made it into open sea and from here they could see the pagans on the shores raging ‘violently at one another with a good deal of noise and blows too’ before they ‘dispersed on the sea and each of them went away by his own route.’13

What had happened? Who was the force behind this new miracle? As it turned out, in the face of renewed danger Bishop Philip had turned to praying again. This time he directed his pledges to the Virgin Mary by repeating lines from the Breviary hymn Ave Maris Stella: “Monstra te esse matrem, monstra te esse matrem” – ‘show thyself a mother, show thyself a mother’. This was a hymn normally sung at vespers on the feasts to the virgin, making it plausible that this event took place on 2 July, the original feast day of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary.14 To Henry there was no doubt: “The blessed Virgin freed us that day, as She has freed the Livonians from all their troubles up to the present day.”15

The German travellers would have to stay around the harbour for another three weeks before finally favourable winds could take them to Gotland and from

13 Henry of Livonia p. 150; Heinrici Chronicon Livoniae XIX 6. 14 This feast day is known at least from 1263 and was championed by St Bonaventure and the Franciscans. 15 Henry of Livonia p. 150; Heinrici Chronicon Livoniae XIX, 5. Another Marian ‘miracle’ is related from 1211 in Henry’s chronicle. Here we learn that Bernhard zur Lippe, the later abbot to the Cistercian monastery in Dünamünde and first Bishop to the Semgalls (1218), was initially punished by God with ‘a debilitating disease the feet’ on account of his partaking in many ‘wars, burnings and assaults’ while in ‘his own land’. By his own account his ‘limbs were immediately made firm and his feet became sound’ when he vowed to go to Livonia, ‘the Land of the Blessed Virgin’. Henry of Livonia p. 113; Heinrici Chronicon Livoniae XV, 4. there further down towards Rome. In Verona, however, the ‘steadfast and constant’ Bishop Philip ‘commended his spirit to the Lord’ when he fell ill and died.16

Obviously, in a warlike environment like this, the crusaders were in need for special protection and aid. Consequently, Henry throughout his chronicle strives to establish the Virgin Mary firmly as a celestial champion and a protector of the crusaders in Livonia.17 Henry highlights how the Germans in Riga fought and converted under Her banner,18 he made Her feast days mark important events in his chronicle,19 and he made duly notice of the many religious buildings dedicated to her.20

16 Henry of Livonia p. 153; Heinrici Chronicon Livoniae XIX, 6. 17 See Heinrici Chronicon Livoniae XII, 6 and XXVIII, 6 for prayers to Her aid. Occasionally She is even held up as protector of the neophyte Livonians against too heavy burdens and exploitation by their new masters. Cf. e.g. Heinrici Chronicon Livoniae XXV, 2. 18 Cf. Heinrici Chronicon Livoniae e.g. XI, 6; XII, 3; XVI, 4; XXIII, 10 and XXIV, 2. 19 Cf. e.g. Heinrici Chronicon Livoniae VIII, 2 p. 32 seeing the later bishop of Estonia, Brother Theoderich, and the neophyte local leader Caupo returning from a visit to Rome in 1204 on the Virgin’s nativity (8 September) and Heinrici Chronicon Livoniae XX, 2 p. 202, where fighting commences on 15 August 1216, the feast of Her Assumption. After 1219 – following the observations of Linda Kaljundi: Waiting for the Barbarians: The Imagery, Dynamics and Functions of the Other in Northern German Missionary Chronicles, 11th-Early 13th Centuries (unpublished MA-thesis, Tallinn University - http://dspace.ut.ee/bitstream/handle/10062/576/kaljundi.pdf) p. 200: “Henry starts to emphasise Virgin Mary as the patroness of the Rigan mission especially after the year 1219, when the Danish mission started in Northern Estonia, and during the 1220s, when also the Swedish and Russian interests were present in Estonia” – many battles were fought on Marian feast days; cf. Heinrici Chronicon Livoniae XX, 2; XXVII, 2; XXVIII, 5; XXVIII, 6. 20 Albert’s new cathedral church in Riga and an earlier convent, founded by bishop Meinhard, were both dedicated to Her, the cathedral even consecrated on the feast day of Her Assumption, 15 August. Cf. Anu Mänd, “Saints’ Cults in Medieval Livonia”, in Alan Murray (ed.), The Clash of Cultures on the medieval Baltic Frontier (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009) 191-223 refers to H. v. Bruiningk, Messe und kanonisches Stundengebet nach dem Brauche der Rigaschen Kirche im späteren Mittelalter (Riga, 1904), p. 226 and 327. Mary was the patron saint of the cathedral in Reval and the chapter in Curonia (albeit this is later than Henry’s chronicle); other churches sporting Mary as a patron were located in Dorpat (Est. Tartu), Narva and Wesenberg (Est. Rakvere). Kersti Markus argues convincingly for a development in church architecture, that would see inspirations and artistic loans from churches in Northern Germany in firstly Visby on Gotland and slightly in Riga, mirroring the travelling route of German merchants. A large number of these important religious buildings were dedicated to Mary. Cf. Kersti Markus: “The Church on the Borderland: The Impact of Crusading on the Architecture of Gotland and Livonia”, in Torben Kjersgaard Nielsen and Iben Fonnesberg-Schmidt (eds.), A Storm against the Infidel. Crusading in the Iberian Peninsula and in the Baltic Region (Turnhout: Brepols, 2016 - to appear). The Virgin as an object for devotion and prayer is supplemented by another role: Fighting under Her banner also meant that the spoils of war and the lands conquered would often fall to the hands of the bishop and church in Riga. Henry relates from 1219 how the elders from the province of Vironia ‘accepted baptism and gave themselves and all of Wirland to Blessed Mary and the Livonian church’ and from the same year comes the claim, raised against demands from the Danish king, that ‘all of Esthonia had been subjected to the Christian faith by the Rigans under the banner of the Blessed Virgin’.21 The Virgin appears here like a feudal lord, first conquering land and then offering it back as a fief. Naming the Virgin as ‘warden’ or ‘custodian’ of Livonia obviously adds further to this legalistic and feudal element in Her.22

This brings us back to our sea-farers from earlier, some of which reached the Fourth Lateran; probably even our chronicler. At the council, still according to Henry, the travellers would have heard Bishop Albert address Innocent III and perhaps the entire solemn council with what reads like a simple, yet striking condensation of the different appropriations of the Virgin that were in use in the Baltic. It is worth quoting Henry here:

The bishop spoke: “Holy Father,” he said, “as you have not ceased to cherish the Holy Land of Jerusalem, the country of the Son, with your Holiness’ care, so also ought you not abandon Livonia, the Land of the Mother (‘terra matris’), which has hitherto been among the pagans and far from your consolation and is now again

21 Heinrici Chronicon Livoniae XXIII, 7 and 10 from 1219. See also Heinrici Chronicon Livoniae XIII, 4 from 1209 and XVI, 4 from 1212. 22 Heinrici Chronicon Livoniae XXI, 1 displays Livonia in ’the custody of the Lord Jesus Christ and His Mother.” (‘hac vice custodiendam’) desolate. For the Son loves His Mother and, as He would not care to lose His own land, so, too, He would not care to endanger His Mother’s land.23

Are we to believe Henry, Innocent III replied in the affirmative: He would indeed lend his help to the land of the Mother as well as to the land of the Son, hereby apparently buying into this concept of a special - ‘topophilic’ - relationship between the Virgin and Livonia.24 And from this point on in Henry’s chronicle it seems like this idea of the Virgin as patroness of Livonia only grows in importance.25

Henry’s concept of the Virgin as the ardent champion of Her Land in Livonia culminates in a long, frenzied passage in his chapter 25. The virulent passage is preceded by Henry’s relation of the story of a Danish royal emissary, Gottschalk, sent to take over the city of Riga and place it under Danish royal rule in 1221. According to Henry, the (German?) merchants refused the demands from the Danish king and sent Gottschalk back, but denied him a pilot for his ship. Consequently, the Danish royal emissary ”was tossed about by a contrary wind” because he had come to Livonia against “the will of Him Who rules the winds” and because he had offended Mary Herself.26

The sermon-like character of the passage and an amassing of Scriptural quotes and allusions make the passage stand out clearly from the rest of the chronicle and hence the passage begs a closer consideration.

23 Henry of Livonia p. 152; Heinrici Chronicon Livoniae XIX, 7. 24 Heinrici Chronicon Livoniae XIX,7. 25 Henry has for instance the papal legate William of Modena ”commending Livonia to Mary, the Blessed Mother of god, and to Her beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, to Whom is honor and glory, world with out end” when in 1225 he planned to return from his legation. Cf. Heinrici Chronicon Livoniae XXIX, 8. 26 Heinrici Chronicon Livoniae XXV, 2 The passage starts off with an immediate reference to the story in the Gospels of Matthew (8:16) and Luke (8:25), in which Christ sooths the seasick and frightened disciples by commanding the winds and the sea to calm. Henry here names the Virgin Mary as both the ‘star of the sea’ (“maris stella”), ‘Lady of the World’ (“domina mundi”), ‘empress of all lands’ (“imperatrix terrarium omnium”) and ‘queen of Heaven’ (“regina coeli”) before once again invoking Mary’s protection of Her special land, Livonia.27

The Virgin is further held up as highly vindictive, an avenging champion of the Rigan cause. Henry directly lauds the Virgin for Her hand in the affliction of all the enemies of the Rigan church, pagan and Christian alike. She is believed to have been instrumental in Russian princes being struck with sudden death, deprivations, death by proxy or humiliation; the Virgin had the Swedes slaughtered by pagans when unlawfully entering lands subjected to the “banner of the Blessed Virgin”, while the Danish king suffered captivity for wishing to trouble Livonia with his rule. Numerous pagan leaders were killed through Her servants.28

Henry hammers home his points:

Consider and see, you princes of the Russians, or the pagans, or the Danes, or you elders of whatever people. Fear this gentle Mother of Mercy. Adore this Mother of God and give satisfaction to Her, Who takes such cruel revenge upon Her enemies.

27 Heinrici Chronicon Livoniae XXV, 2: ”Sic, sic maris stella suam semper custodit Lyvoniam; sic, sic mundi domina terrarumque omnium imperatrix specialem suam terram semper defendit; sic, sic regina celi terrenis regibus imperat.” 28 Henry of Livonia p. 198; Heinrici Chronicon Livoniae XXV, 2. Besides the references to Matthew 8:26 and Luke 8:25, Henry’s chapter 25, 2 may be said to contain references to Malachias 4:2, Judith 1:11, Psalms 103:25, 1 Maccabees 3:7, Samuel 31:1, 1 Kings 20:7, Exodus 23:22, Isaiah 10:2, Acts 9:15, Matthew 23:4 and 11:30, John 17:3, 5:20 and 20:31, 1 John 5:13 and Romans 1:25 plus a number of references to the missal and offices in the breviary. Do not wish henceforth to attack Her land, so that to you She may be a mother, Who has hitherto been an enemy to Her enemies, She who has always more afflicted those who afflict Her people in Livonia. Give heed and see, you who hold dominion and magistracies in Her land. Do not unduly oppress the poor /…/ Livonians and Letts, or any other converts, servants of the Blessed Virgin, who have hitherto borne the name of Christ Her Son to the other peoples and who still bear it with us. Give deep, fearful consideration and recall to your mind’s eyes the cruel death of some who were harsh to their subjects.29

Obviously, Henry offers an understanding of the Virgin Mary as blatantly militant and violent; even if named Mother of Mercy, She shows the enemies and opponents to the church in Riga neither mercy, nor forgiveness. Only to Her land, i.e. the rightful possessors of Livonia, i.e. the Rigan church and its allies, would the Virgin act motherly.

An image of tender motherhood – albeit offered only to the right people - may however also be found in Henry’s chronicle. Motherhood is obviously connected with fertility and genealogy, and Henry touches in two other passages upon both of these elements, mixing ideas of providential history and celestial championship with a topophilic localism.

In 1224 Bishop Albert summoned a large force for what was to be a final attack on the city of Dorpat (Est. Tartu), held by the Russian prince Vjacko (Vetseke) and to which the German forces had earlier laid siege.30 The attack on Dorpat,

29 Henry of Livonia p. 199-200; Heinrici Chronicon Livoniae XXV, 2. 30 Vjacko had been bishop Albert’s vassal. However, in 1208 Vjacko had a band of the Bishop’s knights killed and allied himself with the Russian grand prince of Pskov. (Cf. Heinrici Chronicon Livoniae XI, 2, 8-9) Accordingly here Henry names Vjacko “the old root of all evils “ - radix antiqua malorum omnium in Lyvoniam fuerat”. Heinrici Chronicon Livoniae XXVIII, 3. taking place on the Day of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin (August 15), is explained as a defensive act by the Livonian church mother to free her daughter, the Estonian church.31

The passage in Henry’s book XVIII, 4 is noteworthy because of the prominence and the symbolic weight of the Scriptural references used. Henry refers to the Gospel of John 16:21, where Christ has just announced his own death; he uses Revelations 12:13, in which the woman gives birth to the man child and where the dragon threatening her offspring is later overcome. A further reference to Job 40:10, where the dragon is identified as the Behemoth that swallows up the river Jordan, may be interpreted as a general warning against questioning God’s overall plan. Another important reference in this passage goes to Pauls letter to Titus, in which the Apostle warns of false teachers. Finally, Henry uses Exodus 23:26, where God promises the fertility of the Israelite women, but where the gist of the chapter clearly is God’s promise to strike the Israelite enemies with terror and destruction.

Henry’s exposition goes something like this: The Livonian church has conceived a daughter in the Estonian church. Because an infant, the Estonian church (and daughter) was in need for protection. Not just against pagans, however, but also against other, false, mothers, who strived to snatch the baby away from her real mother. So far, this seems a fairly clear and consistent allegorical reasoning.

Henry’s continuation is, however, more confusing than convincing. Thus, while still “infant” the Estonian church at the same time is “like a woman in labor” and ”exposed”. A dragon comes for her offspring and thus she needs protection from

31 Heinrici Chronicon Livoniae XXVIII, 5 p. 306: ”Ut ergo Lyvoniensis ecclesia filiam suam Estiensem ecclesiam, quam genuerat in Iesu Christo, liberaret de presentibus malis”. her true mother, the Livonian church who is the true and original mother of the Estonian church through the “labour of conquest” and by giving birth to the Estonian church “by the washing of regeneration in the faith of Jesus Christ.” Many “false” mothers deceitfully claim the Estonian church for their daughter. One of the false mothers pursuing the Estonian daughter/mother is “the Russian mother, always sterile and barren” – ‘semper sterilis et infecunda’. Apparently her sterility did not prevent the Russian church from being – at least a kind of – mother.32

Other elements of this fertility discourse appear throughout Henry’s chronicle. New plantations and the sowing and harvesting in God’s own vineyard are common imagery that appears in many missionary accounts, and such metaphorical language also appears in Henry’s text. This imagery normally serves generically to describe a young and often struggling missionary church in the midst of adversities.33

The most prominent element of Henry’s fertility discourse, however, is very much local and specific. It involves a pun on the city of Riga and the Latin verbs rigare or irrigare, which means ‘to moisten’ and ‘to water’. This pun appears several times throughout the chronicle and at the very end as well. This wordplay works very well in connection with the other appropriations of the Virgin: Like a true Mother She would protect the new plantation on her own land and see it prosper and thrive through the watering done by Her church in Riga.

32 Heinrici Chronicon Livoniae XXVIII, 4. See my analysis in Torben Kjersgaard Nielsen, “Sterile Monsters? Russians and the Orthodox Church in the Chronicle of Henry of Livonia” in The Clash of Cultures pp. 227-252. 33 Cf. Kaljundi, Waiting for the Barbarians p. 210. Henry closed his chronicle by relating the story of the subjection of the people of Ösel in 1227. With a reference to the drowning of the Pharaoh in Exodus 14:23- 29 (15:4) and again to Joshua 15:19, Henry finally finishes his chronicle with a statement that breathes a militant crusading spirit, alludes to feudal notions of servitude and vassalage, and overall honours the assistance of the Virgin:

Thus does Riga water the nations. Thus did she now water Oesel in the middle of the sea. By washing she purges sin and grants the kingdom of the skies. She furnishes both the higher and the lower irrigation. These gifts of God are our delight. The Glory of God, of our Lord Jesus Christ, and of the Blessed Virgin Mary gives such joy to His [Her, TKN] Rigan servants on Ösel! To vanquish rebels, to baptize those who come voluntarily and humbly, to receive hostages and tribute, to free all the Christian captives, to return with victory – what kings hitherto have been unable to do, the Blessed Virgin quickly and easily accomplished through Her Rigan servants to the honor of Her name.34

It is now time to ask: How would Henry’s appropriations of the Virgin have played out with Innocent III?

Henry tells us that Innocent, having heard Albert’s speech at the Lateran Council in November 1215, willingly ‘renewed’ privileges to preach the crusade and enlist pilgrims to go to Livonia - for the ‘remission of their sins’.35

Henry is right in stating that such privileges were renewed after the Council. Innocent III had granted privileges to the Livonian mission and crusade in 1199 and 1204 on the requests of Albert of Riga. In these letters the pope focused on

34 Heinrici Chronicon Livoniae XXX, 6. 35 Heinrici Chronicon Livoniae XIX, 7. voluntary conversion and the defence of the newly converted from pagan neighbours.36 In his Alto divine from December 1215, addressed to the Christians in Denmark but possibly also directed to other church provinces, Innocent promised the remission of sins to pilgrims and crusaders who due to ill health or poverty could not go to the Holy Land, but chose to go to Livonia in stead.37

As Iben Fonnesberg-Schmidt has convincingly shown, “Innocent regarded the Baltic expeditions as less important than the crusades to the Holy Land.”38 Apparently, the Land of the Son was more important to Innocent III than the Land of the Mother. Christopher Tyerman has put it more bluntly: “The Livonian cult of the Virgin cut little ice in Rome.”39

But what do we actually know of Innocent III’s thoughts on the Virgin? Could he perhaps have acknowledged the Livonian focus on Mary in other ways than by privileges and in politics?

It is actually rather difficult to ascertain Innocent’s views on the Virgin. None of his many letters display a mariological interest, and none of his theological works deal with Her at any length. The most promising place to look for a papal attitude towards the Virgin is via the pope’s sermons. A book of sermons is mentioned in the Gesta Innocentii, and John C. Moore has argued that such collection may have been produced sometime between 1201 and 1205.40 More than sixty manuscripts in over thirty repositories throughout Europe confirm

36 Diplomatarium Danicum 1:3 (Copenhagen, 1977) no. 254 and Die Register Innocenz’ III, vol. 7 (Vienna, 1997), no. 139. Cf. in general Fonnesberg-Schmidt, The Popes and the Baltic Crusades p. 91-131. 37 Diplomatarium Danicum 1:5 (Copenhagen, 1957) no. 61. 38 Fonnesberg-Schmidt, The Popes and the Baltic Crusades p. 111. 39 Christopher Tyerman, ”Henry of Livonia and the Ideology of Crusading”, in Tamm et al., Crusading and Chronicle Writing on the Medieval Baltic Frontier, pp. 23-44. 40 John C. Moore, ”The Sermons of Pope Innocent III”, Römische historische Mitteilungen 36 (1994), pp. 81-142. that Innocent’s sermons enjoyed some popularity. Perhaps also by protagonists in the Baltic crusades coming from the Land of the Virgin, even if no manuscripts containing the Innocentian sermons have been found in the Baltic.41

Among the Innocentian sermons printed in the Patrologia Latina, are six sermons that deal directly with the Virgin Mary.42 I have not yet found time to investigate these sermons myself. Consequently, for this paper, I rely on Wilhelm Imkamp, who, in his investigation of these sermons, detects a slight aloofness, a reservation on Innocent’s part towards the Virgin. Imkamp concludes that Innocent remained true to his Christ-centred theological outlook, most often simply discussing - and diminishing - the role played by the Virgin in Incarnation.43

This conclusion notwithstanding, some details from Innocent’s Marian sermons merits a closer look.

In a sermon to the Assumption of the Virgin (15 August), Innocent deals with the story of Martha and Mary. Innocent here interprets the place where the sisters lived as simply the Virgin: ‘castellum illud, quod intravit Jesus est Virgo’. 44 The outer wall in this spiritual castle is Her corporal virginity while the tower is Her heart’s humility. To avert the ‘insults of lust’ and ‘the assaults of pride’ one must

41 According to J. B. Schneyer, Repertorium der lateinischen Sermones des Mittelalters, Heft 4 p. 48-49. 42 PL 217. 43 Wilhelm Imkamp: ””Virginitas quam ornavit humilitas”. Die Verehrung der Gottesmutter in den Sermones Papst Innocenz’ III”, Lateranum n.s. 46 (1980) 344-378. Imkamp names the Incarnation, the Eucharist and (the powers of) St Peter as the three main elements in Innocentian theology and ecclesiology. 44 PL 217, 575D. approach this spiritual castle, i.e. one must pray to the Virgin Mary.45 ‘Who has ever called upon Her without being heard?’ - Innocent asks rhetorically.46

In another sermon to the same feast, Innocent likens the Virgin to ‘the dawn’ in Song of Songs 6:10.47 The Virgin is the dawn, because She ended the ‘night of damnation’ by carrying Christ. The dawn has three qualities – it is ‘as fair as the moon, as bright as the sun and as frightening as an army under banners’. Consequently, the beauty of the moon is likened to the virginity and fertility in the Virgin; the splendour and warmth of the sun is likened to Her wisdom and love; and the army under banners is likened to the Virgin, because She houses the ‘plenitude of virtues’ fighting – and winning – the battle against the multitude of vices.48

In these sermons, the Virgin appears in a salvific role as intercessor and helper of sinful man, because of Her role as carrier of the Incarnate Christ. Innocent summarizes that whoever shall face the enemy, ‘in the world or in the flesh’, should plead Mary that ‘She may offer help through Her Son’.49

In a sermon for the feast of the Nativity of Mary (8 September), the Virgin is likened to the ‘star that shall rise out of Jacob’s staff’ and the sceptre (virga) that shall spring from Israel and strike the chiefs of Moab and shall waste the sons of

45 Quaeramus ergo si tale fuerit hoc castellum. Sane in hoc spirituali castello, quod est Dei genetrix Virgo Maria, murus exterior est virginitas corporis, turris interior est humilitas cordis” /…/Habet ergo castellum istud murum virginitatis contra insultum luxuriae, habet turrim humilitatis contra incursum superbiae. /…/ Sic quando te luxuria carnis impugnat, ad hoc castellum procede, muro virginitatis adhaere, deprecare Mariam.” PL 217, 577D. 46 ”Quis unquam invocavit eam et non est exauditus ab ea?” PL 217, 584D. 47 PL 217, 582C. 48 ”Acies ergo castrorum, id est plenitudo virtutum ita fuit in virgine ordinata ut de se vere dicere possit: Introduxit me rex in cellam vinariam et ordinavit in me charitatem, ut postquam in ea plenitudo divinitatis corporaliter habitavit, vicit ex toto malitiam.” 49 ”Quicumque entit impugnationem ab hostibus, vel a mundo, vel a carne, vel a daemone, respiciat castrorum aciem ordinatam, deprecetur Mariam, ut ipsa per Filium mittat auxilium de sancto et Sion tueatur.” Sheth’ in Numbers 24:10. – “id est Maria, qui stella maris interpretatur”. This takes form as part of the Pope’s overall discussion of the sacral genealogy in the root of Jesse (Isaiah 11:1), where the Virgo is designated as the fertile twig (virga) on the root that will eventually bring forth the flower that is Christ.50

Another sermon, this one on the Nativity of Mary, brings forth a well-known creature, namely the Behemoth (from the book of Job), also used in Henry’s chronicle: God has thrown his Son into the world to catch the Behemoth, i.e. to overcome the devil. The Behemoth must be caught using a good (fishing) hook, which is Christ. The fishing rod, however, is the Virgin. Using yet again the wordplay virga-virgo, Innocent establishes how the Virgin is temerarious without being hard, holds unbent rectitude and a fitting length – just like a good fishing rod.

[– Please, don’t ask me to explain this…]

Fishing rods and Behemoths, roots and twigs and towered spiritual castles. Even if Innocent’s sermons obviously do not display much of the militancy in the Virgin that is so significant in Henry’s chronicle, issues of virginal fertility, sacred genealogy and celestial protection do actually seem to present themselves in Innocent’s sermons.

- While I am pretty sure that Albert of Riga would not have been granted even remotely the time that I have had today to develop his thoughts on Livonia and the Virgin for a plenary session at the Lateran council, I guess it is not all too

50 PL 217, 599C. fanciful to imagine that his designation of the Virgin as the Land of the Mother could in fact have raised some interesting discussions in the after session bar.

I hope that we could do the same. I thank you for your - well, patience.