UNIVERSITY OF TARTY FACULTY OF PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY LINDA KALJUNDI Waiting for the Barbarians: The Imagery, Dynamics and Functions of the Other in Northern German Missionary Chronicles, 11th – Early 13th Centuries. The Gestae Hammaburgensis Ecclesiae Pontificum of Adam of Bremen, Chronica Slavorum of Helmold of Bosau, Chronica Slavorum of Arnold of Lübeck, and Chronicon Livoniae of Henry of Livonia Master’s Thesis Supervisor: MA Marek Tamm, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales / University of Tartu Second supervisor: PhD Anti Selart University of Tartu TARTU 2005 TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 3 I HISTORICAL CONTEXTS AND INTERTEXTS 5 I.1 THE SOURCE MATERIAL 5 I.2. THE DILATATIO OF LATIN CHRISTIANITY: THE MISSION TO THE NORTH FROM THE NINTH UNTIL EARLY THIRTEENTH CENTURIES 28 I.3 NATIONAL TRAGEDIES, MISSIONARY WARS, CRUSADES, OR COLONISATION: TRADITIONAL AND MODERN PATTERNS IN HISTORIOGRAPHY 36 I.4 THE LEGATIO IN GENTES IN THE NORTH: THE MAKING OF A TRADITION 39 I.5 THE OTHER 46 II TO DISCOVER 52 I.1 ADAM OF BREMEN, GESTA HAMMABURGENSIS ECCLESIAE PONTIFICUM 52 PERSONAE 55 LOCI 67 II.2 HELMOLD OF BOSAU, CHRONICA SLAVORUM 73 PERSONAE 74 LOCI 81 II.3 ARNOLD OF LÜBECK, CHRONICA SLAVORUM 86 PERSONAE 87 LOCI 89 II.4 HENRY OF LIVONIA, CHRONICON LIVONIAE 93 PERSONAE 93 LOCI 102 III TO CONQUER 105 III.1 ADAM OF BREMEN, GESTA HAMMABURGENSIS ECCLESIAE PONTIFICUM 107 PERSONAE 108 LOCI 128 III.2 HELMOLD OF BOSAU, CHRONICA SLAVORUM 134 PERSONAE 135 LOCI 151 III.3 ARNOLD OF LÜBECK, CHRONICA SLAVORUM 160 PERSONAE 160 LOCI 169 III.4 HENRY OF LIVONIA, CHRONICON LIVONIAE 174 PERSONAE 175 LOCI 197 SOME CONCLUDING REMARKS 207 BIBLIOGRAPHY 210 RESÜMEE 226 APPENDIX 2 Introduction The following thesis discusses the image of the Slavic, Nordic, and Baltic peoples and lands as the Other in the historical writing of the Northern mission. The study is based on four chronicles that represent the enlargement of Latin Christianity in Northern Europe from the ninth to the early thirteenth centuries, namely on the Gesta Hammaburgensis Ecclesiae Pontificum by Adam of Bremen, Chronica Slavorum by Helmold of Bosau, Chronica Slavorum by Arnold of Lübeck, and the Chronicon Livoniae by Henry of Livonia. The reason for creating such a textual corpus is that all the chronicles analysed here were written by the clerics of the archdiocese of Hamburg-Bremen and are closely linked through the timescale (representing sequential events), the space (the Baltic Sea region), and the first three of them also through their main theme which is the conversion of the Northern heathens. From the view point of the Northern German bishoprics, they represent the spread of Christianity in time and space, enable to follow the development of the Northern missionary tradition, and reflect the many changes in the missionary and crusading ideology through the High Middle Ages. The object of this study, the images of the counterpart perceived as the Other, are among the most crucial issues when it comes to creating a tradition, legitimacy and authority for both a mission and religious warfare. This thesis focuses on the image of the Others both as peoples (personae) and lands (loci) and analyses both how the missionary tradition is largely created through the representation of the lands and peoples to be Christianised, and to which extent the need to legitimise the mission determines the images of the Others. Discussing firstly the imagery created by each author separately, the study aims also to follow the developments in the medieval rhetoric of Otherness, as represented in these four chronicles. The study is divided into three chapters. In the first chapter I shall firstly present the source material, secondly the course of events they represent and thirdly the current state of research in Northern mission and crusading history. In the fourth subchapter I shall discuss the role of intertextuality in the historical writing of missionary and crusading warfare, and lastly I shall give the theoretical background for the analysis of the Other as it is understood in this study. In the second chapter I analyse the images of the Other as peoples and lands during the phase of discovery in separate subchapters for each of the four chronicles discussed here, and 3 in the third I shall look into the changes in their imagery during the period of conquest, studying it separately for each text alike. In addition the appendix will provide further information as regards the manuscript tradition and historiography of each of the chronicles. As regards the whole process of writing this study, I am in dept of gratitude to many peoples and places. Firstly I would like to thank my supervisor Marek Tamm for his wise counsel and patience, and my second supervisor Dr. Anti Selart for his encouragement and advice alike. Also I would like to give special thanks to Dr. Carsten Selch Jensen from the University of Copenhagen for discussions on various issues concerning missionary and crusading history, as well as to Prof. Lars Boje Mortensen from Bergen University for sharing his ideas and knowledge on medieval historical writing, and to Prof. Harald Gustaffson and Prof. Eva Österberg from Lund University for pointing out fruitful approaches to the source material. Likewise I am very grateful to Prof. Thomas Lindkvist, Dr. Henrik Janson, and the people from the medieval seminar at the University of Gothenburg for their valuable comments and criticism on the present thesis. Last but not least, the people from the History Department of Lund University, and especially my colleagues Ainur Elmgren, Fredrik Persson, Magnus Olofsson and Tommy Gustaffson from the Forskarskolan, I would like to thank for an inspiring working atmosphere and for their support. Alike I would like to express my gratitude to the Swedish Institute for a scholarship enabling my stay there. Needless to say, my mistakes however remain my own. I would like to start with quoting Caroline Walker Bynum, hoping that also the following analysis at least to some extent serves to show that “if we trace the networks of images built up by medieval authors and locate those networks in the psyches and social experiences of those who create or use them, we find that they reveal to us what the writers cared about most deeply themselves and what they felt it necessary to present or to justify to others” (Bynum 1984: 6-7). 4 I HISTORICAL CONTEXTS AND INTERTEXTS I.1 The Source Material The four chronicles to be discussed here mark the spread of Latin Christianity in Northern and Eastern Europe on timely and geographical scales. Around one hundred and fifty years divide the time the first and last of those were written, and the gap between the first and last events covered is even wider, as Adam starts with the Saxon wars at the turn of the ninth and tenth centuries and Henry ends with the conquest of Livonia and Estonia in the early thirteenth century. Similarly they represent the widening space, as while Adam is writing in Bremen over the events taking place in Scandinavia, Saxony, and Slavia, and Lübeck is the centre for Helmold and Arnold, then Henry is already covering the events taking place on the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea. During those times many changes took place in Western European society, like the development of more centralised stately and ecclesiastical power. The High Middle Ages saw many changes in religious attitudes and spirituality, present in the enlivenment of religious life and in the search for vita apostolica. Due to the Gregorian Church Reform in the middle of the eleventh century, aimed to free the church from the secular rulers, the clerics gained a more prominent position. During the twelfth century the crusading movement consolidated many of the ideas concerning religious warfare. Those were also the times for many developments in the Latin learned tradition, even though the much-debated issue of the twelfth century renaissance still remains highly problematic and is not discussed in this work. The texts reflect the many changes from different angles, as the education, as well as their position in the ecclesiastical and social hierarchy of the authors was very different. This subchapter gives an introduction to the source material, presenting briefly the main structure of each text, the events and areas covered, as well as the main topics and themes. The aim is not to examine the texts or their structure in detail but to give a framework for the following analysis. I shall discuss the authors` relationship to represented course of events as well as to their patrons and audiences. Especially the latter tend to determine the centre and norm for each text (Todorov 1989: 231), often signed as “us”, “they” or “people”, it is to give the speaking subject determining the viewpoints and focuses. Additionally I shall point to the main interests, conflicts, and ideologies that have influenced the selection, structure, and order of the events covered. This is related to the many issues present in the studies of historical writing of the High Middle Ages, as regards its inner coherence, mode of 5 perception, and the relationship between ideological issues and representation of events. One always tends to find more internal unity and coherence, than there seems to be at the first glance; and here the general ideas about religion, history, and society are often closely related to narrative and its structure as a whole. The coherence and unity yet are often created on the typological and analogical level, and therefore frequently left out when one comes to seek of literal and causal explanations only (Bagge 1996: 345-8). When one comes to ask, about what these four texts tell and about what they do not, what is described in detail and what is not, what is left out, who speaks in the chronicles and who does not, one can also come to find many surprisingly consistent patterns.