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Imagined Communities on the Baltic Rim, from the Eleventh to Fifteenth Centuries Amsterdam University Press Crossing Boundaries Turku Medieval and Early Modern Studies The series from the Turku Centre for Medieval and Early Modern Studies (TUCEMEMS) publishes monographs and collective volumes placed at the intersection of disciplinary boundaries, introducing fresh connections between established fijields of study. The series especially welcomes research combining or juxtaposing diffferent kinds of primary sources and new methodological solutions to deal with problems presented by them. Encouraged themes and approaches include, but are not limited to, identity formation in medieval/early modern communities, and the analysis of texts and other cultural products as a communicative process comprising shared symbols and meanings. Series Editor Matti Peikola, University of Turku, Finland Amsterdam University Press Imagined Communities on the Baltic Rim, from the Eleventh to Fifteenth Centuries Edited by Wojtek Jezierski and Lars Hermanson Amsterdam University Press Amsterdam University Press Cover illustration: St. Henry and St. Eric arriving to Finland on the ‘First Finnish Crusade’. Fragment of the fijifteenth-centtury sarcophagus of St. Henry in the church of Nousiainen, Finland Photograph: Kirsi Salonen Cover design: Coördesign, Leiden Lay-out: Crius Group, Hulshout Amsterdam University Press English-language titles are distributed in the US and Canada by the University of Chicago Press. isbn 978 90 8964 983 6 e-isbn 978 90 4852 899 8 (pdf) doi 10.5117/9789089649836 nur 684 © Wojtek Jezierski & Lars Hermanson / Amsterdam University Press B.V., Amsterdam 2016 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book. Every efffort has been made to obtain permission to use all copyrighted illustrations reproduced in this book. Nonetheless, whosoever believes to have rights to this material is advised to contact the publisher. Amsterdam University Press Table of Contents Editors’ Preface 9 Introduction 11 Imagined Communities on the Baltic Rim, from the Eleventh to Fifteenth Centuries Wojtek Jezierski* Visions of Community Imagining the Baltic 37 Mental Mapping in the Works of Adam of Bremen and Saxo Grammaticus, Eleventh – Thirteenth Centuries Thomas Foerster* Discourses of Communion 59 Abbot William of Æbelholt and Saxo Grammaticus: Imagining the Christian Danish Community, Early Thirteenth Century Lars Hermanson* Envisioning a Political Community 89 Peasants and Swedish Men in Vernacular Rhyme Chronicles, Late Fifteenth Century Margaretha Nordquist* Cultic and Missionary Communities Communities of Devotion across the Boundaries 123 Women and Religious Bonds on the Baltic Rim and in Central Europe, Eleventh – Twelfth Centuries Grzegorz Pac* Risk Societies on the Frontier 155 Missionary Emotional Communities in the Southern Baltic, Eleventh – Thirteenth Centuries Wojtek Jezierski* Amsterdam University Press Expanding Communities 191 Henry of Livonia on the Making of a Christian Colony, Early Thirteenth Century Linda Kaljundi* An Imaginary Saint for an Imagined Community 223 St. Henry and the Creation of Christian Identity in Finland, Thirteenth – Fifteenth Centuries Tuomas Heikkilä* Legal and Urban Communities The Making of Legal Communities 255 Royal, Aristocratic, and Local Visions in Sweden and Gotland, Thirteenth – Fourteenth Centuries Thomas Lindkvist* Urban Community and Consensus 279 Brotherhood and Communalism in Medieval Novgorod Pavel V. Lukin* Urban Community and Social Unrest 307 Semantics of Conflict in Fourteenth-Century Lübeck Cordelia Heß* The Baltic Rim: A View From Afar Norway, Sweden, and Novgorod 331 Scandinavian Perceptions of the Russians, Late Twelfth – Early Fourteenth Centuries Bjørn Bandlien* Transient Borders 353 The Baltic Viewed from Northern Iceland in the Mid-Fifteenth Century Hans Jacob Orning* Amsterdam University Press Afterword 379 Imagined Emotions for Imagined Communities Barbara H. Rosenwein* List of Abbreviations 387 General Index 389 List of Figures Figure 1 Place-names mentioned in the book 8 Figure 2 Marriages of children of Bolesław the Wrymouth and his son, Mieszko III, with members of Scandinavian and Pomeranian ruling houses 126 Figure 3 Familial relations of Inge the Elder and Helena’s daughters 129 Figure 4 Emotion Words in the Chronicon Livoniae 174 Figure 5 Law code provinces in Sweden, fourteenth century 254 Amsterdam University Press Figure 1 Place-names mentioned in the book Amsterdam University Press Editors’ Preface This volume is a result of two joyful and rewarding workshops conducted in the course of 2014, in Gothenburg (April) and Rome (December). The not-so-imagined community of authors gathered in this book is particularly indebted to the critical comments by Barbara H. Rosenwein and Hans Jacob Orning, which allowed the authors to revise and sharpen their arguments. The editors would also like to thank Auður G. Magnúsdóttir (Department of Historical Studies, University of Gothenburg) for her assistance in organ- izing the workshop in Gothenburg. The Rome meeting which took place in the spectacular Institutum Romanum Finlandiae was co-organized with its director Tuomas Heikkilä, whose hospitality exceeded all expectations. The book owes a particular debt of gratitude to Kirsi Salonen (TUCEMEMS, University of Turku), whose Baltic expertise, unyielding scrupulousness, and editorial profijiciency greatly improved the quality of the manuscript in terms of both content and form. Rich Potter (Department of Historical Studies, University of Gothenburg) superbly assisted us with preparing the maps and fijigures for the book. The authors as well as the editors are also much obliged to the anonymous peer reviewers, who so positively recom- mended this volume for publication and whose abundant suggestions and detailed comments substantially enhanced the overall value of our work. Finally, the Amsterdam University Press editorial team – Simon Forde, Tyler Cloherty, and Jaap Wagenaar in particular – have done a terrifijic job in preparing this book for production. Thank you all. The editors’ research time devoted to the making of this book, as well as the funding of Barbara H. Rosenwein’s guest professorship in Gothen- burg in the spring of 2014, were made possible by two munifijicent grants from the Humanist Faculty of University of Gothenburg. Additionally, the proofreading of English was funded thanks to the generous support of the Helge Ax:son Johnsons Stiftelse, as well as the Per Lindecrants’ Fond at the Department of Historical Studies, University of Gothenburg. Wojtek Jezierski & Lars Hermanson Gothenburg, May 2016 Amsterdam University Press Amsterdam University Press Introduction Imagined Communities on the Baltic Rim, from the Eleventh to Fifteenth Centuries Wojtek Jezierski* Baltic – The Final Frontier In the early 960s, an Andalusian slave merchant of possibly Sephardic or Muslim origin by the name Ibrāhīm Ibn Ya’qūb al-Turtushi made his way from his Cordovan caliphate to the northernmost edges of known Europe.1 On his journey he visited and was quite taken aback by the riches he saw in the city of Prague; he was also an early witness of the Polish Duke Mieszko’s (Mashaqqah) fetus state just before the duke himself put it on the map in 965. Ibn Ya’qūb also heard something of the berserk-like Burus (Prussians) dwelling on the shores of the ‘Surrounding Sea’ (‘Oceanum’ in the Latin rendition) and that the Russians crossed this sea on ships coming from the east to attack them. To the west of the Prussians and north of Mieszko’s country, also occupying the shores of the ‘Surrounding Sea’, lived the Velets (Waltabah) whose greatest city, perhaps identifijiable as Jumne on the island of Wolin, was a mighty fortress with twelve gates. The great value of Ibn Ya’qūb’s sometimes surprisingly accurate and fascinating report – preserved in the eleventh-century Book of Highways and Kingdoms (Kitāb al-Masālik wa’l-Mamālik) by Abu Abdullah al-Bakrī * Wojtek Jezierski is Researcher in Medieval History at the Department of Historical Studies, University of Gothenburg. He defended his PhD thesis: Total St Gall. Medieval Monastery as a Disciplinary Institution (2010) at Stockholm University and published several articles on monastic power relations, cloistral surveillance, and subject-formation in early medieval St Gall. He was a post-doctoral researcher at the Deutsches Historisches Institut, Warschau 2011/2012. He recently co-edited the volume Rituals, Performatives, and Political Order, c. 650-1350 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2015). His current research interests are the senses of danger & security among Baltic missionaries as well as historical semantics of emotions, eleventh to thirteenth centuries. Many thanks to Lars Hermanson, Barbara H. Rosenwein, and Thomas Foerster for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this introduction. 1 Relacja Ibrāhīma Ibn Jakūba z podróży do krajów słowiańskich w przekazie al-Bekrīego, ed. by Tadeusz Kowalski, Pomniki dziejowe Polski S.N., V. 1, Cracow: Wydawnictwa Komisji Historycznej. Polska Akademia Umiejętności Bd. 84, 1946); Mishin, ‘Ibrahim ibn-Ya’qub at- Turtushi’s’; Pleszczyński, The Birth of a Stereotype, pp. 14-24. Amsterdam University Press 12