Missionaries and Changing Views of the Other from the Ninth to the Eleventh Centuries Timothy Mark Barnwell Submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Leeds School of History August 2014 The candidate confirms that the work submitted is his own and that appropriate credit has been given where reference has been made to the work of others. This copy has been supplied on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. The right of Timothy Mark Barnwell to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. © 2015 The University of Leeds and Timothy Mark Barnwell ‘Difference and variety are what is right with the world.’ G. K. Chesterton. To the many people who have supported me before, during and after this thesis, thank you. I would not have been able to begin the project without the support of Julia Smith, Stuart Airlie, Rosamond McKitterick and Ian Wood. The whole process was made far more pleasant and intellectually stimulating by the company of Leeds’ early medievalists and the CMRP and T&I groups, as well as a very gracious examination by Julia Barrow and Stuart Airlie. Many errors still remain and, while I am uncertain whether I can be held wholly responsible for all of them, they certainly do not belong to any of these fine people. This thesis explores the varying ways in which otherness was imagined and constructed in two clusters of medieval missionary texts: Rimbert’s Vita Anskarii and Adam of Bremen’s Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum, from the archdiocese of Hamburg-Bremen; and Bruno of Querfurt’s Passio Sancti Adalberti episcopi et martyris, Vita vel passio Benedicti et Iohannis sociorumque suorum and Epistola ad Heinricum Regem. Missionaries and the authors who described their work were uniquely concerned with those who lay beyond the geographical, political and spiritual boundaries of Christendom. Accordingly, they provide our principal sources for understanding how such groups were represented. In the first instance, this thesis is concerned with descriptions of groups physically located outside the Carolingian, Ottonian, and Salian Empires, particularly in the Scandinavian and Slavic worlds. But given the fluidity and interconnectedness of early medieval identities, it also encompasses representations of marginalised groups within Christendom such as slaves, women, heretics, Jews and political enemies. Following a brief introduction, the thesis begins by setting out the theoretical foundations of an understanding of otherness based on the expectation of variety. This forms a response to the totalising claims of many recent discussions of otherness. This is followed by a close analysis of each text, beginning with the Hamburg-Bremen material, before moving on to Bruno of Querfurt’s works. The aim is to reflect the peculiar dynamics of each work and, consequently, discussions of these authors’ literary and exegetical concerns form a substantial part of this study. Their presentation of groups within Christendom has also been emphasised; sometimes the other was closer to home. The thesis concludes by emphasising the conceptual variety revealed in each work. Key themes can be identified, but the presentation of otherness in all of these texts is far more diverse and conceptually fragmented than is usually appreciated in existing scholarship. 2.i. Theory, history and pagans. 7 2.ii. Otherness and identity. 9 2.iii. The confidence to think: innate tendencies. 10 2.iv. The confidence to think: cultural tendencies. 13 2.v. The world as Other. 17 3.i. The origins of Hamburg-Bremen. 21 3.ii. The myth of Hamburg-Bremen. 22 3.iii. Hamburg-Bremen c.865. 23 3.iv. Hamburg-Bremen c.1075. 26 4.ii. The Vita Anskarii. 29 4.iii. Rimbert, the Vita Rimberti and hagiographical norms. 31 4.iv.b. Danes and Swedes. 35 4.iv.c. Danes and Swedes in modern historiography. 35 4.iv.d. Danes and Swedes in early Middle Ages. 38 4.v.b. Visions. 44 4.v.c. Eschatology. 45 4.v.d. Aquilo. 48 4.v.e. Biblical models: Isaiah and Jeremiah. 50 4.v.f. Kings. 55 4.v.g. The Suffering Servant. 57 4.vi.b. The sack of Hamburg: legitimising Hamburg-Bremen. 61 4.vi.c. Christians and pagans: legitimising the bishop. 63 4.vi.d. Describing the mission. 66 5.i.a. The Gesta Hammaburgensis Ecclesiae Pontificum. 72 5.i.b. Dating and manuscripts. 73 5.i.c. Themes and summary. 74 5.i.d. Overview. 75 5.ii.a. Writing the Gesta. 77 5.ii.b. Literary style. 87 5.iii.a. Aquilo and gens. 89 5.iii.c. Barbarians. 91 5.iii.d. Pagans. 94 5.iii.f. The Prussians. 98 5.iii.g. The Frisians. 105 5.iii.h. The Polabian Slavs, conversion and the internal focus of the Gesta. 108 5.iv.a. The Saxons. 115 5.iv.b. Women. 118 5.iv.c. Adalbert. 121 5.v.a. Rejection. 130 5.v.b. Acceptance. 132 5.v.c. De-legitimising a single classification: social class. 133 5.v.d. De-legitimising multiple classifications: charity. 137 6.i.a. Introduction. 142 6.i.b. The Author. 142 6.i.c. Martyrdom. 143 6.i.d. Overview of argument. 143 6.ii.a. Overview. 144 6.ii.b. The personal, confessional, and reflective context of the work. 146 6.ii.c. Mysticism and the Absolute Other. 148 6.ii.d. Asceticism and the three orders. 151 6.ii.e. The primacy of the saints. 152 6.ii.f. Divisions within Christendom. 156 6.ii.g. Mission as asceticism. 159 6.iii.a. Overview of argument. 161 6.iii.b. Background. 163 6.iii.c. Dating the letter. 165 6.iii.d. II Corinthians 6.14. 166 6.iii.e. Bolesław as a fidelis amongst other fideles. 169 6.iii.g. Compel them to come in: the Liutizian alliance and the Saxons. 175 6.iii.h. Compel them to come in: missionary theology or Christian kingship?. 177 6.iv.a. Overview. 183 6.iv.b.i. Bruno’s position within his eschatological worldview. 184 6.iv.b.ii. The position of earthly institutions within Bruno’s eschatological worldview. 191 6.iv.c.i. Overview. 194 6.iv.c.ii. Opening qualifications. 194 6.iv.c.iii. Alienating the Bohemians. 199 6.iv.c.iv.The Bohemians in the eleventh chapter of the Passio Adalberti: Jews and slaves. 201 6.iv.c.v.The sixteenth chapter of the Passio Adalberti: barbarism and the holy of holies. 205 6.iv.c.vi.The fifteenth chapter of the Passio Adalberti: accusations of paganism. 208 6.iv.c.vii. The fifteenth chapter of the Passio Adalberti: the condemnation of the Bohemians in the language of individual spirituality. 211 6.iv.d.i. Overview. 216 6.iv.d.ii. Anticipating mission. 217 6.iv.d.iii. Adalbert’s journey. 218 6.iv.d.iv. Adalbert’s arrival. 221 6.iv.d.vi. Translation and initial qualifications. 223 6.iv.d.vii. Bruno’s missionary concerns: The twenty-sixth chapter of the Passio Adalberti. 225 6.iv.d.viii. Adalbert’s appeal to the Prussians. 226 6.iv.d.ix. The Prussians’ response. 230 6.iv.d.x. The Prussian crowd: Slavs and dogs’ heads. 231 6.iv.d.xi. The Prussian crowd: Social class and the realities of mission. 236 Primary sources. 247 Secondary sources. 252 Throughout the ninth to eleventh centuries, few Christian authors showed much interest in what lay beyond the borders of Christendom. This was certainly true within the Carolingian, Ottonian, and Salian empires, with which this thesis is concerned. This near- silence was not a question of relevance. Groups like the Northmen, Hungarians and Wends were real military threats; they were hard to ignore. Outsiders, often pagan outsiders, had a significant political, economic and cultural impact on these empires.1 Their relevance only increased as many of these outside groups were steadily Christianised during this period.2 Nor was this silence a question of ignorance. Contact with the Slavic and Scandinavian lands was constant and varied, and on the few occasions when an author sought detailed information about the outside world, they were able to find it.3 In part, the issue was the (perceived) paganism and barbarism of the northern world. Pagans were felt not to be worth talking about beyond their immediate impact on the empire. There was also the question of literary norms. There was little room in existing literary traditions for anthropological, historical or geographical descriptions of pagan peoples. When all history was fundamentally salvation history, the peculiarities of a gens only really became consequential after its conversion. Paganism was only ever a prelude. 1 For instance, see: Central Europe in the High Middle Ages Bohemia, Hungary and Poland, c.900–c.1300, ed. by Nora Berend, Przemysław Urbańczyk and Przemysław Wiszewski (Cambridge: CUP, 2013); Dirk Meier, Seafarers, Merchants and Pirates in the Middle Ages (Boydell Press: Woodbridge, 2006); Christianization and the rise of Christian Monarchy: Scandinavia, Central Europe and Rus' c. 900-1200, ed. by Nora Berend (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007); Franks, Northmen, and Slavs: Identities and State Formation in Early Medieval Europe, ed. by Ildar H. Garipzanov, Patrick Geary and Przemyslaw Urbańczyk (Turnhout: Brepols, 2008); Trade and Communication Networks of the First Millennium AD in the northern part of Central Europe: Central Places, Beach Markets, Landing Places and Trading Centres, ed. by Babette Ludowici and others (Stuttgart: Konrad Theiss, 2010). 2 For instance, see: Anders Winroth, The Conversion of Scandinavia: Vikings, Merchants and Missionaries in the Remaking of Northern Europe (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012); Richard A.