The Edges of the Medieval World

Political Rhetoric and the Edges of CChristianity: Livonia and its Evil Enemies in the Fifteenth Century1

POLITICAL RHETORIC AND THE EDGES OF CHRISTIANITY: LIVONIA AND ITS EVIL ENEMIES IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY 1 Anti Selart Medieval Livonia was born through battles and confrontations. Crusaders, military orders, and vassals migrating from Germany had conquered the pagans in the territory of Estonia and Latvia by approximately the year 1300, yet this did not mean peace for Livonia. Lithuanians and Samogitians remained pagan up until the turn of the fourteenth century and into the fifteenth. The political authority of Lithuania also expanded to the neighbouring areas of Orthodox Russia: Polotsk, and occasionally Pskov, Russians became subjects of the pagan grand dukes of Lithuania. Sporadic border conflicts broke out with Novgorod Russians. But as much as the conflicts on the external borders , internal conflicts also moulded the history of medieval Livonia.2 The strongest political power in Livonia was the Teutonic Order, which, from the second half of the thirteenth century, competed with the archbishop of Riga and other bishoprics of Livonia for hegemony and political authority. This confrontation, sometimes latent but occasionally bursting into war, demanded, besides other issues, that the parties had to render sense to their role and meaning in Livonia – in the country located at the edge of Catholic Christendom, in the immediate vicinity of pagans and schismatics. The parties in Livonia constantly brought actions against each other before the emperor and, in most cases, the papal curia. In litigation, they needed arguments that would justify their activities and cast a shadow on their opponents. The most important issue in this argumentation concerned Livonia’s neighbours: Were they dangerous infidels or future Christians, ready to be baptised? Were they unfaithful schismatics or Russians willing to acknowledge the primacy of the pope? The circle of potential allies on the northeastern edge of Europe was limited and in reality all the powers in Livonia had to conclude 1 Under support of the Eesti Teadusfond (grant no. 7129). 2 See the general works in English: William Urban, Livonian Crusade, 2nd ed. (Chicago: Lithuanian Research and Studies Center, 2004); Alan V. Murray, ed., Crusade and Conversion on the Baltic Frontier 1150–1500 (Aldershot : Ashgate, 2001) (hereafter: Murray, Crusade and Conversion); William Urban, Tannenberg and After. Lithuania, Poland, and the Teutonic Order in Search of Immortality (Chicago: Lithuanian Research and Studies Center, 2002). ANTI SELART 56 alliances with non-Catholics which, in turn, then had to be justified to the Catholic public. Erich Maschke described the late medieval situation as follows: “Nur in den gegenseitigen Vorwürfen lebte die Idee der Mission fort.”3 In addition, the actual substance of the concept, “entire Christendom,” in the interests of whom the parties claimed to be operating, frequently meant “me and my allies.”4 The position of Livonia in Baltic politics was in turn closely connected with Prussia, where pagan Lithuanians and schismatic Russians also played important roles in the polemics of the Teutonic Order against Poland.5 During the thirteenth century and even the fourteenth century, dangerous enemies for Livonia were, firstly, the pagans, and secondly, the schismatics, who initially had played their role rather as subjects of and assistants to the Lithuanians, not independently .6 The situation changed dramatically at the end of the fourteenth century, when Lithuania adopted Christianity. Pursuant to the agreement concluded in Krewo in 1385, Grand Duke Jogaila of Lithuania was baptized as a Catholic. He married the Polish Queen Jadwiga in 1386 and acceded to the Polish throne as King Władysław. The next year, Lithuania underwent massive baptism. Yet the complete formal Catholicisation of pagan Lithuania did indeed last for a relatively long time, Samogitia was only converted between the years 1413-1417.7 In the beginning, the Teutonic Order refused to recognise Jogaila as a Christian, referring to the threat that the king might become an apostate. The Order developed propaganda that Jogaila’s marriage was null and void as Jadwiga had been engaged to the Austrian Duke William of Hapsburg. In such a complicated political situation, the Order formed an alliance with the Catholic neophyte Vytautas and the pagan Samogitians against the Catholic convert King Jogaila in 13891392 .8 As a matter of fact, sooner or later, Christianisation of Lithuania inevitably necessitated the need for a new self-legitimisation by the Teutonic Order.9 Finally, the 3 Erich Maschke, Der Deutsche Orden und die Preußen. Bekehrung und Unterwerfung in der preußisch-baltischen Mission des 13. Jahrhunderts (Berlin: Ebering, 1928), 63. 4 See Jan Kostrzak, “Frühe Formen des altlivländischen...