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Rus’ as a Target of the Crusades: History and Historical Memory

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Crusading Against Christians in the Middle Ages

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Abstract

The military conflicts between Rus’ian Prince Alexander Nevsky and the Catholic powers in the thirteenth century are commonly associated with crusading activities in the Baltic region. Yet it is striking that, although some crusader conquests of pagan territories extended into Rus’ian territories (e.g. in Novgorod and Polotsk Land), no contemporary sources include any declaration or justification of an explicitly anti-Rus’ian crusade at this time. In fact, the first clearly anti-Orthodox and anti-Rus’ian crusade in the region was the expedition of King Magnus of Sweden against Novgorod in 1348–1350. It was only in the fifteenth century when Rus’ian schismatics began to be considered as the main enemy of Catholic Christendom in the region. Simultaneously, the increasing authority of Muscovy began to pose a real threat to its western neighbours, namely Sweden in the north and Poland and Lithuania in the south. Indeed, it was early modern national history-writing that emphasised the crusading aspects of conflicts between the Rus’ and Catholics in the Middle Ages, depicting them as long-standing religious and cultural wars. That tradition was then confirmed and expanded by the professional historiography of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

The research was supported by University of Tartu Grant no. PHVAJ22905. I am grateful to Kari and Ülle Tarkiainen for their kind help.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    On the historical outline of the events in English, see Alan V. Murray, ed., Crusade and Conversion on the Baltic Frontier, 1150–1500 (Aldershot, 2001); Ane Bysted et al., Jerusalem in the North. Denmark and the Baltic Crusades, 1100–1522 (Turnhout, 2012). Eric Christiansen, The Northern Crusades. The Baltic and the Catholic Frontier 1100–1525 (Minneapolis, 1980), albeit outdated, can still also be used. For the south-western Rus’, see Aleksandr V. Maiorov, “Ecumenical Processes in the Mid-thirteenth Century and the Union between Russia and Rome,” Zeitschrift fur Kirchengeschichte 126 (2015): 11–34.

  2. 2.

    In this text, Rus’ and Rus’ians are used to denote medieval lands and peoples respectively; Russia and Russians stand for the modern state and nation and, in few cases, their projection into the medieval past by modern authors.

  3. 3.

    Igor N. Danilevskii, “Ледовое побоище: смена образа” [The Battle on the Ice: Changing Presentations], Otechestvennye zapiski 5 (2004): 28–40; Igor N.Danilevskii, “Александр Невский: парадоксы исторической памяти” [Aleksandr Nevskii: Paradoxes of Historical Memory], in “Цепь времен”. Проблемы исторического сознания [“The Chain of Times.” Problems of Historical Consciousness], ed. Lorina P. Repina (Moscow, 2005), 119–32; Mari Isoaho, “The Warrior in God’s Favour. The Image of Alexander Nevskiy as a Hero Confronting the Western Crusaders,” in Medieval History Writing and Crusading Ideology, ed. Tuomas M. S. Lehtonen and Kurt Villads Jensen (Helsinki 2005), 284–301; Donald Ostrowski, “Alexander Nevskii’s Battle on the Ice: The Creation of a Legend,” Russian History 33 (2006): 289–312.

  4. 4.

    Anti Selart, “Historical Legitimacy and Crusade in Livonia,” in Crusading on the Edge. Ideas and Practice of Crusading in Iberia and the Baltic Region, 1100–1500, ed. Torben Kjersgaard Nielsen and Iben Fonnesberg-Schmidt (Turnhout, 2016), 29–53.

  5. 5.

    For example: Boris N. Floria, ed., История России с древнейших времен до конца XVIII в. Учебник [Russian History from the Earliest Times to the Late 18th Century. University Textbook] (Moscow, 2010), 102–108. Cf. Vera I. Matusova, “Zur Rezeption des Deutschen Ordens in Rußland,” in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart der Ritterorden. Die Rezeption der Idee und die Wirklichkeit, ed. Zenon Hubert Nowak and Roman Czaja (Toruń, 2001), 133–44.

  6. 6.

    Sergei M. Solov’ev, Сочинения [Collected works]. Book 2: История России с древнейщих времен [Russian History from the Earliest Times onwards], vols 3–4 (Moscow, 1988), 148; Nikolai I. Kostomarov, Севернорусские народоправства во времена удельно-вечевого уклада [North Russian Democracies at the Time of the udels and veche System], vol. 1 (St. Petersburg, 1863), 357–66; Nikolai I. Kostomarov, Русская история в жизнеописаниях ее главнейших деятелей [Russian History Presented in Biographies of its Main Persons], part 1, vol. 1 (St. Petersburg, 1873), 155–56. See: Frithjof Benjamin Schenk, Aleksandr Nevskij. Heiliger – Fürst – Nationalheld. Eine Erinnerungsfigur im russischen kulturellen Gedächtnis (1263–2000) (Cologne, 2004), 189–93.

  7. 7.

    “Библиография трудов И. П. Шаскольского” [The List of Publications by Igor P. Shaskolskii], in Новгородская земля, Санкт-Петербург и Швеция в ХVII–ХVIII вв. Сборник статей к 100-летию со дня рождения Игоря Павловича Шаскольского [Novgorod Land, St. Petersburg and Sweden in the 17th–18th c. Collected Essays Commemorating the Centenary of the Birth of Igor Shaskolskii], ed. Pavel V. Sedov et al. (St. Petersburg, 2018), 421–55.

  8. 8.

    Vladimir N. Baryshnikov, “Игорь Павлович Шаскольский—создатель ленинградской школы историков-скандинавистов” [Igor Pavlovich Shaskolskii—The Founder of the Leningrad School of Scandinavian History Research], in “Моя специальность—Древняя Русь”. Сборник к 100-летию со дня рождения И. П. Шаскольского [“My area of expertise is the Old Rus’.” Collected Essays Commemorating the Centenary of the Birth of Igor Shaskolskii], ed. Gennadii M. Kovalenko et al. (St. Petersburg, 2018), 7–16, here 12–13.

  9. 9.

    Igor P. Shaskolskii, “Папская курия—главный организатор крестоносной агрессии 1240–1242 гг. против Руси” [The Papal Curia—The Main Organiser of the Crusading Aggression against Rus’ in 1240–42], Istoricheskie zapiski 37 (1951): 169–88.

  10. 10.

    Shaskolskii, “Папская курия,” 172.

  11. 11.

    Hans-Heinrich Nolte, “Drang nach Osten.” Sowjetische Geschichtsschreibung der deutschen Ostexpansion (Cologne, 1976), 214–217; John H. Lind, “Некоторые соображения о Невской битве и ее значении” [Some Thoughts about the Neva Battle and its Importance], in Князь Александр Невский и его эпоха. Исследования и материалы [Prince Alexander Nevsky and His Era. Studies and Documents], ed. Iurii K. Begunov and Anatolii N. Kirpichnikov (St. Petersburg, 1995), 44–54, here 44; Evgeniya L. Nazarova, “The Crusades against Votians and Izhorians in the Thirteenth Century,” in Crusade and Conversion on the Baltic Frontier, 1150–1500, ed. Alan V. Murray (Aldershot, 2001), 177–195, here 183; Boris N. Floria, Исследования по истории церкви. Древнерусское и славянское средневековье [Studies on Church History. Old Rus’ian and Slavonic Middle Ages] (Moscow, 2007), 192.

  12. 12.

    Gustav Adolf Donner, Kardinal Wilhelm von Sabina. Bischof von Modena 1222–1234, päpstlicher Legat in den nordischen Ländern († 1251) (Helsinki, 1929), 217–23.

  13. 13.

    Albert M. Ammann, Kirchenpolitische Wandlungen im Ostbaltikum bis zum Tode Alexander Newski’s. Studien zum Werden der russischen Orthodoxie (Rome, 1936).

  14. 14.

    Vitalii V. Tikhonov, Идеологические кампании “позднего сталинизма” и советская историческая наука. Середина 1940-х–1953 г. [The Ideological Campaigns of the “Late Stalinist” Period and the Soviet Historical Scholarship, mid-1940s–1953] (Moscow, 2016), 120–30.

  15. 15.

    Cf. Anti Selart, “Gab es eine altrussische Tributherrschaft in Estland (10.–12. Jahrhundert)?” Forschungen zur baltischen Geschichte 10 (2015): 11–30.

  16. 16.

    Boris Ia. Ramm, Папство и Русь в Х–ХV веках [The Papacy and Rus’ in the 10th–15th c.] (Moscow, 1959), 95–134.

  17. 17.

    Vladimir T. Pashuto, “О политике папской курии на Руси (ХIII век)” [On the Politics of the Papal Curia in Rus’, 13th c.], Voprosy istorii 5 (1949): 52–76. Cf. Vladimir T. Pashuto, Внешняя политика Древней Руси [Foreign Policy of Old Rus’] (Moscow, 1968), 227–59, 290–301.

  18. 18.

    Pashuto, “О политике,” 74–76. Similarly, already in a paper originally presented in 1942 by Boris F. Porshnev, “Ледовое побоище и всемирная история” [The Battle on the Ice and World History], Doklady i soobshcheniia istoricheskogo fakul’teta MGU 5 (1947): 29–45.

  19. 19.

    Georgii V. Vernadskii, “Два подвига св. Александра Невского” [The Two Heroic Deeds of St. Alexander Nevsky], Evraziiskii vremennik 4 (1925): 318–37.

  20. 20.

    Vladimir T. Pashuto, “Борьба народов Руси и восточной Прибалтики с агрессией немецких, шведских и датских феодалов” [The Struggle of the Peoples of Rus’ and the Eastern Baltic Region Against the Aggression of German, Swedish, and Danish Feudalists], Voprosy istorii 6 (1969): 112–29; 7 (1969): 109–28.

  21. 21.

    Словарь русского языка ХI–ХVII вв. [Dictionary of the Russian Language of the 11th–17th c.], vol. 8, ed. Fedot P. Filin et al. (Moscow, 1981), 46–47.

  22. 22.

    Словарь русского языка ХVIII века [Dictionary of the Russian Language of the 18th c.], vol. 11, ed. Iurii S. Sorokin et al. (St. Petersburg, 2000), 10.

  23. 23.

    Jerzy Serczyk, “Die Wandlungen des Bildes vom Deutschen Orden als politischer, ideologischer und gesellschaftlicher Faktor im polnischen Identitätsbewußtsein des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts,” in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart der Ritterorden. Die Rezeption der Idee und die Wirklichkeit, ed. Zenon Hubert Nowak (Toruń, 2001), 55–64; Marina B. Bessudnova, “Ливонский орден в современной зарубежной историографии” [The Teutonic Order in Livonia in Current Foreign Historiography], Srednie Veka 79/1 (2018): 103–125, here 104–105.

  24. 24.

    Nolte, “Drang nach Osten,” 214–18; Wolfgang Wippermann, Der “Deutsche Drang nach Osten.” Ideologie und Wirklichkeit eines politischen Schlagwortes (Darmstadt, 1981), 66; Schenk, Aleksandr Nevskij, 419–25.

  25. 25.

    Wolfgang Wippermann, “Das Bild der mittelalterlichen deutschen Ostsiedlung bei Marx und Engels,” in Germania Slavica, vol. 1, ed. Wolfgang H. Fritze (Berlin, 1980), 71–97.

  26. 26.

    Gustav Naan, ed., Eesti NSV ajalugu (kõige vanemast ajast tänapäevani) (Tallinn, 1952), 30–31.

  27. 27.

    About this concept cf. Andreas Kappeler, “Ein ‘kleines Volk’ von 25 Millionen: Die Ukrainer um 1900,” in Kleine Völker in der Geschichte Europas, ed. Manfred Alexander et al. (Stuttgart, 1991), 33–42, here 33–35.

  28. 28.

    Cf. Pertti Haapala et al., eds., Making Nordic Historiography. Connections, Tensions and Methodology, 1850–1970 (New York, 2017).

  29. 29.

    On the date cf. John H. Lind, “Early Russian-Swedish Rivalry. The Battle on the Neva in 1240 and Birger Magnusson’s Second Crusade to Tavastia,” Scandinavian Journal of History 16 (1991): 269–95.

  30. 30.

    Paulus Juusten, Catalogus et ordinaria successio episcoporum finlandensium, ed. Simo Heininen (Helsinki, 1988), 49; Derek Fewster, Visions of Past Glory. Nationalisms and the Construction of Early Finnish History (Helsinki, 2006), 105.

  31. 31.

    Thomas Lindkvist, “Legitimisation of Power and Crusades as Europeanisation in Medieval Sweden,” in The Reception of Medieval Europe in the Baltic Sea Region, ed. Jörn Staecker (Visby, 2009), 33–41. Cf. Anna Waśko, “Crusades in Finland and the Crusade Ideology in Sweden from the 12th to 14th Centuries,” Quaestiones medii aevi novae 18 (2013): 257–80.

  32. 32.

    Gabriel Rein, Finlands forntid i Chronologisk öfversigt, åtföljd af de förnämsta händelser ur Rysslands och Sveriges Historia (Helsinki, 1831); Gabriel Rein, “Biskop Thomas och Finland i hans tid,” in Kring korstågen till Finland. Ett urval uppsatser tillägnat Jarl Gallén på hans sextioårsdag den 23 maj 1968, ed. Kaj Mikander ([Helsinki], 1968), 11–59 (first printed in 1839). See also: Erik Gustaf Geijer, Samlade skrifter, ed. John Landquist, vol. 5 (Stockholm, 1926), 491–92, 501, 519–20.

  33. 33.

    Päiviö Tommila, Suomen historiankirjoitus. Tutkimuksen historia (Porvoo, 1989), 186–90.

  34. 34.

    Jalmari Jaakkola, Suomen historia III: Suomen varhaiskeskiaika. Kristillisen Suomen synty (Porvoo, 1938), 270–97. On later versions of the same concept cf. e.g.: Heikki Kirkinen, Karjala Idän kultuuripiirissä. Bysantin ja Venäjän yhteyksistä keskiajan Karjalaan (Helsinki, 1963), 82.

  35. 35.

    Igor P. Shaskolskii, Борьба Руси против крестоносной агресии на берегах Балтики в ХII–ХIII вв. [The Struggle of Rus’ Against the Crusading Aggression on the Shores of the Baltic Sea, 12th–13th c.] (Leningrad, 1978), 38–40.

  36. 36.

    Cf. the definition in the propagandistic booklet by another Soviet historian: “Swedish feudalists shaped their predatory wars of conquest in the form of expeditions which allegedly had the conversion of heathens into Christianity quasi their only goal”: Vladimir V. Mavrodin, Борьба русского народа за Невские берега [The Struggle of the Russian People for the Shores of Neva River] (Leningrad, 1944), 8. After WWII, the Soviet history-writing did not include Finns in the list of the enemies of medieval Rus’ any more.

  37. 37.

    Igor P. Shaskolskii, Борьба Руси против шведской экспансии в Карелии, конец ХIII–начало ХIV в. [The Struggle of Rus’ against the Swedish Expansion in Karelia, late 13th–early 14th c.] (Petrozavodsk, 1987).

  38. 38.

    Igor P. Shaskolskii, Борьба Руси за сохранение выхода к Балтийскому морю в ХIV веке. [The Struggle of Rus’ for Maintaining Access to the Baltic Sea in the 14th c.] (Leningrad, 1987).

  39. 39.

    Aleksandr I. Filjuškin, “Der Diskurs von der Notwendigkeit des Durchbruchs zur Ostsee in der russischen Geschichte und Historiographie,” in Narva und die Ostseeregion. Narva and the Baltic Sea Region, ed. Karsten Brüggemann (Narva, 2004), 171–83.

  40. 40.

    Edgar N. Johnson, “The German Crusade on the Baltic,” in A History of the Crusades, ed. Kenneth M. Setton, Vol. 3: The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries, ed. Harry W. Hazard (Madison, WI, 1975), 545–85, here 575. Most probably, Johnson based his work on the monograph by Ammann here.

  41. 41.

    Indriķis Šterns “The Teutonic Knights in the Crusader States,” in A History of the Crusades, ed. Kenneth M. Setton, Vol. 5: The Impact of the Crusades on the Near East, ed. Norman P. Zacour and Harry W. Hazard (Madison, WI, 1985), 315–78, here 368. See also: William L. Urban, “The Frontier Thesis and the Baltic Crusade,” in Crusade and Conversion on the Baltic Frontier, 1150–1500, ed. Alan V. Murray (Aldershot, 2001), 45–71, here 51.

  42. 42.

    E.g. Christopher Tyerman, God’s War. A New History of the Crusades (Cambridge, MA, 2006), 696–97; Andrei N. Sakharov et al., История России с древнейших времен до наших дней [The History of Russia from the Earliest Times to the Present Days], vol. 1 (Moscow, 2010), 165–74.

  43. 43.

    Jonathan Riley-Smith, “Some Modern Approaches to the History of the Crusades,” in Crusading on the Edge. Ideas and Practice of Crusading in Iberia and the Baltic Region, ed. Torben Kjersgaard Nielsen and Iben Fonnesberg-Schmidt (Turnhout, 2016), 9–27.

  44. 44.

    Most prominently summarised in Bysted et al., Jerusalem in the North.

  45. 45.

    For example, Igor’ N. Danilevskii, Русские земли глазами современников и потомков (ХII–ХIV вв.) [Rus’ian lands as Seen by Contemporaries and Descendants, 12th–14th c.] (Moscow, 2004), 181–206. See also Sven Ekdahl, “Crusades and Colonization in the Baltic,” in Palgrave Advances in the Crusades, ed. Helen J. Nicholson (Basingstoke, 2005), 172–203, here 192–94.

  46. 46.

    Anti Selart, “Der Krieg Russlands gegen die ‘NATO des 13. Jahrhunderts’. Altlivländische Geschichte in den politischen Parolen des 21. Jahrhunderts,” in Das mittelalterliche Livland und sein historisches Erbe. Medieval Livonia and Its Historical Legacy, ed. Andris Levāns et al. (Marburg, 2022), 105–25. On the political exploitation of the figure of Alexander Nevsky in Russia, see: Mariëlle Wijermars, Memory Politics in Contemporary Russia. Television, Cinema and the State (London, 2018), 84–121.

  47. 47.

    Anti Selart, Livonia, Rus’ and the Baltic Crusades in the Thirteenth Century (Leiden, 2015), 20–47.

  48. 48.

    Axel Bayer, Spaltung der Christenheit. Das sogenannte Morgenlandische Schisma von 1054 (Cologne, 2002); Peter Bruns and Georg Gresser, eds., Vom Schisma zu den Kreuzzügen 1054–1204 (Paderborn, 2005). Cf. Jonathan Harris, “The ‘Schism’ of 1054 and the First Crusade,” Crusades 13 (2014): 1–20.

  49. 49.

    Chris Schabel, “The Myth of the White Monks’ ‘Mission to the Orthodox’. Innocent III, the Cistercians, and the Greeks,” Traditio. Studies in Ancient and Medieval History, Thought, and Religion 70 (2015): 237–61, here 256–61. Cf. Christopher MacEvitt, The Crusades and the Christian World of the East. Rough Tolerance (Philadelphia, 2008), 138–39.

  50. 50.

    Stefan Burkhardt, “Ut sit unum ovile et unus pastor. The Fourth Lateran Council and the Variety of Eastern Christianity,” in The Fourth Lateran Council. Institutional Reform and Spiritual Renewal, ed. Gert Melville and Johannes Helmrath (Affalterbach, 2017), 111–122.

  51. 51.

    Nikolaos G. Chrissis, Crusading in Frankish Greece. A Study of Byzantine-Western Relations and Attitudes, 1204–1282 (Turnhout, 2012); Nikolaos G. Chrissis, “New Frontiers: Frankish Greece and the Development of Crusading in the Early Thirteenth Century,” in Contact and Conflict in Frankish Greece and the Aegean, 1204–1453. Crusade, Religion and Trade between Latins, Greeks and Turks, ed. Nikolaos G. Chrissis and Mike Carr (Farnham, 2014), 17–42; Nikolaos G. Chrissis, “Tearing Christ‘s Seamless Tunic? The ‘Eastern Schism’ and Crusades against the Greeks in the Thirteenth Century,” in The Expansion of the Faith. Crusading on the Frontiers of Latin Christendom in the High Middle Ages, ed. Paul Srodecki and Norbert Kersken (Turnhout, 2022), 229–50. See also the chapters by Nikolaos Chrissis, Francesco Dall’Aglio and Mike Carr in this volume.

  52. 52.

    John H. Lind, “‘Varangian Christianity’ and the Veneration of Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian Saints in Early Rus’,” in Identity Formation and Diversity in the Early Medieval Baltic and Beyond. Communicators and Communication, ed. Johan Callmer et al. (Leiden, 2017), 107–35, here 129.

  53. 53.

    Athina Kolia-Dermitzaki, “‘Holy War’ in Byzantium Twenty Years Later. A Question of Term Definition and Interpretation,” in Byzantine War Ideology Between Roman Imperial Concept and Christian Religion, ed. Johannes Koder and Yannis Stouraitis (Vienna, 2012), 121–32; Gérard Dédéyan, “Le combattant noble arménien: un miles Christi?,” in Élites et ordres militaires au Moyen Âge. Recontre autour d’Alain Demurger, ed. Philippe Josserand et al. (Madrid, 2015), 65–78. Cf. George T. Dennis, “Defenders of the Christian People: Holy War in Byzantium,” in The Crusades from the Perspective of Byzantium and the Muslim World, ed. Ageliki E. Laiou and Roy Parviz Mottahedeh (Washington, 2001), 31–39.

  54. 54.

    Mari Isoaho, The Image of Aleksander Nevskiy in Medieval Russia. Warrior and Saint (Leiden, 2006), 384–86; Donald Ostrowski, “Redating the Life of Alexander Nevskii,” in Rude & Barbarous Kingdom Revisited. Essays in Russian History and Culture in Honor of Robert O. Crummey, ed. Chester S. L. Dunning et al. (Bloomington, 2008), 23–39; Donald Ostrowski, “Dressing a Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing: Toward Understanding the Composition of the Life of Alexander Nevskii,” Russian History 40 (2013): 41–67.

  55. 55.

    Ostrowski, “Alexander Nevskii’s Battle,” 304–12.

  56. 56.

    Selart, Livonia, 171–94, 279–91. Cf. Torben K. Nielsen, “Sterile Monsters? Russians and the Orthodox Church in the Chronicle of Henry of Livonia,” in The Clash of Cultures on the Medieval Baltic Frontier, ed. Alan V. Murray (Farnham, 2009), 227–52.

  57. 57.

    Anti Selart, “Russians in Livonian Towns in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries,” in Segregation—Integration—Assimilation. Religious and Ethnic Groups in the Medieval Towns of Central and Eastern Europe, ed. Derek Keene et al. (Farnham, 2009), 33–50.

  58. 58.

    Selart, Livonia, 250.

  59. 59.

    Selart, Livonia, 292.

  60. 60.

    Petr Stefanovich, “Политическое развитие Галицко-Волынской Руси в 1240–1340 гг. и отношения с Ордой” [The Political Development of the Galicia–Volhynia Region of Rus’ in 1240–1340 and its Relations to the Mongol Horde], Rossiiskaia istoriia 4 (2019): 116–34, here 127–28.

  61. 61.

    Aleksandr Lappo-Danilevskii, ed., Болеслав-Юрий II, князь всей Малой Руси [Iurii II Boleslav, the prince of the all Little Rus’] (St. Petersburg, 1907), 151–52; Stefanovich, “Политическое развитие,” 129–30.

  62. 62.

    Jukka Korpela, “Finland’s Eastern Border After the Treaty of Nöteborg: An Ecclesiastical, Political or Cultural Border,” Journal of Baltic Studies 33 (2002): 384–97; Jukka Korpela, “Beyond the Borders in the European North-East,” in Frontiers in the Middle Ages, ed. Outi Merisalo (Louvain-la-Neuve, 2006), 373–84.

  63. 63.

    Tuomas Heikkilä, Pyhän Henrikin legenda (Helsinki, 2005), 97–98, 115–18; Janus Møller Jensen, Denmark and the Crusades, 1400–1650 (Leiden, 2007), 135–36.

  64. 64.

    Jukka Korpela, The World of Ladoga. Society, Trade, Transformation and State Building in the Eastern Fennoscandian Boreal Forest Zone c. 1000–1555 (Berlin, 2008), 19–27.

  65. 65.

    Cf. Jukka Korpela, “‘The Russian Threat Against Finland’ in the Western Sources Before the Peace of Noteborg (1323),” Scandinavian Journal of History 22 (1997): 161–72; John H. Lind, “The ‘First Swedish Crusade’ against the Finns: A Part of the Second Crusade?” in The Second Crusade: Holy War on the Periphery of Latin Christendom, ed. Jason T. Roche and Janus Møller Jensen (Turnhout, 2015), 303–25.

  66. 66.

    Bjørn Bandlien, “Norway, Sweden, and Novgorod. Scandinavian Perceptions of the Russians, Late Twelfth—Early Fourteenth Centuries,” in Imagined Communities on the Baltic Rim, from the Eleventh to Fifteenth Centuries, ed. Wojtek Jezierski and Lars Hermanson (Amsterdam, 2016), 331–52, here 340–41.

  67. 67.

    The Chronicle of Duke Erik. A Verse Epic from Medieval Sweden, trans. Erik Carlquist and Peter C. Hogg (Lund, 2012).

  68. 68.

    Thomas Lindkvist, “Crusades and Crusading Ideology in the Political History of Sweden, 1140–1500,” in Crusade and Conversion on the Baltic Frontier 1150–1500, ed. Alan V. Murray (Aldershot, 2001), 119–30, here 127–29; Tuomas Heikkilä, “An Imaginary Saint for an Imagined Community. St. Henry and the Creation of Christian Identity in Finland, Thirteenth–Fifteenth Centuries,” in Imagined Communities on the Baltic Rim, from the Eleventh to Fifteenth Centuries, ed. Wojtek Jezierski and Lars Hermanson (Amsterdam, 2016), 223–52, here 226–27; Jens E. Olesen, “The Swedish Expeditions (‘Crusades’) towards Finland Reconsidered,” in Church and Belief in the Middle Ages. Popes, Saints, and Crusaders, ed. Kirsi Salonen and Sari Katajala-Peltomaa (Amsterdam, 2016), 251–68.

  69. 69.

    Bridget Morris, St Birgitta of Sweden (Woodbridge, 1999), 83–85; Jean-Marie Maillefer, “La croisade du roi de Suède Magnus Eriksson contre Novgorod (1348–1351),” in L’expansion occidentale (XIe–XVe siècles). Formes et consequences (Paris, 2003), 87–96; Anti Selart, “Between Schism and Union: Russian Adversaries and Allies of the Crusaders in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries,” in The Expansion of the Faith. Crusading on the Frontiers of Latin Christendom in the High Middle Ages, ed. Paul Srodecki and Norbert Kersken (Turnhout, 2022), 251–66.

  70. 70.

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    See also: Jürgen Sarnowsky, “The Military Orders and Crusading in the Fifteenth Century: Perception and Influence,” in Reconfiguring the Fifteenth-Century Crusade, ed. Norman Housley (London, 2017), 123–60.

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    Klaus Militzer, “Der Wandel in der Begründung der Existenz des Deutschen Ordens und seiner Selbstrechtfertigung vor und nach der Schlacht bei Tannenberg,” in Kancelaria wielkich mistrzów i Polska kancelaria królewska w XV wieku, ed. Janusz Trupinda (Malbork, 2006), 179–90; Paul Srodecki, “‘Murus et antemurale pollens et propugnaculum tocius christianitatis’. Der Traktatenstreit zwischen dem Deutschen Orden und dem Königreich Polen auf dem Konstanzer Konzil,” Schweizerische Zeitschrift für Religions- und Kirchengeschichte 109 (2015): 47–65.

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    Anti Selart, “Ein westfälisch-russischer Krieg 1443–1448? Bemerkungen zum Krieg des livländischen Deutschen Ordens gegen Novgorod,” Zeitschrift für Ostmitteleuropa-Forschung 61 (2012): 247–62.

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    Anti Selart, “Switching the Tracks. Baltic Crusades against Russia in the Fifteenth Century,” in The Crusade in the Fifteenth Century. Converging and Competing Cultures, ed. Norman Housley (London, 2017), 90–106, here 92–93.

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    E.g. Irena Sułkowska-Kuraś and Stanisław Kuraś, eds., Bullarium Poloniae. Litteras apostolicas aliaque monumenta Poloniae Vaticana continens, vol. 5 (Rome, 1995), no. 1208.

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    Liv-, est- und kurländisches Urkundenbuch, vol. 1/14, no. 288. The event is similarly reported in chronicles, e.g. Friedrich Bruns, ed., Die Chroniken der niedersächsischen Städte. Lübeck, vol. 5 (Leipzig, 1911–1914), 224, 243–44, 289. Here the analogous conflicts in Karelia in c. 1480 are described in a similar way as well.

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    Anti Selart, “Waffenembargo in den nordischen Kreuzzügen im 13. Jahrhundert,” in ene vruntlike tohopesate. Beiträge zur Geschichte Pommerns, des Ostseeraums und der Hanse. Festschrift für Horst Wernicke zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. Sonja Birli et al. (Hamburg, 2016), 549–58.

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    Erik Tiberg, Moscow, Livonia and the Hanseatic League 1487–1550 (Stockholm, 1995), 228–40. For example, in 1421–22 the Hanseatic towns protested at Livonian territorial lords against the ban of selling military goods to Rus’: Akten und Rezesse der livländischen Ständetage, vol. 1, ed. Oskar Stavenhagen et al. (Riga, 1907–1933), nos. 275, 302, pp. 237–38, 267.

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    Liv-, est- und kurländisches Urkundenbuch, vol. 1/7, no. 690 §37 pp. 487–88; cf. ibid., vol. 1/9, no. 131 pp. 83–87; Stefan K. Stantchev, Spiritual Rationality. Papal Embargo as Cultural Practice (Oxford, 2014), 164–65, 172.

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    Liv-, est- und kurländisches Urkundenbuch, vol. 1/13, no. 702 p. 635, no. 732 p. 669.

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    Selart, “Switching the Tracks,” 96–98.

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    Edgar Hösch, “Die Stellung Moskoviens in den Kreuzzugsplänen des Abendlandes. Bemerkungen zur griechischen Emigration im Moskau des ausgehenden 15. und beginnenden 16. Jahrhunderts,” Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas 15 (1967): 321–40.

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    Augustin Theiner, ed., Vetera monumenta Poloniae et Lithuaniae gentiumque finitimarum historiam illustrantia, vol. 2 (Rome, 1861), no. 352; Liv-, est- und kurländisches Urkundenbuch, vol. 2/2, no. 806.

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    Isoaho, The Image, 100–101.

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    Anti Selart

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    Gianluca Raccagni

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Selart, A. (2024). Rus’ as a Target of the Crusades: History and Historical Memory. In: Carr, M., Chrissis, N.G., Raccagni, G. (eds) Crusading Against Christians in the Middle Ages. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-47339-5_11

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