4

Rulership, warfare and sacrality in medieval Central Europe

Dušan Zupka

This contribution will examine two basic theses.¹ The first is the premise that the armed displays of Christian rulers and their warriors against enemies (especially pagans or non-Christians) represented one part of a mosaic in the process of forming the common identity of the Latin Christian West. What German, Bohemian, Polish or Hungarian warriors attempted to save from attackers (aside from their own lives and property) was the idea of fellowship toward all Christians (populus Christianus) symbolized by a common religious-cultural identity – Christianitas – that is, Christendom. The second postulate is that over time this identity was brought to the inhabitants of the peripheral regions, who then took it up with surprising rapidity and adopted it as their own (this is true primarily for the lay and spiritual elite). One of the notable instruments of this transfer was the active involvement of religious warfare, which in this context gradually manifested in the form of holy war and later as the Crusades.

The situation in Central Europe in the 11th and 12th centuries was fundamentally different from that of the 10th century. After the year 1000, the Árpád, Piast and Přemyslid realms were formed, and they had the ambition to become Christian monarchies imitating, to a great extent, the Western patterns of Latin Christendom and the Holy Roman Empire in particular.² Vast territories from the Danube to the Vistula and from the Baltic to the Adriatic became places of intensive building of Christianized monarchies, church organization, missionary activities, the formation of the foundations of “state administration,” military power and, last but not least, a cultural and social identity. This identity, as I have outlined it, was that of Christian people (populus Christianus) living within Latin or Roman Christianity (Christianitas).³ The new religion was a unifying element that at least formally connected the diverse ethnic, linguistic and cultural entities of Central Europe and created a unified Christian Europe. Christian warfare was one of its many forms. Christianization during the first decades of the new millennium was, above all, a matter of the spiritual and political elites, as the masses of the populations adopted the new religion only gradually. This process was not easy and often necessitated coercive, even violent means. What’s more, it was met with strong pagan resistance, as we can see in the examples of Hungary and Poland in the 1030s, 1040s and 1060s. At the same time, Christianization spread into surrounding regions, which were now led by the Christian rulers of a “young Europe.” Beyond these developments, there were areas to the north and east of the Piast domain, that is, areas of the Baltic coast inhabited by Pomeranians and the areas of the Elbe Slavs. These tribes defied Christianization for the longest time and were only definitively broken by repeated invasions (Crusaders) during the 12th century. The last bastion of Slavic pagan resistance – the fortified settlement of Arkona – only fell in 1168.⁴

Renewed clashes occurred regularly along the Elbe front in the course of the 11th and 12th centuries. According to preserved sources, the form of conducting these wars persisted in the objectives established during the 10th century. The forces of the Holy Roman Empire combined the spreading of the Christian faith with territorial and power-political expansion to the east and north.⁵ They were fully supported in this by spiritual elites as well as by common clerics. Furthermore, the Ottonian and Salian kings saw to it that they obtained the greatest support possible for their invasions from among their own subjects. Therefore, they tried to engage them in these actions. While they did not expect armed participation from them, they did rely on spiritual support by means of invisible weapons – prayers, alms and fasts.⁶ At least, we can interpret the report of Rodulfus Glaber describing the campaign of Conrad II (1024–1039) against the Lutici in 1035 in this spirit. Slavic pagans had plundered the imperial border for several years, but the emperor’s patience finally ran out and he decided to definitively put an end to this danger. What’s more, because Christian lands were the target of repeated pagan attacks, he had a legitimate reason for declaring it a just war. At a diet in Frankish-Bavarian Bamberg, Conrad summoned and then assembled a great army made up of, in addition to Bavarians, soldiers from the whole empire, including Bohemian divisions of Břetislav I.⁷

Although, according to Glaber’s report, the emperor set forth with a large number of soldiers, he did not rely exclusively on their force. Throughout the entire empire, religious rites and prayers were conducted by both clerics and commoners, the aim of which was to help achieve a victorious end to Conrad’s campaign.⁸ Conrad’s biographer Wipo also reports very suggestively about the campaign, claiming that the whole of Christendom joined in the battle against the pagan Slavs. The greater number of armed forces and the possibility of a longer stay at the front were crucial to the Lutici ultimately acknowledging the sovereignty of Conrad and repeatedly promising to pay tribute. However, they were not induced to accept the cross. Nevertheless, Conrad’s champions extolled his triumph, and Wipo himself probably composed a celebratory hymn extolling the emperor’s brilliant victory.⁹ His excursion was thus interpreted as a religious campaign to avenge and defend the true faith against pagan attackers. In any case, Conrad’s war brought certain victories, even if they were only temporary. In the year that followed, in August 1036, the emperor again found himself in the territory of the Lutici. This time, the Slavs handed over tribute and prisoners without his armed forces having to intervene.¹⁰

Wipo’s narration contains one more important moment. In the section describing the behavior of Conrad II on the battlefield, he also mentions Conrad’s cruelty and mercilessness in dealing with Slavic captives. This was reportedly caused by a specific act that occurred during the armed confrontation between Christians and pagans: the destruction of sacred objects and idols.¹¹ Wars between different religious worlds played out not only on the real, physical plane of the battlefield but also on the spiritual or perhaps symbolic plane. For Christians, the wars against the pagans were also an opportunity for missionary activities linked with more or less voluntary Christianization. Territorial and political expansion thus went hand in hand with the spread of Christianity. One form of demonstrating the ascendancy of a certain religion was the destruction of the holy places, buildings, temples, woods and cult objects of its opponents. Charlemagne provides a good example of this. During the Saxon wars, he commanded that the Germanic sacred tree Irminsul, which represented the Central European version of the Scandinavian Yggdrasil and was considered to be the center of the Germanic world, be found and destroyed. Charlemagne ordered the destruction of this sacred tree at the start of the Saxon campaign, thus making the clear statement that this was a religious war.¹² Both Christian and pagan fighters practiced the devastation of the opponent’s sacred sites and objects, but thanks to the larger number of Christian sources, we are better informed about the destruction of pagan shrines and places of worship.

Let us return again, however, to the narrative of the chronicler Wipo on the battle of Conrad II with the Lutici in the year 1035, as captured in the previously mentioned celebratory poem:

There you can read about how the emperor stood in the swamp, thigh-deep in places, personally fighting and encouraging his warriors, and how after the pagans were defeated, he destroyed their swords with even greater fury, namely for one of their most reprehensible superstitions. It is said that for some time they had kept in their power a wooden statue of our crucified Lord Jesus Christ. They laughed at it, spat on it and did beat on it. Finally, they stripped it of its eyes and chopped off the legs and arms. To avenge these deeds, the emperor had a large number of captured pagans similarly maimed.¹³

The text further mentions a parallel with the Roman emperors of the 1st century after Christ – Titus and Vespasian – who, according to period beliefs, similarly treated the defeated Jews. Wipo’s telling is interesting in several regards. It provides us with a detailed description of the demeaning ritual desecration of a Christian sacred object by the Lutici. Other contemporary authors also attributed such conduct to pagans. The majority of pagan incursions into Christian lands involved pillaging, the destroying of churches and church property and also the killing of both priests and common believers. This is substantiated, for example, by Helmold of Bosau (1120–1177), the author of the Chronica Sclavorum (Chronicle of the Slavs) from the middle of the 12th century.¹⁴ According to Helmold, pagans who in general performed human sacrifices were said to particularly favor the sacrificing of Christian prisoners:

[T]hey offer sacrifices of oxen and sheep to their deities, even many human sacrifices, Christians, saying that their gods have a particular relish for the blood of Christians. … It would be difficult to tell of the ways they killed Christians. For one they ripped out the entrails and then wrapped them around a pillar; others were nailed to the cross to make a mockery of the sign of our redemption. They claim that the greatest criminals should be nailed to the cross. Those who were thrown into prison to be ransomed for money suffer such torture and such difficult bonds that one who has not experienced it can hardly imagine it.¹⁵

With descriptions of barbaric cruelties, it is necessary to keep in mind the intention of the author, who tried to create the most negative image of the enemy possible with such vivid images.¹⁶ What’s more, primarily in the case of Christian authors, an effort was made to portray all of the horrors perpetrated by pagans in order to justify military action against them, which, as I have mentioned, combined attempts at Christianization with political-territorial expansion. These phenomena were inseparably linked in the High Middle Ages. It is of interest that Wipo’s testimony about the conduct of Conrad II bears elements of the same cruelty and violence as in the case of the pagans being criticized. In the chronicler’s eyes, however, his emperor was performing his Christian duty, and thus the mutilation of many Slavic prisoners appeared to be perfectly appropriate punishment for their desecration and destruction of a Christian sacred object.

The destruction of such sacred objects was a common element of pagan-Christian confrontations, and we could cite many such examples from contemporary sources. For instance, the destruction of a three-headed idol near Brandenburg in 1127, as described by the chronicler Henrich of Antwerp at the end of the 12th century, is a well-known case.¹⁷ I, however, will focus on one specific example of this action, which was of high symbolic value. During the 12th century, not only did the Slavs along the River Elbe face Christianization and territorial incursions from the Holy Roman Empire, but they were also increasingly pressured by the Piast dukes and Danish kings from the west.¹⁸ After the conquest of the main religious and political centers of the Lutici, Obotriti and Pomeranians, the sanctuary and fortified settlement of Arkona, located on the island of Rügen in an area inhabited by the Slavic Rani tribe, became the last bastion of the pagan world. The destruction and fall of Arkona in 1168 were a symbolic milestone on the road to definitive suppression of Slavic pagan resistance to the expansion of Latin Christianity. At the same time, because several period descriptions have been preserved in the sources, this event represents an opportunity to monitor the common efforts of secular and spiritual elites, who were united in the same goal. The Danish King Valdemar I, as well as his faithful adviser and fearless comrade-in-arms Bishop Absalon, had an equally important role in the fall of Arkona.

On Whitsun Sunday (19 May) 1168, a huge flotilla of 240 ships landed on the shores of Rügen Island. Aside from King Valdemar, divisions of Saxon Duke Henry the Lion, Pomeranian Dukes Casimir and Bogusław and the Obotrite ruler Pribislav, who had accepted baptism the preceding year, also took part in the excursion. Berno, the Bishop of Mecklenburg, also headed toward Rügen, in addition to Bishop Absalon.¹⁹ Arkona was very well defended. It was washed by the sea and protected by steep, inaccessible cliffs on three sides and shielded on the fourth side by firm ramparts and bulwarks made of earth and wood. The Rani initially believed that they would be able to defend it successfully, in part thanks to their deities. They expressed this symbolically by erecting a cult battle flag with an image of a pagan god on the tower above the main gate. The siege lasted not quite a month, when on 12 June the Danes succeeded in burning one of the towers and thus breaking through the ramparts of Arkona. The defenseless Rani surrendered and put themselves unconditionally under the power of King Valdemar, who imposed harsh conditions on them. The Rani had to release all of their Christian prisoners and hand over the treasures from their shrine. They committed to being loyal subjects of the Danish king, to whom they had to pay tribute and had to help with a military force on his ventures. In the end, this led to the hardest of the impositions: the Slavs would receive mercy only if they would truly reject their pagan gods and accept the “true” Christian faith.²⁰

The symbolic degradation of the Rani and their pagan religion followed. It was necessary to confirm the victory of the Christian forces on the battlefield and to complete the spectacular ritual destruction of the fallen gods.²¹ Our informer is again the chronicler Helmold of Bosau:

At this time, King Valdemar of Denmark assembled a great army and numerous ships in order to invade the land of the Rani and to subjugate it. … The operation prospered in the hands of the Danish king. He subjugated the country of the Rani with a strong hand, and they gave him everything he demanded of them for their redemption. The king had the ancient idol of Svantovit fetched, which was worshiped by the whole Slavic population. He ordered that a rope be tied around its neck and that it be dragged through the middle of the camp in front of the Slavs. He then had it chopped into pieces and thrown onto a fire. He also destroyed the shrine with all the sacred objects and raided the rich treasure. He commanded them to give up the delusions that they were born in and to accept the worship of the true God. He then offered them funds for the construction of churches. Twelve churches were established in the land of the Rani and priests appointed to care for the people in the matters that pertain to God.²²

Thus, the military expedition to Arkona joined two mutually complementary aims: territorial expansion of the Danish king and Christianization of the last resisting bastion of paganism in the region. Both aims were dependent on each other, and to fulfill only one of them would not have sufficed on its own. Political subjugation had to be accompanied by religious conversion. And here we see why it is impossible in the High Middle Ages to separate territorial wars from religious wars. They formed a single, inseparable whole, and the secular as well as spiritual elite took part in them in common measure. In the case of the Arkona expedition, this is stated explicitly by the other of the period chroniclers – Saxo Grammaticus. According to this Danish historian, Valdemar intentionally targeted his attack on the fortress of Arkona because he wanted to destroy not only its fortifications but the pagan cult located there. He was convinced that the removal of the local religious rituals, the shrine and the sacred statue of Svantovit would ease the subsequent rule and subjugation of the entire island.²³ Religion, power and the act of ruling were, in the case of the pagan Slavs, still more interconnected than for their Christian antagonists. Thus, with the banning of the cult and the humiliation of the primary deity, the Danes achieved the symbolic destruction of the entire Slavic religious-political universe.²⁴

Saxo Grammaticus was well informed about the course of the expedition. His source was evidently a direct participant in the campaign. We can justifiably assume that this could have been Bishop Absalon himself, who was Saxo’s “supporter” and the person standing behind the idea of his writing History of the Danes (Gesta Danorum). Valuable details are preserved in the work thanks to this.²⁵ The statue of Svantovit was so large that it was impossible to pull it from the shrine without first toppling it and cutting it into pieces. Saxo emphasized that the Christians destroying the statue paid great attention so that the falling statue did not harm anyone. Local residents, who went out in droves and watched the obliteration of their shrine, could have interpreted this act as the punishment of a humiliated deity. Despite the appeals of the conquerors, the Arkonians refused to actively take part in the smashing of their idol. Therefore, foreigners living in the city had to do it. In the evening, the people running the kitchen took hold of the statue and, using their work tools, chopped it into small pieces. They then used the wood from the statue in a fire while preparing a meal for the Danish army. After the burning of the temple, they then began to build a Christian church, using the wood they had prepared for the construction of siege engines. Saxo laconically added that the tools of war had been transformed into a house of peace (belli instrumenta pacis domicilio permutantes).²⁶

The tactic of attacking the primary place of worship of a pagan tribe was thus heartily used and had a long tradition. From the time of Charlemagne and his ordering of the devastation of the sacred tree Irminsul, other generations of those spreading Christianity acted in the same way. Polish rulers also used this method when subjugating the regions of Pomerania, as we will see a bit later. We can thus closely follow why religious warfare was a key component of the military-political expansion of Latin Christianity in the early and High Middle Ages. Only a thorough combination of political subjugation and religious uniformity guarantees the long-term success of expansion of the Latin Christian world and thus the integration of newly conquered lands. The combined strength of King Valdemar with Bishop Absalon was furthermore under the patronage of Pope Alexander III (1159–1181), who supported the spread of Christianity among the pagan Slavs.²⁷ In a letter from November 1169 addressed to Absalon, he describes the actions of King Valdemar using the rhetoric of a holy war:

[I]nspired by the fire of heaven, strengthened by the weapons of Christ, armed with the shield of faith and protected by the grace of God, he defeated these stubborn people with the power of his mighty hand and zealously brought them back from their most disgraceful abominations to the faith and law of Christ and subjugated them to his dominion.²⁸

At the will of the pope, Rügen became a part of Absalon’s diocese in Roskilde. Integration of the Rani lands into the world of Western Christianity thus consisted of several mutually linked phases. The first was the forceful conquest of their territory, followed by subjugation of the Rani to the authority of the Danish king, expressed by the paying of tribute. Then the spiritual element unfolded, beginning with the destruction of the pagan shrine, the obliteration of the cult of Svantovit and the promise that the Rani would accept baptism and the Christian faith. Then, a dozen churches were built in Rügen and clerics were assigned to them. The whole process ended with the addition of Rügen to the Roskilde diocese, which was the culmination of its new political-ecclesiastical integration.²⁹

After the year 1000, all three Central European monarchies officially belonged to the world of Latin Christendom. The Piast, Přemyslid and Árpád rulers and their closest secular and spiritual collaborators demonstrated their faith and actively supported the expansion of the new religion in their dominions.³⁰ One of these activities was the building of an ecclesiastical organization, a process that lasted for several long decades. It is fair to say that the ecclesiastical organization of Central European countries was really only finally built during the 13th century. Another sphere in which local rulers could express their Christian political-religious orientation was the Christianization of the then pagan lands within the scope of their own estates or beyond their borders. A well-known fact is the Christianization fervor of the first Hungarian king, Stephen I, who for his tireless spreading of the faith, often with sword in hand, not only earned the label “soldier of Christ” (miles Christi) or “most Christian king” (rex Christianissimus) but in 1083 was even canonized as the first Christian ruler without being a martyr.³¹ During his long rule – lasting 40 years – St. Stephen often undertook military invasions, built and endowed the Church establishment and, last but not least, introduced Christian legislation. Even all of this was not sufficient in the end for Christianity to definitively establish itself in Hungarian society without resistance from the old Magyar settlers. This is also evidenced in a well-known sentence from King Stephen’s life, as before his death he acknowledged with resignation that he had no one among his closest relatives who would guarantee the continuation of Christianity in the country. That is why he selected his sister’s son, Peter Orseolo of Venice, as his successor (1038–1041, 1044–1046).³²

In the 11th century, two rather serious pagan uprisings occurred in Hungary. The first broke out in 1046, a mere eight years after the death of St. Stephen, after the overthrow of King Peter Orseolo. The new king Andrew I (1046–1060), together with his Christian warriors and domestic prelates, managed to suppress the uprising, which was headed by the pagan leader Vata. A similar situation occurred in 1061, when an originally nationwide assembly called by King Béla I (1060–1063) in Székesfehérvár turned into open rebellion against Árpád rule. What’s more, some of the rebels demanded the repudiation of Christianity and a return to pagan beliefs. Only the rapid and uncompromising armed intervention of King Béla against the rebels put down the developing open insurrection.³³ Unfortunately, the lack of period sources prevents us from examining these pagan-Christian confrontations in more detail with regard to the subject of our research. Furthermore, the latest historical research has shaken the traditional evaluation of these pagan insurrections. There is no indication in the preserved archaeological or written sources that these rebellions had a mass character or that they left more serious marks on the emerging Christian monarchy.³⁴

However, the same cannot be said of the pagan uprising that subverted the first Piast Christian monarchy between 1034 and 1039. The uprising there broke out immediately after the death of King Mieszko II, and in the years 1038–1039 an invasion by the Bohemian military was added to it. During this uprising, pagans destroyed and torched several significant church centers, including churches, temples and even a cathedral. Bohemian soldiers sacked the Gniezno Cathedral and, under the leadership of Duke Břetislav and Bishop of Prague Šebíř (Severus), took advantage of the chaos in the rule of their northern neighbors.³⁵ Casimir I (1039–1058) and afterward Bolesław II (1058–1079) had to energetically build the Piast monarchy almost from scratch. And even in this case, we have to admit that we do not have enough period sources on the aforementioned Christian-pagan confrontations for any more detailed reconstruction of individual events. The primary informer – Gallus Anonymus, writing nearly 80 years later – purposefully exaggerated the pagan nature of the insurrection so that credit would go to Casimir I as the restorer of the Piast Christian monarchy.³⁶

Sources also interpret the battles of Hungarian kings and dukes with the Pechenegs and Cumans as the struggle of Christian soldiers with pagan disturbers of the peace. These nomadic tribes arriving from Asia threatened the Árpád kingdom during the 1060s and 1070s.³⁷ The fact remains, however, that sources informing us about these wars are from a much later period. The greatest portion of the information is drawn from the Chronica Hungarorum, which originated in the Angevin court during the 1350s. For studying the specific events of these battles, it is thus practically unusable.³⁸ The same can be said of the one famous medieval iconographic motif, Ladislas’s Legend, depicting Duke (and later Hungarian King) Ladislas I (1077–1095) battling against the pagan Cumans. Throughout the entire Middle Ages, Ladislas was the embodiment of the perfect Christian king and knight (athleta patriae). This legend and its artistic depiction, which was among the most popular and widespread in Hungary, however, date only from the 14th century, so that they belong beyond the scope of this chapter.³⁹ Because the Přemyslids of Bohemia had already acquired a Christian character during the 10th century and were never confronted with paganism, not even from their own neighbors,⁴⁰ I will attempt to reconstruct how the battle of young Christian monarchies against paganism appeared in a different environment. The concurrent territorial and religious expansion of Piast Poland to the northern coastal region in the 12th century offers an ideal example.

Of the three Central European countries of interest to us, the holy wars waged by Christian rulers against pagans from the 10th to the 12th centuries can best be followed on the example of Piast Poland. It is true that Přemyslid Bohemia is rich in its large number of period sources containing a great amount of information. But Czech rulers during this period did not have to fight paganism militarily either within or beyond their own domains. Exceptions were isolated campaigns alongside the Roman-German kings. On the other hand, Hungarian kings fought ferociously against the pagan reaction within the borders of St. Stephen’s crown and had to face incursions of pagans from the outside, as well. The biggest problem of the Árpád era, however, is the desperately small number of relevant period sources that would help us analyze these conflicts in greater detail. In this regard, however, the historian has an ideal situation in the case of Piast Poland. Thanks to the relatively large number of period sources, two of them in particular – Gesta principum Polonorum (Deeds of the Princes of the Poles) of Gallus Anonymus and Chronica Polonorum (Polish Chronicle) of Vincent of Cracow – we can follow the development of religious warfare and the struggle against pagans, the spread of the idea of holy war and, from the 12th century, the inception and adoption of the idea of the Crusades in incomparably more extensive and better material than in the case of Hungary or the Bohemian lands.⁴¹

The official conversion of the Piasts to Christianity is traditionally dated to the year 966, when Prince Mieszko I (c. 960–992) received baptism. During his reign and that of his son, Bolesław I the Brave (992–1025), the process of Christianization of the Piast domains and the building of a church organization gradually continued. The process of unifying the individual areas of Poland under the rule of the Piasts was inextricably linked with the Christianization of these lands. With the exception of the pagan backlash in the 1030s, this process robustly continued throughout the whole period that we are examining. The result was the building of a Christian monarchy based on the Western model. More than anything else, the ideas and ideals coming from the Holy Roman Empire set the tone and represented an extremely attractive model for the Piast rulers.⁴² Poland thus increasingly became a part of Latin Christianity in this period. These processes, like those in other areas on the periphery of the West, took place in parallel in the social, political, religious, cultural, economic and military spheres. Thanks to the efforts of many (not only) Polish medievalists, the role and importance of religious warfare in the process of integrating Polish lands into the world of Christianitas have been reconstructed and analyzed in recent decades.⁴³

Several principal components of this process have been identified,⁴⁴ as have the forms of the transfer of ideas coming from Western centers to the countries of Central Europe. Among them, period ideas about holy war played a major role, as did the idea of the Crusades from the end of the 11th century. The protagonists of this expansion were mainly contemporary intellectuals working in Piast church and educational centers. They were also bishops and other clergy, educators and chroniclers, as well as papal legates. All of them spread the ideas of Christian religious warfare in the same spirit as it had formed in Western European intellectual ecclesiastical centers. Dynastic unions formed another path for this transmission. Princesses, queens and other important foreigners also brought the mental equipment based on a Western Latin education and culture to Poland. The ideas of a holy war and the Crusades played a central role in their spiritual world. These ideas were subsequently spread in the new environment, thus disseminating them among the domestic Polish population. The forming family and dynastic identity was very often built specifically on demonstrating the participation of the given family or dynasty in Christianization, in the holy wars against pagans and later on in the active support for and spread of the ideas of the Crusades.⁴⁵

In his chronicle, Gallus Anonymus managed to masterfully depict his ruler and “breadwinner” Bolesław III on the basis of several contemporary standards or ideals of the virtuous ruler. He portrayed the Piast prince as an ideal Christian knight spreading God’s word among the pagan nations. His conduct followed the models and rules of waging a holy war against pagans just as they had been spread throughout the Latin Christian world at the time, while at the same time, he cleverly sacralized and legitimized Poland’s territorial expansion into coastal areas. As a man who came from a Western European environment, he knew very well the discourse linked to the conduct of holy wars and could easily apply this concept to Central European conditions.⁴⁶ An excellent opportunity for him was the handling of Bolesław’s attacks against the Pomeranians, which took place, with breaks, over more than two decades. The “Prince of the North” (dux septemtrionalis) or the “Son of Mars” (filius Martis), as his chronicler liked to address him,⁴⁷ appears in the battle against the pagan Pomeranians in the spirit of a just war. Aurelius Augustinus formulated this concept on the basis of Roman law at the turn of the 4th and 5th centuries.⁴⁸ In his opinion, a just war must have a just cause, because justice is a condition of peace, and it must have the right intention or goal. In this case, it was an effort to redress an injustice and return things to the status quo ante bellum. This, of course, means a state of peace, because peace is a gift from God. Furthermore, only a legitimate authority can wage a just war.⁴⁹ It was in this specific spirit that Gallus presented the campaigns of Bolesław III against the Pomeranians. The ruling legitimacy of the Piast prince was established incontestably. He was the supreme ruler of a Christian monarchy, and no one doubted his position. He waged wars with the right intentions and, according to Gallus, he expressed love for his pagan neighbors with them. He planned to uproot their pagan delusions, shepherd them to Christian baptism, thus opening the gate to eternal salvation for them, and finally unite them with other Christians in the universal church. The result of these wars was the securing of peace along the northern borders of Poland, which gave these conquests the character of a Christian holy war and legitimized their justification.⁵⁰

Gallus also transferred these ideas onto the predecessors of Bolesław III. The treatment of the history of the Piast realm in the Gesta principum Polonorum presents its glorious ancestors as disseminators of the Christian faith in the struggle against pagans in the spirit of the concept of holy war. In the descriptions of the battles of Bolesław I the Brave, for example, we find an echo of several of the concepts of religious warfare as we previously defined them. When describing the meeting of Bolesław I with the Russian army on the Bug River in 1018, Gallus presents the Polish ruler as the one who, in the spirit of the Peace of God and Truce of God movements (pax Dei, treuga Dei),⁵¹ refuses to do battle on a feast day. After an agreement with their Russian opponents, they postponed their confrontation until the following day, and Bolesław thus ordered his men to prepare everything for the proper celebration of the holiday. The Russian soldiers, however, did not keep their promise and began attacking the Polish camp. This was the last straw that provoked some Polish fighters to answer with an appropriate response. After a short skirmish, they dispersed the Russian army and won a great victory. Gallus Anonymus subsequently interprets events in the spirit of perceiving a war’s outcome as God’s judgment. Victory fell to the Poles because they observed the agreement and truly wanted to celebrate the feast day in peace. By contrast, the Russian army was destroyed because it had violated the ceasefire agreement and also violated the holy feast day, on which the use of weapons was banned.⁵²

The first Polish chronicler interpreted, in a similar way, the battles of Casimir I in 1045 against the mutinous Masovians led by Prince Mečislav and against the pagan Pomeranians in that same year.⁵³ After defeating the Masovians, and shortly before an unspecified battle against the Pomeranians, the Polish ruler is said to have encouraged his warriors with a great battlefield speech. To achieve the desired effect, Gallus put biblical quotations and the verses of ancient poets into Casimir’s mouth. The result was a exhortation to combat that fully followed the concept of a holy war. The Masovians were labeled as false Christians because they had rebelled against a ruler ordained by God. The Pomeranians are in turn labeled as pagans here. Gallus added a traditional biblical reference about the number of soldiers not being the crucial factor in the battle, because the result is determined exclusively by God’s will.⁵⁴ After all of this, it will perhaps not surprise anyone that Casimir achieved a great victory in the battle.

The portrayal of the wars of the first Piast rulers depended completely on the imagination of Gallus Anonymus. We reach firmer ground in terms of credibility and probability when tracking the military campaigns of his contemporary Bolesław III, and we will primarily be interested in long-term military actions aimed at seizing control of and subjugating Pomerania (1102–1128). Gallus was very well informed about these conflicts, which took place during his time at the Cracow court of Bolesław III. Even if he was not a direct participant in them, he certainly had several informants in his circle who had experienced the described battles firsthand. Therefore, his telling was not left fully to the author’s invention and imagination. However, this does not mean that Gallus did not interpret the military clashes of the Polish and Pomeranian armies in the spirit of Christian warfare, using the rhetoric of holy war.⁵⁵

In 1103, Bolesław III battled with the Pomeranians before Kołobrzeg. After a difficult march lasting several days, the Piast army camped in front of the city on a Friday after the soldiers accepted the Eucharist. On the eve of the battle, Bolesław had a mass celebrated in the camp for the Virgin Mary, which, according to Gallus, later became his regular custom (Precedenti nocte Bolezlauus officium fieri sancte Marie constituit, quod postea usu pro devotione retinuit).⁵⁶ At dawn on Saturday morning, the Polish army crossed the ford and stood before the city gates. In the traditional exhortation speech before the start of a battle, Bolesław stressed above all that his soldiers should put their hope in God and their weapons and they would thus be guaranteed victory.⁵⁷ After the initial resistance, Kołobrzeg eventually fell into the hands of the Poles, but Gallus could not resist noting that some of the soldiers did not fight for exalted reasons, but were led by a vision of ample plunder. Thus, not all of the soldiers shared the ideal of the Knights of Christ. Gallus’s description, however, contains another interesting detail. He mentions that on the eve of the battle, Bolesław held a mass for the Virgin Mary. The wording in the source is not entirely clear, but all indications are that it was a votive mass conducted with the intention of obtaining divine protection in the imminent battle. The chronicler adds that this act had become a permanent custom of the Polish duke. Rulers throughout all of medieval Europe prayed to the Mother of God prior to doing battle. King Stephen I of Hungary, too, was in the habit of calling on the Virgin Mary before important battles.⁵⁸ If this interpretation is correct, we have here an account with the oldest mention of a votive mass for the Virgin Mary celebrated specifically before a crucial military clash in the history of Piast Poland.⁵⁹

According to Gallus Anonymus, the wars of the Piasts against the pagans were inspired by God and waged at His command, and in the crucial moments of the battles the Poles were always assisted by the Christian God. At the same time, the same was also true of failure, but in the opposite direction. The defeat of Piast forces was usually said to be caused by sinful behavior, violations of the ethics of Christian warriors or the illegitimacy of the war’s motives, like fighting on a feast day or during the holy period of fasting, for example.⁶⁰ In addition to physical weapons, the author also summons spiritual or invisible weapons into battle. And not only Bolesław’s soldiers fought with them, but often the clergy who accompanied his army on their marches did too. The example of Bishop Simon of Płock is more than eloquent.⁶¹ Various biblical comparisons are woven like a red string throughout the entire text. Bolesław III acts in it as the leader of God’s people, as an emulator of the Old Testament Maccabees (Machabeorum imitator). The popes of his period portrayed the Maccabees as proto-Crusaders.⁶² The Piast prince further appears as a fighter against the savage nations of the barbarians, whom he wanted to convert to the Christian faith.⁶³ In other words, the religious element is an inseparable part of every single military enterprise, consecrating it, legitimizing it and helping to integrate it into the concept of Christian warfare of the High Middle Ages.

In 1109, Bolesław III set off on another in a long line of expeditions against the Pomeranians; this time, the target of his campaign was the border town of Nakło. In this case, according to Gallus’s chronicle, a traditional military saint, St. Lawrence, played a vital role. It is no coincidence that the decisive battle played out on his feast day, that is, 10 August (just as in 955, the Battle of Lechfeld). The source explicitly states that the Polish soldiers triumphed due to the intercession and direct help of St. Lawrence. Bolesław and his companions were just coming out of mass in honor of the feast day, when a division of pagan Pomeranians unexpectedly attacked them.⁶⁴ Despite having the disadvantage in numbers, the Poles scattered the attackers. The chronicler summed up the essence of their victory in a single sentence: “Today, with God’s help and by the intercession of St. Lawrence, your swords will destroy the idolatry of the Pomeranians and their military pride.”⁶⁵

Other expeditions of Bolesław III are described in a similar spirit. In 1116 he marched to eastern Pomerania, and in 1119–1123 again to (western) Pomerania. The Piast duke literally emerges as an instrument of God, thanks to which he wins his battles against pagans. Thus, a myth was created that was taken over by the rulers who followed – a myth about the consolidation of the country by the sword as well as the spread of faith and the evangelization of the pagans living in the north. Bolesław’s actions in 1108 after the subjugation of the city of Czarnków, for example, are presented as exemplary. After this battle ended, the victorious Bolesław proceeded to the baptism of the local commander, whom he himself lifted from the baptismal font as his godfather. Thus, the Piast duke appears as a soldier of Christ who brings salvation to the pagans. Gallus can thus legitimately label his wars as holy and just.⁶⁶ Thanks only to the fact that the invasion was accompanied by God’s grace, the pagans remained conquered.⁶⁷

Religious warfare in the Piast principality was not linked exclusively with the conquests of Bolesław III in Pomerania, as portrayed by Gallus Anonymus. During the whole 12th century, the expansion of the Polish monarchy against pagan territories in the north and east continued. At the same time, the Piast rulers actively shared in the new phenomenon of Christian warfare that appeared at the end of the 11th century. The Crusades were a specific kind of Christian warfare. They form a chapter all by themselves, and Polish participation in them has recently been treated to the point of exhaustion.⁶⁸ That is why the Crusades are not a subject of this chapter. At this point, I will only briefly outline certain aspects that are important in our context of following the history and development of religious warfare in Central Europe.

A unique document that renders the religious climate of the period and the close connection between war and religion is the famous Magdeburg Letter from 1108 (Epistola pro auxilio adversus paganos). It was probably written by a Flemish member of the family of Archbishop Adalgod of Magdeburg (1107–1119) and is addressed to Saxon, Flemish, Frankish and Lotharingian princes, knights and prelates.⁶⁹ The date of its writing is noteworthy, as the letter was written less than ten years after the conquest of Jerusalem by the Crusaders during the First Crusade (15 July 1099). The Magdeburg call to battle against the Elbe Slavs is an admirable attempt to transfer the concept of the Christian holy war in the form of the ongoing Crusade from Palestine to Central Europe. The author purposefully argues for the liberation of “our Jerusalem,” thus alluding to the fact that the territories mentioned were already a part of the Christian world before the destructive pagan uprisings. Similar to the Holy Land, Christians would only be regaining lost territories in the Elbe region. This promise of acquiring new territories was one side of the coin of the author’s argument; the other was the spiritual benefits associated with the Crusades (the salvation of souls).⁷⁰

The call first details the crimes committed by the pagans in Christian lands, because the Slavs had engaged in armed raids, plundering, the destruction of temples and the killing of the Christian faithful. Here again, we come across the motif of ridicule and human sacrifice practiced by pagans. The author of the letter then tries to encourage the spirit of German soldiers and clerics to be inspired by the recent events in Palestine. His appeal is a call to holy war expressis verbis; physical as well as spiritual weapons should be used:

Proclaim this in temples, consecrate fasts, call a council, gather the people, make it public, and be heard in all the regions of your authority. Declare a holy war, awaken the strong. Arise, princes, against the enemies of Christ; take up the shield and gird yourselves, you courageous men, and let all the warriors come. Let the weak man say that he is mighty, for the Lord is the strength of His people, and the protector of the salvation of His anointed. Arise and come, all of you that love Christ and the Church, and prepare yourselves, as the Franks did for the liberation of Jerusalem. Our Jerusalem, which was at the beginning free and is now enslaved by the cruelty of pagans.⁷¹

Subsequently, the appeal declares the upcoming meeting of all those willing to fight for the restoration of this Jerusalem, counting on the rewards that will follow:

Arise, then, bride of Christ, and come. May your voice be heard in the ears of Christ’s faithful, so that all may rush to the war of Christ and come to the aid of Christ’s warriors. These pagans are very evil, but their land is rich in meat, honey and grain, … birds and is cultivated. … Here then, O Saxons, Franks, Lotharingians, Flemings, the most famous men and conquerors of the world, you can save your souls and, if you like, obtain the best land to settle on. He who by the power of his hand gave victory to the Franks, who went from the most distant west against his enemies in the most distant east, may he give you the will and strength to subdue these nearby and most inhuman pagans and may you prosper in everything.⁷²

In the end, the Magdeburg appeal remained only on parchment and was never materialized for several objective reasons. What is more important, however, is that the idea of transferring this concept to the pagan territories of the Elbe Slavs appeared on the periphery of the Christian world several years after the start of the Crusades.⁷³ The uniqueness of this appeal also lies in the fact that, until the Second Crusade, the only official target of the Crusades was Palestine. By focusing on the northeastern borders of the Latin Christianitas as early as 1108, the first contours of the lengthy period of the Baltic Crusades began to take shape, which in a principal way shaped the history of this part of Europe in the 12th and 13th centuries.⁷⁴

All of the preceding examples from contemporary sources paint a well-rounded picture of the role and significance of religious warfare for the rulership in the realms of Central Europe. Polish, Hungarian and Bohemian rulers and their family members used holy wars as a means of territorial expansion against pagan neighbors, thus spreading the power and influence of their own monarchies. At the same time, in this way they integrated their dynastic possessions into Latin Christianity. What’s more, they also had defensive-preventive importance, because they protected their lands, on the one hand, from the expansion of their neighbors and, on the other hand, from incursions and looting by pagan ethnic groups living beyond their borders. All of these aspects subsequently helped the sacralization of the local ruling dynasties and reinforced their standing both at home and abroad. The consequences for rulership and the ruling ideology in the presentations by period sources were thus threefold: they provided legitimacy, sacralization and the integration of ruling power.

Notes

· 1 The research on this chapter was supported by the Slovak Research and Development Agency under the contract no. APVV-18-0333 and by the VEGA agency in the framework of project VEGA 2/0028/22.

· 2 Most recently described in Florin Curta, Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages (500–1300) (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2019), 341–408.

· 3 Robert Bartlett, The Making of Europe. Conquest, Colonization and Cultural Change 950–1350 (London: Penguin Books, 1994), 1–3, 269–314; Jenő Szűcs, “Three Historical Regions of Europe,” Acta Historica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 29 (1983): 131–84; Jacques Le Goff, The Birth of Europe (Oxford: Blackwell, 2005), 5, 48.

· 4 Comprehensive overviews can be found most recently in Rulership in Medieval East Central Europe (Bohemia, Hungary and Poland), eds. Dušan Zupka and Grischa Vercamer (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2021); The Routledge Handbook of East Central and Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 500–1300, ed. Florin Curta (London: Routledge, 2021).

· 5 Hans-Dietrich Kahl, Heidenfrage und Slawenfrage im deutschen Mittelalter. Ausgewählte Studien 1953–2008 (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2011), 465–701; Christian Lübke, “Von der Sclavinia zur Germania Slavica. Akkulturation und Transformation,” in Akkulturation im Mittelalter, ed. Reinhard Härtl (Ostfildern: Thorbecke, 2014), 207–34.

· 6 For the concept of the invisible weapons, the religious rituals of war and the phenomenon of religious warfare in the Middle Ages, see David S. Bachrach, Religion and the Conduct of War, c. 300–1215 (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2003); M. Cecilia Gaposchkin, Invisible Weapons: Liturgy and the Making of Crusade Ideology (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2017); Michael McCormick, “The Liturgy of War in the Early Middle Ages: Crisis, Litanies, and the Carolingian Monarchy,” Viator 15 (1984): 1–24. For Central Europe in particular, see Dušan Zupka, “Religious Rituals of War in Medieval Hungary Under the Árpád Dynasty,” in Christianity and War in Medieval East-Central Europe: The Church at War, Religion in War, and Perceptions of War, eds. Radosław Kotecki, Carsten Selch Jensen, and Stephen Bennett (Leeds: Arc Humanities Press, 2021), 141–57; Dušan Zupka, “Political, Religious and Social Framework of Religious Warfare and Its Influences on Rulership in Medieval East Central Europe,” in Rulership in Medieval East Central Europe (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2021), 135–59.

· 7 Herwig Wolfram, Conrad II, 990–1039: Emperor of Three Kingdoms (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2006), 221–22.

· 8 Rodulfus Glaber, Rodulfi Glabri Historiarum libri quinque, IV. 23: “ob quam rem totius ecclesie clerus ac plebs regni sui, semet affligents, Dominum rogaverunt, ut ultionis vindictam de tanta barbarorum vesania illi concederet, ut ad sui nominis honorem Christianis foret ex illis victoria.” David S. Bachrach, “Military Chaplains and the Religion of War in Ottonian Germany, 919–1024,” Religion, State and Society 39, no. 1 (2011): 22.

· 9 Wipo, Gesta Chuonradi II. Imperatoris, ed. Harry Bresslau, MGH Ss rer. Germ. 61 (1915), c. 33, p. 53: “unde quidam de nostris quoddam breviarium versifice fecit, quod postea imperatori praesentavit … in eisdem versibus caesar ultor fidei vocatur.”

· 10 Wolfram, Conrad II, 990–1039, 223–24.

· 11 Lübke, “Von der Sclavinia zur Germania Slavica,” 226.

· 12 Arnold Angenendt, Toleranz und Gewalt. Das Christentum zwischen Bibel und Schwert (Münster: Aschendorff, 2012), 382; Alessandro Barbero, Carlo Magno. Un padre dell´Europa (Roma: Laterza, 2002), 35.

· 13 Wipo, Gesta Chuonradi II imperatoris, c. 33, 53:

Ibi legitur, qualiter imperator interdum in paludibus usque femora stabat, pugnans ipse et exhortans milites, ut pugnarent, et victis paganis nimis acriter trucidabat eos pro quadam superstitione illorum nefandissima. Nam fertur, ut quodam tempore effigiem ligneam crucifixi domini nostri Iesu Christi scelerato ludibrio habuissent pagani et in eam spuerent atque colaphis caederent; ad extremum oculos eruebant, manus et pedes truncabant. Haec ulciscens imperator de captis paganis maximam multitudinem pro una effigie Christi simili modo truncavit et varia morte delevit.

· 14 On Helmold and his usefulness as a chronicler, see Stanisław Rosik, The Slavic Religion in the Light of 11th- and 12th-Century German Chronicles (Thietmar of Merseburg, Adam of Bremen, Helmold of Bosau). Studies on the Christian Interpretation of pre-Christian Cults and Beliefs in the Middle Ages (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2020), 256–382.

· 15 Helmoldi presbyteri Bozoviensis Cronica Slavorum, ed. Bernhard Schmeidler. MGH Ss Rer. Germ. 32 (Hannover: 1937), I. 52, 102–3:

[M]actantque diis suis hostias de bobus et ovibus, plerique etiam de hominibus Christianis, quorum sanguine deos suos oblectari iactitant. … Quanta enim mortium genera Christicolis intulerint, relatu difficile est, cum his quidem viscera extorserint palo circumducentes, hos cruci affixerint, irridentes signum redemptionis nostrae. Sceleratissimos enim cruci subfigendos autumant. Eos autem, quos custodiae mancipant pecunia redimendos, tantis torturis et vinculorum nodis plectunt, ut ignoranti vix opinabile sit.

· 16 Rosik, The Slavic Religion in the Light, 1–9.

· 17 Kahl, Heidenfrage und Slawenfrage im deutschen Mittelalter, 565–76; Przemysław Urbańczyk and Stanisław Rosik, “Poland,” in Christianization and the Rise of Christian Monarchy. Scandinavia, Central Europe and Rus’ c. 900–1200, ed. Nora Berend (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 274–87; Heinrici de Antwerpe. Tractatus de captione urbis Brandenburg, ed. Oswald Holder-Egger. MGH Ss 25 (1880): 482–84.

· 18 In great detail, see Eric Christiansen, The Northern Crusades (London: Penguin Books, 1997), 62–69; Eduard Mühle, Die Slawen im Mittelalter (Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter, 2016), chapter 4; Burnam W. Reynolds, The Prehistory of the Crusades: Missionary War and the Baltic Crusades (London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016); Darius von Güttner-Sporzyński, “Northern Crusades: Between Holy War and Mission,” in The Crusader World, ed. Adrian Boas (London and New York: Routledge, 2016), 144–62.

· 19 Leszek Paweł Słupecki, Slavonic Pagan Sanctuaries (Warsaw: Polish Academy of Sciences, 1994), 24–33.

· 20 Ibid., 26–30.

· 21 Rosik, The Slavic Religion in the Light, 355–68.

· 22

In tempore illo congregavit Waldemarus rex Danorum exercitum grandem et naves multas, ut iret in terram Rugianorum ad subiugandum eam sibi. … Prosperatum est igitur opus in manibus regis Danorum, et obtinuit terram Rugianorum in manu potenti, et dederunt ei pro sui redemptione quicquid rex imposuisset. Et fecit produci simulachrum illud antiquissimum Zuantevith, quod colebatur ab omni natione Slavorum, et iussit mitti funem in collo eius et trah per medium exercitum in oculis Slavorum et frustatim concisum in ignem mitti. Et destruxit fanum cum omni religione sua et erarium locuples diripuit. Et precepit, ut discederent ab erroribus suis, in quibus nati fuerant, et assumerent cultum veri Dei. Et dedit sumptus in edificia ecclesiarum, et erectae sunt duodecim ecclesiae in terra Rugianorum, et constituti sunt sacerdotes, qui gererent populi curam in his quae Dei sunt.

(Helmoldi presbyteri Bozoviensis Cronica Slavorum, MGH Ss Rer. Germ. 32, II. 108, p. 211)

· 23 Saxonis Grammatici Gesta Danorum, ed. Alfred Holder (Strassburg: 1886), lib. XIV, p. 575.

· 24 According to Karol Modzelewski, Barbarská Europa (Praha: Argo, 2017), 353–60.

· 25 Compare Sverre Bagge, Cross and Scepter: The Rise of the Scandinavian Kingdoms from the Vikings to the Reformation (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014), 39–41.

· 26 Saxonis Grammatici Gesta Danorum, lib. XIV., p. 575; Słupecki, Slavonic Pagan Sanctuaries, 30–31.

· 27 Iben Fonnesberg-Schmidt, The Popes and the Baltic Crusades, 1147–1254 (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2007), 43–45.

· 28 Cited by Christiansen, The Northern Crusades, 66–67. The document was published in Pommersches Urkundenbuch vol. 1, pars 1, ed. Robert Klempin (Stettin, 1868), no. 52, 26.

· 29 For similar processes taking place in different parts of Central and Eastern Europe, see Robert Bartlett, The Making of Europe. Conquest, Colonization and Cultural Change 950–1350 (London: Penguin Books, 1994), 7–9, 18–23, 194–96.

· 30 For a comparative overview of all three realms in question, see Christianization and the Rise of Christian Monarchy; František Dvorník, Zrod střední a východní Evropy. Mezi Byzancí a Římem (Praha: Prostor, 2008), 161–211; Curta, Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 470–79.

· 31 Gábor Klaniczay, Holy Rulers and Blessed Princesses. Dynastic Cults in Medieval Central Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 134.

· 32 Gyula Kristó, Magyarország története 895–1301 (Budapest: Osiris Kiadó, 1998), 114; Vincent Múcska, “Uhorsko na ceste ku kresťanskej monarchii,” in Proměna středovýchodní Evropy raného a vrcholného středověku: mocenské souvislosti a paralely, eds. Martin Wihoda, Lukaš Reitinger et al. (Brno: Matice moravská, 2010), 108–16; György Györffy, King Saint Stephen of Hungary (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), 168, 71; Zoltan J. Kosztolnyik, Five Eleventh Century Hungarian Kings: Their Policies and Their Relations with Rome (New York and Boulder: Columbia University Press, 1981), 21–45.

· 33 Vincent Múcska, “Boj uhorského štátu proti pohanstvu v 11. Storočí,” in Pohanstvo a kresťanstvo, eds. Rastislav Kožiak and Jaroslav Nemeš (Bratislava: Chronos, 2004), 202–9; Pál Engel, The Realm of St. Stephen: A History of Medieval Hungary, 895–1526 (London and New York: Tauris, 2005), 45–46; Pavol Hudáček, “Ostrihom, Stoličný Belehrad a Starý Budín. Medium regni a iter regis,” in Gestá, symboly, ceremónie a rituály v stredoveku, eds. Peter Bystrický and Pavol Hudáček (Bratislava: VEDA, 2019), 142–43.

· 34 Curta, Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 363–67; Miklós Takács, “Die Krise des Ungarischen Königtums nach dem Tod König Stephan,” in Avars, Bulgars and Magyars on the Middle and Lower Danube, eds. Lyudmila Doncheva-Petkova, Csilla Balogh, and Attila Türk (Piliscsaba and Budapest: Archaeolingua, 2014), 149–63.

· 35 Gesta principum Polonorum, eds. and trans. Paul W. Knoll and Frank Schaer, Central European medieval texts 3 (Budapest and New York: Central European University Press, 2003), I. 19; Cosmae chronicon Boemorum, MGH SSrG NS, II, 2–5.

· 36 Przemysław Wiszewski, Domus Bolezlai. Values and Social Identity in Dynastic Traditions of Medieval Poland (c. 966–1138) (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2010), 218–21; Curta, Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 354.

· 37 Aleksander Paroń, The Pechenegs: Nomads in the Political and Cultural Landscape of Medieval Europe (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2021).

· 38 Engel, The Realm of St. Stephen, 31; Studies on the Illuminated Chronicle, eds. János M. Bak and László Veszprémy (Budapest: New York: CEU Press, 2018).

· 39 Ivan Gerát, Svätí bojovníci v stredoveku. Úvahy o obrazových legendách sv. Juraja a sv. Ladislava na Slovensku (Bratislava: Veda, 2011), 62, 74–108; Klaniczay, Holy Rulers and Blessed Princesses, 173–94; László Vészprémy, “King St. Ladislas, Chronicles, Legends and Miracles,” Saeculum Christianum 25 (2018): 140–63.

· 40 Martin Wihoda, “The Beginnings of Christianity in Bohemia,” in The Dawning of Christianity in Poland and across Central and Eastern Europe. History and the Politics of Memory, eds. Igor Kąkolewski, Christian Lübke, and Przemysław Urbańczyk (Berlin: Peter Lang, 2020), 33–42; Pohané a křesťané. Christianizace českých zemí ve středověku, eds. Martin Nodl and František Šmahel (Praha: NLN, 2020). It is important to add, though, that in 1039 Duke Břetislav I still issued legal decrees that contained harsh punishments for the practice of paganism.

· 41 A practical overview of the narrative sources of the countries of Central Europe can be found in Norbert Kersken, Geschichtsschreibung im Europa der “nationes.” Nationalgeschichtliche Gesamtdarstellungen im Mittelalter (Köln, Weimar and Wien: Böhlau, 1995).

· 42 On German-Polish relations and conflicts in this period, see Andrzej Pleszczyński, The Birth of a Stereotype. Polish Rulers and Their Country in German Writings c. 1000 AD (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2011).

· 43 Darius von Güttner-Sporzyński, Poland, Holy War, and the Piast Monarchy, 1100–1230 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2014); Mikołaj Gladysz, The Forgotten Crusaders. Poland and the Crusader Movement in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2012); Ecclesia et bellum: Kościół wobec wojny i zaangażowania militarnego duchowieństwa w wiekach średnich, eds. Radosław Kotecki and Jacek Maciejewski (Bydgoszcz: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Kazimierza Wielkiego, 2016).

· 44 Güttner-Sporzyński, Poland, Holy War, 3–7.

· 45 Numerous contributions on this topic can be found in Fernhändler, Dynasten, Kleriker. Die piastische Herrschaft in kontinentalen Beziehungsgeflechten vom 10. bis zum frühen 13. Jahrhundert, eds. Dariusz Adamczyk and Norbert Kersken (Wiesbaden: Harrasowitz Verlag, 2015).

· 46 It is very likely that, before coming to Cracow, Gallus acted as a monk in the Hungarian monastery of St. Giles in Somogyvár. Originally he came from the St. Giles monastery in southern France. That was one of the centers where the crusading idea formed in the 11th century. Güttner-Sporzyński, Poland, Holy War, 79–83; Anonim tzw. Gall. Kronika Polska, ed. Marian Plezia (Wrocław: Ossolineum, 2008), VII–XIV.

· 47 Gesta principum Polonorum, II. 39; III. 2; III. 14; III. 17; II. 3; II. 13; II. 33.

· 48 Augustinus, Contra Faustum Manichaeum, PL 42, XXII: 76, cols 448–449; XXII: 78, cols 50–51; XXII: 79, cols 51–54; Philip Wynn, Augustine on War and Military Service (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2013), 213–63.

· 49 Frederick H. Russell, The Just War in the Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), 16–39; Angenendt, Toleranz und Gewalt, 375–77.

· 50 Güttner-Sporzyński, Poland, Holy War, 93–94.

· 51 H. E. J. Cowdrey, “The Peace and the Truce of God in the Eleventh Century,” Past & Present 46, no. 1 (1970): 42–67; Roland H. Bainton, Christian Attitudes Towards War and Peace: A Historical Survey and Critical Re-evaluation (New York: Abingdon Press, 1960), 85–121; Jean Flori, La guerra santa. La formazione dell’idea di crociata nell’Occidente cristiano (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2003).

· 52 Gesta principum Polonorum, I. 10, 53–55.

· 53 Wiszewski, Domus Bolezlai, 222–24.

· 54 Gesta principum Polonorum, I. 21, 85–7: “Superatis tot falsis christicolis. Iam securi pugnate cum discolis. Multitudo non facit victoriam. Sed cui Deus dedit suam gratiam.” References are taken from 1Mac 3, 19; Gn 39, 21. From the ancient Roman and Greek sources, the works of Virgil (Aeneis, 5, 10), Sallustius (War with Yugurta, 49, 2) and Homer (Ilias Latina, 1063) were used.

· 55 The most up-to-date examination of the war rhetoric is provided by David Kalhous and Ludmila Luňáková, “Rhetoric of War: The Imagination of War in Medieval Written Sources (Central and Eastern Europe in the High Middle Ages),” in Christianity and War in Medieval East-Central Europe (Leeds: Arc Humanities Press, 2021), 207–25. See also Anonim tzw. Gall. Kronika Polska, XXXVI–XXXVIII.

· 56 Gesta principum Polonorum, II. 28, p. 168.

· 57 “[I]n Deo tantum et in armis iam securi confidamus.” Gesta principum Polonorum, II. 28, 168.

· 58 Legenda maior sancti Stephani regis, ed. Emma Bartoniek, Scriptores Rerum Hungaricarum tempore ducum regumque stirpis Arpadianae gestarum, vol. 2 (Budapest: Academia Liter. Hungarica, 1937), c. 14, 389–90; Legenda sancti Stephani regis ab Hartvico episcopo conscripta, ed. Emma Bartoniek. SRH 2, c. 16, 423–24.

· 59 This episode is completely missing from the survey by Monika Juzepczuk, “Kult świętych a zwycięstwa militarne pierwszych Piastów (od X do początków XIII w.),” Saeculum Christianum 25 (2018): 63–76.

· 60 Gesta principum Polonorum, II. 2; II. 3; II. 28; II. 33.

· 61 “[Q]uod armis sibi materialibus non licebat, hoc armis perficere spiritalibus et orationibus satagebat.” Gesta principum Polonorum, II. 49. Interestingly enough, Bishop Simon was one of the four people mentioned in Gallus’s chronicle dedication.

· 62 Carl Erdmann, The Origin of the Idea of Crusade (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977), 273; Klaus Schreiner, Märtyrer, Schlachtenhelfer, Friedenstifter. Krieg und Frieden im Spiegel mittelalterlicher und frühneuzeitlicher Heiligenverehrung (Wiesbaden: Springer, 2000), 1–39.

· 63 “Tandem sicut Machabeorum imitator, diviso exercitu et patrie defensor extitit et iniurie vindicator.” Gesta principum Polonorum, lib. II. c. 34. Güttner-Sporzyński, Poland, Holy War, 95–96; Kalhous and Luňáková, “Rhetoric of War,” passim.

· 64 “[V]enerabilis enim dies sancti Laurentij martiris existebat et in illa hora christianorum concio de missarum sollempniis exiebat, et ecce subito barbarorum exercitus ibi cominus imminebat.” Gesta principum Polonorum, lib. III, c. 1, p. 222.

· 65 “Hodie, Deo favente, sanctoque Laurencio deprecante, Pomoranorum ydolatria ac militaris super-bia vestris ensibus conteretur.” lib. III. c. 1, p. 224.

· 66 Güttner-Sporzyński, Poland, Holy War, 98–99.

· 67 “Nisi Deus hunc hominem adiuvaret, nunquam tantam de paganis victoriam ei daret.” Gesta principum Polonorum, III. 12, p. 242.

· 68 Gladysz, The Forgotten Crusaders, passim. Güttner-Sporzyński, “Northern crusades: between holy war and mission”, 144–62. A recent overview of the scholarship is provided by Ewelina Kazienko, “Boży wojownicy czy pobożni pielgrzymi? Polacy i ich wyprawy do Ziemi Świętej na marginesie książki Agnieszki Teterycz-Puzio, Polscy krzyżowcy,” Res Historica 46 (2018): 482–92.

· 69 Giles Constable, “Early Crusading in Eastern Germany: The Magdeburg Charter of 1107/1108,” in Crusaders and Crusading in the Twelfth Century (London and New York: Routledge, 2016), 197–214.

· 70 Christopher Tyerman, God’s War. A New History of the Crusades (London: Allen Lane, 2006), 664–65.

· 71

Clamate hoc in ecclesiis, sanctificate ieiunium, vocate cetum, congregate populum, annunciate hoc et auditum facite in omnibus terminis prelationis vestre; sanctificate bellum, suscitate robustos. Surgite, principes, contra inimicos Christi, arripite clypeos, accingimini, filii potentes, et venite omnes viri bellatores; infirmus dicat: Quia fortis sum ego, quoniam dominus fortitudo plebis sue et protector, salvationum Christi sui est. Erumpite et venite, omnes amatores Christi et ecclesie, et sicut Galli ad liberationem Hierusalem, vos preparate! Hierusalem nostra ab initio libera, gentilium crudelitate facta est ancilla.

Urkundenbuch des Hochstifts Merseburg 1 (962–1357), ed. Paul Fridolin Kehr (Geschichtsquellen der Provinz Sachsen und angrenzender Gebiete, 36) (Halle: 1899), 76, n. 91.

· 72

Surge itaque, sponsa Christi, et veni; sonet vox tua in auribus Christi fidelium, quatenus omnes ad Christi festinent bellum Christique militibus veniant in adiutorium. Gentiles isti pessimi sunt, sed terra eorum optima carne, melle, farina, … avibus … Quapropter, o Saxones, Franci, Lotaringi, Flandrigene famosissimi et domitores mundi, hic poteritis et animas vestras salvificare et, si ita placet, optimam terram ad inhabitandum acquirere, qui Gallos ab extremo occidente progressos in brachio virtutis sue contra inimicos suos in remotissimo triumphavit oriente, ipse tribuat vobis voluntatem et potentiam hos affines et inhumanissimos gentiles subiugare et in omnibus bene prosperari.

Urkundenbuch des Hochstifts Merseburg 1 (962–1357), 76–77.

· 73 Examined masterfully in Constable, “Early Crusading in Eastern Germany”; Güttner-Sporzyński, “Northern crusades: between holy war and mission,” 145–46.

· 74 Anti Selart, Livonia, Rus’ and the Baltic Crusades in the Thirteenth Century (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2015); Tyerman, God’s War, 664–700; Alan V. Murray, The Clash of Cultures on the Medieval Baltic Frontier (Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2009); Alek-sander Pluskowski, The Archaeology of the Prussian Crusade: Holy War and Colonisation (Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2013).