Slavery, Religion and the Prus1

University of Glasgow, 2020

In recent years there have been notable advances of research into the Viking age slave trade along the Baltic littoral. 2 There have been two main lines of inquiry: firstly, the trade itself, its markets and supply lines and in particular, its relationship to the truly vast hoards of silver dirhams from Central Asia found in Scandinavia and modern Poland, Belarus, Russia and Ukraine. 3 Secondly, attention has centred on the trade's influence on the political development of the region, notably the process of state formation by the Czechs, Poles and Rus. There has been rather less about what influence, if any , the Christian religion had on the trade, partly because both the Catholic and Orthodox Churches seem to have regarded slave taking and trading as a fact of life. Yet by the twelfth century there was legislation and the development of some limitations on the practice. The contribution to the trade of the Prusi, Old Prussians or Prus allows us a case study of two aspects of the trade. What was the contribution of the southeast Baltic to the trade and how significant was it that the Prus remained pagan when most of their neighbours were Christians? Their persistent adherence to pagan beliefs is one reason why we know relatively little about the Prus: we lack the great founding narratives provided by chroniclers such as Gallus Anonymus for Poland, Cosmas of Prague for Bohemia (Czechia) or the author of Povest' 1 My thanks to Mitko Panov for organising the conference in the difficult circumstances of the 2020 pandemic and also to my fellow panelists, Christian Raffensperger and Alex Feldman and also Jonathan Shepard and Christian Zschieschang for their suggestions and help.

In: The Dawning of Christianity in Poland and across Central-Eastern Europe: History and the Politics of Memory, eds. I. Kąkolewski, Ch. Lübke, P. Urbańczyk, (= Polish Studies - Transdisciplinary Perspectives 26), Berlin 2020, 91-109., 2020

This chapter discusses the earliest traces of Christianity's spread into Pomerania (Pomorze) during the two centuries before a lasting Church organization was finally built in the 12th c. As evidenced through archaeological finds, already in the late 10th /early 11th c. do we observe an erosion of the traditional sepulchral behaviors and the appearance of new grave and burial-site forms among the Slavic Pomeranians. This phenomenon might be associable with the stronger penetration of Christianity into this region, i.a., during the short-lived conquest of Pomerania by the Piasts at the end of the 10th c. Moreover, the rhythm of economic development in the early-urban residential merchant settlements in this Baltic region, ones which functioned in the pre-state (tribal) period, implied a regular arrival of merchants, including Christian ones. In contrast to the early-Piast monarchy, the penetration of Christianity into Pomerania before the 12th c. was not supported by powerful structures of centralized power.

2015

Medieval Lithuania was the last state in Europe to accept Christianity officially, pagan Lithuanians converted to Roman Catholicism in 1387; the westernmost part of the country, known as Žemaitija (Samogitia), became ‘Christian’ only in 1417, when the diocese of Medininkai was established by the commission of the Council of Constance and through the good offices of King Jogaila of Poland and Grand Duke Vytautas of Lithuania. It took almost a millennium from Clovis to Jogaila to complete the project known as Christian Europe: eleventh-hour Christians arrived not long before the Discovery of the New World and the final break-up of medieval Christendom. The aim of this book is to reconstruct the road the medieval Lithuanians took tip-toeing a delicate line between Latin and Greek Christendom. Once crossed, Lithuanians embraced essentially all paraphernalia of late-medieval Christian spirituality thus becoming a recognizably European nation. In its scope and detailed analysis this monograph is the first attempt to introduce English readership to the arcane world of Baltic-speaking tribesmen who succeeded in countering expansionist Latin and Russian Orthodox Europe by employing much the same means and devices as their Christian neighbours; it also examines how Lithuanian society adopted and adapted Christian institutions and practices during the long fifteenth century.he Conversion

Speculum, 2021

2014

along the South of the Baltic Sea from the bay of Kiel to the Vistula. 2 The Wends consisted of several nations: the Wagrians, Abotrites, Polabians, Liutizians, Rugians and Pomeranians. 3 Many of the nations spoke different but similar languages, and operated independent of each other with the exception of the loosely united Abotrites and Polabians. From 1200-1292, the Danes campaigned against Finland, and two German monastic orders, the Swordbrothers and the Teutonic Order, rose to prominence and conducted crusades against the pagan Balts in the Livonian, Prussian, and Estonian Crusades. A priest founded the Swordbrothers in 1202 in the city of Riga with the express purpose of fighting the pagans in the Baltic. 4 The Teutonic Order was founded in Acre in 1190 to care for German crusaders, but they eventually took up a militant role in northern Europe. 5 The Balts, like the Wends, consisted of several nations divided into smaller tribes, which were the functioning political units. 6 The Prussian tribes lived between the Lower Vistula, the Narew, the Niemen, and the Baltic coast. 7 The Lithuanians were a combination of two tribes: the Zemaiciai (referred to as the Samogitians) and the Aukstaiciai, and they inhabited the land north and east of the Niemen. 8 North of the lower Dvina lived the Lettigallians, and the Semigallians and Selonians inhabited the land south of the river. 9 The Curonians lived on the peninsula between the Baltic and the Gulf of Riga and had a language similar to the Letts even though they interacted with the northern tribes more than the 2 Refer to Appendix 1 for a map of the pagan tribes. Map provided by http://www.inspiritoo.com/the-republicnovgorod.html. A timeline of important events has also been provided. The timeline is based on Christiansen, The Northern Crusades, ix-xii with a few key additions and subtractions of my own.

Starohrvatska prosvjeta 47, 2020

Changes in the Dalmatian Slavs’ funeral customs during the eighth and ninth centuries were a side-effect of radical social transformations caused by economic growth and the emergence of Christianity. This paper discusses the causes of these processes and their manifestation in the archaeological record. Promjene u pogrebnim običajima dalmatinskih Slavena tijekom 8. i 9. stoljeća popratna su pojava korjenitih društvenih transformacija uzrokovanih gospodarskim rastom i pojavom kršćanstva. Ovaj rad donosi raspravu o uzrocima ovih procesa i njihovoj manifestaciji u arheološkom zapisu.

2010

The written evidence gives us a view of the conversion of the peri‐Baltic area through the eyes of the successful Christianizers because, unfortunately, no other contemporary “eyes” are available. Sources from the 10th–11th century paint a pro‐ cess that was quick, historically necessary, and politically effective. Those especially active in spreading the Faith are naturally the focus of attention, hence the ac‐ counts we are dealing with refer for the most part to political elites and ruling dy‐ nasties in particular. Therefore, the historiography of Christianization is not much different from political history. Medieval Christian ‘historians’ dichotomized the past into two distinctive epo chs separated by decisive events which introduced divine order into ungodly chaos. This uniform vision makes us also think in terms of sharp contrasts be‐ tween “what was Christian” and “what was not‐Christian”, thus confronting the two “worlds” in order to achieve better focus and typological cl...

Potestas et communitas - Interdisciplinary Studies of the Constitution and Demonstration of Power Relations in the Middle Ages East of the Elbe, ed. A. Paroń, S. Rossignol, B. Szmoniewski, G. Vercmaer, 2010

The author, based on written and archaeological sources, suggests that local élites can have supported Christianization in the territories dependent on their power, often in opposition to the official policy of the ruler, and much earlier than the actual baptism of the ruler himself. Consequently, it seems necessary to rethink the traditional theory regarding the reasons behind Mieszko I’s and Harald Bluetooth’s baptism, and the pagan opposition against it.

Edinost in dialog (“Unity and Dialogue”), 2021

This study analyses the image of pagans and paganism in Pomerania during the first half of the twelfth century. It also analyses the relationship with idolatry known since early Christianity. The conversion of Pomeranians to Christianity took place by giving up the worship of idols and submission to the Christian faith. It was the obedience to the German ecclesiastical authorities and the Polish duke that caused the Pomeranians to be regarded as real Christians. This study shows that Pomeranian paganism appears as a Christian construct of a socio-religious identity, created to be an antithesis to Christianity.

Lithuanian Historical Studies, 2014

This paper deals with the issue of the presence of Christians and pagans in pagan (13th century to 1387) and early Christian Lithuania (from 1387 to the early 15th century). The author proposes to use a group-oriented approach to deal with the question of the political decision-making process of accepting or not accepting the Christian faith. It is his contention that the personal ‘life style’ preferences of individual dukes and their entourage were much more decisive than large-scale political calculations that have been given much attention by historians. This approach helps explain the incremental rise of Christianity within the ruling house, which carried the day when new rulers with a different mentality (Grand Duke Jogaila first) came to the helm of the state. The Christian presence was felt most in Vilnius, and to some degree also in Kernavė. Their arrival (from Livonia and Rus’) was encouraged by the pagan rulers of Lithuania to satisfy their need for a skilled workforce. Th...