Cracking down on illegal gambling in Medieval Livonia
Just like their modern day counterparts, medieval cities had to deal with their own criminal underworlds – the sex trade, gambling, and violence taking place within their walls. At the International Medieval Congress, held earlier this month at the University of Leeds, these issues were explored as part of session #706: Perceiving and Regulating Vices.
The Sword Brothers at War: Observations on the Military Activity of the Knighthood of Christ in the Conquest of Livonia and Estonia (1203–1227)
The Knighthood of Christ of Livonia (Militia Christi de Livonia) was the first of the medieval military religious orders to be founded for service outside the Holy Land and Iberia, and thus the first one to be actively involved in warfare anywhere in northern Europe.
Saints’ Cults in Medieval Livonia
Saints’ cults played a crucial role in medieval society. Although we know very little about the beliefs and rituals of the indigenous peoples of Livonia, either before or after the thirteenth-century conquest, we may assume that the process of Christianization must have caused major changes in their religious practices.
To Be or Not to Be… a Christian: Some New Perspectives on Understanding the Christianisation of Estonia
The Christianisation of Estonia has been a subject of extensive research already for a couple of centuries. Archaeologists generally agree that some elements of Christian religion were present in Estonia already prior to official Christianisation at the beginning of the 13th century.
How to justify a crusade? The conquest of Livonia and new crusade rhetoric in the early thirteenth century
This article examines an apparently simple question: how to justify a crusade that did not aim at recovering the Holy Land.
Colonizing the Landscape: A Case Study of Medieval Livonia
There are several impulses which led me to the history of medieval landscape, and particularly that of Medieval Livonia. When discussing with Gerhard Jaritz the availability of medieval primary sources on the Eastern Baltic landscape, I was obliged to point out the extreme scarcity of medieval picture images, illuminated manuscripts or maps of Livonia.
Pagans by Comparisons: Medieval Christian and Muslim Constructions of the Pagan “Other”
Pagans by Comparisons: Medieval Christian and Muslim Constructions of the Pagan “Other” Busalacchi, Philip Perspectives: A Journal of Historical Inquiry, Vol.37 (2010) Introduction: During…