WHILE FOR SOME time the papacy had tried re-establish stronger bonds— perhaps even a renewed union—between the Western and Eastern churches, attempts had not been crowned with any significant success during the thirteenth century. Henry of Livonia bears great witness to the rising conflicts between the Catholic Westerners and the Orthodox Easterners during the conquest of both Livonia and Estonia. Mutual tolerance was replaced by hostility and outright war between the various Rus’ princes and the Germans and Danes in Livonia and Estonia; famous is the battle on Lake Peipus in 1242 with Prince Aleksandr Nevskij (1221–1263) defeating the knightly brethren of the Teutonic Order and their vas-sals. This was only one of many encounters throughout the hundred-year period up to 1346, when the Danish kings finally withdrew from Estonia, a region continually marked by unrest and wars.

The death of King Valdemar II in 1241 meant that the Danish involvement in Esto-nia became somewhat weakened in the years to come. Internal conflicts concerning the succession of the dead king's sons and the various branches of the family made it difficult to pursue a consistent foreign policy in an extremely unruly region that saw the Teutonic Order strive for more power and land. Also decisive were the internal and repeated disputes between archbishops and kings in Denmark, which gained momen-tum under Archbishop Jakob Erlandsen (1254–1274) and reached a critical peak under Archbishop Jens Grand (1289–1302), absorbing (more or less) the full attention of the Danish rulers.

Formally, of course, the Danish kings were present in Estonia even during these critical and turbulent years. There were two important Danish officials in Estonia: a bishop (in contemporary sources referred to as “the bishop of Reval,” Episcopatus Revaliensis) and the king's bailiff. The bishopric formally belonged to the archbish-opric of Lund, but ever since 1219 it had been the Danish kings who appointed the bishops of Reval/Tallinn. In addition, there was the aforementioned bailiff, who was the king's formal deputy, having his seat in the castle on Toompea Hill. Around 1282, a council was set up consisting of twelve of the king's most important vassals in the region.

Having collected a very huge army King Valdemar set out for Estonia with one thousand five hundred longships (longis navibus), and having fought many bat-tles he eventually converted the entire country to Christianity subjugating it to Denmark as it still is.

SUCH IS THE brief mention in the medieval annalistic chronicle, Annales Ryenses, of the military conquest of Estonia in the early thirteenth century by Western (mostly Danish and German) crusaders and one of the pivotal events during the conquest, namely the Battle of Lyndanise 1219. While the chronicle is believed to have been com-pleted sometime around 1300, the actual battle mentioned in the text had taken place in Estonia some eighty years before: on an early summer's day in June a Danish force of crusaders led by the Danish King Valdemar II of Denmark (r. 1202–1241), and sup-ported by the Danish Archbishop of Lund, Anders Sunesen (r. 1202–1224, d. 1228), joined battle with an opposing force of local Estonian warriors led by their elders and war chieftains. As we shall see in this book, the battle was a hard-fought and brutal affair that nearly ended in a total Danish defeat. A series of chance events however completely changed the outcome of the battle and resulted, instead, in what seems to have been a total Estonian defeat—at least according to one (near) contemporary source. It was a defeat that enabled the Danes to firmly establish themselves (politically, militarily, and ecclesiastically) in the northernmost provinces of Estonia for the next almost one hundred fifty years, though they were sincerely challenged by strong ecclesiastical and military powers from German-controlled Livonia as we shall see in this volume.

From a military perspective and with all due consideration to the tactical and the strategical implications, the conquest of Estonia and the Battle of Lyndanise do not seem overly important in a general medieval setting. The Middle Ages saw countless other battles involving many more fighting men and resulting in outcomes that, in many more profound ways, decided the fate of great lords and entire nations. Not even among the many battles that took place in a distinct crusading setting does the Battle of Lyndanise stand out as something very spectacular or decisive.

THE MAJOR RIVAL to the Danes and their expansion into Estonia was the German mission in Livonia. This mission had taken roots in the mid-1180s not long after the first attempts had been made to establish a formal (Danish) mission in Estonia through the consecration of Bishop Fulco. While we do not know if anything actually came of this early attempt to convert the Estonians, German clerics managed to establish themselves in Livonia along the lower runs of the Daugava River, connecting the market places of western Livonia with the rich markets of the Rus’ lands further to the east.

The early history of the Livonian Church is described in great detail, although with a strong supportive bias towards the Germans by the aforementioned chronicler, Henry of Livonia. In his chronicle, German priests and missionaries (who also included Henry himself), and the Livonian Church headed, in turn, by the bishops Meinhard (r. 1186–1196), Bertold (r. 1196–1198), and Albert are portrayed essentially as God's only true representatives among the local (pagan) people. Any encroachment by foreign (ecclesiastical) powers was fiercely opposed by the Livonian Church as well as by Henry himself. Primary among these foreign powers were, of course, the Danes and to a lesser extent, the Swedes and the Norwegians.

The Chronica Livoniae is, in essence, the foundational narrative of the German mis-sion in Livonia and Estonia and, therefore, a very important source with regards to the various aspects of the conquests of these lands. In the chronicle, Henry explains, how Meinhard came to Livonia in the early 1180s together with some German merchants who had sailed there in order to trade at the local market in Ikšķile. This village lay near an important crossing over Daugava River and was an key centre in the region's travel networks. It was a well-chosen starting point for the intended mission. The sources indicate that Meinhard had been sent to Livonia by the archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen as part of a well-planned attempt to establish a permanent mission among the pre-dominately pagan Livs who inhabited these lands.

ACCORDING TO HENRY of Livonia, the preparations for the Danish attack on Lyndanise had begun in the summer of 1218 when King Valdemar II summoned all important men of his realm for a meeting in Schleswig. Among the participants were fifteen bishops, three dukes, and three counts, together with an unsaid number of abbots and other worthy people. The alleged primary reason for the summoning of all these important individuals was the king's wish to have his eldest son and heir, Prince Valdemar, crowned in the cathedral church of Schleswig. The young prince had already been recognized as heir to the throne in 1215 and it was time to have him wear the crown like his father, thereby consolidating the order of succession. In this way, King Valdemar II followed in the footsteps of his father, King Valdemar I who was the first king of Denmark to have his son, the future King Knud VI, crowned as co-regent in 1170, while at the same having his father Knud Lavard enshrined fol-lowing his recognition as a saint the previous year by the pope. Now King Valdemar II followed in his father's footsteps and had his own oldest son crowned as his co regent. The cathedral church of Schleswig must have seemed the ideal place for this important dynastic event for several reasons. It was the main town of the duchy of Southern Jylland and also conveniently located with regards to King Valdemar's involvement in the (imperial) politics of northern Germany and his many military campaigns there.

Among the high number of bishops mentioned in the sources was also probably Bishop Albert of Riga. Henry of Livonia mentions that the German bishop went to see King Valdemar, accompanied by a former German knight, Bernhard of Lippe (ca. 1140–1224), who had become abbot of the Cistercian monastery of Mount St. Nicholas (Daugavgrīva/Dünamünde) not far from Riga. Later that same year Bernhard became bishop of Semgallia and was thus closely tied to the politics of the Livonian Church. Henry also mentions that “the bishop of Estonia” (episcopus…Estiensis) accompanied Bishop Albert to this meeting in Schleswig. It cannot have been anyone else but Bishop Theodoric who would eventually follow King Valdemar on the expedition to Estonia the following year.

THE MILITARY CONQUEST of both Livonia and Estonia was, by all accounts, an extremely brutal affair, characterized by a high level of violence. We have already touched upon the practices of raiding and plundering enemy lands, taking as much booty as possible while enslaving the local people. This type of warfare was carried out both by land and by sea enabling attacks deep into enemy territory and involving pretty much everybody in the region. Largescale campaigns were fought with little regard to enemy lives or properties. Often, men of fighting age were seemingly killed right away, according to contemporary sources like Henry of Livonia, whereas women and children were taken captive to be sold as slaves at one of the local slave markets or shipped off to foreign lands never to see their ancestral homes again. Even fellow Christians ran the risk of becoming entrapped during these wars, especially if the enemy belonged to a dif-ferent denomination as we have already seen with the German-Rus’ relations between whom there were very little reverence or respect.

Neither the German nor the Danish crusaders brought warfare to a region other-wise untouched by this favoured pastime of mankind—far from it. Various forms of con-tinual warfare with raids and larger military expeditions into enemy territory seem to have been the norm for generations among the Baltic people, predating the arrival of the Western crusaders and their novel ideas of holy wars and crusades. As such, martial cultures were strong among most of the local people. For their part, Western crusaders would have been unable to subjugate these vast territories had it not been for the direct and active support of the locals who, for one reason or the other, chose to side with the powerful newcomers in their continuous struggle against age-old local enemies, and, thereby, gain military advantage. Like in so many other crusading theatres along the fringes of Christendom, it was, by no means, the crusaders who introduced the art of war among the local people. Rather, the crusaders became (new) players in already existing power struggles and age-old feuds.

FOLLOWING THE BATTLE of Lyndanise, the Danish crusaders celebrated their victory by praising God, thanking him for this Christian triumph over the pagans. Thereafter, the Danes could devote themselves to the task of Christianizing the whole region. It was time to initiate, in earnest, the important work of converting and bap-tizing the locals even if it required many more embittered fights in the years to come. Consequently, the Danish stronghold on Toompea Hill became of paramount importance for the continued work in Estonia. The wooden structures of the hastily constructed ini-tial fortress were replaced over time with stone buildings and walls, making the castle stronger. It was only when the Sword Brethren conquered the castle for a period, nearly ten years later, that its first rebuild was completed.

While the Danes worked on their castles and sent out missionaries, they also contin-ued to fight the locals. Quite clearly, the people of the northernmost provinces of Estonia had no intention of submitting freely to the power of the Danes, and also, at the same time, had to defend themselves against the repeated German attacks from the south. As such, the outcome of the Battle of Lyndanise was not definitive in breaking the Esto-nian's ability to fight back. Nor do the actual losses seem to have been as high or as catastrophic as suggested by Henry of Livonia. Similarly, the losses or the near-defeat suffered by the Danish crusaders did not make King Valdemar abandon his enterprise in Estonia. Neither did it take the king long to decide that the castle—even in its unfinished condition—was strong enough to act as the central power base of the Danish presence in northern Estonia and the seat of a royal-appointed bailiff. When King Valdemar left Estonia—he seems to have been back in Denmark no later than September 1219—, he left behind a garrison in the castle. We do not know anything about the actual size of this force. Apart from manning the castle, the main task must have been to protect the cler-ics who also stayed behind in Estonia, eager to commence with their missionary work. Following the death of Bishop Theoderich, the king's chaplain Wescelo was appointed the new bishop of the Estonians.

CRUSADING BECAME A reality in the Baltic in the context of the wide-scale and papal initiated preaching campaigns that followed in the wake of the fall of Edessa in 1144. But even before that point, some sources suggest that some of the earlier military campaigns in the region, in fact, may have been inspired by the wider crusading move-ment that had taken root in Europe shortly before 1100 and which eventually came to influence all societies within Western Christendom.1 The military conquest of Livonia and Estonia, therefore, needs to be viewed within the overall framework of holy war and crusading ideo logy, taking into account both the general papal crusading politics of the time and the specific papal involvement in the Baltic Sea region during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

The particular aim of the preaching campaigns following the fall of Edessa was to recruit crusaders to what would become known as the Second Crusade (1145–1149); the goal being to reconquer what had been lost and to help the hard-pressed Chris-tians in the Holy Land.2 The loss of Edessa sent shockwaves throughout Europe and led directly to Pope Eugenius III (r. 1145–1153) promulgating the crusading bull Quan-tum praedecessores. The bull exhorted the princes of Christendom to take the cross and come to the aid of their fellow Christians in the Holy Land. Pope Eugenius was wholly dependent on the many preachers who travelled around on his behalf announcing what happened in Edessa, while exhorting their audiences to answer the pope's call to take the cross and go on crusade to the Holy Land.3 A papal legate also travelled to Denmark to persuade the Danes to take part in the planned crusade to reconquer the lost ter-ritories.

One of the most prominent of these crusade preachers was the Cistercian abbot Ber-nard of Clairvaux (1090–1153). Pope Eugenius had appointed him as his special envoy in recognition of his considerable oratorical skills. Bernard's work took him all round France, where he had great success preaching to the king of France and his leading bar-ons at Easter 1146.

THE SUCCESSFUL SUBJUGATION of the Western Slavic people between the Elbe River and Eastern Pomerania in the later part of the twelfth century made the Danes turn their attention towards the troublesome (according to Saxo Grammaticus) people of Estonia. They had continually raided the easternmost provinces of Denmark, Skåne, and Blekinge in modern-day Sweden, while also attacking ships in open waters in their quest for booty and captives, says Saxo. A similar view is found in the chronicle of Henry of Livonia, who, at one point, indignantly records the consequences of these attacks where endless numbers of enslaved young Christian (Scandinavian) women were forced into marrying pagan men because of the slave-raiding marauders.1 As we have already seen, the Estonians were indeed frequently engaged in various forms of warfare and raiding activities as an integrated part of their societal structures.2 The islanders of Saaremaa were, in that respect, especially renowned for their superior naval power equalled only by the Danes. Quite often, the people from Saaremaa operated in close alliance with their Curonian cousins during such raids while, at the same time, eagerly protecting their own dominant position in the eastern parts of the Baltic Sea region. Consequently, they would do anything in their power to ward off the encroachment of any foreign people venturing too deep into their spheres of interest, like the Danes or the Germans for exmple, who looked more and more like a serious threat to the Estonians. The term “Curonians” actually seems to have been used as a generic term to simply refer to seaborne pirates, whether they were in fact from Curonia, from Saaremaa, from coastal Estonia, or from someplace else.

The relationship between the Danes and the people of Saaremaa and their Cou-ronian allies did have very long historical roots with intermingling periods of trading and raiding. As is already mentioned, Saxo suggested that sheer boredom enticed the Danes to attack Estonia when things became too quiet at home for them!Both par-ties—the Danes and the Estonians—possessed very powerful naval forces that were frequently brought into action during various military expeditions.

WHEN NEW WAVES of Western merchants and missionaries and eventually cru-saders came to the Baltic lands in the later part of the twelfth and early part of the thirteenth centuries they did not come to a region devoid of people—on the contrary. Already during the early medieval period Scandinavians in particular had visited these lands regularly on their way to the prosperous markets of Kyivan Rus’ and the even more prosperous markets of far-away Constantinople and Baghdad. These adventures brought great wealth to the Scandinavian lands and also played a significant role in the founding of several princedoms along the major riverways in modern-day Ukraine and Russia. While some of the Scandinavian merchants and warriors would settle down permanently in these foreign lands, many more simply visited, journeying to and from the local markets and trading posts on an annual basis. On these journeys, travellers also visited the coastal regions of Estonia, Livonia, and Curonia (Latvian: Kurzeme), each having their own important markets and trading hubs as contact points between the East and the West. Such local places also became convenient over winter when travelling became too difficult or outright impossible due to the harsh weather in the eastern parts of the Baltic Sea region. In this way, important bonds were forged between the visitors and the locals.

In the later part of the twelfth century, the local Baltic markets were still important steppingstones in a regional commercial network tying the West to the East and vice versa. Western merchants would do business with Estonians, Livonians, Letgallians, Semgallians, Curonians, Lithuanians, and of course, with people from the Rus’ princi-palities of Novgorod, Pskov, Jersika, and Polotsk bordering the Baltic lands. They met on an annual basis, each having their own cultural and religious traditions through which they turned the entire region into a sort of “middle ground” between an Orthodox East, a Catholic West, and a conglomerate of (mostly still) pagan people in the middle. Through-out the centuries, strong local and regional powers each sought to expand their domi-nance into this important region.

AS WITH EVERY BOOK, this one too has its story. The idea for the volume originated in conversations in 2016–2017 between Radosław Kotecki and Carsten Selch Jensen during a joint project devoted to the role of the medieval clergy in warfare. These discussions, soon joined by Stephen Bennett and some other contributors to this volume, centred on concern for the research gap in the historiography of relationships between Christianity and war in the Middle Ages. At the time, we shared the conviction that studies on this issue predominantly focused on the West and the South of the European continent. Regions located more to the East and North, which converted to Christianity only around 1000 or even much later, were largely neglected. Being aware of both these deficiencies, and also the potential of the local sources and research circles, we decided to prepare a collection that would offer some fresh perspectives. The intention would also be to move away from perceiving these issues only through the prism of crusade ideology. The result is this volume, co-created by an international group of medievalists from Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Norway, Poland, and the United Kingdom. Ultimately, fifteen scholars contributed to the book. The structure of the team was, however, fluid. Several initial project members had to withdraw because of other commitments; however, their ideas also helped shape the outcome.

This volume owes a lot to several people, and the editors wish to thank everyone who has been involved in bringing it to fruition. Particular thanks go to the authors for timely submission of their chapters, and for their patience during the editing and production process. In particular, we wish to thank Jacek Maciejewski, whose counsel and help have proved invaluable throughout all stages of this project. Special thanks go to the anonymous peer reviewer, who approved the book's publication with Arc Humani-ties Press and Amsterdam University Press, and suggested valuable improvements. We would also like to thank Christian Raffensperger for his careful reading of the manuscript, and valuable comments, as well as for his acceptance of the book into the Beyond Medieval Europe series. Anna Henderson from Arc Humanities Press proved to be very helpful and supportive at every stage of its production and deserves fulsome praise.

THE PRESENT COLLECTION of chapters offers an original scholarly view on the issue of cultures of war in medieval East Central Europe and Scandinavia. The authors focus on questions that can be discussed simultaneously in the context of two phenomena: war (or more broadly, any military activity) and Christian religion and culture. The problems presented in this way are neither narrow nor homogeneous. This is unsurprising when a vibrant sphere of relationships between two such crucial cultural and culture-forming factors in the Middle Ages becomes the primary objective of a study.

While the subject of the volume is broadly profiled, presenting the issue in a multiperspective manner, the essays have been narrowed down geographically to East Central, North, and North-Eastern Europe. It is a region that has been sometimes referred to as the “Younger Europe” or “New Christianity” after Professor Jerzy Kłoczowski. It centres on vast territories that only, in most cases, formed their Christian identities after the tenth century. Chronologically, the present collection concentrates on the period from the late eleventh to the late thirteenth century with occasional glimpses into the earlier and later periods. However, the timeframe only partly corresponds to the epoch known in Western European scholarship as the High Middle Ages. Furthermore, focusing on the eleventh to thirteenth centuries is not to be considered as a further attempt at “adding,” “rethinking,” or “re-considering” the state of knowledge about the relationships of war and religion in the period often coined as the “classic medieval period,” “age of chivalry,” or “age of crusading” in the heartlands of medieval Europe. Instead the initiators of this volume felt the need to discuss the sparsely (though at the same time unequally) researched relationships between Christianity and war in the Eastern and North-Eastern parts of modern-day Europe. Moreover, to do so at the early stage of the influence of the new religion in these regions, distant as they were from the centres of Latin and Greek civilisations. Although Christianity had already begun to permeate these areas from at least the eighth century, its cultural impact became more pronounced in the regions only around 1000 or later.