If all humanity was considered potentiallya vessel ready to be filled with the Christianmessage, by the thirteenth century many parts inEurope had – through the use of violence orvoluntarily – accepted its teachings, becoming partof the christianarespublica. Within its boundaries,various aristocratic dynasties competed to positionthemselves as protectors of the imperium christianum, crusading inPalestine and Spain, while issuing arguments towrest themselves from the hegemony of empire andChurch. The clergy learned and applied scientificknowledge that environment and geography shaped thephysique and character of individuals and groups,plying popular symbols of culture and framing themwith boasts of civility and urbanity, the values ofwell-governed society. The entanglement of classicalethnography, environmental determinism and biblicalrhetoric, reproduced in a region positioning itselfas a heartland of civilization, good governance andmilitary power (the translatiostudii et imperii), thereby created avery specific rhetoric of colonization, offering ajustification of expropriation of ‘squanderedlands’. There, the establishment of settlements,embellished with the rhetoric of progress,transmuted imperialism into religious colonialism.Texts and images allowed Christian settlers to claimthe landscape by attributing meaning to it and itsinhabitants. In the narratives, the geographicalposition, environment, natural resources and socialorganization intersected with statements aboutdegrees of religiosity. These claims about others inthe colonized territories simultaneously reinforcedideas about the self. In this sense, the other was amuch-needed mirror to stake claims to the physical,mental and spiritual ascendancy of the aristocracyof western Europe.

In this final chapter we will take stock of thisrepresentation of colonized territories. Thischapter builds upon Robert Bartlett’s earlierThe Making ofEurope, yet takes the perspective of theinfluence of theories of environmental determinismin colonizing rhetoric, which is less explored inBartlett’s work. In representations of the regionsthat were settled, court writers welded scientificand religious discourses, assigning to the Celtic,Germanic and Slavic peoples an instability of faithaligned with cultural and geographical marginality.Yet farther to the north-east, in the Balticregions, the same authors spoke of pagan lands ofmilk and honey that awaited the crusaders ofcivilization. The rhetoric clearly tiesenvironmentally determined semi-paganism to theabsence of a social and legal structure and henceargues for the use of legitimate violence andexpropriation following the Ciceroniantradition.