Ideology and holy landscape in the Baltic crusades / Gregory Leighton.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Leighton, Gregory

Series:

War and conflict in premodern societies.

War and conflict in premodern societies

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Christianity--Middle ages.

Christianity.

Crusades.

Ideology--Religious aspects--Middle ages.

Ideology.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (242 pages) : illustrations.

Edition:

1st ed.

Distribution:

London : Bloomsbury Publishing, 2023.

Place of Publication:

Leeds : Arc Humanities Press, 2022.

Language Note:

English

System Details:

text file HTML

Biography/History:

Leighton Gregory : Gregory Leighton earned his PhD in History (2018) from Cardiff University, where he studied the Teutonic Order and crusading in Prussia and Livonia. He is currently a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of History at Nicholas Copernicus University in Toruń.

Summary:

This book examines how the military orders and the ideology of crusading gave rise to a new sacred landscape in the medieval Baltic region, an outpost of Latin Christianity. Drawing on a wide variety of sources and international scholarship, the book discusses the paganism of the landscape in written sources pre-dating the crusades, in addition to the narrative, legal, and visual evidence of the crusade period. It draws out the key sacralizing elements as expressed in those sources, which structure the definition of sacred landscape, particularly martyrdom, the manifestation of the sacred, and use of relics in battle. By analyzing these aspects with Geographical Information Systems (GIS), a map of the Baltic campaigns emerges that provides a fresh approach to studying contemporary views of holy war in a region with no initial links to the loca sancta of Jerusalem or Europe.

Contents:

Frontmatter

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

INTRODUCTION

Chapter 1 LANDSCAPE IMAGERY IN THE TEXTS DOCUMENTING THE BALTIC CRUSADES

Chapter 2 LITERARY THEMES AND LANDSCAPE SACRALIZATION IN THE WRITTEN EVIDENCE FOR THE BALTIC CRUSADES

Chapter 3 MAPPING LANDSCAPE SACRALIZATION DURING THE BALTIC CRUSADES, THIRTEENTH TO FOURTEENTH CENTURIES

Chapter 4 RELICS, PROCESSIONS, AND SACRED LANDSCAPE IN THE BALTIC, THIRTEENTH TO FOURTEENTH CENTURIES

Chapter 5 SPACE, VISUAL CULTURE, AND LANDSCAPE SACRALIZATION IN THE BALTIC

CONCLUSION

CONCORDANCE OF PLACENAMES

Appendix RELICS IN THE BALTIC REGION (THIRTEENTH TO SIXTEENTH CENTURIES)

ABBREVIATIONS AND SHORT TITLES

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDEX

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

This eBook is made available Open Access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0 https://www.degruyter.com/dg/page/open-access-policy

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed February 10 2026)

ISBN:

9781641899666

1641899662

9781802700596

1802700595

OCLC:

1373347353