Rivista Di Araldica

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/tu8yubfzd7mf8li/AABooHx1prdjepTrZ9JKlsIka/DiAnna

English Translation

Nobility

Heraldry, Genealogy,

Knightly Orders

Asociacion de Hidalgod in Fuero de Espana Junta de Italia

Italian Genealogical Heraldic Institute

Federation of the Italian Associations of Genealogy, Family History, Heraldry and Documentary

Sciences

Angelica Rom library

MAY-AUGUST 2006

Milan

Number 72-73

Page 1

Erociate is a phenomenon which, as is well known, affects not only the Holy Land, but also the

Baltic. The expeditions of the Sword and Teutonic Knights, and their Danish and Swedish allies,

against the still pagan populations of northeastern Europe revived the glories and horrors of the

Christian holy war far from the East.

This activity of territorial conquest by northern potentates and expansion stimulated by the Church

of Rome also affects distant Finland

It is thanks to evangelization that Finland can also become part of Catholic universality, breaking the

isolation to which it had been forced for centuries. In fact, until the 12th century Finland was a land

unknown to the Latin West. His name does not appear in travel narratives as it is absent from

cartography

PAGE 2

The first mention to the people of him, which appeared in Tacitus' Germany in the form of Fenni

towards the end of the 1st century AD. and repeated in later Greek language sources under that of

Scritifinni (ie Finni skiers) has been forgotten.

Moreover, the Finns of the ancient-medieval sources are not even identifiable with certainty with

the Suomalaiset (self-denomination of the Finno-Ugric-speaking people who emigrated to Finland at

the end of the last glaciation) but rather are to be recognized in the Lapps or Sami, and for many

centuries Finn-land or Finn-mark will indicate the land of the nomads of the tundra. Due to its

distance from the main centers where the history of the High Middle Ages was being reforged,

Finland, covered with impenetrable forests and thousands of lakes, remained practically unknown

to southern geography and only thanks to an Arab cartographer of Roger II of Altavilla will begin to

know something about it, albeit in an imprecise and almost legendary way.

Thanks to al-Shafiri al Idrisi (1100-1165), known in the West as Idrisi or Edrisi, medieval cartography

makes a decisive progress in relation to both the method of investigation and the graphic

realization. In fact, Idrisi, on the advice of Roger II, Norman king of Sicily between 1129-1154,

collects updated data on the geography of the world known until then, without limiting itself to the

Mediterranean, but going beyond its borders to extend the survey also to the Nordic countries. and

Slavs.

Idrisi questioned merchants, missionaries, sailors who had visited the various provinces of Orbis and

compared their stories to then choose the version that most likely corresponded to reality. The text

was written in Arabic (unfortunately Rugger II, who had commissioned the work, did not have time

to have it translated into Latin) and was accompanied by a geographical map, which was very

different from the model of contemporary maps, called TO, which often they had no reference to

actual reality, having become bad copies of Ptolemaic fashions.

Idrisi was born in Ceuta in the Moroccan princely family of the Idrisidi and had studied in Cordoba.

For political reasons if he had to take refuge at the Norman court of Palermo, becoming a renegade

in the eyes of his co-religionists. To satisfy the curiosity Roger II

Page 3

I begin to draw up a geographical work that will be known as Il Libro ri Ruggero, which today we

would more faithfully call the Guide of the Known World, accompanied by an atlas engraved in

silver plates (it took 150kg) unfortunately gone missing. A not always reliable translation into French

of the book was made by A. Jaubert in 1840. The critical echezinne was edited by a team from the

Eastern University of Naples. D'atlante was published in 1926 by K. Miller.

The fundamental problem of the text remains its paleographic reading in fact the names of places,

especially when referring to Northern Europe, are difficult to interpret. This is due to the

peculiarities of the Arabic alphabet, which does not easily lend itself to the transcription of foreign

names, since it practically only contains the consonants that make up a word. As for Scandinavia,

described in the chapter dedicated to the VII Climate, that is the northernmost belt according to the

Ptolemaic division, Idrisi knows some places in Norway but not Sweden. As for Finland, the

discussion is still open. Finnish historians have identified some localities (Abraza, which would be

Turku, Rangwalda which would be Pori and Kaland which would be Kalanti), but their opinion is

shared by all scholars

Finland had probably been described by Adam of Berma, a German chronicler of the second half of

the 11th century, as the Land of Amazons, but also of monsters and feral creatures, behind which,

however, cultural specificities were hidden that led back to shamanism, whose priests used to dress

in the guise of bears and reindeer.

Finland becomes an alter orbis for the medieval imaginary. After all, the periphery of Europe and in

Antiquity and in the Middle Ages, and even beyond, the area not only of the geographical mystery

as an unexplored land, but also the seat of those physical and moral alterities (the monsters, the

Amazons

PAGE 4

populate a logocentric culture linked to the concept of the superiority of the Mediterranean

civilization first and then Christian. After all, the persistence of paganism in north-eastern Europe

undoubtedly reinforces this image of the other world, which is such and not only for the

extraordinary phenomena that characterize it (the "burning" ice of Icelandic volcanoes, the

whirlpools or maelström of 'North Atlantic, the days without night of the high latitudes), but also

because paganism continues to thrive in it, which, after the year 1000, is perceived not only as a

form of religious life different from the Greek-Latin one, but essentially as a threat to our own

civilization. In reality, obviously the Baltic crusade that arises as a natural filiation from this way of

looking at non-Christianized peoples will not only be the confrontation between two religious forms,

but also the extreme thrust of a territorial and political evolution that brings Teutons, Swedes, the

Danes and Russians of Novgorod to seek a wider space, religious, political and economic, precisely

at the expense of these unconverted populations.

When it takes place, the conversion of the pagans will strengthen the nascent Scandinavian

monerchiefs and enrich them with territories, but also with excellent soldiers and useful tax payers.

And since history still gives us the key to reading and also the explanation of modern phenomena, it

will be precisely this pincer advance between west and east that sees Scandinavian and Slavic

Christians clash with the northeastern Baltic peoples, the roots of the sentiment of aversion that the

latter, who have become modern nations, will continue to feel for the German and Russian world.

The difficulty that Finns, Estornians, Lithuanians, Latvians and Poles have today to accept a

coexistence with Russia without seeing it as the usual enemy therefore has its ancient origins in

these long years of bloody wars. Equally ancient is the suspicion and lack of trust that these peoples

have towards the Germans, to whom, however, for constant reasons, in years closer to us they have

had to ally themselves. Finally, it would be excessive to say that the hockey final at the Turin

Olympics between Finland and Sweden and the strong emotional wave it aroused in these

countries, is the last beach of a wave that comes from afar, but sure and that when the Finnish looks

west, even if for contingent reasons, he does not feel a movement of particular sympathy. After all,

all this is natural in fact Finns, Estonians, Lithuanians and Latvians, not the backbone of powerful and

proud nations, have a strong cultural identity, which cannot be confused with the German-

Scandinavian or the Russian-Slavic identity.

PAGE 5

Even in modern Europe, therefore, the introduction of faith served to create new social structures,

strengthening the monarchical power of countries that had recently entered the historical scene.

This support joined the apostolic fervor of the missionaries and the first bishops, stimulated by the

Holy Seds who, through the movement of evangelization, saw the boundaries of Christianity

widening and, at the same time, of its influence towards the northern kingdoms. The push towards

the North also had the BBBB to compensate for the mutilation suffered in the South due to the

BBBB invasion. he could regain what was lost in the Near East. Of course, more than a territorial

recovery it was a conquest and the loot was inviting. The Baltic territories represented in fact the

possibility for an improper feudalism to replenish their wealth and for the cadet children of families

linked to the majorascato to create an attractive future, but they were also the places of

considerable wealth in terms of natural goods, such as furs, wood, tar, wax, dried fish, metals for

forging weapons, amber even slaves

The Baltic crusade was anticipated by the slow insinuation of Christianity. Known are the episodes of

mass baptisms that preceded the actual conversion, the result of victories achieved not in the field

of Faith but on that of battle. The policy of the "religion of one's king" (cuius rex eius religio) had

quickly paved the way for the evangelization of the Scandinavian peoples. Of course, the king looked

to political convenience, and he cared little about having to renounce the ancient gods if the prize

was the promotion of his own monarchy and dominion first within his own country and then outside

it. But, as we said, in addition to the conversion brought to the point of the sword, there is also a

process of evangelization of "long times". This is particularly evident in Finland. As we will see

shortly, that of the first Finnish crusade (mid-twelfth century) is actually a propaganda invention, in

fact Finland sees the first representatives of Christianity disembark on its shores not from warships,

but from peaceful merchant boats. It was in fact trade that brought the first Christian communities

to the northern shores of the Baltic, even before the Church of Rome settled there with its own

bishops and convents. These Christian merchants come from Sweden and Germany. As has always

happened, between the two blocks there is what the Arabs called the house of the truce, that is, a

band where the two potential opponents meet

PAGE 6

to trade, get to know each other, build rather than destroy. This area of encounter between the

German-Scandinavian and pagan Christian world goes to Finland located on the southwestern coast

of the country (today's Satakunta and Varsinais-Suomi), while that of contact between Orthodox

Slavs and Karelian pagans is located in the area of modern Viipuri, and that is in the Isthmus of

Karelia

The House of the truce is however, by its very definition, a place of transitory reality, in fact in a

second phase the real conversion takes place and it needs other, more hasty means to be effective.

And this not only because the pagans reveal themselves more interested in the exchange of goods

than in the word of the Gospel, but also because from the east the nascent power of Novgorod is

advancing with the same be the sole responsibility of Latin-Scandinavian. The complexity of the

situation is also revealed in the unexpected resistance of paganism even if it is subdued. In fact,

battles can be won, tribal leaders baptized, or their heads cut off if the water of baptism cannot be

poured on it, but paganism will not completely disappear. It is enough to read the great Finnish

epics of the Kalevala and the Kalevipoeg, albeit recreated in the nineteenth century by not always

faithful collectors, to realize that the Finnish world, which extends to the two shores of the Gulf of

Finland, has preserved for a very long time the distinctive signs of paganism and especially of that

shamanic religion which certainly represents the most ancient form of human religiosity.

To proceed with the work of evangelization, however, it is necessary to have a coordinating center,

which cannot be geographically too far from the regions concerned. The evangelization of

Scandinavia and the Baltic lands had originally found its driving force in the archbishopric of

Hamburg-Bremen to which the figure of Ansagarius (first half of the 9th century), the "apostle to the

North" is linked. The attempts made by the bishops of Hamburg-Bremen to introduce Christianity

were directed, given the dynastic connections, not only to Denmark and Sweden, but also to

Norway whose evangelization had begun with Olav Trygvasson (995-1000), but already Hakon the

Good , who died in 960, had embraced the new faith. Between 1016 and 1082 Norway was

definitively Christianized thanks to Olao the Saint, who however had to accept the existence of

pockets of pagan resistance. Around the year 1000 Christianity, through Norway, also reached

distant Iceland; hence its influence extended to Greenland, which became the northernmost

outpost of the Church.

PAGE 7

Thanks to the new faith and this Arctic presence, it could even have managed to make a fleeting

apparition on American soil, where Bishop Eirik, in 1121, would have gone according to the Icelandic

Annals in search of the communities that the Vikings had left in Vinland. This has led to the

supposition that the papacy was interested in keeping a Christian presence alive in those territories,

a theory that does not enjoy any documentary or archaeological support. It is however true that the

pontiff intervened on several occasions in favor of the last Scandinavians of Greenland, now

condemned, we are at the end of the fifteenth century, to extinction due to the isolation of the

colony.

It is now opportune to turn further south and trace a synthesis of the process leading to the

evangelization of Finland which is in any case to be related to that of the northeastern Baltic area.

We will take first in pagan times, but also later, they had been particularly close. The introduction of

Christianity in Estonia dates back to the 13th century; the first to have tried to sow the seeds of

conversion were the bishop Meinardo and the Cristercian abbot Bertoldo of Loccum, but the results

of the mission had remained limited. The Church thus resorted to more convincing means and

Albert of Buxhövden, canon of Bremen, founder of Riga in 1201 and the first to be invested with this

bishopric, instituted in 1202 the order of the Fratres Militiae Christi, known as Knights Swordholders,

inspired by the model represented by the Templars. Thus began the crusades against the

Baltic pagans, financed by the Hanseatic merchants, interested in eliminating not only the danger of

the Estonian pirates but above all in entering the new territories rich in economic prospects. The

conquest of the Germanic Knights was however bitterly opposed, so much so that they had to ask

for the help of Valdemaro II of Denmark. Between 1224 and 1227 Danes and Knights had however

definitively subdued the country, which was divided among the conquerors. In 1237 the swordtails,

almost annihilated the previous year by the Lithuanians, were absorbed by the Order of the Knights

of Santa Maria Teutonica, born in Palestine and then destined to spread the Faith in the pagan

territories of Prussia, where it kept its headquarters. They installed their own vassals and

representatives in Estonia, whose government was unpopular as to provoke continuous revolts, all

repressed in blood. After the departure of the Danes, the Teutonic Order became in the second half

of the fourteenth century the only master of Estonia whose inhabitants had been reduced to the

rank of serfs. The driving force of the Church's centralization was the territory called Livonia,

PAGE 8

the bishopric of Riga in Latvia and the southern part of present-day Estonia; the Christian advance

was however severely opposed by the Estonians. This resistance appears fierce to Henry the Latvian,

the author of the most written source in 1225 with the aim of recording the events of the Baltic

Evengelization (from 1184 to 1227), and has become the most important document in medieval

Baltic history. Endeo, an eyewitness, describes when it happened in Livonia on the occasion of the

Crusade contra paganos, that is, the offensive against the Estonians, the Livonians, the Latvians, the

Semigalli, the Curons, the Vendas, the Lithuanians. The Chronicle deals with the actions of the first

Baltic bishops, among which Albert of Buxhövden stands out. Henry reports the narration of the

founding of Riga and informs us about the birth of the Order of the Sword-Bladed Knights, whose

task was to Christianize Estonia. Henry, however, also speaks of the diplomatic relations between

the Baltic potentates and Rome, held above all through the papal legate William of Modena. We

know very little about Enrico. In all likelihood he was not Latvian, as in the past, but a German who

had accompanied Albert of Buxhövden to Latvia. According to others, he is instead Saxon. Henry

probably arrived in Latvia when he was 18 years old. Here he undertook some trips, always on

behalf of the ecclesiastical organization, which he too, in 1215, would take him to Rome to assist the

interpreter, an expert on the places. Henry is the typical representative of the religious who also had

to be involved in warfare, in fact, in the opinion of historians, his expertise in warfare techniques

and military matters is remarkable. He was, as Piero Bugiani recalls, a fighter for the cause of the

Lord, who used the weapons of the word as that of metal.

We focused on this aspect of the Christianization of Estonia because the points of reference to

Finland are stimulating. Points of reference, in this case, by contrast, given that the events of the

Baltic evengelization highlight the different development that it covers in southwestern Finland. By

the turn of the millennium, the descendants of the Proto-Finni had settled in a rather small area.