Environment, Colonization, and the Baltic Crusader States

In the thirteenth century, crusading armies unleashed a relentless holy war against the pagan tribal groups of the Eastern Baltic, whose territories were conquered and reorganized into Christian states run by the Teutonic Order, bishops, and their cathedral chapters. Castles were built, towns established, and colonists encouraged to settle under the leadership of the new Christian theocracy. But the changes introduced alongside Christianity not only transformed the culture of eastern Baltic societies, but also had a profound and — for the Baltic tribes, who saw many aspects of the natural world as sacred — deeply significant impact on the local environment. This seminal period in the environmental history of north-eastern Europe has been the focus of the ERC-funded research programme, ‘The Ecology of Crusading’, which explored the physical and conceptual ecological transformations associated with warfare, colonization, and religious conversion.

This is the first of two Terra Sacra volumes, which share the aim of changing our understanding of the environmental impact of crusading and colonization in northeastern Europe. The present volume provides a detailed inter-disciplinary comparison of the environmental transformations associated with the emergence of the crusader states of Livonia and Prussia. It draws on and integrates a range of archaeological, paleoenvironmental, historical, and cartographic sources in order to highlight the diverse impact of colonization and landscape reorganization that followed in the wake of the Baltic Crusades. The companion Terra Sacra volume complements this survey by presenting a number of case studies from across the eastern Baltic region.

Preface

Acknowledgements

Glossary

Abbreviations

List of Illustrations

Introduction: Terra Sacra in the Eastern Baltic — ALEKSANDER PLUSKOWSKI

Methodology and Interpretative Framework — ALEKSANDER PLUSKOWSKI, ALEXANDER BROWN, ROWENA BANERJEA, AND KEVIN HAYWARD

Chronology — ALEKSANDER PLUSKOWSKI, ALEXANDER BROWN, AND STUART BLACK

Sites in Livonia: The Historical and Archaeological Background — ALEKSANDER PLUSKOWSKI, HEIKI VALK, JUHAN KREEM, AND GUNDARS KALNIŅŠ

Vegetation Change in Livonia: The Palynological Data — ALEXANDER BROWN

Farming, Hunting, and Fishing in Medieval Livonia: The Zooarchaeological Data — MARK MALTBY, ALEKSANDER PLUSKOWSKI, EVE RANNAMÄE, AND KRISH SEETAH

Settlement Life in Livonia and the Impact on their Territories: The Geoarchaeological and Archaeobotanical Evidence — ROWENA BANERJEA AND MONIKA BADURA

Reorganizing the Livonian Landscape — ALEKSANDER PLUSKOWSKI, KASPARS KĻAVIŅŠ, EVA EIHMANE, AGRIS DZENIS, AND JUHAN KREEM

The Environmental Impact of the Conquest of Livonia — ALEKSANDER PLUSKOWSKI

Sites in Prussia: The Historical and Archaeological Background — ALEKSANDER PLUSKOWSKI, MARC JARZEBOWSKI, MAŁGORZATA KARCZEWSKA, AND MACIEJ KARCZEWSKI

Vegetation Change in Prussia: The Palynological Data — ALEXANDER BROWN

Farming, Hunting and Fishing in Medieval Prussia: The Zooarchaeological Data — DANIEL MAKOWIECKI, MIROSŁAWA ZABILSKA-KUNEK, KRISH SEETAH, MARC JARZEBOWSKI, AND ALEKSANDER PLUSKOWSKI

Exploiting Plants: Macrobotanical Remains from Prussia — ALEKSANDER PLUSKOWSKI, MONIKA BADURA, AND MARC JARZEBOWSKI

Settlement Life in Prussia at the Microscopic Scale and the Impact on their Territories — ROWENA BANERJEA

Reorganizing the Prussian Landscape — MARC JARZEBOWSKI, ALEKSANDER PLUSKOWSKI, TOMASZ NOWAKIEWICZ, AND MACIEJ KARCZEWSKI

The Environmental Impact of the Conquest of Prussia — ALEKSANDER PLUSKOWSKI

The Environmental Impact of the Crusades in the Eastern Baltic — ALEKSANDER PLUSKOWSKI

Appendix 1: Accelerated Mass Spectrometry (AMS) Radiocarbon Dates from Poland, Latvia, and Estonia — ALEXANDER BROWN

Appendix 2: Uranium Series Dating — ALEXANDER BROWN

Appendix 3: Enrichment Factors for Major and Trace Elements within Pit Deposits, Święta Góra, Poland — ROWENA BANERJEA

Appendix 4: Enrichment Factors for Major and Trace Elements within Pit Deposits, Święta Góra, Poland — ROWENA BANERJEA

Index