Vardarbība un pakļaušana: pārdomas par krusta kariem Baltijā 13. gadsimtā

The process of conversion and Christianisation of the Eastern Baltic Region and medieval Livonia was highly violent. An initially peaceful Christian mission very soon turned into violent Crusades with the city of Riga as its centre. Mounted warriors from Northern Germany would come to serve a year of penance under the command of the Bishop of Riga. Early in the thirteenth century a permanent military force was established with the founding of a new military order, the Livonian Brothers of the Sword. The Crusades were launched to force pagan tribes between the Rivers Daugava and Aa (Gauja) to convert to Christianity. From 1208 the Crusades targeted Estonia.
This article discusses the strategic use of violence during the Christianisation of Livonia by crusading armies and their local auxiliary armies of converted Livs and Letts. Obviously, war is a bloody and violent affair by its nature, but the article argues that the Crusades to the Baltic were quite special in this respect.
The article discusses the specific raiding warfare deployed in the Baltic during the Crusades with a focus on the level of violence and the systemic character of the violence wrought upon the local population. The warfare involved massacres to bring about the submission of the pagan tribes; these massacres were indiscriminately yet strategically deployed.
The article discusses further how this violence was encompassed by Christian rituals to alleviate the perpetrators of sin and guilt. It is argued that rituals were not only focused on the perpetrators but also on the victims, who were forcedly baptised. By this ritual local inhabitants of the Baltic did not only formally accept a new faith. The baptism also signalled an adherence to a new kind of Christian rulership. In this sense the Christian sacrament of Baptism was brought in close relationship with carnage and downright murder.