In: Collective Identity in the Context of Medieval Studies, ed.

Michaela
Antonín Malaníková and Robert Antonín, Ostrava 2016, pp. 97-120.

Antemurale-based frontier identities in East

Central Europe and their ideological roots
in medieval/early modern alterity
and alienity discourses

Paul Srodecki

The allegorical presentation of one’s own country as an antemurale Christ-

ianitatis (“forewall of Christianity”) is a European phenomenon which can
be found everywhere Latin Christianity borders, or has bordered, other cul-
tural regions, for instance Islamic or Orthodox ones. In Hungary, Poland
and Croatia in particular, but also in the Mediterranean area, on the Iberian
Peninsula and in the Baltic states, concepts were developed from the Middle
Ages onwards, which stylized these countries and societies as “forewalls/
bulwarks of Christianity”—later secularized as “forewalls/bulwarks of
Europe”. The rhetorical roots of this date back to the High Middle Ages, and
in particular to the mid-13th Century when, in connection with the Mongol
invasions in East Central and South East Europe, a key role as defender of
Christianity was attributed to Poland and Hungary at the fines christiani-
tatis. From the 14th Century onwards, vague frontier area terms slowly dis-
appeared and were replaced, significantly, by militaristic vocabulary to de-
scribe the Christian outpost countries, such as scutum, clypeus, arx, praesidium,
fortalitium, or—most commonly—propugnaculum (bulwark) and antemurale
(forewall). The recourse of the ruling East Central European dynasties, the
Hunyadis and the Jagiellonians, to this rhetoric between the 1440s and
1520s led to the emergence of a European-wide public antemurale-discourse
as a specific propaganda tool, which sought to provide additional legitimacy

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of their own rule and to manage financial support. Against the backdrop of
the Ottoman threat, these bulwark topics reached their peak at the threshold
of the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period.1
The emergence of this notion of frontier identities and their accompany-
ing ideology was closely connected to the political and religious situation
of the time. The presumed existence of an antemurale implies the existence
of a murus, and of an area protected by it. This was believed to be inhabited
by members of the Christian community. This western Respublica Christi-
ana—subordinated to the secular power of the Emperor and the spiritual
power of the Pope—bordered on heathen, Muslim and schismatic countries
to the East. In order to gain a better understanding of the background of the
bulwark topoi, it is essential to consider the ideological basis for this rhetoric,
which was built upon frontier identities, alterity and alienity constructions,
as well as on relations between the centre and the periphery.

Identity, alterity and alienity

The construction of collective identity is built upon the interaction be-
tween the Self and the Other, something which is applicable for all eras and
cultural circles. According to Jan Assmann, this relational process is pre-
mised on the so-called “antagonistic or oppositional principle”.2 The afore-
mentioned East Central European bulwark or frontier identities, which in
turn derive their intensity from alterity constructions,3 are of course not
solely to be found in Latin Christianity alone. The ancient Greeks already
divided the world into Hellenes and Barbarians. The latter were considered
by the Greeks not only as inferior but also as predetermined for slavery—

1 Cf. Srodecki, Paul: Antemurale Christianitatis. Zur Genese der Bollwerksrhetorik im

östlichen Mitteleuropa an der Schwelle vom Mittelalter zur Frühen Neuzeit. Husum:
Matthiesen 2015.
2 Assmann, Jan: Das kulturelle Gedächtnis. Schrift, Erinnerung und politische Identität in
frühen Hochkulturen. München: C. H. Beck 1992, p. 154.
3 Raible, Wolfgang: Alterität und Identität. Zeitschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und
Linguistik 110, 1998; Krzoska, Markus: Identitäten und Alteritäten. Einführende
methodische Bemerkungen und regionaler Bezugsrahmen. In: Krzoska, Markus
– Röskau-Rydel, Isabel (edd.): Identitäten und Alteritäten der Deutschen in Polen in
historisch-komparatistischer Perspektive. München: Meidenbauer 2007.

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a rhetoric which was willingly and successfully adopted by the Romans.4

Mixed with Judeo-Christian concepts of the Self and Otherness, this ideo-
logically dichotomous world-view had a major influence on the Latin bul-
wark concepts of the Later Middle Ages and the Early Modern Times.5
Similar divisions into a civilised (one’s own community) and an uncivilised
(the “others”) world can also be found in the Byzantine Empire, in ancient
China and India, the Orient and in pre-Columbian America, and they served

4 Detel, Wolfgang: Griechen und Barbaren. Zu den Anfängen des abendländischen

Rassismus. Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie 43/6, 1995; Schuster, Meinhard
(ed.): Die Begegnung mit dem Fremden. Wertungen und Wirkungen in Hochkulturen
vom Altertum bis zur Gegenwart. Stuttgart – Leipzig: Teubner, 1996; Pohl, Walter:
Die Namen der Barbaren. Fremdbezeichnung und Identität in Spätantike und
Frühmittelalter. In: Friesinger, Herwig (ed.): Zentrum und Peripherie. Gesellschaftliche
Phänomene in der Frühgeschichte. Materialien des XIII. Internationalen Symposiums
„Grundprobleme der Frühgeschichtlichen Entwicklung im Nördlichen Mitteldonaugebiet,
Zwettl, 4.–8. Dezember 2000“. Wien: Wiener Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie
der Wissenschaften 2004; idem: Rhetorik der Gewalt – Römer und Barbaren
in Spätantike und Frühmittelalter. In: Antenhofer, Christina – Regazzoni, Lisa –
v. Schlachta, Astrid (edd.): Werkstatt Politische Kommunikation. Netzwerke, Orte und
Sprachen des Politischen. Göttingen: V & R unipress 2010; Frings, Jutta (ed.): Rom
und die Barbaren. Europa zur Zeit der Völkerwanderung. München: Hirmer 2008;
Heitz, Christian: Die Guten, die Bösen und die Hässlichen. Nördliche „Barbaren“ in der
römischen Bildkunst. Hamburg: Verlag Dr. Kovač 2009; Steinacher, Roland: Zwischen
Rom und den ‚Barbaren‘. Anmerkungen zu militärischen Organisationsformen in der
Spätantike. In: Dornik, Wolfram – Gießauf, Johannes – Iber, Walter M. (edd.): Krieg
und Wirtschaft. Von der Antike bis ins 21. Jahrhundert. Innsbruck: Studien Verlag 2010;
Atanasovski, Aleksandar: The Byzantine Model of Christianization. Alienation of
the ‘Others’. Macedonian Historical Review 2, 2011.
5 Münkler, Herfried: Die politischen Ideen des Humanismus. In: Fetscher, Iring
– Münkler, Herfried (edd.): Mittelalter. Von den Anfängen des Islams bis zur
Reformation. München – Zürich: Piper 1993, pp. 562–565; Hille-Coates, Gabriele:
Von Affenjungen und Fürstenkindern. Beobachtungen zur mittellateinischen
Selbst- und Fremdwahrnehmung sprachlicher ‚barbaries‘. In: Lauterbach, Frank
– Paul, Fritz – Sander, Ulrike-Christine (edd.): Abgrenzung – Eingrenzung.
Komparatistische Studien zur Dialektik kultureller Identitätsbildung. Göttingen:
Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2004; Nourrisson, Didier – Perrin, Yves (edd.): Le
barbare, l’étranger. Images de l’autre. Actes du colloque organisé par le CERHI, Saint-
Etienne, 14 et 15 mai 2004. Saint-Etienne: Publications de l’Université de Saint-
Etienne, 2005); Steffelbauer, Ilja: Barbaren und Könige. Krieg und Gesellschaft
im nachrömischen Westen. In: Kaindel, Christoph (ed.): Krieg im mittelalterlichen
Abendland. Wien: Mandelbaum-Verlag, 2010.

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throughout the centuries as a fundamental basis for the conception of col-

lective identities.6
Therefore, identity and the mutually shared awareness of community can
only be formed relationally, in distinction to something different. This con-
structive character of identity assumes a fragility and an artificial essence, for
it is mostly a result of a group’s contact to another, culturally different group
or the experience of strangeness. Jan Assmann traces the relation between the
Self and the Other back to the construction of bipolar divergences, whereby
identity causes a positive and alterity a negative connotation.7 Analogous to
the development of an individual consciousness,8 the ‘we’-awareness presup-
poses the collective perception of “the other”—the “you” or the “they”. Both
terms—identity and alterity—are based on the idea of the Platonic-Aristote-
lian dialectic and, under an epistemological view, they reflect two correlative
cognitive processes, as stated concisely by Wolfgang Raible: “Being different
presumes being equal and vice versa. Recognising identity means, from
a sociological perspective: emphasizing the common; alterity: the distinctive.”9

6 Bauer, Wolfgang (ed.): China und die Fremden. 3000 Jahre Auseinandersetzung in Krieg und
Frieden. München: C. H. Beck 1980); Bichler, Reinhold: Wahrnehmung und Vorstellung
fremder Kulturen. Griechen und Orient in archaischer und frühklassischer Zeit. In:
Schuster, Meinhard: (ed.): Die Begegnung mit dem Fremden; Robb, Peter (ed.): The concept
of race in South Asia. New Delhi – Oxford: Oxford University Press 1997); Hund, Wulf
D.: Die Rassenmacher. Anmerkungen zur Geschichte des Rassenbegriffs. In: Fansa,
Mamoun – Johannsen, Martina – Both, Frank (edd.): Schwarzweissheiten. Vom Umgang mit
fremden Menschen: Sonderausstellung, Landesmuseum für Natur und Mensch, Oldenburg, vom
28. September 2001 bis 27. Januar 2002. Oldenburg: Isensee, 2001, p. 46; idem: Inclusion
and Exclusion: Dimensions of Racism. Wiener Zeitschrift zur Geschichte der Neuzeit 3, 2003;
Fraesdorff, David: Der barbarische Norden. Vorstellungen und Fremdheitskategorien bei Rimbert,
Thietmar von Merseburg, Adam von Bremen und Helmold von Bosau. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag
2005; Göller, Thomas – Mittag, Achim: Geschichtsdenken in Europa und China. Selbstdeutung
und Deutung des Fremden in historischen Kontexten. Sankt Augustin: Academia 2008.
7 Assmann, Jan: Kollektives Gedächtnis und kulturelle Identität. In: Assmann, Jan –
Hölscher, Tonio (edd.): Kultur und Gedächtnis. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp 1988), p. 13:
“Die Gegenstände des kulturellen Gedächtnisses zeichnen sich aus durch eine Art
identifikatorischer Besetzheit im positiven (‚das sind wir‘) oder im negativen Sinne
(‚das ist unser Gegenteil‘).”
8 Cf. Sartre, Jean-Paul: L’Être et le Néant. Paris: Éditions Gallimard 1943.
9 Raible, Wolfgang: Alterität, pp. 12 and 20. Cf. Eriksen, Thomas Hylland: Diversity
Versus Difference. Neo-liberalism in the Minority-Debate. In: Rottenburg, Richard

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Moreover, the development of a collective identity as a process of the

junction of linguistically and ethnically distinctive particular communities
also requires the overcoming of a self-definition based primarily on primor-
dial and traditional codes within small groups, and the creation of an uni-
versalistic feeling of togetherness built upon comprehensive codes.10 Here,
religion can serve as a generally applicable instrument of identification that
breaks down the ethnic and linguistic frontiers and reduces the gap between
small heterogeneous groups. According to the transcendental approach of
the sociologists Shmuel N. Eisenstadt and Bernhard Giesen, religion derives
its efficacy as a uniting force from such metaphysical reference values as “god”
(or “gods”).11 At the same time, religion tends towards a clear demarcation
from other religious communities built upon normative values. Ultimately,
religion has “the ambivalent ability to intensify alterity on the one hand
and, on the other, to function as an important factor of intercultural trans-
latability.” 12 Similar to cultural practices, religious practices form a signi-
ficant “anchor of identity”, based upon the differentiation in relation to “the
other”.13
Although this distinct separation of one’s own and a foreign culture is
the first step for the construction of identity and alterity, it is not sufficient
to explain the occurrence of the bulwark rhetoric, directed explicitly against
external enemies. In order for this phenomenon to occur, an inherent po-
tential threat has to be attributed to the foreign group. As a consequence,

– Schnepel, Burkhard – Shimada, Shingo (edd.): The Making and Unmaking of

Differences. Anthropological, Sociological and Philosophical Perspectives. Bielefeld:
Transcript 2006.
10 Haas, Thomas: Kreuzzugschroniken und die Überwindung der eigenen Fremdheit im
Heer. In: Borgolte, Michael (ed.): Mittelalter im Labor. Die Mediävistik testet Wege zu
einer transkulturellen Europawissenschaft. Berlin: Akademie Verlag 2008, p. 93.
11 Eisenstadt, Shmuel N. – Giesen, Bernd: The Construction of Collective Identity.
Archives européennes de sociologie 36, 1995; Delanty, Gerard: Inventing Europe. Idea,
Identity, Reality. New York: St. Martin’s Press 1995; Viehoff, Reinhold – Segers,
Rien T.: Kultur, Identität, Europa. Über die Schwierigkeiten und Möglichkeiten einer
Konstruktion. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp 1999, p. 270.
12 Haas, Thomas: Kreuzzugschroniken, p. 93.
13 Beck-Gernsheim, Elisabeth: Wir und die Anderen. Kopftuch, Zwangsheirat und andere
Mißverständnisse. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp 2007, p. 32.

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“the others”, regarded as a menace, become a target of the hostility of the

‘we’-group.14 Only the direct juxtaposition of Huntington’s “in-group“ and
“out-group”, along with the imbuing of alterity with notions of threat and
doom scenarios, led to the stylization of “the others” as a danger for the
existence of the ‘we’-community—alterity, the known otherness, so crucial in
forming one’s own culture, is transformed into alienity, a hostile strangeness
considered by the in-group to be absolutely contrary and a threat to its own
culture, which must therefore be repelled and combated with all available
means.15 Constructions of alienity are thus constitutive for the bulwark topoi
of frontier societies. In this kind of alienating rhetoric, the periphery ex-
periences an appreciation in importance, since it takes on important strategic
functions as the defender of the cultural centre lying further inland. In the
christianitas or res publica Christiana concepts of Latin Christianity in the
Middle Ages as well as in the beginning of Early Modern Period the cultural
and religious centre of the Occident was Rome (alongside Jerusalem as the
sacral centre). While in the Early Middle Ages the role of the defending
periphery was attributed to the Germanic realms of the Franks and Saxons

14 Völkl, Martin: Von Gotteskriegern und Feinden Gottes. Diversitätskonstruktionen in

Kriegsreden der Kreuzzugschronik Roberts des Mönchs. In: Strack, Georg – Knödler,
Julia (ed.): Rhetorik in Mittelalter und Renaissance. Konzepte – Praxis – Diversität.
München: Utzverlag 2011, p. 146. Cf. Bolm, Gerhard: Was den Fremden zum Feind
macht. Psychologische Aspekte des Feindbildes. In: Bleuel, Hans Peter – Engelmann,
Bernt (edd.): Feindbilder oder wie man Kriege vorbereitet. Göttingen: Steidl 1985.
15 Solloch, Conrad: Performing Conquista. Kulturelle Inszenierungen Mexikos in
europäischen und U.S.-amerikanischen Medien im 20. Jahrhundert. Berlin: Erich Schmidt
2005, p. 13f. Scholtes, Fabian: Umweltherrschaft und Freiheit. Naturbewertung im
Anschluss an Amartya K. Sen. Bielefeld: Transcript 2007, p. 29; Turk, Horst: ‚Alienität‘
und ‚Alterität‘ als Schlüsselbegriffe einer Kultursemantik. Jahrbuch für Internationale
Germanistik 22/1, 1990; idem: Selbst- und Fremdbilder in den deutschsprachigen
Literaturen. Zur Übersetzung von Kulturen. In: Frank, Armin Paul et al. (edd.):
Übersetzen, verstehen, Brücken bauen. Geisteswissenschaftliches und literarisches Übersetzen
im internationalen Kulturaustausch. V. 1. Berlin: E. Schmidt 1993; Mey, Wolfgang:
‚… damit die Welt nicht zugrunde geht‘. Zur Produktion von Fremdheit. In: Fansa,
Mamoun – Johannsen, Martina – Both, Frank (edd.): Schwarzweissheiten; Badura,
Jens: Kulturelle Pluralität und Ethik. In: Mandry, Christof (ed.): Kultur, Pluralität
und Ethik. Perspektiven in Sozialwissenschaften und Ethik. Münster: Lit Verlag 2004,
p. 20f.; Rottenburg, Richard: Social Constructivism and the Enigma of Strangeness.
In: Rottenburg, Richard – Schnepel, Burkhard – Shimada, Shingo (edd.): The Making
and Unmaking of Differences.

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north of the Alps, from the 11th Century onwards this task was ascribed by
both the Holy See and—to a lesser extent—the Holy Roman Empire, to
Poland and Hungary, the “new” members of the Christian community at the
fines Christianitatis.
Amongst other factors, the sense of unity in Latin Christianity rested
largely upon the confrontation with an alienated and demonised strangeness.
The threat to the young Christian realms of the Early Middle Ages from the
Normans, the Eurasian nomadic peoples—such as the Avars and the Mag-
yars—or, in particular, from the Islamic expansion at the southern frontier of
Europe constituted a binding feeling of togetherness, and strengthened the
idea of a translingual cultural circle held together by a common belief and
common values, which—together with Rome as the religious centre—should
be defended against exterior foes.16 Cultural tensions and armed conflicts act
as intensifying factors in the process of this “alienisation of alterity”17 and
they enhance the differences between the in- and out-groups. Thus, alienity
enables the ‘we’-community to increase the perception of the foreign, rival-
ling threat, as a horror alieni, with pathological characteristics.18
In a sense, the medieval and early modern bulwark rhetoric, built upon
a distinct differentiation between familiar shared culture and values on
the one hand and the inimici, hostes, pagani, barbari etc. on the other, pre-
empts the observations of Carl Schmitt on the hostile foreigner, based on
the work of Thomas Hobbes. Schmitt interpreted the individual as well as
the collective existence as a practical fundamentum inconcussum, in which the
preservation a fellowship of people is necessary.19 Although the distinction

16 Schmieder, Felicitas: Peripherie und Zentrum Europas. Der nordalpine Raum in

der Politik Leos IX. (1049–1054). In: Flug, Brigitte – Matheus, Michael – Rehberg,
Andreas (edd.): Kurie und Region. Festschrift für Brigide Schwarz zum 65. Geburtstag.
Stuttgart: Franz Steiner 2005, p. 361.
17 Turk, Horst: Selbst- und Fremdbilder, pp. 58–66. Cf. Freud, Sigmund: Das
Unheimliche. In: Gesammelte Werke. Ed. A. Freud. Frankfurt a. M.: S. Fischer 1947
[reprint 2005]); Kristeva, Julia: Fremde sind wir uns selbst. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp
1990 [reprint 2008].
18 Waldenfels, Bernhard: Topographie des Fremden. Studien zur Phänomenologie des
Fremden. V. 1. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp 1997 [reprint 2010], p. 44.
19 Schmitt, Carl: Der Begriff des Politischen. Text von 1932 mit einem Vorwort und drei
Corollarien. Berlin: Duncker und Humboldt, 81963 [reprint 2009], pp. 7–19 and

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of the non-Latin Christian peoples was refined over time during the Middle
Ages and the Early Modern Period, the majority of the “others” classified
as dangerous and inimical were summarized into one whole which, in its
constituent parts, was admittedly heterogeneous but which, after all, was
unified in its animosity towards the occidental Christianity. Thus, a recurring
element of the bulwark rhetoric was the gathering up of the Islamic Otto-
mans and Tatars, pagan Prussians and Lithuanians, the “schismatic” Serbs,
Bulgarians, Moldavians, Vlachs, Ruthenians and Moscovites, or the “heretic”
Hussites and from the 16th century also the Protestants into one big group
of infideles, who were attributed a common group-specific habitus—namely
the genuine hostility towards the Roman-Catholic Church. According to
this idea, the (Roman-Catholic) christianitas was opposed by the infidelitas.20
Meanwhile, within Latin Christianity, there has been no lack of creative
attributions for the enemies of the faith. The colourless picture of the infideles
respectively pagani was strongly polarized and consequently invigorated the
alienity. Descriptions such as inimici Dei, inimici crucis Christi, degeneres, gens
crudelis or perfida, tyranni, filii falsitatis or diaboli, canes immundi, satellites
Antichristi, homines diabolici or hostes immanissimi et nomini christianorum
infenissimi corresponded completely with the eschatological world view of
the medieval Latin Christians, who thought to recognize God’s apocalyptic
adversaries in the bellicistic non-Christian out-groups.21

pp. 25–35. Cf. Bärsch, Claus-Ekkehard: Das ‚existentiell‘ Fremde, der Feind und der
Kampf zwischen Gott und dem Bösen in Carl Schmitts Begriff des Politischen. In:
Bremshey, Christian – Hoffmann, Hilde – May, Yomb (edd.): Den Fremden gibt es
nicht. Xenologie und Erkenntnis. Münster: Lit-Verlag 2004); Waldenfels, Bernhard:
Topographie des Fremden, pp. 45ff.
20 Thomas Aquinas: Summa theol. II-II, q. 1, a. 1 [accessed 29 November 2015, http://
www.corpusthomisticum.org/sth3001.html]. Cf. Becker, Hans-Jürgen: Die Stellung
des kanonischen Rechts zu den Andersgläubigen. Heiden, Juden und Ketzer. In:
Grenzmann, Ludger (ed.): Wechselseitige Wahrnehmung der Religionen im Spätmittelalter
und in der frühen Neuzeit. V. 1: Konzeptionelle Grundfragen und Fallstudien (Heiden,
Barbaren, Juden). Berlin – New York: De Gruyter, 2012.
21 Schwinges, Rainer Christoph: Kreuzzugsideologie und Toleranz. Studien zu Wilhelm
von Tyrus. Stuttgart: Hiersemann 1977, p. 105. Cf. Reinhard, Wolfgang: Christliche
Wahrnehmung fremder Religionen und Fremdwahrnehmung des Christentums in
der frühen Neuzeit. In: Grenzmann, Ludger (ed.): Wechselseitige Wahrnehmung.

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Dichotomous world views

While the construction of alterity and—in its most intense form—alien-
ity, in the political and religious discourses of the Early and High Middle
Ages served as a tool to evaluate and define the foreign as well as to construct
the own identity, one can observe an escalation of the divisive rhetoric with
a simultaneously amplified inclusion of explicit antemurale allegories at the
end of the Middle Ages. One ideological fundament of the Christian alienity
constructions was the biblical dichotomy between the ( Jewish) world of the
faithful and the antagonistic world of the faithless, which sought to besiege
the first one. In the Bible (especially in the Old Testament), defence of faith
and the nation form synonyms and are inseparably interlinked. Exterior foes
are not only presented as infidel, power-hungry pragmatics who extend their
spheres of influence, but also constantly as adversaries of God and thus of the
people of Israel.22 The opposite of the pious community is the world of the
gojim, the infidels and pagans, with whom the God-fearing believers are in
a permanent conflict (or at least feel conflicted).23 In the book of Nahum, for
instance, the fall of the Assyrian town Nineveh is just punishment for the vi-
cious “town of blood” (civitas sanguinum). Nineveh’s heavy walls and bulwarks
are worthless, for they could not escape the judgement of God—here in the
form of the Babylonians and Medes.24 The same fate would also befall the
Phoenician Tyros (Zach 9:3) as well as Damascus and Ephraim (Is 17:1–3),

22 Vollmann-Profe, Gisela: Ein Glücksfall in der Geschichte der preußischen Orden-

schronistik: Nikolaus von Jeroschin übersetzt Peter von Dusburg. In: Brunner, Horst
– Williams-Krapp, Werner – Janota, Johannes (edd.): Forschungen zur deutschen Lite-
ratur des Spätmittelalters. Festschrift für Johannes Janota. Tübingen: Niemeyer 2003, p. 167f.
23 Assmann, Jan: Die Mosaische Unterscheidung oder der Preis des Monotheismus. München:
Carl Hanser 2003.
24 Nah 3:1–15: “vae civitas sanguinum universa mendacii dilaceratione plena non
recedet a te rapina vox flagelli et vox impetus rotae et equi frementis et quadrigae
ferventis equitis ascendentis et micantis gladii et fulgurantis hastae et multitudinis
interfectae et gravis ruinae nec est finis cadaverum et corruent in corporibus suis […]
omnes munitiones tuae sicuti ficus cum grossis suis si concussae fuerint cadent in os
comedentis […] aquam propter obsidionem hauri tibi extrue munitiones tuas intra
in lutum et calca subigens tene laterem ibi comedet te ignis peribis gladio devorabit
te ut bruchus congregare ut bruchus multiplicare et lucusta.” Vulgata. Hieronymiana
versio [accessed 29 November 2015, http://www.intratext.com/X/LAT0001.htm].
Cf. Marti, Karl: Das Buch Jesaja. Tübingen et al.: J. C. B. Mohr 1900, p. 321.

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but also—after falling away from God—the apostate and arrogant Jerusalem
(Is 22:1–14). Isaiah describes apostasy and blasphemy as severe cracks in the
walls of a religious community, which will be punished by Yahweh (Is 30:13).
On the other hand, a community which remains strong in their faith also
has (figuratively) strong (spiritual and physical) fortifications to defend the
faithful intra muros against the enemies of the faith (Is 60:10–16).
In all the biblical examples listed above, a pious community of the faith-
ful is equated with an intact, heavily fortified city, while the world of the
faithless, the apostates and blasphemers is portrayed as a defective com-
munity, with damaged and fragile walls. The wall itself has a huge symbolic
significance, for the masonry per se stands as an allegory for the physical
demarcation of one’s own culture, considered as the absolute order against
a foreign outside world.25 This dualistic world view was adopted and further
developed by Christendom. In the New Testament it is, in particular, the
Book of Revelation which most significantly picks up this old dichotomy
between Good and the Evil by prophesying the final fight between the
“New Jerusalem”, the pure, Christian town of blessedness and faith, and
the “Whore of Babylon”, the town of damnation and unbelief. Besides the
books of Daniel and Ezekiel, the Pauline epistles to the Thessalonians and
Jesus’ Olivet Discourse in the Synoptic Gospels, the Revelation of John
considerably affected the Christian eschatology in the Late Antiquity and
the Middle Ages.26

25 Duala-M’bedy, Munasu: Xenologie. Die Wissenschaft vom Fremden und die Verdrängung
der Humanität in der Anthropologie. Freiburg i. Br. et al.: Karl Alber 1977, p. 43.
26 Cf. Charlesworth, James Hamilton: The Power of the Millennium and the Mystery
of the Apocalypse of John. Rivista di storia e letteratura religiosa 36, 2000; Aberth,
John: From the Brink of Apocalypse. Confronting Famine, War, Plague, and Death in the
Later Middle Ages. New York – London: Routledge 2001; Patyra, Jowita: Problem
narratora w średniowiecznej ikonografii objawień św. Jana na przykładzie Apokalipsy
z Angers. Roczniki Humanistyczne 52, 2004; Morgan, Nigel (ed.): Prophecy, Apocalypse
and the Day of Doom. Proceedings of the 2000 Harlaxton Symposium. Donington: Shaun
Tyas 2004; Andrea, Alfred John: Innocent III, the Fourth Crusade, and the Coming
Apocalypse. In: Ridyard, Susan J. (ed.): The Medieval Crusade. Selected Papers from the
28th Annual Sewanee Medieval Colloquium, held April 6–7, 2001, at the University of
South. Woodbridge – Rochester: Boydell Press 2004); O’Hear, Natasha: Contrasting
images of the Book of Revelation in late medieval and early modern art. A case study in
visual exegesis. Oxford – New York: Oxford University Press 2011.

106
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This influence is inter alia apparent in the works of the early Christian
theologian and philosopher Augustine of Hippo.27 In his most important
work De civitate Dei, Augustine considerably extended the dualistic sche-
ma of the two antagonizing worlds of Good (civitas Dei) and Evil (civitas
diabolic or terrena civitas).28 However, while Augustine’s bipolar concepts
of the two cities only remotely coincided with the real-world Church and
the secular realms—the Augustinian civitas Dei, for instance, included all

27 Coyle, John Kevin: Augustine and Apocalyptic: Thoughts on the Fall of Rome, The
Book of Revelation, and the End of the World. Florilegium 9, 1987; Vessey, Mark
– Pollmann, Karla – Fitzgerald, Allan (edd.): History, Apocalypse, and the Secular
Imagination. New Essays on Augustine’s City of God: Proceedings of a Colloquium Held
at Green College, The University of British Columbia, 18–20 September 1997. Bowling
Green: Philosophy Documentation Center 1999.
28 Augustinus, Aurelius: De civ. Dei XV, 1: “…generis humani, quod in duo genera
distribuimus, unum eorum, qui secundum hominem, alterum eorum, qui secundum
Deum vivunt; quas etiam mystice appellamus civitates duas, hoc est duas societates
hominum, quarum est una quae praedestinata est in aeternum regnare cum Deo,
altera aeternum supplicium subire cum diabolo. […] Ipsa est Sion spiritaliter; quod
nomen Latine interpretarum speculatio est; speculatur enim futuri saeculi magnum
bonum, quoniam illuc dirigitur eius intentio. Ipsa est et Hierusalem eodem modo
spiritaliter, unde multa iam diximus. Eius inimica est civitas diaboli Babylon, quae
confusio interpretatur; ex qua tamen Babylone regina ista in omnibus gentibus
regeneratione liberatur et a pessimo rege ad optimum regem, id est a diabolo
transit a Christum.” Cf. Bosl, Karl: Der theologisch-theozentrische Grund des
mittelalterlichen Weltbildes und seiner Ordnungsidee. In: Fetscher, Iring – Münkler,
Herfried (edd.): Mittelalter, pp. 177–181; van Oort, Johannes: Civitas dei – terrena
civitas: The Concept of the Two Anthithetical Cities and Its Sources (Books XI–
XIV). In Augustinus: De civitate dei. Ed. Ch. Horn. Berlin: Akademie Verlag 1997;
Duchrow, Ulrich – Hoffmann, Heiner (edd.): Die Vorstellung von Zwei Reichen
und Regimenten bis Luther. Gütersloh: Verlagshaus G. Mohn 1972; Speigl, Jakob:
Zur universalen Theologie Augustins. Die Religionsthematik in ‚De civitate Die‘.
Augustiniana 50, 2000; Saak, Eric L.: High way to heaven. The Augustinian platform
between reform and Reformation, 1292–1524. Leiden – Boston: Brill 2002; Staubach,
Nikolaus: Schriftexegese und Kulturgeschichte. Zur Konzeption von Augustins
‚Civitas Dei‘. In: Holzem, Andreas (ed.): Normieren, Tradieren, Inszenieren. Das
Christentum als Buchreligion. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft 2004;
Tornau, Christian: Zwischen Rhetorik und Philosophie. Augustins Argumentationstechnik
in De civitate Dei und ihr bildungsgeschichtlicher Hintergrund. Berlin: De Gruyter
2006; Jacobi, Klaus: ‚Gut‘ und ‚schlecht‘ – die Analyse ihrer Entgegensetzung bei
Aristoteles, bei einigen Aristoteles-Kommentaren und bei Thomas von Aquin. In:
Zimmermann, Albert – Vuillemin-Diem, Gudrun (edd.): Studien zur mittelalterlichen
Geistesgeschichte und ihren Quellen. Berlin – New York: De Gruyter 1982.

107
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righteous faithful on earth as well as in the hereafter, whereas the civitas

diaboli consisted of all the rebellious angels and demons as well as the un-
faithful and sinful people—, the polarity between both civitates was, as early
as Late Antiquity and then especially in medieval times, increasingly trans-
mitted to the contradistinction between the cultural circle of Latin Christia-
nity and the surrounding hostile foreign communities of Muslims, pagans,
Orthodox and heretics.29
Paulus Orosius, a student of Augustine, introduced these Augustinian ideas
to historiography in his opus Historiae adversus paganos, written as early as
416–418.30 Orosius combined the dichotomous world view of Augustine with
the eschatological doctrine of the succession of the four world kingdoms; at
the same time he shaped the image of the invading barbarians as the punish-
ing scourge of God.31 Both books, Augustine’s De civitate Dei and Orosius’
Historiae adversus paganos, enjoyed great popularity in medieval times and

29 Frings, Theodor: Europäische Heldendichtung. Beiträge zur Geschichte der

deutschen Sprache und Literatur 91, 1971, p. 291; Schwinges, Rainer Christoph:
Kreuzzugsideologie, pp. 192ff.; Schimmel, Annemarie: Europa und der islamische
Orient. In: Eadem (ed.): Der Islam. V. 3: Islamische Kultur – Zeitgenössische Strömungen
– Volksfrömmigkeit. Stuttgart – Berlin – Köln: Kohlhammer 1990, p. 338; Raucheisen,
Alfred: Orient und Abendland. Ethisch-moralische Aspekte in Wolframs Epen „Parzival“
und „Willehalm“. Frankfurt a. M. – New York: P. Lang 1997, p. 51.
30 Orosius, Paulus: Hist. Cf. Goetz, Hans-Werner: Orosius und die Barbaren. Zu den
umstrittenen Vorstellungen eines spätantiken Geschichtstheologen. Historia. Zeitschrift
für Alte Geschichte 29, 1980; Frend, William H. C.: Augustine and Orosius: On the end of
the Ancient World. In: Idem (ed.): Orthodoxy, Paganism, and Dissent in the Early Christian
Centuries. Aldershot – Burlington: Ashgate 2002; Pétrin, Nicole: The Geography of
Orosius Notes on the Early History of Central Eurasia’s First Nations. Eurasian studies
yearbook 80, 2008; Brandt, Hartwin: Historia magistra vitae? Orosius und die spätantike
Historiographie. In: Goltz, Andreas (ed.): Jenseits der Grenzen. Beiträge zur spätantiken
und frühmittelalterlichen Geschichtsschreibung. Berlin – New York: De Gruyter 2009.
31 Goetz, Hans-Werner: Orosius und die Barbaren; idem: Gott und die Welt. Religiöse
Vorstellungen des frühen und hohen Mittelalters. Berlin: Akademie Verlag 2011, pp. 62ff.
and 97ff.; Alonso-Núñez, José: Die Auslegung der Geschichte bei Paulus Orosius. Die
Abfolge der Weltreiche, die Idee der Roma Aeterna und die Goten. Wiener Studien 106,
1993; idem: Die Universalgeschichtsschreibung in der Spätantike und die westgotische
Historiographie. In: Dummer, Jürgen – Vielberg Meinolf (edd.): Zwischen Historiographie
und Hagiographie. Ausgewählte Beiträge zur Erforschung der Spätantike. Stuttgart: Franz
Steiner 2005, pp. 13–15; Bellen, Heinz: Babylon und Rom: Orosius und Augustinus. In:
Kneissl, Peter – Losema, Volker (edd.): Imperium Romanum. Studien zu Geschichte und
Rezeption. Festschrift für Karl Christ zum 75. Geburtstag. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner 1998.
108
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served the following chroniclers and theologians as an argumentative funda-

ment in their outlining of threat scenarios, and their explanation of defeats
against exterior, non-Christian enemies.32 As early as in the era of Viking or
Magyar invasions in the 9th and 10th centuries, Latin Christianity was de-
scribed as a civitas Dei surrounded by infidel aggressors of the civitas diaboli.33
This dualistic idea of the polarity between the good in-group and the evil out-
group experienced a first real boom during the time of the crusades, and later
became a fundamental basis of the humanistic angulus-allegory.34

32 Cf. Passamonti, Lorenza: Le traduzioni aragonesi delle Historiae adversus paganos di

Paolo Orosio. Medioevo romanzo 15, 1990; Leckie, R. William: To vromen der stad:
Orosius, “Heinrich von Lammesspringe and the Magdeburger Schöppenchronik”.
Euphorion. Zeitschrift für Literaturgeschichte 85, 1991; Chesnut, Glenn F.: Eusebius,
Augustine, Orosius and the later patristic and medieval Christian historians. In: Attridge,
Harold W. –Hata, Göhei (edd.): Eusebius, Christianity, and Judaism. Leiden – New York:
Brill 1992; Hillgarth, Jocelyn Nigel: The ‘Historiae’ of Orosius in the Early Middle Ages.
In: Fredouille, Jean-Claude – Jullien, Marie-Hélène – Holtz, Louis (edd.): De Tertullien
aux Mozarabes. Mélanges offerts à Jacques Fontaine à l’occasion de son 70. anniversaire par
ses élèves, amis et collègues. V. 2: Antiquité tardive et Christianisme ancien (VIe–IXe siècles).
Paris: Institute d’Études Augustiniennes 1992; Ricci, Cristina: Orosius’ ‚Geschichte
gegen die Heiden‘ und ihre Überlieferung. In: Wallraff, Martin (ed.): Welt-Zeit.
Christliche Weltchronistik aus zwei Jahrtausenden in Beständen der Thüringer Universitäts-
und Landesbibliothek Jena. Berlin – New York: De Gruyter 2005; Eggers, Martin: Der
geographische Einschub in der altenglischen Bearbeitung der ‚Kosmographie‘ des
Orosius und der europäische Osten. Eurasian studies yearbook 79, 2007; Daiber, Hans:
Weltgeschichte als Unheilsgeschichte. Die arabische Übersetzung von Orosius’ Historiae
adversus paganos als Warnung an die Muslime. In: Tischler, Matthias – Fidora,
Alexander (edd.): Christlicher Norden – muslimischer Süden. Ansprüche und Wirklichkeiten
von Christen, Juden und Muslimen auf der Iberischen Halbinsel im Hoch- und Spätmittelalter.
Münster: Aschendorff Verlag 2011; Alexander, Jonathan James Graham: A Copy of
Orosius, Historiae adversus paganos, Printed by Hermann Lichtenstein ca. 1475 with
Illumination Attributable to Giovanni Vendramin. Viator 43/1, 2012.
33 Cf. Schaller, Hans Martin: Endzeit-Erwartung und Antichrist-Vorstellungen in der
Politik des 13. Jahrhunderts. In: Festschrift für Hermann Heimpel. Zum 70. Geburtstag
am 19. September 1971. V. 2. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1972); Hecker,
Hans: ‚Es kamen die gottlosen Moabiter, von denen man noch nie gehört hat…‘ –
‚Gefahr aus dem Osten’ und Endzeiterwartung im mittelalterlichen Osteuropa. In:
Haupt, Barbara (ed.): Endzeitvorstellungen. Düsseldorf: Droste 2001.
34 Cf. Koch, Ernst: Bibelauslegung und Endzeiterwartung in der frühen Neuzeit. In:
Haupt, Barbara (ed.): Endzeitvorstellungen; Ehmann, Johannes: Luther, Türken und
Islam. Eine Untersuchung zum Türken- und Islambild Martin Luthers (1515–1546).
Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus 2008, p. 233.

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Under siege: the just war against the infidels

The dualism between the world of faith and the world of faithlessness, as
well as the concomitant threat scenarios, paved the way for another essential
characteristic of the medieval/early modern bulwark rhetoric, namely the
stylization of one’s own community as a fortified in-group which is perma-
nently under siege. Roger Bacon’s gloomy forecast from the 13th century may
be representative for this: Nam pauci sunt Christiani, et tota mundi latitudo
est infidelibus occupata.35 The defence of one’s own cultural community was
interpreted here as the defence of one’s own faith (defensio or propugnatio
fidei). Fulcher of Chartres, for instance, in his chronicle Historia Hierosoly-
mitana, written between 1100 and 1127, described the appointment of the
crusaders to propugnatores Dei by the council of Clermont.36 The legitimacy
of the Christian fight against the infidels as willed by God was based upon
the Augustinian postulate of the bellum iustum.37 Augustine’s differentiation

35 Roger Bacon: Opus maius III, 13, p. 122. Cf. Walther, Helmut G.: Die Veränderbarkeit
der Welt. Von den Folgen der Konfrontation des Abendlandes mit dem ‚Anderen‘ im
13. Jahrhundert. In: Aertsen, Johannes Adrianus – Speer Andreas (edd.): Geistesleben
im 13. Jahrhundert. Berlin – New York: De Gruyter 2000, pp. 629f.
36 Fulcher of Chartres: Hist. Hier. I, 4, pp. 140f.
37 Cf. Swift, Louis J.: Augustine on War and Killing: Another View. The Harvard
Theological Review 66, 1973; Lenihan, David Anthony: The Just War Theory in
the Work of Saint Augustine. Augustinian Studies 19, 1988; idem: The Influence of
Augustine’s Just War: the Early Middle Ages. Augustinian Studies 27/1, 1996; Huitt,
Robert Weston: Iustum bellum. Augustine’s Attitude Toward War [PhD diss.]. New
Haven: Yale University, CT 2000; Stumpf, Christoph A.: Vom heiligen Krieg zum
gerechten Krieg. Ein Beitrag zur alttestamentarischen und augustinischen Tradition
des kanonistischen Kriegsvölkerrechts bei Gratian. Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für
Rechtsgeschichte: Kanonistische Abteilung 87, 2001; Mattox, John Mark: Saint Augustine
and the Theory of Just War. London – New York: Continuum 2006; Miller, Richard B.:
Just war, civic virtue, and democratic social criticism: Augustinian reflections. Journal
of Religion 89, 2009; Fuhrer, Therese: Krieg und (Un-)Gerechtigkeit. Augustin zu
Ursache und Sinn von Kriegen. In: Formisano, Marco – Böhme, Hartmut (edd.): War
in Words. Transformations of War from Antiquity to Clausewitz. Berlin – New York: De
Gruyter 2010; Albert, Sigrid: Bellum iustum. Die Theorie des „gerechten Krieges“ und ihre
praktische Bedeutung für die auswärtigen Auseinandersetzungen Roms in republikanischer
Zeit. Kallmünz: Lassleben 1980; Clavadetscher-Thürlemann, Silvia: Polemos
dikaios und bellum iustum. Versuch einer Ideengeschichte [PhD diss.]. Zürich:
Universität Zürich 1985; Mantovani, Mauro: Bellum iustum. Die Idee des gerechten
Krieges in der römischen Kaiserzeit. Bern – New York: P. Lang 1990; Zack, Andreas:

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between the bellum iustum and the bellum iniustum solved the contradiction
that existed between Christian charity and the renunciation of violence on
the one hand, and the participation in military actions on the other.38
Thus, the attendees of the medieval crusades referred to the idea, firmly
established in Christendom, that a war was just in a situation where it would
serve peace. The fight against the enemies of God in particular, i.e. the de-
fence of faith, was a iusta causa, and legitimate according to Augustinian
teachings.39 As early as the mid-9th Century, when faced with never-ending
incursions by Vikings and Saracens, Pope Leo IV declared that those, who
would sacrifice their lives pro veritate Fidei, et salvatione Patriae, ac defensione
Christianorum, would be highly rewarded by the heavens.40 Under Leo’s suc-
cessors, this conception was broadened remarkably. Nicholas I, for example,
exhorted the faithful towards mutual non-violence. Following Augustine, the
pontiff allowed the exclusive use of violence in the struggle contra paganos, as

Studien zum „römischen Völkerrecht“. Kriegserklärung, Kriegsbeschluss, Beeidung und

Ratifikation zwischenstaatlicher Verträge, internationale Freundschaft und Feindschaft
während der römischen Republik bis zum Beginn des Prinzipats. Göttingen: Duehrkohp
& Radicke 2001; Herzig, Heinz E.: Ciceros Konzept des ‚bellum iustum‘ und
Augustins Überlieferung. In: Hesse, Christian – Schwinges, Rainer Christoph (edd.):
Personen der Geschichte – Geschichte der Personen. Studien zur Kreuzzugs-, Sozial- und
Bildungsgeschichte; Festschrift für Rainer Christoph Schwinges zum 60. Geburtstag. Basel:
Schwabe 2003.
38 Wentzlaff-Eggebert, Friedrich-Wilhelm: Wandlungen der Kreuzzugsidee in der
Dichtung vom Hoch- zum Spätmittelalter. Wirkendes Wort 12, 1962, p. 2.
39 Schwinges, Rainer Christoph: Kreuzzugsideologie, pp. 221–230.
40 Sacrorum Conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio. V. 14. Ed. J. D. Mansi. Venetiis:
Zatta 1769), col. 888: “Omnium timore, ac terrore deposito contra inimicos sanctae
Fidei, et adversios omnium regionum viriliter agere studete. […] Omnium vestrum
nosse volumus caritatem, quoniam quisquis (quod non optantes dicimus) in hoc
belli certamine fideliter mortuus fuerit, regna illi cælestia minime negabuntur. Novit
enim Omnipotens, si quilibet vestrum morietur, quod pro veritate Fidei, et salvatione
Patriae, ac defensione Christianorum mortuus est, ideo ab eo prætitulatum præmium
consequetur.” Cf. Moroz, Irina: The Idea of the Holy War in the Orthodox World (On
Russian Chronicles from the Twelfth-Sixteenth Century). In: Fałkowski, Wojciech
(ed.): Peace and War. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo DiG 1999, p. 45; Runciman, Steven:
A History of the Crusades. V. 1: The First Crusade and the Foundation of the Kingdom of
Jerusalem. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1951 [reprint 1999], p. 84.

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presented in a letter to bishop Ratold of Strasbourg.41 Shortly afterwards, in

several letters written between 876 and 879, John VIII raised all those killed
in action for the faith to the status of martyrs, guaranteed of their place in
heaven.42 Parallel to this, a similar discourse also took place within Eastern
Christendom. In his military theoretical strategikon Taktika (Τακτικά), the
Byzantine Emperor Leo VI especially honoured those who had paid with
their lives in fighting the enemies of the Christian faith. In his eyes, this kind
of martyrdom was a desirable goal for all Christians.43
During the time of the crusades many even went a step further. Bernard
of Clairvaux, for instance, in his Liber ad milites Templi de laude novae mi-
litiae, written around 1130/1131, legitimated the killing of infidels, for these
were the effigies of blasphemous evil. Their death would erase Evil and serve
the appreciation of Christ.44 In conclusion, according to medieval ideology,

41 Nicolaus I.: Ep. 139, p. 659.

42 Joannes VIII.: Ep. 186, col. 816: “Quia veneranda fraternitas vestra modesta
interrogatione sciscitans quæsivit utrum hi qui pro defensione sanctæ Dei Ecclesiæ &
pro statu Christianæ religionis ac reipublicæ in bello nuper ceciderunt, aut de reliquo
pro ea re casuri sunt, indulgentiam possint consequi delictorum, audenter Christi Dei
nostri pietate respondemus quoniam illi qui cum pietate catholicæ religionis in belli
certamine cadunt, requies eos æternæ vitæ suscipiet, contra paganos atque infideles
strenue dimicantes, eo quod Dominus per prophetam dignatus est dicere. Peccator
quacunque hora conversus fuerit, omnium iniquitatum illius non recordabor amplius
[Ez 18], et venerabilis ille latro in una confessionis voce de cruce meruit paradisum
[Lc 27].” Similar also ibidem 43, col. 696, 62 and 63, col. 717f. Cf. Mohr, Robert:
Präsenz und Macht. Eine Untersuchung zur Martina Hugos von Langenstein. Frankfurt
a. M. et al.: P. Lang 2010, pp. 201ff.
43 Leo VI.: Tactica XX, 72, col. 1031: “Ἱερά ἐστιν τὰ τῶν τελευτώντων πολέμῳ
στρατιωτῶν σώματα. καὶ μάλιστα τὸν ἀριστευσὰντων ἐν τῇ ὑπὲρ τῶν χριστιανῶν
μᾶχῃ. καὶ ταῦτα χρὴ ἐκ παντὸς τρόπου τιμᾶν ὁ σίως, καὶ τάφης ἀξιοῦν, καὶ μνήμης.”
Latin translation according to Migne, ibidem: “Militum in bello cadentium, atque
eorum potissimum, qui strenue se gerunt, et pro fide Christiana mortui sunt,
corpora honeste sepeliantur, eosque bona atque honesta commendatione mortuos
prosequamur.” Cf. Kolias, Taxiarchis G.: The Taktika of Leo VI the Wise and the
Arabs. Graeco-Arabica 3, 1984; Riedel, Meredith L. D.: Fighting the Good Fight.
The Taktika of Leo VI and Its Influence on Byzantine Cultural Identity [PhD diss.].
Oxford: University of Oxford 2010.
44 Bernard of Clairvaux: Ad mil. temp. III, 4, p. 58–60: “At vero Christi milites securi
praeliantur praelia Domini sui, nequaquam metuentes aut de hostium caede
peccatum, aut de sua nece periculum, quandoquidem mors pro Christo vel ferenda,

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a just war was—by analogy to the Augustinian dualism of the two cities—
also always a fight between Good and Evil, between faith and infidelity,
or—to put it pointedly—a struggle between one’s own world and a foreign
cultural community seen as hostile through and through.45 Defending the
faith is the noblest objective of a Christian, as Hugo von Langenstein stated
in his work Martina, written at the end of the 13th century. According to the
poet, all (Christian) religious fighters would defend Christ’s shield (Cristes
schilt) and thus the community of all faithful.46

vel inferenda, et nihil habeat criminis, et plurimum gloriae mereatur. Hinc quippe
Christo, inde Christus acquiritur, qui nimirum et libenter accipit hostis mortem pro
ultione, et libentius praebet seipsum militi pro consolatione. Miles, inquam, Christi
securus interimit, interit securior. Sibi praestat cum interit, Christo cum interimit. Non
enim sine causa gladium portat: Dei enim minister est ad vindictam malefactorum,
laudem vero bonorum. [Rom 13:4; 1Ptr 2:14] Sane cum occidit malefactorem, non
homicida, sed, ut ita dixerim, malicida, et plane Christi vindex in his qui male agunt,
et defensor christianorum reputatur. Cum autem occiditur ipse, non periisse, sed
pervenisse cognoscitur. Mors ergo quam irrogat, Christi est lucrum; quam excipit,
suum. In morte pagani christianus gloriatur, quia Christus glorificatur; in morte
christiani, Regis liberalitas aperitur, cum miles remunerandus educitur. Porro super
illo laetabitur iustus, cum viderit vindictam. De isto dicet homo: si utique est fructus
iusto? Utique est Deus iudicans eos in terra. [Ps 57:11f.] […] Nunc autem melius est
ut occidantur, quam certe relinquatur virga peccatorum super sortem iustorum, ne
forte extendant iusti ad iniquitatem manus suas.” Cf. Oliver, Antonio: El ‘Libre del
Orde de Cavalleria’ de Ramón Llull y el ‘De laude novae militiae’ de San Bernardo.
Estudios lulianos 2, 1958; Fleckenstein, Josef: Die Rechtfertigung der geistlichen
Ritterorden nach der Schrift ‚De laude novae militiae‘ Bernhards von Clairvaux. In:
Fleckenstein, Josef – Hellmann, Manfred (edd.): Die geistlichen Ritterorden Europas.
Sigmaringen: Thorbecke 1980; Carlson, David Richard: The practical theology
of St. Bernard and the date of the De laude novae militiae. In: Sommerfeldt,
John R. (ed.): Erudition at God’s service. Papers from the 1985 and 1986 Cistercian
Studies Conferences, organized by the Institute fo Cistercian Studies of Western Michigan
University, and held in conjunction with the 20th and 21st International Congresses of
Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo, Michigan, on May 9–12, 1985 and May 8–11, 1986.
Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications 1987; Strzelczyk, Jerzy: Wojna z niewiernymi
w opinii chrześcijańskiego Zachodu. Napis. Pismo poświęcone literaturze okolicznościowej
i użytkowej 7, 2001; Pinna, Fabrizio: De Laude Novae Militiae. In: Rassu, Massino
(ed.): Templari e Ospitalieri in Sardegna. Dolianova – Cagliari: Grafica del Parteolla
2008.
45 Schwinges, Rainer Christoph: Kreuzzugsideologie, p. 222.
46 Hugo von Langenstein: Martina. Ed. A. von Keller. Stuttgart: Literarischer Verein
1856, p. 221. Cf. Mohr, Robert: Präsenz und Macht, pp. 203ff.

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In the later Middle Ages, these maxims were further refined. Thomas
Aquinas, in his treatises on state and war theory, clearly referred to Augustine
when he demanded in his Summa Theologiae that war was not bad per se if it
was subordinated to the common good: Force must be used particularly to
protect the faithful from exterior enemies. A war is therefore only just if it is
led by a legitimized (Christian) ruler in defence of a (Christian) community.
Other Christian legal theorists such as the Italians Bartolus de Saxoferrato
or Giovanni da Legnano in his Tractatus de bello, de represaliis et de duello
(around 1360) strengthened this belief in the Late Medieval interpretation
of right.47
Particularly interesting with regard to the Late Medieval/Early Modern
bulwark rhetoric is the combination of the motive of the defensio fidei with the
aggressive purposes of the pugna spiritualis. The offensive nature of spreading
the faith and the defensive central idea of the defence of faith are merged
into one, and cause and effect are thus placed on an equal footing. As a result
of this blurring of the borders between attack and defence, campaigns led far
away from one’s own cultural circle such as the crusades could also easily be
legitimated as bella iusta. The defence of faith thereby left behind the geo-
graphical perceptions of defending the patria. In this manner, a theologically
motivated combatant could also “defend his faith”, i.e. the values of his re-
ligious community, outside his own territories. Admittedly, the argument
of defending the faith was—for purely legitimating reasons—always given
more weight than the argument of spreading it. A war against the enemies of
faith was, above all, a fight in defence of the faith. According to the medieval
sense of justice, this kind of conflict arose not from the arbitrariness and
despotism of a ruler, but solely from the necessity of defending the frontiers
of Christianity. Thereby it was insignificant if the fight was conducted on the
actual borders of a country belonging to the Western civilization. Whenever
and wherever Latin Christians were to be found, Latin Christianity could be
defended, as was most notable in the example of the presence of crusaders in
the Levant during the High Middle Ages. Representative for this ideologi-
cal views listed above, based upon the Augustinian apologetic of the bellum

47 Cf. Kalning, Pamela: Kriegslehren in deutschsprachigen Texten um 1400. Seffner, Rothe,

Wittenwiler. Münster: Waxmann 2006, p. 37.

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iustum, is a quotation by Pope Paul II, who, in 1465 wrote to the Hungarian
king Matthias Hunyadi:
Bellum adversus eos, qui contra Christianos impia arma tulerunt, quique
illos propriis sedibus depulerunt, non voluntate, sed necessitate susceptum
est, non ad propagandos, sed ad tuendos Christianorum fines, non ad di-
latandum imperium, sed ad vitam, liberos, facultatesque servandas, quos
tot annos crudelissime vexaverunt. Bellum, inquam, susceptum est ad pro-
pulsandam Christi Dei nostri iniuriam adversus spurcissimam sectam,
a qua nomen domini quotidie blasphematur.48
However, while at the beginning of the Crusades the propagandistic
argument of the defence of faith served as justification for the conquest
and the preservation of the holy places of Christianity, the same rhetori-
cal motive was used to legitimize the subjugation of the pagan Polabian
Slavs during the Wendish Crusade of Henry the Lion of Saxony in 1147.49
A similar argumentation had already been used by Charlemagne to defend
his Saxon Wars, and became the main feature of the campaigns of Roman
Catholic rulers, fundamentally motivated by power politics, against pagan
Prussians and Lithuanians, schismatic Orthodox, heretic Cathars, Hussites
or Protestants, and finally against the infidel Tatars and Ottomans. The Late

48 Mathias Corvinus: Ep. 45, p. 64. A similar understanding can be also found in Polish
legal literature in the Late Middle Ages. Cf. Wybranowski, Dariusz: Zagadnienie
wojny sprawiedliwej w polskiej literaturze prawnej XV i XVI wieku. Napis. Pismo
poświęcone literaturze okolicznościowej i użytkowej 7, 2001.
49 Unger, Manfred: Bernhard von Clairvaux und der Slawenkreuzzug 1147. Zeitschrift für
Geschichtswissenschaft 7, 1959; Lotter, Friedrich: Die Konzeption des Wendenkreuzzugs.
Ideengeschichtliche, kirchenrechtliche und historisch-politische Voraussetzungen der
Missionierung von Elb- und Ostseeslawen um die Mitte des 12. Jahrhunderts. Sigmaringen:
Thorbecke 1977; idem: Die Vorstellungen vom Heidenkrieg und Wendenmission bei
Heinrich dem Löwen. In: Mohrmann, Wolf-Dieter (ed.): Heinrich der Löwe (Herzog
von Bayern und Sachsen). Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht 1980); Kahl,
Hans-Dietrich: ‚…Auszujäten von der Erde die Feinde des Christennamens…‘ Der
Plan zum ‚Wendenkreuzzug‘ von 1147 als Umsetzung sibyllinischer Eschatologie.
Jahrbuch für die Geschichte Mittel- und Ostdeutschlands 39, 1990; Schwillus, Harald:
Gewalt und Friede. Bernhard von Clairvaux und der Wendenkreuzzug. In: Bergstedt,
Clemens – Heimann, Heinz-Dieter (edd.): Wege in die Himmelsstadt. Bischof, Glaube,
Herrschaft 800–1550. Berlin: Lukas Verlag 2005; Herrmann, Jan-Christoph: Der
Wendenkreuzzug von 1147. Frankfurt a. M. et al.: P. Lang 2011.

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medieval diplomats of the East Central European courts utilized this rhe-
toric as an essential element of their bulwark topoi—for instance to justify
Matthias Corvinus’s wars of conquest against Bohemia and Austria, or the
Jagiellonian expansionistic A mari ad mare policy focusing on the territories
between the Baltic and the Black Seas.50

From prestigious self-descriptions to proto-national identities

As a result of this, the stylisation of strategically important places as
“bulwarks” or “forewalls” experienced a first peak during the Crusades in
the High Middle Ages. However, at this time a recurrent rhetoric was the
indication of individual fortified settlements like Damietta, Qaşr Abī Dānis
or Tarragona as antemuralia or propugnacula, rather than whole countries,
which were only occasionally characterised in these terms—like, for example
Georgia, which Ansellus, cantor of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, praised
as the antemurale against “the Medes and Persians”.51 Moreover, these attri-
butions were sporadic and thus of a purely stylistic and metaphorical nature.
They were still far removed from the symbolic power of later bulwarks ideas

50 Rothe, Hans: ‚A mari ad mare’. Über den Ursprung und die Verbreitung einer
Herrschaftsformel. In: Brogi Bercoff, Giovanna (ed.): Filologia e letteratura nei paesi
slavi. Studi in onore di Sante Graciotti. Roma: Carucci 1990. Cf. also Okulewicz,
Piotr: Koncepcja „Międzymorza“ w myśli i praktyce politycznej obozu Józefa Piłsudskiego
w latach 1918–1926. Poznań: Wydawnictwo Poznańskie 2001; Troebst, Stefan:
‘Intermarium’ and ‘Wedding to the Sea’. Politics of History and Mental Mapping
in East Central Europe. European Review of History 10/2, 2003; Żyliński, Leszek:
Deutsches Mitteleuropa und polnisches Intermarium. Mythisches Gedächtnis –
politisches Kalkül. In: Eberhard, Winfried – Lübke, Christian (edd.): Die Vielfalt
Europas. Identitäten und Räume. Beiträge einer internationalen Konferenz, Leipzig,
6. bis 9. Juni 2007. Leipzig: Leipziger Universitätsverlag 2009; Leschnik, Hubert: Die
Außenpolitik der Zweiten polnischen Republik. „Intermarium“ und „Drittes Europa“ als
Konzepte der polnischen Außenpolitik unter Außenminister Oberst Józef Beck von 1932 bis
1939. Saarbrücken: VDM Verlag Dr. Müller 2010.
51 Ansellus Cantor, Ep., col. 730: “Porro David rex Georgianorum, qui cum suis
prædecessoribus portas Caspias tenuit et custodivit, ubi sunt inclusi Gog et Magog,
[…] cujus terra et regnum contra Medos et Persas est nobis quasi antemurale.” Cf.
van Donzel Emeri J. – Schmidt, Andrea B.: Gog and Magog in early eastern Christian
and Islamic sources. Sallam’s quest for Alexander’s wall. Leiden – Boston: Brill, 2010,
p. 54; Toussaint, Gia: Das Passional der Kunigunde von Böhmen. Bildrhetorik und
Spiritualität. Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh 2003, pp. 47f.

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at the end of the Middle Ages, which were to become proto-national identi-
ty topoi firmly anchored in the collective awareness. Nevertheless, these early
bulwark allegories, occasionally used as a part of the crusade rhetoric were of
significant importance for the late medieval/early modern antemurale myths
in East Central Europe, since these older crusade concepts lived on here, and
were inserted into new images.
Besides the linguistic roots the historical roots of the Polish and Hun-
garian frontier identities and the bulwark rhetoric also go back to the High
Middle Ages. Against the background of the antagonism between sacerdoti-
um and imperium from the 11th Century onwards, the Polish and Hungarian
periphery lying at the Eastern frontiers of Latin Christianity gained an in-
creasing significance. Consequently, the concept of christianitas, substantially
supported by the Holy See, and the accompanying increase in importance
of the occidental border regions were formative figures for the bulwark
topoi of the Late Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period. As previous-
ly discussed, it was particularly the Mongol invasions of the 13th Century
which fostered this development, since both countries, Poland and Hungary,
were attributed key roles as defenders of Christendom by the papacy as well
as the other addressees of the papal anti-Mongol propaganda. Remark-
ably, papal attention towards East Central European states such as Poland,
Hungary and—from the beginning of the 13th Century—the State of the
Teutonic Order was initially to assign these an exclusive task (as defenders of
the Roman-Catholic church in the East), which was willingly adopted and
significantly developed by these actors during the 14th Century. At this time,
however, vague frontier terminology such as fines, indagines, clausura, confinia,
termini etc. predominated, mixed with militaristic terms such as scutum or
clipeus. Explicit descriptions borrowed from fortification terminology such
as antemurale, propugnaculum, munimentum, fortalitium etc. were not used on
a wide scale until the 15th Century, when dynasties such as the Jagiellonians
and the Hunyadis utilized the bulwark topoi for their own political purposes
of legitimisation.
Particular worthy of mention here is the dynastic momentum in the
Hunyadi and Jagiellonian bulwark self-descriptions. The presentation of
their own country as distinct from the personage of the ruler moved to
the background—especially under Matthias Corvinus but also under the

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Jagiellonians Casimir IV, Władysław II or Sigismund I—and was replaced

by egocentric images of the ruler respectively the ruling house as the personi-
fied bulwarks of the Christian occident. This phenomenon was primarily
a result of the zeitgeist at the threshold of the Middle Ages and the Early
Modern Times. The importance of the Renaissance quest for glory and pres-
tige must not be underestimated. This striving completely corresponded to
the concepts of the Rinascimento of a glamorous and heroic kingship built
not only upon images borrowed from the Greek-Roman Antiquity but also
from the medieval chivalric ethic. Here, both epideictic poetry and court his-
toriography had the function of propagating the bulwark self-descriptions
of the Hunyadis and Jagiellonians throughout Europe. In accordance with
the humanistic idea of history, these literary channels also ensured historical
“immortality” for the royal protagonists celebrated in the panegyric works.
At the same time, it popularised the reputation of the ruler as an invincible
military commander and the “shield of Christianity”. Finally, monarchical
appeals to their own bulwark status also served as a fundament for dynastic
legitimisation, for both the Hunyadis—and to a lesser extent—the Jagiel-
lonians were seen in Western Europe as “new” ruling houses without a histo-
rical tradition comparable to the Habsburgs or the Valois.52
Interestingly, these dynastic self-images were soon adopted by a broader
public, limited initially of course to the nobilities of Poland and Hungary (on
the other hand, however, this class made up as much as five to ten percent
of the population in both these countries—and in some areas even more).53
Regardless of the perennial dynastic interdependence of Poland and Hun-
gary from the 14th to the 16th centuries, the interior reception of the bulwark
topoi built upon alterity and alienity discourses diverged asynchronously. The
Hungarian nobility, the Nemesség, for instance, started to monopolise the
antemurale rhetoric for own purposes as early as at the end of the 15th and
beginning of the 16th centuries, partly in order to gain prestige, partly to
obtain political advantages. Symbolic of this development is István

52 Srodecki, Paul: Antemurale Christianitatis, pp. 163–303.

53 Cf. Rady, Martyn: Nobility, Land and Service in Medieval Hungary. London: Palgrave
2000; Kuchowicz, Zbigniew: Obyczaje i postacie Polski szlacheckiej XVI–XVIII wieku.
Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Polonia 1993; Maciszewski, Jarema: Szlachta polska i jej
państwo. Warszawa: Wiedza Powszechna 1986.

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Werböczy’s Tripartitum opus iuris consuetudinarii inclyti regni Hungariae,

which was presented at an assembly in Buda 1514 and first printed in
Vienna three years later. Werböczy equated the Nemesség with the Hun-
garian people and emphasized its role in defending Christendom—without
mentioning the king or the ruling Jagiellonian dynasty:
Thereafter [after the conversion to Christianity] no country or people (I say
ungrudgingly) guarded more determinedly or more constantly the protection
and expansion of the Christian commonwealth than the Hungarians. Being
well trained through many hard-fought battles against the barbarous Moham-
medan pest, they have for more than a hundred and forty years (not counting
earlier times) time and time again in attack and counterattack waged to their
enormous credit the most bloody (sic) wars against the savage Turks. They kept
the rest of Christendom safe and unharmed at the cost of their blood, life and
wounds (lest the enemy’s rage flood further as across broken levees), with such
courage and natural vigour that they virtually lived under arms.54
In Poland a similar process of transfer from dynastic to noble self-images
did not appear until the end of the 16th century. In both countries, however,
these changes were linked to the weakening of royal power and the dying
out of the old dynasties. Furthermore, the adoption of the bulwark topoi by
the nemesség and the szlachta, who both considered themselves to be the true
essence of the natio hungarica and the natio polonica, also had a constitu-
tive influence for the further nationalisation of the antemurale concepts.
Additionally, at the turn from the Middle Ages to the Early Modern Times
bulwark images were often intermingled mixed with myths of a “chosen
people”, as well as with the emerging discourses on Europe.55

54 István Werböczy: Tripartitum opus iuris consuetudinarii inclyti regni Hungariae. Ed. J. M. Bak
et al. Budapest – Idyllwild: Central European University – Charles Schlacks 2005,
pp. 12–13: “Nec gens aliqua postmodum aut natio (absit invidia verbo) pro reipublicæ
Christianę tutela & propagatione acrius aut constantius ipsis Hungaris excubuit. Qui cum
omni Machometicæ fœditatis barbariæ in variss ancipitisbusque preliis diu ac multum
cum ingenti sua laude versati & (ut vetustiora præteram) annos circiter centum supra
quadraginta nunc oppugnantes, nunc repugnantes cum immanibus Thurcis cruentissima
bella gessere. Et per eorum sanguinem, cędes ac vulnera reliquam Christianitatem (ne
hostilis rabies velut fractis obicibus remotius sese effunderet) tutam icolumnemque
reddiderunt, ea fortitudine roboraque naturæ ut plerumque in armis vitam degerent.”
55 Srodecki, Paul: Antemurale Christianitatis, pp. 316–329.

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 With their departure from dynastic self-descriptions of the Hunyadis
and the Jagiellonians and transfer to a broader range of the population, the
bulwark topoi became the identity-establishing base of national movements
of later centuries. Thus, beginning with the 17th and 18th centuries, and then
especially with the Romanticism of the 19th Century, this outpost rhetoric
originating in alterity and alienity concepts was to have a large impact on
discourses of identity and affiliation in East Central Europe. The lack of
statehood in fact favoured this development, since it meant that historical
reference points which reminded the people of a glorious past as the wall
of Christianity were particularly in demand.56 Thus, the bulwark topos was
willingly instrumentalized by the national movements of the 19th and 20th
centuries in both Poland and Hungary, and was used to reinforce and legi-
timize concepts of national identity. To this day, the image of a “forewall”
or “bulwark” has remained an important, integrative anchor of identity and
collective memory in East Central Europe. It serves as a principle for orienta-
tion, attributing these countries with a sense of their own “Europeanness”,
i.e. the affiliation to a Christian occident in the Roman Catholic discourses
or, in secular discourses, to Europe.57

56 Trencsényi, Balázs – Zászkaliczky, Márton: Towards an Intellectual History of

Patriotism in East Central Europe in the Early Modern Period. In: Idem (ed.): Whose
Love of which Country? Composite States, National Histories and Patriotic Discourses in
Early Modern East Central Europe. Boston: Brill 2010, p. 67.
57 Srodecki, Paul: Antemurale Christianitatis, pp. 339–360.

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