To eradicate the depravity of heresy: a Hungarian crusade in the early thirteenth century? In: Merceneries and Crusaders. Ed. Attila Bárány. Debrecen, 2024. 87-104. (original) (raw)
This paper is a short contribution to the history of the crusades led against so-called heretics in the first half of the thirteenth century. The topic is well known in the Western historical research, as well as in the popular culture, due to the significance of the campaigns in Southern France against the Cathars, also known as the Albigensian Crusade, in the early thirteenth century. Nonetheless, the idea of a crusade to exterminate the depravity of heresy emerged in relation to other territories and local groups as well. The relationship between the Kingdom of Hungary and its southern neighbour, Bosnia offers a quite similar example, as accusations of heterodoxy played an important role in the efforts of the Hungarian rulers to assert their overlordship over the territories of Bosnia. The issue appeared as early as the outset of the thirteenth century, when accusations emerged against the Bosnian ruler, Ban Kulin claiming that he and his subjects were no true Christians. Although the monarch was able to acquit himself from the accusations due to the examination ordered by Pope Innocent III (1198–1216), there were no military actions in order at that time, yet the controversy regarding the state of Christianity in Bosnia persisted. This study investigates the situation in the 1220s and 1230s when the idea of crusaders fighting for the cause to abolish heresy arose several times, and it seems possible that a Hungarian royal prince, Duke Coloman of Slavonia, even lead his armies – as a crusader – to Bosnia. The events of the campaign(s) are scarcely known; however, the preparations are tangible in the main source material, the pontifical correspondence. Therefore I will analyse the efforts made by Honorius III (1216–1227) and Gregory IX (1227–1241) in this matter, revealing the role of crusader terminology. It is quite intriguing that Hungarian sources contain only indirect information regarding the crusade against Bosnian heresy, even though the notion of fighting infidels as crusaders a few years after the crusade of King Andrew II (1205–1235) must have been widely known among members of the lay and ecclesiastical elite of the Realm of St Stephen.
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Historiographic controversy about the Crusades against Bosnian "heretics"
Journal of Balkan and Black Sea Studies No. 4, 2020
The teachings of the Bosnian Church constitute one of the greatest mysteries of the medieval period of Bosnian history. The issue whether it acted in the realms of heresy or orthodoxy has been disputed in a scientific battleground in historiographical circles many times. Just a touch less controversy is linked with the nature of military missions proclaimed and executed against Bosnian ''heretics''. Some authors characterize these conflicts as religious, so typical for crusades, while others, however, emphasize the political and territorial pretensions of Hungary regarding Bosnia, as the main motif, describing the Holy war idea as a cover story for the sake of the Papal curia. The triangle between Hungary, Rome and Bosnia was the focal point of discourse in which numerous accusations on one side and explanations from the other occurred, along with war propaganda, anti-heretic warnings and attempts to prove innocence and that right path were followed. Interestingly, the Bosnian medieval state, so many times threatened with crusades against it, became the leading advocate for crusade missions against the Ottoman danger in the 15th century. This transformation did not occur because crusader ideas prevailed, but rather because of evolution within the social and administrative structures. This work will explore all the differences between the opposing historiographic streams, their approaches regarding sources and literature. The main goal is to determine how research performed with more or less identical source material, can produce such opposing results.
The study examines a special aspect of the relations between the Papacy and the Hungarian Kingdom in the first half of the 13th century: the fight against the heretics of Bosnia, or the Bosnian Church. The question of this heresy is not investigated from a dogmatic, or a legal point of view; the analysis focuses on the measures taken by the Papacy and the Hungarian Kingdom. Pontifical legates were entrusted with tasks concerning heresy and piracy in Bosnia and Dalmatia since the very beginning of the century, while the Hungarian rulers and several prelates also took part in the struggle. My presentation starts with the investigation against Ban Kulin of Bosnia led by the papal chaplain John of Casamari, whereas among other topics the problem of the Dalmatian pirates, the Bosnian campaign of Duke Coloman of Slavonia and the integration of the diocese of Bosnia into the Hungarian Church are analysed too.
The Eastern Roman Empire and the Crusades (1050 – 1204) (draft version)
In 1204 the Byzantines had lost their capital city. They had lost Constantinople and the attack had not come from infidels but from those who ‘bore the cross of Christ upon their shoulders’, people whom they regarded as somehow part of their world. It was the Christian Latins who had struck the blow that, up to 1204, the Byzantines had always been able to parry. This article aims on the complex interaction between the Eastern Roman Empire, western Europe, the Papacy, the crusaders and the crusader states.
Religious Rites of War - beyond the Medieval West. Volume 2. Central and Eastern Europe. Edited by Radosław Kotecki, Jacek Maciejewski, Gregory Leighton, 2023
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Requests for re-use and/or translations must be addressed to Koninklijke Brill NV via brill.com or copyright.com. This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner. Cover illustration: St. Olav altar frontal. Section one / first scene. King Olav of Norway makes a generous money offering to the clergyman while marching to war against the pagans. Trondheim, Nidaros Cathedral(?), ca. 1300. Now in Archbishop's Palace Museum in Trondheim. With kind permission of © Daniela Pawel, The Restoration Workshop of Nidaros Cathedral. 8.1a-b Reliquary of Tilo of Lorich, probably taken as booty by the Polish king Władysław Jagiełło after the Battle of Grunwald/Tannenberg (1410) and given to Gniezno Cathedral 273 Maps 0.1 Map of Northern Europe and the Baltic depicting major locations appearing in the volume xvi Abbreviations Titles of series and journals without further explanation APH Acta Poloniae Historica. BF Beihefte der Francia. CB Crossing boundaries: Turku medieval and early modern studies. CCCM Corpus Christianorum. Continuatio Mediaevalis, 301 vols. (Turnhout: Brepols, 1966-). CEMT Central European medieval texts. ChH Church History. CHR Catholic Historical Review. Commentaria Commentaria: Sacred texts and their commentaries. Jewish, Christian and Islamic CSML Cambridge studies in medieval life and thought. CTT Crusade texts in translation. DHIW Deutsches Historisches Institut Warschau. Quellen und Studien. Dusburg, Chron. Pr. "Chronicon terre Prussie" von Peter von Dusburg, ed. Max Töppen, SrP 1 (Leipzig: Hirzel, 1861), 3-219. ECEE East Central and Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 450-1450. EMC Explorations in medieval culture. FKG Forschungen zur Kirchen-und Geistegeschichte. FQKK Forschungen und Quellen zur Kirchen-und Kulturgeschichte Ostdeutschlands.
Of all the ecclesiastical apparatus employed by the papacy to promote crusading, the Crusade indulgence was the most important. Like all institutional arrangements, the Crusade indulgence underwent a process of development. This development has been distorted by a teleological view of the facts that regards the Crusade indulgence as the direct expression of Pope Urban II’s Jerusalem Crusade (1095-1102) and the indulgence that was set forth in Canon 2 of the Council of Clermont (1095). This study will show that the institutionalization of the Crusades was a long, drawn out, piecemeal process, which did not begin in 1095, but in 1063 with the introduction of the Crusade indulgence for Sicily and Iberia. Crusading did not owe its inception to the novel elements that Urban added to the enterprise in 1095, nor did it owe its inception to the new direction that crusading took in 1095 with Jerusalem the focus of its ambitions. Rather, the institutional history of the Crusades indicates that these wars began in the western half of the Mediterranean and were already in full swing when Crusaders undertook to “rescue Jerusalem and the other Churches of Asia from the power of the Muslims.”
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