1st Edition
Making Livonia Actors and Networks in the Medieval and Early Modern Baltic Sea Region
The region called Livonia (corresponding to modern Estonia and Latvia) emerged out of the rapid transformation caused by the conquest, Christianisation and colonisation on the north-east shore of the Baltic Sea in the late twelfth and the early thirteenth centuries. These radical changes have received increasing scholarly notice over the last few decades. However, less attention has been devoted to the interplay between the new and the old structures and actors in a longer perspective.
This volume aims to study these interplays and explores the history of Livonia by concentrating on various actors and networks from the late twelfth to the seventeenth century. But, on a deeper level, the goal is more ambitious: to investigate the foundation of an increasingly complex and heterogeneous society on the medieval and early modern Baltic frontier – ‘the making of Livonia’.
Introduction: Actors and Networks in the Medieval and Early Modern Baltic Sea Region
Marek Tamm and Anu Mänd
Part I Early Making of Livonia (Thirteenth–Fourteenth Centuries)
1. Mission and Mobility: The Travels and Networking of Bishop Albert of Riga (c. 1165–1229)
Marek Tamm
2. Political Centres or Nodal Points in Trade Networks? Estonian Hillforts Before and After the Thirteenth-century Conquest
Marika Mägi
3. Visual Performances of Power in the Period of Danish Crusades
Kersti Markus
4. Neophytes as Actors in the Livonian Crusades
Linda Kaljundi
5. Politics of Emotions and Empathy Walls in Thirteenth-Century Livonia
Wojtek Jezierski
6. Donating Land to the Church: Topos as a Legal Argument in Thirteenth-Century Livonia
Anti Selart
7. Mobility of the Livonian Teutonic Knights
Juhan Kreem
8. Manuscript Fragments as Testimonies of Intellectual Contacts between Tallinn and European Learning Centres in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries
Tiina Kala
Part II Late Making of Livonia (Fifteenth–Seventeenth Centuries)
9. City Scribes and the Management of Information: The Professionalization of a Transgenerational Agency and Its Agents in Tallinn (c. 1250–1558)
Tapio Salminen
10. Cistercian Networks of Memory: Commemoration as a Form of Institutional Bonding in Livonia and Beyond During the Late Middle Ages
Gustavs Strenga
11. The ‘Hanseatic’ Trade of the Finnish Skalm Family in the Fifteenth and Early Sixteenth Centuries
Ilkka Leskelä
12. Merchants as Political, Social and Cultural Actors: Tallinn Burgomaster Hans Viant (d. 1524)
Anu Mänd
13. Mintmasters as the Nodes of the Social and Monetary Network: The Life and Career of Paul Gulden (c. 1530–93)
Ivar Leimus
14. Self-Representation and Social Aesthetics: Wealthy Tallinn Burgher Homes in the Early Modern Period
Krista Kodres
Conclusion: From Vineyard of the Lord to Outpost of Empires: Actors and Networks in the Conquest, Government and Society of Livonia (Twelfth–Sixteenth Centuries)
Alan V. Murray
Biography
Anu Mänd is Head of the Centre for Medieval Studies at Tallinn University.
Marek Tamm is Professor of Cultural History at Tallinn University.
"Making Livonia is a valuable addition to English-language scholarship on the eastern Baltic, which often places too much emphasis on the Crusades and disregards their aftermath." - Mihkel Mäesalu, Speculum
