TEST...BAPTIZING EUROPE

- Continental Identity in Medieval

Europe

by Christian Villumsen

BACKGROUND

“Ladies and Gentlemen, we have

reached an agreement.” Those

were the words of Danish Prime

Minister Anders Fogh

Rasmussen on the last day of the

European summit after the

expansion of the European

Union had been announced. The

negotiations had intensified

during the Danish presidency

and had paved the way for ten

new member states. This

expansion closed one of the final

chapters in the story of a divided

European continent; a state

which had existed since the Cold

War. The reason I mention this is

because during the Middle Ages

Europe was a fragmented

continent of warring states that

fought for power and the scraps

the decline of the Roman empire

had left behind. Europe was a

continent of kingdoms and

principalities, where local

magnates held power – or at

least the power that mattered.

One thing, however, did bind this

divided continent together:

Christianity. This relatively new

denomination, at least according

to Rome, was already known in

the territories we now know as

France, Germany, Italy, Spain,

the British Isles, Poland,

Hungary, Bohemia and

Scandinavia – territories that

became known as respublica

christiana (the Christian

Community). These territories,

especially Scandinavia and

Hungary, did, however, not start

out as members of this “holy

community – their roles will

become clear later. During the

reign of Charles the Great (757-

814) Europe was relatively safe

but after his death his empire

was divided into three parts (the

former Carolingian Empire, the

Christian Spain and the British

Isles) because his son Louis the

Pious (778-840) never achieved

to do for the empire what his

father had done. It is therefore

also no surprise that Central

Europe came under attack from

all sides. Arabs ravaged the

Mediterranean, Viking attacks

terrorized northern Europe and

Eastern Europe (Hungary) was

invaded by the Magyars. The

threat from the Vikings and the

Magyars ended in the year 972

when these two peoples

converted to Christianity and

thereafter Europe was only

threatened by the Arabs and

internal power struggles.

A UNIFIED CHURCH

Europe continued to be a divided

continent even after “the

savages” had converted. Many

reasons have been named as the

cause but the fact that even the

church was divided seems to be

the most likely factor. Rome

experienced a minor civil war

when three popes all declared

that they were the successors of

St. Peter and therefore rightfully

entitled to become the next pope.

We don’t know if it was the

threat of a major conflict within

the Christian world that

prompted Emperor Henry III of

Germany (1039-56) to travel to

Rome to resolve the situation

and we probably never will but

Henry, nevertheless, solved the

problem by removing all three

popes and installed one of his

own loyalists. While Henry III

cleaned up the Roman mess and

his son Henry IV had been

appointed secular leader of the

church Hildebrand, a reformer

within the church had been

inaugurated as pope and had

taken the name Gregory VII as a

tribute to Gregory VI (whom

Henry III had deposed) and

Gregory I, who later became

known as Gregory the Great.

Gregory VII was largely

responsible for the unification of

the church because of his

reforms that e.g. ended papal

tolerance to imperial meddling

into affairs of the church. This

potential conflict was avoided in

1122 when the church and Holy

Roman Emperors concluded an

agreement, which became known

as the Concordat of Worms. This

agreement gave the emperors the

right to invest bishops with

secular symbols of authority in

their governed territories, but not

with sacred symbols of authority.

Furthermore the Concordat

decreed that the clergy had to

imitate the earliest form of life,

which was described in the Acts

of the Apostles 4:32: “And the

multitude of them that believed

were of one heart and of one

soul: neither said any of them

that ought of the things which he

possessed was his own; but they

had all things in common.”

Gregory and all other reform-

friendly popes wanted to return

to the time of Pope Gregory the

Great and become servus

servorum Dei (servant of God’s

servants) because this was the

path to become ruler of all and

thereby uniting Europe under the

papal banner.

The church was very powerful at

this moment in history and its

influence was spreading. Robert

Bartlett describes the

phenomenon in his book “The

Making of Europe” as being

similar to that of the

Americanization that took place

in Europe after the Second World

War; a dominant culture spreads

into adjacent territories and

thereafter dominates them.

Europe saw two such cultures:

the Frankish and the German.

These two cultures could

actually be combined into one

because Charles the Great built

up an empire which also

consisted of parts of the territory

we now call Germany. Both

cultures had the Christian faith in

common and were both eager to

spread the word. The church of

course led the conversion-

campaign in Medieval Europe,

but the church was not solely

responsible for the spread of

Christianity. European aristocrats

often send their children away to

foreign states in order to place

them in positions of power,

either by marriage and political

ingenuity as was the case with

e.g. Naples and Hungary or by

military might. Bartlett writes

that up to 80% of European

royalty had ties to France with

the exception of three kingdoms:

Sweden, Denmark and Poland.

The aristocracy and royalty in

these three countries traditionally

married into German families.

This tendency shows with all

certainty that Europe may have

been more unified than

originally believed – a

unification of both faith and

blood.

MY NAME IS …

It is perhaps a bit premature to

talk about unification but one

cannot deny that the peoples of

continental Europe had the

similar mentalities regarding

many things, e.g. the names that

were given to newborn children.

It was not unusual for the person

responsible for naming the

children to name them after the

saints that meant most to them. It

was, in fact, also customary to

take on a new name if one

married a person of a different

nationality and preferably a

name common to the area of

which one were to live. This was

done in order to avoid being

looked upon as a foreigner as

was the case of the two

Bohemian princesses Swatawa

and Markéta, who became the

German Countess Luitgard and

Queen Dagmar of Denmark.

Another example regards the

expansion of the French

aristocracy. The children that

were sent out to be married

eventually lost contact with their

homeland and became more and

more a part of their societies.

This may not seem as something

of which the church had much to

do with, but that changed in the

11th and 12th centuries – more

precisely at around 1066. It was

relatively easy to guess people’s

nationalities by looking at their

names, e.g. Mikhail (the Russian

or Croatian patron for the ill).

The name is well known from

the Eastern Bloc and is

especially linked with a former

president of the Soviet Union

(Mikhail Gorbatjov). In England,

after the Battle of Hastings, the

tendency to name children after

English saints changed and gave

way for Norman names like

William, Henry and Robert. The

link to the church was that this

trend actually started among high

ranking church officials and the

aristocracy.

The change was simple but

deeply territorial. France and

England believed in the same

God, but the names in the two

countries were completely

different. It is today very

difficult to find a family in

England that does not have a

William, Henry or Robert an

then we are back at the idea that

a dominant culture rubs off on

surrounding, and perhaps

weaker, cultures and let us be

honest, this was not an

uncommon phenomenon in the

Middle Ages.

HIGHER LEARNING

Another way to spread

Christianity was by using the

latest trend in Europe, the

universities, which the church

held power over. People, mostly

from the aristocracy and the

upper class, became obsessed

with education and wanted to

learn more. Education in e.g.

Denmark was handled by the

monasteries until the 12th

century and it was therefore not

unusual that the training of a

priest was conducted at home if

the trainee’s father was a priest.

The would-be priests managed

but without a formal education in

the liturgical language, Latin, the

young priests had to memorize

certain Latin phrases in order to

cope. On a positive note a priest

was never hard to find but the

priest was probably not schooled

in Latin. This was however not

the case with priests from the

city as they were able to travel

abroad to receive proper training.

The ones that did travel abroad

usually went to Paris and not just

because the very first university

in Europe was founded there but

also because that the teaching

elite went to Paris in order to

share their knowledge.

Furthermore Paris was also the

European centre for cathedral

schools. These schools were not

just in Paris but all over Europe.

These schools offered a higher

form of education and made

people pilgrimage to these

places. One who made such a

journey was Gunnar, who

became bishop in Viborg,

Denmark in 1222. Paris gave

Gunnar the opportunity to create

a network of clerical equals, one

of which was to become the

papal legate. This was in fact a

fellow student from Paris named

Gregorio of Crescenti, who came

to Denmark in 1221 and, via

Gunnar, created a clerical

friendship network with Viborg

diocese.

The story about Gunnar

exemplifies the level of

international cooperation that

took place during the Middle

Ages, whether it be clerical or

secular. In that kind of society

education was the key, which is

not unlike today.

Another example of the

connection between education

and church is Anders Sunesen.

He was born into the Danish

aristocracy and by that right he

was almost certain to play a role

within the church. He was

archbishop in Lund from 1201-

1224 and had traveled through

most of the major countries for

higher learning, e.g. France, Italy

and England. He did this because

Denmark did not offer the same

level of education as was found

in other countries and by

knowing that he spearheaded the

effort to make education more

accessible. He did by writing

two works, in Latin of course:

the first one was a compendium

of Christian verses, which was

inspired by the French

theologians and the second was a

Latin version of the laws of

Denmark, that bore the impress

of his knowledge of Roman law.

He was later stationed in Estonia

with the Danish forces, where he

was the spiritual head in the

battle against the heathen

Estonians.

The stories of Gunnar and

Anders show us that the

universities and the clerical

society are intertwined. Within

the educated societies people

spoke the same language, the

liturgical language Latin. Today,

we communicate in English if

we do not speak the native

tongue of a country we are

visiting – another example of the

fact that Europe, even back then,

was getting smaller.

CRUSADING MENTALITY

I have stated that many factors

were involved in the unification

of Europe, but the single most

important thing was probably the

crusades. Never before in the

history of Europe had one seen

such dedication as when Pope

Urban II in 1095 in Clermont

urged the Christian world to

unite against the Muslim threat

and to retake the Holy Land. He

recruited soldiers from almost

every strata of society with

France being a major contributor,

but countries like Germany,

England and Italy also

contributed on a large scale.

Nothing unifies a world better

than the battle against a common

foe. We have seen this

phenomenon on a global scale

with the battle against terrorism

and on a more homely scale

during the Second World War

where the world united against

the Axis powers. The majority of

crusaders were peasants, who

had been captivated by Urban’s

rhetoric about cleansing the Holy

Land of the infidels. When the

army of 15,000 reached

Jerusalem only about a tenth of

them were knights, which would

imply that the price of recruiting

a proper army was rather

expensive.

When the Christian army

stormed Jerusalem and the

looting began another form of

solidarity showed its face. The

infidels – in this case the

Muslims – were, according to

eye witnesses, rounded up and

beaten to within an inch of their

lives, and it did not matter if they

were woman, children or men.

Esmark and McGuire describes it

in their book Europa 1000-1300

as a form of religious high and a

spiritual cleansing. It went on to

the point that the Christian

invaders had a saying that went:

“heathens are better dead than

alive” and the more “merciful”:

the faster you kill them the less

time they will spend in

Purgatory.”

Say what you will about the

crusades but they did help on a

large scale with the creation of a

common European identity. The

actual creation did not occur

during this time and one can

argue that it does not exist even

today, but the smaller Europe got

the easier it got to cooperate with

one another.

Bibliography

Bartlett, Robert

“The Making of Europe”

London, 1994

Esmark, Kim and McGuire,

Brian Patrick

“Europa 1000-1300”

Roskilde, 1999

Roach, Andrew P.

“The Devil’s World”

Pearson Education Limited, 2005