Saints and Sainthood Around the Baltic Sea ― Orality, Literacy and Communication in the Middle Ages

During the Middle Ages the regions around the Baltic Sea became drawn into the sphere of an expanding Christian culture. The lands and regions subjected to these processes of Christianisation and colonisation had to redefine their past as well as their present in the light of a new religious, cultural and mental framework. Thus, in historical terms, they would redefine both the past and the present through oral and literary processes. A key element in these processes was the introduction and adoption of the cult of saints. In some regions well-established and well-known saints from western, central and southern Europe became adopted into a local environment and gradually transformed and reinterpreted to fit the needs of the local people in a new cultural and mental milieu. In other cases, local saints arose from within the newly Christianized regions themselves and became symbols and signifiers of new identities. The importance of the cult of saints in the cultural transformation of the regions around the Baltic Sea has been emphasized by a number of different scholars working within their particular fields of research and has pointed the research in new directions. The book covers most of the Baltic Region and a wide range of topics, for example the introduction of foreign (and a€?olda€?) saints into new regions, the creation of new local cults of saints in newly Christianized regions, the cult of saints in the creation of political and lay identities, the adaption of cult of saints in folk poetry and the use of saints in times of war. Questions of methodology in the research on the medieval cult of saints are also addressed. Chronologically, the articles cover most of the Middle Ages from the Scandinavian Varangians in Rus in the 10th century to the late medieval Northern societies of the late 15th century. The book will appeal to scholars interested in the study of cult of saints in the Middle Ages and provides a useful introduction for students of the cult of saints in the medieval Northern world.

Carsten Selch Jensen, University of Copenhagen, Denmark; Tuomas Lehtonen, Finnish Literature Society, Finland; Tracey Sands, University of Copenhagen, Denmark; Nils Holger Petersen, University of Copenhagen, Denmark; Kurt Villads Jensen, University of Southern Denmark, Denmark