Did the Teutonic Order create a sacred landscape in thirteenth-century Prussia?

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article defines ‘sacred landscape’ as a combination of factors that the two authoritative chroniclers of the crusades in Prussia, Peter of Dusburg and Nicolaus of Jeroschin, present in their texts. These are the intersection of hierophanies (manifestations of the sacred), martyrdom, relic veneration and pilgrimage activities at specific locations over time: connecting them can account for the Teutonic Order’s role in the sacralisation of Prussia. To map the growth of this concept, the article uses Geographical Information Systems (GIS) in combination with textual analysis, providing a visual and spatial representation of the landscape propagated by the Order. The succeeding period of crusades in the Baltic, namely those against Lithuania in the fourteenth century, shows how the places founded during the thirteenth century functioned as pilgrimage centres for knights going toward the frontier. This article considers to what extent the Teutonic Order’s crusades to Prussia in the thirteenth century created a sacred landscape.