‘Loca Deserta’, ‘Silvae Condensae’ and ‘Abrupta Montium’: How Crusaders Viewed Nature in the Balkans

Abstract

The Crusaders who followed Via militaris or Via Egnatia to the Holy Land traversed the vast and more or less unknown region of the Balkans, where they found themselves in an unfamiliar natural environment. This article explores the physical and psychological effects experienced by the Crusaders in this environment as recorded in their chronicles and accounts of pilgrimages. The purpose of this study is to investigate how nature affected the Crusaders and what they thought about it. When chroniclers write about nature in the Balkans, they emphasize its desolation, inaccessibility and remoteness from any established society and civilization. The portrayals of the wild and treacherous environment align with the stories about the Balkan people and their brutish customs, “barbarous” language, and way of life. Overall, these descriptions are based on the contrasting concepts of ‘nature’ and ‘culture’, ‘barbarism’ and ‘civilization’, ‘chaos’ and ‘order’, and so forth.