REVIEWS 541 scholar- to distinguishKirillfrom 'Kirill',to drawclearboundariesbetween the authenticand the spurious,the personaland the conventional. Forsome of the contributorsthe blurringof boundariesis in fact the point. Prestel, for example, argues that Kirill's conception of monasticism is very close to, and not paceFedotov -to be contrasted with, that which is conveyed in writingsfrom the Caves monasteryin Kiev. Pereswetoff-Morath maintainsthatthe anti-Jewishtheme in Kirill'ssermonsisnot a contemporary polemic against actualJews but merely a conventional mode of theological exegesis (typological,contrastive),promptedby the festalcontext (inan Easter cycle of sermons)ratherthan by currentsocial conflictor personalanimosity. Dviniatin, Lunde and Kolesov investigate the inner workings of Kirillic rhetoric but do not directly address the question of whether or how Kirill's methodsmight be distinctfromgenericconvention. Sometimesthe frustration becomes almost palpable, as when Dviniatin, after allowing that 'much in [Kirill's] text is inherited, borrowed, appropriated'exclaims 'but with such understanding!'(p. 93) as if Kirill's distinction and distinctivenesslies in the fact that he understoodwhat he was doing. The two textual studiesunderscore,in differentways, the mutabilityof the Kirillictradition.Romanchuk shows, in a nice piece of manuscriptdetectivework , that the Kirillic cycle of homilies was introduced into the KirilloBelozerskii monastery by the well known scribe Efrosin in the early I470S (though Romanchuk's claim that this was in the context of a 'rationalist bibliographicaltrendthatperceived texts quatexts' (p. I68) is lesspersuasive). MacRobert's collation of variantversionsof the cycles of prayersand hymns has wider implications. She demonstrates that the extant cycles are 'not necessarily the recognizable oeuvreof one man, but rather a devotional tradition'(p. 195); thatthey 'mayhave a common origin,or atleasta common tradition' (p. I94), but that it is probably impossible to establish 'canonical' texts of either. This volume is a valuable addition to the sparse literature on the Corpus Cyrillianum, even if a part of its message is that Kirill of Turov himself as man and aswriter remainsas elusiveas ever. ClareCollege SIMON FRANKLIN University ofCambridge Murray, Alan V. (ed.). Crusade andConversion ontheBalticFrontierI I50-1500. Ashgate, Aldershot and Burlington, VT, 200I. xxvi + 300 pp. Notes. Maps. Tables. Bibliography.Index. ?45.??. FROM the twelfthcenturyonwardsthe Balticregion was an arena of holy war, with competing religious systems attempting to expand their spheres, more often than not by force. The Scandinavianmonarchies, themselvesrelatively recent members of Catholic Europe, launched aggressive expeditions eastwards under the banner of crusade, while Germans sailed from their newly establishedBaltic toehold at Lubeck to colonize pagan Prussiaand Livonia, establishing theocratic states ruled by crusading Orders. The Russian principalities were less militant in their conversion policies but sought 542 SEER, 8o, 3, 2002 neverthelessto assert a tributaryhegemony over the Finno-Ugric and Baltic peoples in the eastern Baltic area. The pagans themselves were not mere passivevictims of this Catholic and Orthodox expansionismbut fought back, maintaining their traditions and, in the case of the Lithuanians, creating Europe'slast and largestpagan state. This big and importantstoryis addressedby the fifteen contributorsin this volume in differentways. Some, such as Kurt Villads Jensen, author of the introduction, and Tiina Kala of the Tallinn Town Archives, give general overviews, while William Urban attempts to assess the usefulness of approachingthe medieval Balticwith the 'FrontierThesis' in mind. But most contributionsare detailed empiricalstudies,often based on sourceswhich are difficultof accessor linguisticallyimpenetrableto Anglophone scholars.Some are, indeed, rather densely factual and it would be advisable for someone approachingthese topics for the firsttime to read a good general introduction before diving into this collection the obvious choice would be Eric Christiansen'sNorthern Crusades (2nd edn., London, I997). One questionthat constantlyrecursin the volume is how farthe impression of intransigentideologicalconflictcorrespondsto reality.John Lindpostulates a long-termshiftfromcoexistence between Catholicand Orthodox to 'gradual alienation' caused by 'a new element in their confrontation: the element of religious fervour, characteristicof the crusades' (p. I49). The easy dynastic marriagesbetween the royal and princelyfamiliesof Scandinaviaand Russia found in the twelfth century Valdemar the Great of Denmark ( 1I57-82) was actuallyborn in Kiev and named afterhis Russian grandfatherVladimir Monomakh disappearedand, by the fourteenth century, we find Magnus II Erikssonof Sweden, encouraged by his saintlycourtierBridgetof Sweden, waging war against Russian 'infidels'.Other contributorsconsider, however, that 'the borders between confessions were not so significant as sometimes imagined' (Anti Selart, p. I5 i) and 'the Christians and pagans who fought, tradedand feastedtogetherunderstoodeach...
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Nov 1, 2007
Vaughan Byrnes + 1
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