Performing Holy War: Liturgy, Identity, and Religious Warfare on the Edge of Medieval Latin Europe

This article provides an analysis based on case studies of the varieties of religious warfare from central Europe between 1000–1200. First, it shows how religious warfare encompassed wider strata of society, engaging not only soldiers on the battlefield, but also non-combatant groups. Second, it explains how the monarchs of Bohemia, Hungary, and Poland used sacralisation of warfare to legitimise their own rule. Finally, it seeks to address the existing lacunae in the study of war rituals within the Central European context. It argues that both the essence and the performance of religious warfare in this region largely reflected western patterns, particularly under the influence of the German kingdom. It explores how application of the rhetoric of religious warfare in contemporary sources and the performance of religious rituals of war on the battlefield expressed the identity of local Christian monarchs and promoted their integration into the world of Latin Christendom.