This collaborative collection provides fresh perspectives on Christianity and the conduct of war in medieval East Central Europe and Scandinavia, investigating the intersection between religion, culture, and warfare in territories that were only integrated into Christendom in the Central Middle Ages. The contributors analyze cultures that lay outside Charlemagne's limes and the frontiers of the Byzantine Empire, to consider a region stretching from the Balkans to the Baltic and Scandinavia.
The volume considers clerics as military leaders and propagandists, the role of Christian ritual and doctrine in warfare, and the adaptation and transformation of indigenous military cultures. It uncovers new information on perceptions of war and analyzes how local practices were incorporated into clerical narratives, enabling the reader to achieve a complete understanding of the period.

Radosław Kotecki (Kazimierz Wielki University in Bydgoszcz) has published on religion and war, clerical warfare, and arms-bearing, especially in medieval Poland.
Carsten Selch Jensen (University of Copenhagen) has published a number of works on the process of Christianization, warfare, and crusading, especially in the Baltic.
Stephen Bennett (Queen Mary University of London) is a historian specializing in medieval warfare. He is currently working on a book covering participation in the Third Crusade.

List of Abbreviations
1. Christianity and War in Medieval East Central Europe and Scandinavia – An Introduction, Radosław Kotecki, Carsten Selch Jensen, and Stephen Bennett
Part I: The Church and War
2. The Role of the Dalmatian Bishops and Archbishops in Warfare during the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries: A Case Study on the Archbishops of Split, Judit Gál
3. Thirteenth-Century Hungarian Prelates at War, Gábor Barabás
4. The Image of “Warrior-Bishops” in the Northern Tradition of the Crusades, Sini Kangas
5. Memory of the “Warrior-Bishops” of Płock in the Writings of Jan Długosz, Jacek Maciejewski
6. Preachers of War: Dominican Friars as Promoters of the Crusades in the Baltic Region in the Thirteenth Century, Johnny Grandjean Gøgsig Jakobsen
7. Depictions of Violence in Late Romanesque Mural Paintings in Denmark, Martin Wangsgaard Jürgensen
Part II: Religion in War, and its Cultural Expressions
8. Religious Rituals of War in Medieval Hungary under the Árpád Dynasty, Dušan Zupka
9. Pious Rulers, Ducal Clerics, and Angels of Light: “Imperial Holy War” Imagery in Twelfth-Century Poland and Rus’, Radosław Kotecki
10. Religion and War in Saxo Grammaticus’s Gesta Danorum: The Examples of Bishop Absalon and King Valdemar I, Carsten Selch Jensen
11. Rhetoric of War: The Imagination of War in Medieval Written Sources (Central and Eastern Europe in the High Middle Ages), David Kalhous and Ludmila Luňáková
12. Civil War as Holy War? Polyphonic Discourses of Warfare during the Internal Struggles in Norway in the Twelfth Century, Bjørn Bandlien
13. Martyrdom on the Field of Battle in Livonia during Thirteenth-Century Holy Wars and Christianization: Popular Belief and the Image of a Catholic Frontier, Kristjan Kaljusaar
14. Orthodox Responses to the Baltic Crusades, Anti Selart
Notes on Editors and Contributors
Selected Bibliography
Index