The endurance of old gods: engaging with paganism in the medieval eastern Baltic

This is an Archive of a Past Event

In the 13th century, crusading armies unleashed a relentless holy war against the last indigenous 'pagan' societies in Europe: tribal groups in the Eastern Baltic region. Tribal territories were replaced with new Christian states run by the Teutonic Order and individual bishops - the former virtually unique in Europe. They constructed castles, encouraged colonists, developed towns and introduced Christianity. However, despite the imposition of a militarised Christian theocracy in the conquered territories, the persistance of pre-Christian practices into the 16th century suggests that relations with the indigenous populations were more complex.

Aleks Pluskowski is the FSI-Humanities Center International Visitor and associate professor of medieval archaeology at the University of Reading, leading the Medieval Social Archaeology research cluster. He has taught medieval archaeology and zooarchaeology at Reading since 2007, having completed a PhD and a Junior Research Fellowship at the University of Cambridge. He is a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London, and sits on the committees of the Medieval European Research Community and the Society for Medieval Archaeology. He has been involved in excavations of medieval sites across Europe.