563

563

BYZANTINE INFLUENCE IN THE BALTIC REGION?

and pnppi, 'priest', from Old Russian popu. Is this an indication of an Eastern influence, perhaps of a Russian mission around the Gulf of Finland? Impressive as this idea may seem, there might be a different explanation for these loan-words. The Estonian scholar Enn Tarve has studied the evidence and has come to the conclusion that these words may be given various explanations. They have partly been transmitted by Germans and thus point to the West rather than the East. In any case they are not the result of a Russian mission, although there were of course contacts with the Russian Church. The rulers in Novgorod subdued some Finnish and Baltic tribes and took tributes from them, but they showed no interest in converting them to Christianity. The Russian empire was in its period of formation, with Novgorod as its new centre in the north, and they had no time for cultural or religious expansion into other areas than their own.

The schism of 1054 between Romę and Constantinople, however, seems to have been of little importance in the North. It is not mentioned even in the Nestor Chronicie, which was written in Kiev and was far morę closely related to the Byzantine Empire. There is no reason to believe in a power struggle here between the Eastern and the Western Church, as the latter was always in fuli control of the mission, and the former played no active role. Byzantine saints in the churches of Gotland may have looked unfamiliar but were by no means unacceptable.

The outcome of this survey thus seems fairly negative. Byzantine and Russian contacts with the Baltic seem to have been entirely connected with warriors and trade. Only in the post-Reformation period was there a morę vivid encounter between East and West in the Baltic region.

References

RUBIN = Michael Miiller-Wille (ed.), Rom wid Byzattz im Norden:Mission und Glaubcnswechsel im Ostsceraum wdhrend des 8.-14. Jahrhunderts 1-2, Mainz & Stuttgart 1997-98.

Beskow, Per, 'Runor och liturgi', Per Beskow and Reinhart Staats, Nordcns kristnandc i europeiskt per$pcktiv, Skara 1994, pp. 16-36.

-'Runes, Liturgy and Eschatology', Ingmar Brohed (ed.), Church and People in Britain

and Scandinauia, Lund 1996, pp. 77-89.

Cutler, Anthony, 'Garda, Kallunge and the Byzantine tradition of Gotland', Art Bulletin 51 (1969), pp. 257-66.

Duczko, Władysław, 'Byzantine Presence in Viking Age Sweden', RUBIN 1, pp. 291-311. Gustafsson, Bemdt, 'Osmundus episcopus a Suedia', Kyrkohistorisk Arsskrift 50 (1959), pp. 138-45.

Hom Fuglesang, Signe, 'A Critical Survey on Theories on Byzantine Influence in Scandinavia', RUBIN 1, pp. 35-58.

Ldrusson, M. Mdr, 'On the so-called Armenian bishops', Studia Islandica 18 (1960), pp. 23-38. Miiller-Wille, Michael, 'Relations between Byzantium and the North in the Light of Archaeology', RUBIN 1, pp. 405-22.

Roslund, Mats, 'Brosamen vom Tisch der Reichen: Byzantinische Funden aus Lund und Sigtuna (ca 980-1250)', RUBIN 2, pp. 325-88.

Tarvel, Enn, 'Mission und Glaubcnswechsel in Estland und Livland im 11.-13. Jahrhundert aufgrund sprachlicher Quellen', RUBIN 2, pp. 57-67.

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