Antemurale Christianitatis

Antemurale Christianitatis ( Latin for front wall of Christianity; mostly translated as bulwark of Christianity) is a rhetorical topos or a metaphor that has been used by various actors, especially in East Central and Southeast Europe , since the late Middle Ages and in the 16th century .

These legitimized their power and justified political , military and financial demands by ascribing the special task of defending Western Christianity as a bulwark against all actual and assumed dangers from outside.

This term was used to describe defensive situations, for example the fight of the Russian Christians against the Mongol storm or the Polish Catholics against Russian Orthodoxy and Islam .

In the case of the Croats and the Poles , the idea of ​​being a “bulwark of Christianity” became part of the national self- image .

With the Croatians

Allegorical representation of Croatia as Antemurale Christianitatis : Mother Croatia defends Western culture and faith against the attacking Ottomans with a sword and a Croatian shield ( Ferdinand von Quiquerez-Beaujeu , 1892)

When the Ottomans conquered Constantinople in 1453 , Pope Kalixt III called. Christianity on the crusade .

The Christian army, which defeated the Ottoman army in the Battle of Belgrade in 1456 , also included a large number of Croats led by the Franciscan John of Kapistran . Kapistran died in Ilok in 1456 and was later canonized .

At that time, many Croatians died in defensive fighting. Especially in 1493, when around 10,000 Croats and a large part of the aristocracy of that time were killed in the lost battle on Krbavsko Polje .

Pope Leo X recognized the Croats in 1519 as Antemurale Christianitatis ( Croatian Predziđe kršćanstva ) because they resisted the expansion of the Ottoman Empire into Europe .

In the 16th and 17th centuries, the Croatians fought the most violent battles against the advancing Ottomans. This epoch became known as Plorantis Croatiae saecula duo ("the two centuries of mourning Croatia") after a poem by Paul Ritter-Vitezović published in 1703 .

literature

• Paul Srodecki: Antemurale Christianitatis: On the genesis of the bulwark rhetoric in eastern Central Europe on the threshold from the Middle Ages to the early modern period (=  historical studies . Volume 508 ). Matthiesen Verlag, Husum 2015, ISBN 978-3-7868-1508-2 (also dissertation , 2013).

Web links

• Serapion Mongol Storm: Antemurale Christianitatis - In the fight against those of different faiths (PDF file)
• Antemurale christianitatis - borderline situation as self-image (Poland)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Martin Davorin Krmpotic: Croatia . In: The Catholic Encyclopedia . tape 4 . Robert Appleton Company, New York 1908 ( newadvent.org ).