QUAESTIONES MEDII AEVI NOVAE (2011)
I. FRONTIERS AND BORDERLANDS
(THE
SECTION EDITED BY
ANDRZEJ JANECZEK)
ANDRZEJ JANECZEK
WARSZAWA
FRONTIERS AND BORDERLANDS IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE.
INTRODUCTORY REMARKS
Frontiers and borderlands have long fascinated historiography,
including medieval studies, but in recent years we have seen
a clear increase in interest in the subject. In the last two decades,
there have been numerous international conferences and the
publication of a number of collective works involving historians
from many different countries on the topic, there have also been appearing
with increasing frequency separate monographs and articles in which the author
makes frontiers and borderlands the main subject of their analyses1. The
expansion of attention paid to these themes in European medieval studies is
especially notable, though on the other side of the Atlantic it has been an
intensively explored subject for over a hundred years (especially in connection
with the colonization of the North American West). The increased interest which
has become visible in English, German, French and Spanish historiography
and intensification of discussion and research has also led at the same time to
a widening of scope of the topic. Various regions, centres and situations have
become recognized and emphasized as borderlands, and not only in terms of
1 In order to save space I will cite here a selection of joint-authorship works: Medieval
Frontier Societies, ed. by R. Bartlett, A. MacKay, Oxford 1989; the separate volume of
“Siedlungsforschung. Archäologie. Geschichte. Geographie” IX (1991); Frontière et peuplement
dans la monde méditerranéen au Moyen Âge, Castrum, 4, ed. by J.-M. Poisson, Rome-Madrid
1992; Grenzen und Grenzregionen. Frontières et régions frontalières. Borders and Border
Regions, ed. by W. Haubrichs, R. Schneider, Saarbrücken 1993; Grenzen und Raumvorstellungen
(11.-20. Jh.). Frontières et conceptions de l’espace (11e-20e siècles), ed. by G.P. Marchal,
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ANDRZEJ JANECZEK
political boundaries as was traditional, but also as ethnic, religious and cultural
boundaries2, or linguistic frontiers3, the boundaries of economic zones4 or even
the borders of smaller administrative units or geographical microregions. Thus
historians start to follow the line of thinking of Lucien Febvre, who already
in 1922 was urging scholars to look at frontiers, rather than studying
boundaries – particularly political ones5.
As a result, the number of different “frontiers” and “borderlands” of variable
character and importance has increased dramatically in the recent literature.
The attention that has been paid to them has produced some interesting results.
It is however difficult to avoid the suspicion that the increasing attractiveness
Zürich 1996; Menschen und Grenzen in der frühen Neuzeit, ed. by W. Schmale, R. Stauber,
Berlin 1998; Frontiers in Question: Eurasian Borderlands, 700-1700, ed. by D. Power,
N. Standen, Basingstoke 1999; the separate volume of “Annual of Medieval Studies at CEU”
VI (2000), ed. by G. Jaritz; The Transformation of Frontiers. From Late Antiquity to the
Carolingians, ed. by W. Pohl, I. Wood, H. Reinitz, The Transformation of the Roman World,
10, Leiden 2001; Identidad y representación de la frontera en la España medieval (siglos XI-XIV), ed. by C. de Ayala Martínez, P. Buresi, Ph. Josserand, Madrid 2001; Medieval Frontiers:
Concepts and Practices, ed. by D. Abulafia, N. Berend, Aldershot 2002; Frontières. Actes du
125e Congrès national des sociétés historiques et scientifiques, ed. by Ch. Desplat, Paris 2002;
The European Frontier. Clashes and Compromises in the Middle Ages, ed. by J. Staecker,
Lund 2004; On the Frontier of Latin Europe. Integration and Segregation in Red Ruthenia,
1350-1600, ed. by Th. Wünsch, A. Janeczek, Warsaw 2004; Borders, Barriers, and Ethnogenesis.
Frontiers in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, ed. by F. Curta, Turnhout 2005; Frontiers
in the Middle Ages. Proceedings of the Third European Congress of Medieval Studies, ed. by
O. Merisalo, Louvain-la-Neuve 2006. See also note 2 and 21.
2 Les frontières religieuses en Europe du XVe au XVIIe siècle: actes du XXXIe Colloque
international d’études humanistes, ed. by R.R. Sauzet, Paris 1992; Grenzkultur – Mischkultur?,
ed. by R. Marti, Saarbrücken 2000; Frontiers of Faith: Religious Exchange and the Constitution
of Religious Identities 1400-1750, ed. by E. Andor, I.G. Toth, Budapest 2001; Crusade and
Conversion on the Baltic Frontier, 1150-1500, ed. by A.V. Murray, Aldershot 2001; The
Clash of Cultures on the Medieval Baltic Frontier, ed. by A.V. Murray, Farnham 2009. See
also: Ch.J. Halperin, The Ideology of Silence: Prejudice and Pragmatism on the Medieval
Religious Frontier, “Comparative Studies in Society and History” XXVI (1984) 3, pp. 442-466;
J. Osterhammel, Kulturelle Grenzen in der Expansion Europas, “Saeculum” XLVI (1995),
pp. 101-138; P. Burke, Cultural Frontiers of Early Modern Europe, “Przegl¹d Historyczny”
XCVI (2005) 2, pp. 205-216.
3 For instance: V. Cornish, Borderlands of Language in Europe and Their Relation to
the Historic Frontier of Christendom, London 1936; R. Marti, Sprache und Grenze, in: Granice
i pogranicza. Jêzyk i historia, ed. by S. Dubisz, A. Nagórko, Warszawa 1994, pp. 23-37.
4 As an example, see for the borderlands in the Mediterranean zone: F. Braudel,
La Méditerranée et le monde méditerranéen à l’époque de Philippe II, Paris 1949. The question
of the role of the Elbe as a frontier has been examined by A. Wyczañski, who has refuted the
views traditional in economic and social histories on that topic: Granica na £abie w XV-XVII wieku – w¹tpliwoœci historyka, in: Miêdzy Zachodem a Wschodem. Etniczne, kulturowe
i religijne pogranicza Rzeczypospolitej w XVI-XVIII wieku, ed. by K. Mikulski, A. Zieliñska-Nowicka, Toruñ 2006, pp. 17-21.
5 L. Febvre, A Geographical Introduction to History, Westport 1932, pp. 296-315 (orig.:
La terre et l’évolution humaine, Paris 1922).
FRONTIERS AND BORDERLANDS IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE
7
of the wide use of this concept might bring with it possibilities of its abuse.
An additional threat is the incautious use of the term when it is not always
appropriate. This would lead to the dilution of the concepts, which are often
undefined, superficially envisaged and – despite their wide use – still insufficiently
comprehended.
This is to some degree facilitated by the huge elasticity of the concept within
which one can place almost every frontier situation, including those as different
as the peripheries of settlement as well as a densely-settled area of mixing and
exchange, a barrier and a zone of transition, an open zone of expansion as
well as a closed fortified defence line, the ordinary edge of administrative
units as well as the limits of a civilization, the edge of an empire and the edge
of a land-holding, the extensive expanses of steppes dividing various nomadic
groups and the narrow boundary between states, the marches of the Empire
and an overseas colony. The term can be seen on different scales (from the
continental to the micro-regional), can be expressed in different forms (as a line
or zone), have a different character (place, society, situation, a movement,
a process, a state of mind), various functions, a sphere across which there is
a division and across which there is interaction (with nature, another community
or society, state, culture), a zone with a variety of significances and influences.
In the case of such a wide range of undisciplined use of the concept of a frontier,
its cognitive usefulness might run the risk of becoming devalued, leading to it
to become an amorphous concept which loses precision and its meaning.
There have been problems with the various terms used from the beginning
of its career in historiography, which was begun by the famous thesis of Frederick
Jackson Turner on the role of the frontier in the history of the American West6.
This gave rise to a long discussion, not abating for decades, between historians
and sociologists, supporters and opponents, revisionists and imitators both in
America as well as outside. This thesis still exerts an undiminished influence,
and opinions and research on borders and borderlands are still in one way or
another orientated on the vision of Turner. The works of pro-Turnerists, anti-Turnerists, neo-Turnerists and post-Turnerists now constitute a huge literature
on this topic7. These problems are now being dealt with also by European
6 F.J. Turner, The Significance of the Frontier in American History, in: Annual Report of
the American Historical Association for 1893, Washington 1894, pp. 199-227, reprinted
many times. Turner himself used the term somewhat intuitively and loosely, and even admitted
that it “is an elastic one, and for our purposes does not need sharp definition” – J.D. Forbes,
Frontiers in American History and the Role of the Frontier Historian, “Ethnohistory” XV
(1968) 2, pp. 203-235; P.N. Limerick, The Adventures of the Frontier in the Twentieth Century,
in: The Frontier in American Culture, ed. by J.R. Grossman, Berkeley 1994, pp. 67-102.
7 From among the synthetic works, see: M.W. Mikesell, Comparative Studies in Frontier
History, “Annals of the Association of American Geographers” L (1960) 1, pp. 62-74;
W.W. Savage, S.I. Thompson, The Comparative Study of the Frontier: An Introduction,
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ANDRZEJ JANECZEK
historiography, despite a general rejection of theses “contaminated by
Turnerism”8, attempting, still without much success, to create their own theory
and to define the boundaries of the concept of a borderland9.
The confusion is additionally increased by the differences in meaning of the
terminology used. The conceptual vocabulary of different languages is somewhat
variable and lacks coherence: English frontier, boundary, borderland, limit;
French la frontière, la limite, fins and confins; Italian la frontiera, il confine,
termini; Spanish la frontera, el limite, el confin; German die Mark, die Grenze10
(and the derivatives Grenzgebiet, Grenzraum); the Slavic (e.g. Polish) granica
(‘border’) and pogranicze (‘borderland’), miedza (‘baulk’, absorbed into
Hungarian as megye), rubie¿ (‘frontier’), kresy (‘ends, distant extent’), formerly
also kraina (East-Slavic ukraj, ukraina, ‘land on the outskirts, on the edge’).
in: The Frontier. Comparative Studies, II, ed. by W.W. Savage, S.I. Thompson, Norman 1979,
pp. 3-24; D.J. Weber, Turner, the Boltonians, and the Borderland, “The American Historical
Review” XCI (1986) 1, pp. 66-81; A.G. Bogue, Frederick Jackson Turner Reconsidered, “The
History Teacher” XXVII (1994) 2, pp. 195-221; J. Adelman, S. Aron, From Borderlands to
Borders: Empires, Nation-States and the Peoples in between in North American History,
“The American Historical Review” CIV (1999) 3, pp. 814-841. This has been discussed in
the Polish literature too: H. Litwin, Koncepcja pogranicza w historiografii amerykañskiej.
Frederick Jackson Turner, jego kontynuatorzy i krytycy, “Kwartalnik Historii Nauki i Techniki”
XLIII (1998) 1, pp. 115-129.
8 On the influence of Turner on European medieval studies: R.I. Burns, The Significance of
the Frontier in the Middle Ages, in: Medieval Frontier Societies, pp. 307-330. The first attempt
to introduce Turner’s theses into European historiography appeared in 1913 and referred to
the German Ostsiedlung – J.W. Thompson, Profitable Fields of Investigation in Medieval
History, “American Historical Review” XVIII (1913) 3, pp. 490-504. It is considered that
a classic example of the application of this thesis to the European Middle Ages is the study of
A.R. Lewis, The Closing of the Medieval Frontier 1250-1350, “Speculum” XXXIII (1958) 4,
pp. 475-485.
9 D. Power, Introduction. Frontiers: Terms, Concepts, and the Historians of Medieval
and Early Modern Europe, in: Frontiers in Question…, pp. 1-12; D. Abulafia, Introduction:
Seven Types of Ambiguity, c. 1100 - c. 1500, in: Medieval Frontiers…, pp. 1-34. The usefulness
of the concept in medieval studies has been analyzed by N. Berend, Medievalists and the Notion
of the Frontier, “The Medieval History Journal” II (1999) 1, pp. 55-72, attempting to define
in a rigorous manner the use of the term “frontier society” (again, eadem, At the Gate of
Christendom. Jews, Muslims and “Pagans” in Medieval Hungary, c. 1000 - c. 1300, Cambridge
2001, pp. 6 ff.
10 It is noteworthy that this is a loan word from West Slavic and this has been noted by
F. Miklosisch and the Grimm brothers; its spread has been analyzed by H.-W. Nicklis, Von
der ‘Grenitze’ zur Grenze. Die Grenzidee des lateinischen Mittellalters (6.-15. Jhdt.), “Blätter
für deutsche Landesgeschichte” CXXVIII (1992), pp. 1-29. Also H.-J. Karp, Grenzen in
Ostmitteleuropa während des Mittelalters. Ein Beitrag zur Entstehungsgeschichte der Grenzlinie
aus dem Grenzsaum, Köln 1972; H. Kolb, Zur Frühgeschichte des Wortes ‘Grenze’, “Archiv
für das Studium der neueren Sprachen und Literaturen” CCXXVI (1989), pp. 344-356;
R. Marti, Grenzbezeichnungen – grenzüberschreitend, in: Grenzen erkennen – Begrenzungen
überwinden. Festschrift für Reinhard Schneider, ed. by W. Haubrichs, K.-U. Jäschke, M. Oberweis,
Sigmaringen 1999, pp. 19-33.
FRONTIERS AND BORDERLANDS IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE
9
These names all have their semantic nuances and cannot always be simply
substituted one for the other11, which is illustrated by the differences between
the English and American understanding of the words frontier and boundary12.
The Polish terms (apart from the semantically broad concept pogranicze which
is known from Old Polish), and among them the especially widespread Kresy13,
have a specific sense – emphasizing the factor of peripherialism and
marginalisation, a state of separation and dispersion, meaning the ‘end’, ‘edge’,
a ‘place where our world ends’, and thus a fines. The term frontier and its
Romance-language cognates on the other hand come from the Latin frons14,
which means quite the opposite, ‘forehead’, ‘front’, ‘that which is at the
beginning’. The different meanings of the terms used are a result of a fundamental
difference between two methods of conceptualisation of the phenomenon, in
one the frontier is seen as a forward facing “front”, while in the other it is
a backward-facing “edge”. This is not however a sharp division or the only
division, some terms refer to a linearity, while others depict zones, some terms
suggest interaction, others do not, and various terms might be more suitable
for expressing the various functions of frontiers (e.g., political, administrative).
The terms used outside western and central Europe have their own, separate
character, for example the Arabic thaghr, the edge of the Islamic territories in
the neighbourhood of a war with an enemy, the Ottoman uj, the limit behind
which extend the lands of the non-believers, or the Byzantine akra or eschatia,
distant from the centre on the semi-barbaric peripheries15.
11 L. Febvre, Frontière: Le mot et la notion, in: idem, Pour une histoire á part entière,
Paris 1962 (19281), pp. 11-24; J.R.V. Prescott, The Geography of Frontiers and Boundaries,
London 1965; D. Nordman, Frontiere e confini in Francia: evoluzione dei termini e dei concetti,
in: La frontiera da stato a nazione: il caso Piemonte, ed. by C. Ossola, C. Raffestin, M. Ricciardi,
Roma 1987, pp. 39-55.
12 For a discussion of this: L.K.D. Kristof, The Nature of Frontiers and Boundaries,
“Annals of the Association of the American Geographers” XLIX (1959), pp. 269-282.
13 F. Gross, Kresy: The Frontier of Eastern Europe, “The Polish Review” XXIII (1978) 2,
pp. 3-16. The term ‘Kresy’ is also a loan word, this time from Germanic; see A. Nagórko,
Granica vs Grenze, Kresy vs Kreis (z historii wzajemnych zapo¿yczeñ), in: Granice i pogranicza…,
pp. 39-46.
14 The word arose (as frontera) in eleventh-century Aragon – Ph. Sénac, La frontière
aragonaise aux XIe et XIIe siècles: le mot et la chose pro defensionem Christianorum et
confusionem Sarracenorum, “Cahiers de civilisation médiévale” XLII (1999), pp. 259-272. See
also: P. Buresi, The Appearance of the Frontier Concept in the Iberian Peninsula: At the Crossroads
of Local, National and Pontifical Strategies (11th-13th Centuries), in this volume of “Quaestiones
Medii Aevi Novae”, pp. 81-99. The history of its acceptance into the English language (both
British and American) has been followed by F. Mood, Notes on the History of the Word ‘Frontier’,
“Agricultural History” XXII (1948) 2, pp. 78-83. See also M. Pfister, Grenzbezeichnungen
im Italoromanischen und Galloromanischen, in: Grenzen und Grenzregionen…, pp. 37-50.
15 Th.F. Glick, Islamic and Christian Spain in the Early Middle Ages, Boston 20052,
pp. 52 ff.; C. Heywood, The Frontier in Ottoman History: Old Ideas and New Myths,
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ANDRZEJ JANECZEK
The variety of terms used in the written sources and modern terminology
used in different cultural circles is not only a linguistic curiosity, but is determined
by the variety of means by which space and the definition of boundaries are
conceptualised and the variety of manners in which they were created, used
and crossed. Boundaries are variable, in the same way as the people who created
them, in different times and for various purposes, and who filled the space
between with political and social organizations, endowed them with special
meaning, to define and separate themselves from others, define what is “theirs”
and what is “alien”. Boundaries are the results of the activities of societies. It
is in this that lies the weakness of the theories of Turner which were commented
upon by Owen Lattimore: “he taught he saw what the frontier did to society,
he was really seeing what society did to the frontier” 16.
In addition to the diffuse use of terms for different categories of frontier,
there is another conventional, detached concept of frontier and bordering which
has become part of modern scholarship on society and culture. This derives
from the observation of the heterogeneity of space produced by social and
cultural factors and which undergoes division and qualification by categories
such as sacral and secular, private and public, known and imagined, empirical
and mythical, familiar and alien, friendly and hostile, good and bad. Such
a boundary, defining differently qualified zones could be a fence, town gate,
field boundary, the edge of the forest, a ritually drawn circle in the sand or
even the lips (the “frontier station” of the corporality of a man, an entry into
the internal world). We may also meet ideas of the portal of a cathedral as the
frontier zone between sacrum and profanum, or the porch of a house which
comprises the place where the public and private zones meet. Time also is given
a similar division, so we see dusk as being a time of transition between day
and night, or night as a time zone conquered by the denizens of the night life
of one of the great cities, colonizing the darkness by the light of street lamps17.
In such a use, the notions of frontier and borderlands are used as a stylistic tool,
hyperbole suggestively evoking the imagination by indicating in place of these
specific spatial and temporal situations a correlation with territorial boundaries.
The different forms of the frontiers and borderlands which have a physical
form is only one part of the problem with the significance of the term as we
in: Frontiers in Question…, pp. 233 ff.; P. Stephenson, The Byzantine Frontier at the Lower
Danube in the Late Tenth and Eleventh Centuries, in: ibidem, pp. 81 ff.
16 O. Lattimore, The Frontier in History, in: idem, Studies in Frontier History. Collected
Papers 1928-1958, London 1962 (19551), pp. 469-491, at p. 490.
17 M. Melbin, Night as Frontier, “American Sociological Review” XLIII (1978) 1,
pp. 3-22; idem, Night as Frontier: Colonizing the World after Dark, New York 1987;
P. Kowalski, Granica. Próba uporz¹dkowania kategorii antropologicznych, in: Pogranicze jako
problem kultury, ed. by T. Smoliñska, Opole 1994, pp. 143-151; J. Adamczewski, Kulturowe
funkcje miedzy, “Etnolingwistyka” IV (1999), pp. 65-82.
FRONTIERS AND BORDERLANDS IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE
11
use it today. It is used by anthropology (particularly the notion of a frontier) in
investigations of ethnic groups and awareness of and the formation of identities18.
In these studies we observe that differences in language, belief systems, behaviour
and even such minor differences as in different style of costume or hairstyle
might create a frontier between human groups19. The scope of connections and
divisions which forms the boundary between community and “Otherness” is
an invisible line, a symbolic one which runs through human awareness, a mental
boundary which can, but does not necessarily have a reflection in physical space,
it need not exist in objective terms, but defines the imagined limits of the
community. It is created by the process of marking oneself and being marked
in processes of adscription and self-adscription, exclusion and self-exclusion,
separating members of a group from others, who are beyond its boundaries.
The symbolic boundaries between groups, being cultural constructs, interest
anthropologists and ethnologists far more than concrete, physical boundaries20.
At their centre of interest are social and cultural boundaries, the invisible line
created by ethnic differences, differences in religion, language, social condition
or sex. Boundaries such as these all played a greater role among people than
the frontiers between kingdoms and empires, examples might be: those between
pagans and Christians, Catholics and “heretics”, between people with a common
language and peoples with foreign ones, those who are necessarily therefore
“dumb” (this is the etymology of the name Niemcy (‘Germans’) among the
Slavs), between inhabitants of towns and village people, between the monastery
and the world around it, between men and women, and an infinite number of
other means of defining an opposition between “us” and “them”. From that
perspective, territorial boundaries of political polities are just one specific type
of frontier, they are just one link, though the first link, in the chain of significances,
associations and reflections which they evoke.
There is a similar broadening and shifting of interest in the issues of movement
through frontiers and their crossing. This does not concern obviously just
movement from country to country, or of contraband, or the military incursion
across a border, but of the overcoming of symbolic boundaries, not less real
18 H. Donnan, Th.M. Wilson, Frontiers of Identity, Nation and State, Oxford-New York
1999, present the contribution of the social sciences to the understanding of symbolic frontiers
and those existing in a material reality.
19 Such studies are also being carried out by historians. An analysis of medieval iconography
discussing the depiction of the factors of “Otherness” and “foreigness” has been carried out by
G. Jahritz, Social Grouping and the Language of Dress in the Late Middle Ages, “The Medieval
History Journal” III (2000) 2, pp. 235-259; idem, The Visual Image of the ‘Other’ in Late
Medieval Urban Space: Patterns and Constructions, in: Segregation – Integration – Assimilation.
Religious and Ethnic Groups in the Medieval Towns of Central and Eastern Europe, ed. by
D. Keene, B. Nagy, K. Szende, Farnham 2009, pp. 235-249.
20 H. Donnan, Th.M. Wilson, An Anthropology of Frontiers, in: Border Approaches.
Anthropological Perspectives on Frontiers, ed. by iidem, Lanham 1994, pp. 1-14.
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ANDRZEJ JANECZEK
than physical ones21. The metaphorical use of the term has become familiar to
us through such terms as the frontiers of human knowledge, the borderland of
disciplines or literary genres, not forgetting such surprising linguistic fantasies
as for example “frontiers of banks” or “frontiers in brain repair”. The enthusiasm
which these various types of frontiers have aroused – material and imagined,
physical and conceptual, literal and abstract – has now extended beyond
anthropology and the concept has become part of the theory of literature,
linguistics and other research fields, with an especially keen interest in studies
on social communication and transculturalism.
This variety of types and fluidity of meaning are an embarras de richesse
for various disciplines which make the concept of boundaries a tool for defining
and characterizing those particular social, cultural and political phenomena
which are created at the point of contact across them through osmosis,
penetration, and overlap. Historiography approaches these challenges somewhat
cautiously, and attempts to define the general developmental characteristics
which would be typical of frontiers and the communities living in borderlands
formed at different times and in different places, without much optimism about
the success of such approaches. Indeed, attempts to create an unequivocal, stable
and uniform model of frontiers have met with no success. As a phenomenon,
they are too variable in their geographical, cultural and political conditions, the
factors producing change which decided on their individual character have been
too strong. The abandonment of attempts to generalise and the recognition of
the individuality of cases even led to doubts and questions whether the concept
of a frontier and consequently the notion of a “frontier society” are of any
cognitive usefulness as a category of analysis. Furthermore, and what is worse,
questions were raised whether they are harmful and misleading concepts,
imposing a filter producing a stereotypical dichotomy, creating a sharp contrast
in a considerably more complicated reality in which divisions and connections
are more fuzzy and tangled, exclusion and integration interwoven and instead
of a clear opposition we would see instead more nuanced shades and gradients22.
Despite this variety and ambivalence, efforts have been made not to
concentrate on local studies and to attempt to see the phenomenon of frontiers
in the more general context. Attempts have also been made to introduce some
21 In the field of medieval studies, works on this topic: Crossing Boundaries. Issues of
Cultural and Individual Identity in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, ed. by S. McKee,
Turnhout 1999; Grenzräume und Grenzüberschreitungen im Vergleich. Der Osten und der
Westen des mittelalterlichen Lateineuropa, ed. by K. Herbers, N. Jaspert, Europa im Mittelalter,
7, Berlin 2007; Grenze und Grenzüberschreitung im Mittelalter, ed. by E. Knefelkamp,
K. Bosselmann-Cyran, Berlin 2007.
22 See for example E. Manzano-Moreno, Christian-Muslim Frontier in Al-Andalus:
Idea and Reality, in: The Arab Influence in Medieval Europe, ed. by D.A. Agius, R. Hitchcock,
Reading 1994, pp. 83-99.
FRONTIERS AND BORDERLANDS IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE
13
form of classification, which – bearing in mind the differentiation of
characteristics, forms and functions – separate physical boundaries, social ones,
conceptual and symbolic, political and settlement, linear and zonal, direct
and transitional, divisive and exclusive, compelling separation and facilitating
contact, permeable and isolative, open and closed. Comparative studies have
been advanced upon, with full awareness of the risks involved, confronting
examples from sometimes totally divergent places on the continent as for example
Iberia and east central Europe, in order to identify similarities and differences
and thus more clearly see the phenomenon itself and its own characteristics23.
One other possibility of overcoming the problems connected with the
particularism of the phenomenon was shown by the influential and thought-provoking work of Robert Bartlett. The development of different places in
the borderland scattered on the peripheries of the Latin world was treated in
a homogeneous manner, as part of a model sequence of conquest, colonisation
and acculturation, which contributed to the process of the expansion and
formation of Europe24.
In many other works, attempts have been made to indicate that, despite
the individuality of particular situations, there are a certain number of common
characteristics which to a greater or lesser extent are shared by frontier societies.
These include aspects such as militarisation, instability and a state of permanent
threat, the existence of greater freedoms, but also subject to greater violence,
a state of open conflict between cultures and identities, the activity of mechanisms
of negotiation and mediation, the liveliness of processes of cultural exchange
and the emergence of syncretic cultural forms, social dynamism and the creation
of conditions for mobility and advancement, the exalted position of the local
aristocracy, multiple loyalties, the creation of the myths of the frontiersmen
and the bastion of civilization25. This catalogue of characteristics is neither
applicable to all cases, nor is it complete; careful investigation will reveal in
23 The collection Grenzräume und Grenzüberschreitungen…, comprises comparative
studies looking at the same problems in pairs of situations one in the east, the other in the west.
24 R. Bartlett, The Making of Europe: Conquest, Colonization, and Cultural Change,
950-1350, London 1993.
25 From the huge literature, see for example: E. Lourie, A Society Organized for War:
Medieval Spain, “Past and Present” XXXV (1966), pp. 54-76; R.I. Burns, The Crusader Kingdom
of Valencia. Reconstruction on a Thirteenth-Century Frontier, Cambridge 1967; Th.F. Glick,
op.cit.; M. Gonzáles Jiménez, Frontier and Settlement in the Kingdom of Castile (1085-1350),
in: Medieval Frontier Societies, pp. 49-74; R. Davies, Frontier Arrangements in Fragmented
Societies: Ireland and Wales, in: ibidem, pp. 77-100; P. Knoll, Economic and Political Institutions
on the Polish-German Frontier in the Middle Ages: Action, Reaction, Interaction, in: ibidem,
pp. 151-174; K.-U. Jäschke, Mehrvasallitäten in Grenzregionen – ein Forschungsdesiderat,
in: Granice i pogranicza…, pp. 65-117; R. Schneider, Institutionen zur Regelung von
Grenzkonflikten im Mittelalter, in: ibidem, pp. 125-132; N. Berend, Medievalists…; eadem,
Défense de la Chrétienté et naissance d‘une identité. Hongrie, Pologne et péninsule Ibérique
14
ANDRZEJ JANECZEK
each case different characteristics which accompany those which are common
to all and typical.
The impossibility of creating schematic models to cover all cases, their
resistance to attempts to theorise about them, their variety and the individuality,
these all have been and are typical characteristics of frontiers and borderlands
and research done upon them. This continually arouses doubts and objections
and justified concerns, but also constitutes the element that makes the subject
so attractive and inviting to the investigator. It is precisely in this variety that
lie the chances for reaching a deeper understanding through the examination
of the similarities and contrasts. The elasticity of the concept is a real threat,
but also an advantage, inspiring the use of comparative methods and also an
encouragement to the confrontation of the results of the investigations of different
disciplines. Caution towards possible oversimplification and uncritical use of
the terminology imposes the necessity to pay attention to precision and the
strictness of the definition, and the careful justification of the adequacy of the
conceptual apparatus to the studies undertaken. In the fact that the terms
“frontier” and “frontier society” are explanatory concepts, but are not self-explanatory one may perceive both drawbacks but also benefits. This dose of
optimism however cannot absolve us from a full realisation of the dangers
and risks of the use of these abused, ambiguous and diffuse concepts.
The studies collected in this volume reflect both the variety of form which
borders and borderlands had, as well as the variety of investigative possibilities
and of approach. At the same time of course they do not represent them all –
this still a phenomenon which is little known and inadequately described.
They show and illustrate however individual directions of research on this
phenomenon which the more resistant it is to our attempts to dissect its complex
nature, the more we are stimulated to try. Discussion of this topic is far from
being totally exhausted, and despite the increased attention being paid to it, to
judge from the lively resonance that it still evokes, does not give the appearance
of becoming atrophied in the near future. We hope that the texts in this volume
brought here to the reader’s attention will lead to the further development of
this current of research and be a voice in the continuing discussion of frontiers,
borders, margins, edges and the people living among them.
translated by Paul Barford
au Moyen Âge, “Annales. Histoire, Sciences sociales” LVIII (2003) 5, pp. 1009-1027; J. Muldoon,
Identity on the Medieval Irish Frontier. Degenerate Englishmen, Wild Irishmen, Middle Nations,
Gainesville 2003; J.J. Cohen, Hybridity, Identity, and Monstrosity in Medieval Britain: On
Difficult Middles, New York 2006.