Saksa ordu kuvand Philippe de Mézières’i „Vana palveränduri unenäos“
The Depiction of the Teutonic Order in Philippe de Mézières’ Old Pilgrim’s Dream

Summary/Abstract: Philippe de Mézières (1327–1405) was a prolific author and crusade propagandist who wrote, among other things, about the eastern Baltic region and the Teutonic Order. His most extensive work, the Old Pilgrim’s Dream (Songe du viel pelerin) contains an allegorical travel narrative taking readers through the political centres of the known world, including the Baltic Sea area. The remarkably laudatory and optimistic depiction of the Teutonic Order stands out in a work otherwise highly critical of almost all European political formations of the time. The knights are presented as monk-soldiers living a life of obedience, chastity and communal ownership of wealth. Historians have thus far provided two kinds of explanation for this. For some, Mézières was influenced by the highly efficacious propaganda machine put in place by the Teutonic Order at the height of its political and cultural power. Others have pointed to Mézières’ own agency in constructing an ideal image of the Order, considering it an implicit indictment of the phenomenon of the Preussenreisen – the seasonal campaigns fought by Western knights against Lithuanians – as well as of the customs of Western nobility more generally. This article aims to buttress the second approach by providing additional explanations and framing the issue in theoretical terms borrowed from the Cambridge school of intellectual history. In describing the eastern Baltic region, Mézières relied both on first-hand experience and on a series of written texts, constructing an account that both enhances his own authority as witness and performs a number of speech acts that need to be interpreted in the context of his work. Firstly, the author employs various notions taken from chivalric culture to describe the life of Lithuanian pagans and especially the Teutonic order. Taken together with his overall distaste for chivalry and courtly love, this amounts to an inversion of chivalric tropes in favour of a fundamentally religious conception of knighthood in service of the crusade. Secondly, the Teutonic Order is in many ways presented as a precursor to the military order Mézières himself wishes to create. On the one hand, the optimistic outlook on the future of the Order’s activities fits with Mézières’ belief that a military order of utmost moral standing can serve as a vanguard of Christian society, leading it into a blissful future. On the other hand, by depicting an existing chivalric order in highly idealised terms, Mézières brings to light a living example of the feasibility of his own plans.

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