PROVOCĂRI ŞI OPORTUNITĂŢI ALE PROXIMITĂŢILOR MEDIEVALE: ORDINUL CAVALERILOR TEUTONI ŞI COMUNITĂŢILE DE LA FRONTIERELE CHRISTIANITAS
Challenges and Opportunities of the Medieval Proximities: the Order of the Teutonian Knights and the Communities at the Christianitas Borders

Summary/Abstract: The spectacular career of the Order of Teutonic Knights in medieval and modern historical writing, as well as the multitude of aspects incorporated by its presence in Central and Eastern Europe, give this issue a certain legitimacy in the concerns of reconstituting the identity and institutional genesis of communities in the region that they identified themselves with. From the perspective of universal history, this case study provides indisputable arguments for amending theses on the stagnation and immobility of medieval civilization, called into question by the success of people who connected the experiences of the Middle East and familiarity with the realities of Northeast Europe. Founded in the ambiance of the devotional enthusiasm for the pilgrimage to the Holy Places and assuming the Carolingian paradigm on the Christian mission, the Order established in the first half of the thirteenth century in the Baltic Sea coast reinterpreted the concept of the Crusade in relation to the ecclesiological requirements of the Saint. He secured the necessary human resources thanks to the connection with the world of the German principalities and their offensive interests and ended up activating through hostile reporting, other national and political projects, involving the founding of the Polish-Lithuanian state and the state refoundation in the Russian princely world.

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