Memoria encompasses many academic disciplines: prehistory, sociology, cultural history and more. The term can mean the ways in which people remembered things (ars memoriae). It also refers to the ways in which commemoration of the past reflected group identity. Gustavs Strenga’s book, based on his 2013 doctoral dissertation, contributes to this latter field. He focuses on a region that has lately been experiencing a resurgence in Anglophone scholarship: Old Livonia (present-day Latvia and Estonia).

Strenga aims to examine how various groups and individuals in Livonia engaged in memorial practices across a span of roughly three centuries, from the twelfth century to the sixteenth. He shows how several different groups were active in this area, each engaging in forms related to memoria and collective memory to solidify their identities and institutional beliefs. These included the bishops (and archbishops) of Riga, members of the Livonian Branch of the Teutonic Knights, prominent town guilds in Riga and Reval (Tallinn), monastic communities, and individuals associated with lesser guilds. Those often left out from historiographical traditions, namely the average citizen of the town, also engaged in practices aimed at shaping collective memory.

Seven chapters, an introduction, and a conclusion comprise the book. The introduction sets out the problem: while the topic of memory and remembrance in premodern societies has been explored very much, little has been said about the ways in which these practices impacted self-image and self-perception. Strenga outlines the relationship between memoria and memory in Livonia. He expertly engages the theoretical paradigms employed in the book and the ways in which they can be applied to medieval Livonia.

Chapter 1 concerns the origins of two key political, economic, and military powers in medieval Livonia: The Church in Riga and the Order of the Teutonic Knights. These groups were often at odds with one another. The centrality of the city of Riga and its cathedral as a key space in which the clergy engaged in memorial practices and spaces (namely the cathedral in Riga) to commemorate the origins of the Christian faith in Livonia is a main theme. Strenga then concentrates on the Teutonic Order and its memorial practices, drawing on the extensive historiographical texts produced in the Order’s milieu and the necrologies associated with the Order’s houses in the Empire.

The commemoration of individuals, i.e., the Masters of the Teutonic Order in Livonia and the Cathedral Chapter in Riga, forms the topic of Chapter 2. In remembering the deceased masters of the Teutonic Order through liturgical prayers, pious foundations, and the production of historical texts, the authority of the Order was maintained. Strenga’s analysis of the grave slab of a marshal in the Order, Andreas von Steinberg (d. 1375), its relationship to the historical texts documenting his death, and how this reflects the memoria of a higher official in the Teutonic Order is a high point of the chapter. Following a discussion of how urban populations engaged in the commemoration of the masters, he then moves on to the ways in which members of the Riga Cathedral Chapter were remembered in the Riga Cathedral.

In Chapter 3, Strenga discusses the ways in which other religious groups, like monasteries, commemorated their dead as part of the memorial landscape of medieval Livonia. He challenges the prior use and interpretation of an important yet overlooked source: the fourteenth-century Annales Dunamundenses. He argues that they were not written at Dünamünde Abbey (Daugavgrīga, Latvia), and that they reflect the memorial practices of the Cistercian community at Padis (Padise, Estonia), which was largely destroyed in the St George’s Night Riot of 1343. He analyses the contents of the text and connects it to the historiographical tradition of the Teutonic Knights, reflecting a “network of memory” between the two groups through the ways in which historical memory was preserved and exchanged.

While memoria was useful in establishing continuity and the transition of authority, it was also important in times of conflict. Chapter 4 concerns the conflict between the Teutonic Order and the Church in Riga. Following a discussion of the power imbalance between the Teutonic Knights in Livonia and the Church in Riga that emerged in the 1230s, Strenga considers how the Knights sought to establish their authority by overtaking the memorial space of the Cathedral of Riga from the late thirteenth century and into the late fifteenth century. There were periods of success for the Knights, but ultimately it was the Church and the Cathedral Chapter who won this battle over the memorial space in Riga.

Chapters 5 and 6 concern the memorial practices of urban elites and non-elites. Strenga’s book shines as an example of the diversity of sources available for the study urban elites in medieval Livonia. He moves from the cloister, as it were, to the town, focusing on the ways in which memoria had a clear social function among urban elites in Riga and Reval. This was most evident in the merchant guilds in both cities, who also engaged in funding chantries and supporting the relief of the poor as a means to ensure personal salvation and to remember the deceased predecessors of those who were in the guilds.

With Chapter 6, Strenga reconstructs the memoria practices of the non-elite. Siding with the interpretation of Otto Gerhard Oexle, Strenga uses a rich variety of sources to illuminate the experience of those called “non-German” (Undeutsche), engaging the indigenous perspectives on memory and memoria. Using books of fines, Strenga shows how even at this level of the urban society in Riga and Reval, commemoration of the dead was an important element in establishing group identity. Through his use of archival sources and unpublished materials Gustavs Strenga does a service to social and urban historians of the Baltic region.

In Chapter 7, Strenga considers the drastic changes brought about by the Reformation in Livonia. Exploring a wide variety of written and visual sources, he highlights how the Reformation did not, in fact, bring an end to memoria and memorial practices. It simply changed the ways in which they were carried out. Strenga shows how the image of Russia and Muscovy in fact united the Teutonic Order and the Church in Riga, serving as a common enemy. With the victory at Lake Smolino in 1502 over the Russians, Livonia became a lieu de mémoire – a site of memory. The strong point of the chapter is the way in which Strenga manages to illustrate the continuities and changes in terms of memoria among the urban elite in Riga and Reval, where it is clear that groups continued to desire to remember their predecessors.

The book’s conclusion is concise, yet comprehensive. The maps and plans of key spaces, such as the Riga Cathedral are extremely useful, as are the images of the grave slabs of several “key players” in the memory landscape of Livonia in the Middle Ages. The appendix, listing German place names and their Latvian and Estonian equivalents, will be of great help to the non-specialist.

As with any study, there are some desiderata. Strenga claims that medieval historians have “intentionally or unintentionally” avoided the use of terms like “collective memory”, but Strenga appears to have overlooked the paper published recently by Sebastian Kubon on the depiction of Lithuanians in the collective memory of the Teutonic Order c. 1400.1 In my opinion, this shows the potential for the future expansions of the topic addressed and outlined in Strenga’s book. The interdisciplinary nature of Strenga’s book makes it very suitable for readings in upper-level undergraduate humanities classes.

Strenga states in the foreword of this book that he “was driven by a curiosity about how groups and societies in the pre-modern past [have] dealt with their memories […] and why the commemorated certain people and events” (p. 13). Through consulting a rich variety of sources (both visual and written), engaging with a broad range of theoretical literature, and providing convincing examples to demonstrate his point, it is the reviewer’s opinion that he has succeeded in fully exploring that main question without getting lost.

Note:
1 Sebastian Kubon, Die Wahrnehmung der Litauer durch den Deutschen Orden um 1400 und die Rolle des kollektiven Gedächtnisses, in: Studia historica Brunensia 66, 2 (2019), pp. 81–92.