The second of two collections of papers from the conference Crusading and the Crusader Movement in the Peripheries of the Christian West, 1100–1500 held in Marburg, Germany in October 2017, takes a pluralist approach to the crusades. The overarching theme of the volume is that the 14th and 15th centuries saw a shift in the nature of the crusade from expansion to defense. The frontiers discussed here were in East Central Europe from the Baltic to the Balkans with only one paper dealing with the Iberian Crusades, and another on Franciscans in the Holy Land calling for the reconquest of the area.

One of the central themes of the volume is the two-way communication between the center and the periphery. How crusading initiatives emanating from the frontier were reshaped by the papacy and the kings and lords of the central areas of Latin Europe, and vice versa how the papacy and the higher nobility involved the frontier kingdoms in their crusading plans. Another focus is on the organization of crusades, from the traditional major campaigns (such as the Crusade of Nicopolis in 1396) to continuous crusading warfare on the religious frontier. A third focus is on the use of crusades and crusading rhetoric by peripheral rulers, especially the Kings of Poland and the Grand Dukes of Lithuania, to advance their political interests. Much emphasis is placed on Lithuania’s transformation from a crusade target area to a crusading nation at the turn of the 14th and 15th centuries. Finally, the volume highlights the contingent role of heretical and schismatic Christians in relation to the Crusades. While Orthodox Wallachia and heretical Bosnia were involved in crusading against the Ottomans, the heretical Hussites of Bohemia and the Orthodox Rus’ were seen as enemies of Latin Christianity and legitimate targets of the crusade. Thus, the defense of Christendom against the Rus’ and the Tatars (i.e., the Golden Horde) appears as a rhetorical device used by Poland and Lithuania to legitimate their expansion and to create an image of themselves as the Bulwark of Christendom.