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the significant differences between the two episodes might have gone unremarked. Even the
reports of Bruno s 18 murdered companions should not be taken at face value, for Damian
does not record such utter carnage, and we should be similarly cautious about accepting
Wibert s account at face value; for although he claims to be an eye-witness and survivor of
the mission, his account contains several mistakes suspiciously similar to those made by
Ademar of Chabannes.150 The Annales Quedlinburgenses assertion that the whole company
of 18 was massacred is tantamount to saying that no-one can tell us any more detail about
what happened. Peter Damian, Ademar of Chabannes and Wibert make it clear that this is
not quite the case.
The Polish court does seem to have succeeded in making some Germans believe that, in
comparison with St Adalbert s death, nothing of particular note had taken place in 1009, and
a dearth of information in Germany about St Bruno s end may also be inferred from Wibert s
account. He could have posed as a survivor only if he was relatively sure that he would meet no-
one who could seriously challenge his claim to know the truth . On the other hand it is clear
that Wibert did manage to obtain some credible information, for his account certainly shows
parallels with Damian s. We cannot know for certain where Wibert gained his information.
But as the only manuscript witness of his account comes from Tegernsee, one may assume
that he was active in Bavaria, a region not so very far from the communication channels sup-
plying Peter Damian and Ademar of Chabannes with news from abroad. Wibert s account was
anyway valued highly enough to have been copied by a Tegernsee scribe next to the passio of
St Adalbert.151
Conclusion
This study has tried to unravel a tightly-woven knot of mutually contradictory and yet sparse
evidence, the better to understand how St Bruno ended his days on earth and what impact his
death had, all of which is far from clear. We have tried to show how Bruno has been appropri-
ated d if not hijacked d by various national historical traditions, whether Polish, Lithuanian
or Russian, and how we need to lift off these distorting lenses. It is ideas of universalism
circulating in the middle ages that can best help us to understand Bruno s life and death. Per-
haps most helpful to us in this task are the millennial fears and hopes of the period, and the
genuine desire to win the martyr s palm by preaching the Word, an aim which St Bruno finally
achieved.152 This article has argued that one of the main stumbling blocks to understanding the
circumstances of Bruno s death has been the attempts made to emend Peter Damian s text by
proposing emendations to the term rex russorum, often from a desire to dispel an unwelcome
Rus element in the region. Yet Russian scholars for their part have not questioned the idea
that a Rus leader could have been baptised by a Latin bishop in the land of Rus after 988.
150
Nazarenko, Drevniaia Rus , 353e5.
151
Voigt, Brun, 11. Rutkowska-P1achcińska, Pasje swiętych Wojciecha i Brunona , 19.
152
J. Fried, Awaiting the end of time around the turn of the year 1000 , in: The apocalyptic year 1000. Religious ex-
pectation and social change, 950e1050, ed. R. Landes, A. Gow and D.C. van Meter (Oxford, 2003), 41e2. J. Leclercq,
Saint Romuald et le monachisme missionaire , Revue Bénédictine, 72 (1962), 321. F. Lotter, Christliche Völkerge-
meinschaft und Heidenmission. Das Weltbild Bruns von Querfurt , in: Early Christianity in central and east Europe,
ed. P. Urbańczyk (Warsaw, 1997), 163e4.
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22 D. Baronas / Journal of Medieval History 34 (2008) 1e22
In my opinion, Damian s text is correct, and the rex russorum was neither specifically Kievan
Rus nor a Balt. This line of approach has received little attention, although it was first sug-
gested by Franciscus Verovius, the commentator of the Acta Sanctorum in the early eighteenth
century.153 This shows once again how much modern scholarship owes to the Bollandists.
Acknowledgements
I acknowledge my gratitude to the British Academy and to the Lithuanian Academy of
Sciences, whose exchange scheme enabled me to improve this paper during my stay in Oxford
in May 2005 in collaboration with Dr Jonathan Shepard, to whom I owe my special thanks.
Darius Baronas is research officer at the Liuanian Institute of History. He is the author of a monograph devoted to the
Three Martyrs of Vilnius (d.1347), published in 2000 and defended as a doctoral thesis at the University of Vilnius in
2001. His sphere of research is the Christianisation of medieval Lithuania and its international relations.
153
Acta Sanctorum quotquot toto orbe coluntur, 114 vols (Antwerp, 1643e1996), Iunii III, 908e9.
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