Antemurale Christianitatis


Antemurale Christianitatis was a label used for a country defending the frontiers of Christian Europe from the Ottoman Empire.

Albania

In the 15th century Pope Pius II, admiring Ottoman–Albanian Wars, waged mainly by Skanderbeg defined Albania as Italy's bastion of Christianity. The pope himself declared the war to the Ottoman Empire in 1463, but such war was never fought, as the following year he died at Ancona, while still organizing the naval attack on the Ottomans.

Armenia

Armenia, especially the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, has been described as the last Christian bulwark in Asia to fall to Muslim rule.

Croatia

called Croatia the Antemurale Christianitatis in 1519 in a letter to the Croatian ban Petar Berislavić, given that Croatian soldiers made significant contributions in war against the Ottoman Empire. The advancement of the Ottoman Empire in Europe was stopped in 1593 on Croatian soil, which could be in this sense regarded as a historical gate of European civilization. Nevertheless, the Muslim Ottoman Empire occupied part of Croatia from the 15th to the 19th centuries..
However, Pope Leo X wasn't the first that gave Croatia such a title. The nobility of the southern Croatian regions sent a letter to Pope Alexander VI and Roman-German emperor Maximilian I on April 10, 1494 seeking help against the Ottoman attacks. In that letter Croatia was for the first time called bastion and a bulwark of Christianity:

When Turks conquered Constantinople in 1453, Pope Callistus III urged all Christians to the Crusades. Many Croats, led by Saint John of Capistrano, were part of the army that defeated 150,000 Turks at the Siege of Belgrade in 1456. When Belgrade was conquered by the Turks in 1521 many Croatian writers and diplomats pointed out dramatic situation stating that Belgrade was the bastion of Christianity, the key to Europe and the fortress of the entire Kingdom of Hungary. In the following year, German Parliament in Nuremberg called Croatia Zwingermaurer and the Austrian Archduke Ferdinand of Habsburg said that "chivalrous Christian nation of Croats is standing as a shield in front of Styria, Carinthia and Carniola, and the whole of Central Europe and Western Christendom." At the session, Prince Bernardin Frankopan asked for help, recalling that "Croatia is a shield and door of Christianity". Fran Krsto Frankopan stated on July 1, 1523 in the memorial to the Pope Adrian VI that Croatia is a "bulwark or door of Christianity, and especially bordering countries of Carinthia, Carniola, Istria, Friuli, and Italy". Croatian baroque poet Vladislav Mencetić wrote in 1665:

In the nearly 400-year-long war against the Ottoman Empire, many Croatian warriors and heroes became known for their merits. Some of them were:
For its centuries-long stance against the Muslim advances, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth also gained the name of Antemurale Christianitatis. In 1683 the Battle of Vienna marked a turning point in a 250-year-old struggle between the forces of Christian Europe and the Islamic Ottoman Empire. Wespazjan Kochowski in his Psalmodia polska tells of the special role of Poland in the world and the superiority of the Polish political system.