THE BALTIC CRUSADE
Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged
William L. Urban
Morgan Professor of History
Monmouth College
Lithuanian Research and Studies Center, Inc.
Chicago, Illinois
1994
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
by William L. Urban
International Standard Book Number 0-929700-10-4
Library of Congress Catalog Book Number 94-76154
Published by
Lithuanian Research and Studies Center, Inc.
5600 South Claremont Avenue
Chicago, Illinois 60636 USA
tr (312) 434-4545
Copyright © 1994 by William L. Urban
Published with financial support of:
The Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies (AABS)
Monmouth College (Illinois)
Printed in the United States of America
McNaughton & Gunn, Inc., Saline, Michigan
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may
be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form,
or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without
the prior written permission of the publisher.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface............................................................  i
Acknowledgements ....................................................v
1	Northern Germany and Denmark in the Late Twelfth Century .........1
2	Livonia on the Eve of the Crusades...............................21
3	The Organization of the Baltic Crusade...........................45
4	Denmark and Livonia .............................................61
5	Crusader Success in Livonia......................................81
6	The Conquest of Estonia........................................ 117
7	The Intervention of the Papacy................................. 149
8	The Teutonic Knights Take Charge............................... 175
9	The Conversion of Lithuania ................................... 205
10	Pressure on Samogitia......................................... 235
11	Pagan Reaction in Lithuania................................... 253
12	The Conquest of Semgallia..................................... 277
13	The End of the Crusade........................................ 306
14	Epilogue ..................................................... 321
Genealogical Charts............................................... 341
Bibliography...................................................... 347
Index............................................................. 353
Maps
The Holy Roman Empire c. 1180........................................6
The Baltic c.l 180 .................................................22
Northern Central Europe and the Baltic c. 1180 .....................24
Central and Eastern Europe c.1200 ................................. 31
Europe c.1200 ..................................................... 44
North Germany c.1200 .............................................. 47
Livonia on the Eve of the Conquest and
The Baltic during the Early Conquest,	1200-1205 ................... 80
Central and Eastern Europe in 1242 ............................... 174
Livonia 1250-1260 ................................................ 234
Livonia 1260-1290 ................................................ 276
The Baltic c. 1300 ............................................... 320
PREFACE
It is an unfortunate fact that until recently most scholars who mentioned the
crusades discussed only those expeditions to the Holy Land that tended in 1291.
This circumstance may have been due to practical considerations in writing and
publishing, but just as often it seems to have originated in a narrow definition of
"the crusades.” Be that as it may, the crusading movement was not confined to
the Near East. Crusades were declared against heretics, pagans, and political
opponents, as well as Saracens. They were organized and led by popes, kings,
nobles, hermits, peasants, children, and excommunicants. They were organized
against enemies of the Roman Church in Greece, Spain, Germany, Bohemia, the
Balkans, and Russia, as well as in the Holy Land and North Africa—for the
purposes of conquest, booty, and revenge, as well as for protection of the holy
places.
In short, the crusading spirit and the crusading movement affected every
social class and every generation from 1100 to 1500 and virtually every geo-
graphic location accessible to Europeans. Nor did the crusades cease to be a
factor in European politics with the end of the military expeditions. The
Renaissance papacy cannot be understood without considering the financial and
political difficulties imposed by recent Turkish expansion at the expense of
enemies both in the Islamic world and Christendom. The Spanish conquest of the
New World also exhibited the spirit of the crusades and lacked only the formality
of a papal bull and the assent of historians to be called by such a name. From
Clermont to Tannenberg, from the cloisters to the courts, these four centuries
were a crusading era.
The Baltic Crusade presents a picture of one part of one perpetual crusade
that occurred in the distant past in a remote part of Europe but which
nevertheless has affected the history of that region into the present century. This
volume attempts to show that this was an important crusade, the success of
which venture depended largely upon political factors in the homeland, that is,
Northern Germany and Scandinavia.
The gradual incorporation of the Baltic peoples into the political and
religious systems of Central Europe was a process full of changes and retreats,
plots and connivances, self-serving alignments and pretensions of service to the
greater good of the Church and State. Confusing even to contemporaries, its
complexities challenge the most prepared modem specialists, who must make do
with incomplete or contradictory sources and present the story to audiences
accustomed to thinking solely in modem categories. By chance, this story unfolds
over the period of almost exactly one century, from the late twelfth to the late
thirteenth century, but its geographic expanse is immense—extending from the
Holy Roman Empire to Scandinavia, Russia, Poland, and the western part of the
Mongol empire; the expansion of international trade, the conflict between the
Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches, the missionaries’ zeal to root out the
last remnants of European paganism are central themes, the conflict of emperor
and pope, of the regular orders versus the secular church, together with dynastic
ambitions are important subsidiary concerns.
People living in the medieval era differed from modem man in their ways
of thinking as much as in the conditions of their daily lives. Consequently, we
must make a special effort to grasp their own understanding of their experiences.
For example, their society was more sharply stratified along class lines and
family connections than according to national origin, yet one cannot say that
group identification was unimportant One has to struggle with the nuances. I
expect to illustrate some of these issues in narrating this story, as well as to point
out several persistent historical and moral issues pertinent to our own time.
It is not easy to appreciate the thirteenth century on its own terms. The
presentism which reigns over much of our contemporary discourse concerning
the past opens such efforts to accusations of historicism. Nor can one escape the
needs of the potential readership. While some readers may want to understand
the medieval Baltic for its own sake, others will be interested in the ways the
past (or the interpretations of the past) has helped create the present, and still
others may be looking for insights into human behavior during periods of rapid
and radical change.
Of special relevance to modem times, and of special concern to the author
who teaches a course entitled WAR AND PEACE, is the concept of the just war,
which is certainly central to any discussion of the crusades. The intent of the
crusades in the Baltic region was to protect converts and commerce and to
suppress superstition, barbarism, and anarchical tribal warfare. Led by a
professional priesthood whose sole duty was the care of souls whom God had
placed in their charge, these crusading endeavors were a noble cause and
organized in the most idealistic form possible, when one takes human weakness
into account. One can say in 1993 (with peacekeeping forces of the United
Nations operating on three continents) that if this was not a righteous cause,
there can be no cause worthy of taking up arms in its defense. One could not
have dared such a statement in 1975 (after the coalition of forces which fought
in Vietnam admitted failure there and in Cambodia). Perhaps in a few years such
a statement will again provide exclamations of disbelief and derision. What
resulted from this noble dream of the thirteenth century as the years unfolded,
as it became entangled in politics, personal ambition, ethnic differences and
cultural misunderstandings, is the subject of this volume. The ultimate moral
question is not what the motives of the actors were, but the methods they
employed. At its foundation, this question has to be posed in two parts: Do the
ends justify the means? And, what are the alternatives?
The years between the first edition and the second have been fruitful ones
for scholars in medieval Baltic history. Quite by coincidence, the first edition of
The Baltic Crusade appeared at a time when German and Polish scholars were
beginning a remarkable series of publications on the Teutonic Order, some of
them cooperatively. Within a few years, the English-speaking world also
possessed monographs of a quality surpassing anything previously published in
ii
Britain or America. More recently, as political developments in the Baltic have
brought Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia to public attention, a new interest in the
medieval past of these nations has arisen. The time had come to reissue The
Baltic Crusade, to take advantage of the new advances in our knowledge of the
era.
This was also the opportunity to make a significant number <^f revisions and
additions, some in the text, more in the footnotes. In the belief that the major
audience will be English-speaking, I have cited, wherever possible, English-
language authors, although overall the best scholarship is in German. Readers
should be aware, of course, that excellent histories have been written in Russian
and Polish, as well as in Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian.
One common criticism of the first edition was the choice of which proper
names, such as calling the river running past Riga the name most commonly
used on American maps, Dvina, instead of Daugava or Diina, the major river in
Prussia the Vistula instead of the Wisla. My principle had been to use the name
which is most likely to be recognized by an English-speaking reader. This I have
changed in a few instances. I also sought to avoid anachronisms. Tallinn is the
capital of modem Estonia, but Reval was the name of the medieval city, modem
Tartu was then Dorpat. This I have not changed. On spelling, which is a
particularly difficult matter given the wide diversity used by medieval chroniclers
and modem historians of various nations, I have generally used the forms
selected by Brundage in his translation, The Chronicle of Henry of Livonia.
Another criticism was the relative lack of space given to the native peoples,
a valid point but not an easy one to correct. Although our knowledge of
thirteenth-century society is somewhat better than it was only a decade and a half
ago, our understanding of local political relationships remains relatively meager.
Moreover, my original intent (as indicated in the title of the book) was less
ambitious than an Annales-type survey of the region. At this time I will not
attempt to go beyond those aspects of war and peace which are still so much a
part of our civilization. As one will note in the text, peacemaking is not a simple
process. Human beings are more complex than we would like them to be: not
every military leader is a war criminal, not every peacemaker is a disinterested
party concerning the results of peacemaking. People are especially complex in
that intermixture of self-interest, idealism, fear and hope, and the cultural
predispositions which underlie their religious beliefs. Thanks to the rise of
Islamic Fundamentalism, outbreaks of ethnic violence, terrorism, and the call for
United Nations’ intervention in troubled areas, we are today more ready to
understand the medieval crusader’s behavior than we were only a few years ago.
If we believe that our responses to these problems will continue to shift back and
forth as been the case in recent years, so that at one time we support military or
humanitarian action, at another denounce it, at yet another seek to ignore every
unpleasant fact, we should hesitate to place judgment of another generation’s
decisions above a description of their situation. If that is historicism, it is a fault
to be preferred to nationalist histories which perpetuate ancient hatreds or a
scholarly yellow journalism which misses no opportunity to decry civilization’s
iii
destruction of the noble savage. If it is true that to understand is to forgive, then
any movement toward understanding the dynamics of the Baltic Crusade also
leads toward an overcoming of the virulent nationalism which is the bane of
modem times.
Lastly, several commentators have expressed a desire for greater explication
of key episodes, especially for a deeper analysis of the sources. Reflecting on
this in the light oPmy three years experience as co-editor of the Journal of Baltic
Studies, working usually with two referees for each article considered for
publication, I came to understand this as a suggestion to write a book which
would serve the needs of historians rather than that of the more general audience
which relatively quickly put the first edition into the limbo-land of out-of-print.
However, one should do what one does best, not what others would do in your
place. Therefore, I have left this book a survey suitable for industrious students
and lay readers, perhaps too complicated for easy reading, but hopefully not dull.
I do not find Baltic history in any way boring and I have done my best not to
diminish its inherent drama and exoticism too greatly.
Writing as I do in the second period of Baltic independence, following five
decades of foreign rule which attempted to isolate the Baltic peoples and
overwhelm them with Russian-speaking immigrants, I am especially aware of the
importance that history plays in the formation of popular attitudes in Estonia,
Latvia, and Lithuania. A historian cannot travel in these states without being
struck by the prevalence of ancient names—Lembit, Karlis, Vytautas—which
reflect the determination of the Baltic peoples to preserve their identities in spite
of every pressure that economics and repressive regimes can bring to bear. Non-
Balts need as much understanding of the history of these peoples, and their
interpretation of their histories, as they can obtain. A second edition of this book
will, hopefully, contribute to this understanding.
William Urban
Lee L. Morgan Professor of History
and International Studies
Monmouth College
Monmouth, Illinois
Acknowledgements
Research for the revisions was conducted with the aid of a PICAS
fellowship from the University of Michigan in early 1993. Many thanks,
therefore, must go to the director, William Kincaid, for speeding the process of
writing by at least half a year. Over the years Monmouth College has provided
Sabbatical leaves, financial assistance, student help, and encouragement. During
my most recent Sabbatical, in 1990, my wife and I did not reach Kaunas to teach
at Vytautas Magnus University—the KGB had other plans for Lithuania that
spring—but we did spend months in Czechoslovakia, the disappearing DDR, and
West Germany, visiting friends and scholars. The Associated Colleges of the
Midwest chose me to direct programs in Yugoslavia and Italy, thus giving me
long periods of residence in Europe. The Fulbright research grant in 1975-76
gave me a full year in Maiburg/Lahn, Germany, where I was able to work at the
Johann-Gottfried-Herder-Institut and Philips-Universitat, and DAAD enabled me
to work there for shorter stays. The Association for the Advancement of Baltic
Studies, the Estonian Institute for the Humanities, and Vytautas Magnus
University made possible a very useful visit to the Baltic States in 1992.
Jerry C. Smith of William and Mary and I have collaborated on several
translation projects, including the Livonian Rhymed Chronicle—the primary
narrative source for the middle and later decades of the thirteenth century.
Without his unflagging enthusiasm and energy, and Valdis Zeps’ publication of
the translations in the University of Wisconsin’s Baltic series, I might well have
moved away from Baltic studies during those years when the Soviet occupation
made it impractical to visit the region and become acquainted with the scholars.
Also important in retaining my interest in the field through these years filled with
distractions were the Baltische Historische Kommission and the Kommission fur
ost- und west preuftische Landeskunde, which elected me to membership and
made me feel very welcome at the occasional annual meetings I was able to
atfend. Udo Arnold, Roderick Schmidt, Hugo Wercezka, and Norbert Angermann
deserve special mention among the German scholars; Priit Raudkivi and Enn
Tarvel among the Estonians; Guntis Zemitis and Evalds MugureviCs among the
Latvians; Zenon Hubert Nowak among the Poles; and John Rackauskas among
the Lithuanian-Americans.
Monmouth College provided student typists (Pam Marshall, Don
Kamadulski, and Jenni Applegate; Darren Hibbard, Carissa Mahr, and Max
Simmons) who somehow made sense of my longhand emendations on the hard
copy text. Close editing of the manuscript was done by my wife, Jackie Urban,
and very careful proofing was made by Roger Noel of Georgia College, my co-
editor at the Journal of Baltic Studies. Any errors which crept during the final
weeks are mine. I wish to thank the reviewers of the first edition. Uniformly,
they took the book seriously enough to make pertinent and fair comments and
offered critical remarks in such a way that scholars could understand both its
strong and weak points. This was of great assistance to me in writing the revised
edition. Similarly, the suggestions by my former college roommate, Marshall
Morris, now at the University of Puerto Rico, have been extremely helpful.
CHAPTER ONE
NORTHERN GERMANY AND DENMARK
IN THE LATE TWELFTH CENTURY
For most Germans who lived during the middle of the twelfth century, the
Baltic was a mare incognita of storms and sandy shoals, devoid of sure harbors
and swarming with pirates from pagan tribes. Trade there, such as it was, was
dominated by the descendants of those Viking sea raiders who had established
states stretching, at times, from England to Estonia and from Estonia to the Black
Sea. The interests of Germany, like those of Europe as a whole, seemed to be
to the south. The Mediterranean, not the Baltic, was the center of the known
world in every important aspect—military, commercial, religious—and then as
now, the Germans, as if by a law of gravity, were drawn to Italy.
Even for the great Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick (Friedrich) Barbarossa
(1152-1190), Italy was of greater importance than northern Germany. To be sure,
much of Frederick’s interest centered on his desire to make Swabia, where the
lands of his Hohenstaufen family were located, the center of an empire
comprising Germany, Burgundy and Italy (rather than just an outlying province
of a weak feudal German state). Moreover, revenues from Italy would permit an
attempt to create a central authority over the German nobility which Frederick’s
predecessors had failed to achieve, and imperial intervention seemed necessary
in an unorganized Italy to forestall other ambitious lords. There was no
alternative to adventures in Italy, even though this necessarily meant weak
imperial influence in north Germany.1
The absence of imperial armies in the north meant that local authorities
there had to find means of dealing with the threatening presence of dangerous
pagans to the north and east. It seemed that from time immemorial Vikings of
Danish and Slavic origin had descended on northern Germany to plunder and
rob, carrying off prisoners or slaves—a few perhaps to be carried across the
Baltic for sale in markets as distant as Byzantium and the Moslem world.
Two methods were employed to resist these onslaughts—armed force and
missionary activity. The first was based on the belief that the enemy was so
hardened in his evil ways that nothing could be done until good Christians had
first taken the profit and fiin out of raiding. Germans, like other victims of the
Vikings, understood the economic basis of organized Scandinavian piracy—to
provide a start for a young man in life, to pay the upkeep of armed retinues—
and the psychological motives—to win prestige and maintain the status of noble
warriors. The second method was a belief that once Vikings were brought into
Christendom, warfare would be limited to matters of state interest (and
eventually even that could be eliminated); pagans should be won over to Christ
by persuasion, example, and miracles. At the heart of the debate over strategy
lay differing views about the essential nature of man and the Christian means of
exercising governmental authority. Each faction could cite chapter and verse
from the Bible, the former group tending to read the Old Testament, the latter
the New Testament. This debate was not to be resolved then: it was to persist
throughout the era of the Baltic Crusade; and we have not reached agreement on
the most fundamental premises even today.
2
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
In the first half of the eleventh century the party supporting peaceful
missionary efforts was dominant. This was not a matter of choice—the military
machinery was too weak to choose war over peace. But also, the conversion of
rulers among the Danes and Slavs seemed to be proceeding at a reasonable pace.
After 1066, when a Wendish uprising destroyed all the Christian churches in
Nordalbigensia (the region north and east of the Elbe River), the Germans
practically ceased their efforts at conversion—military or peaceful—until Vicelin
(1090-1154) returned from his training as a priest and Praemonstratensian friar
in France to establish a center for missionary activity at Faldera in Holstein. In
1134 Vicelin transferred his center to the newly founded fortress at Segeberg.
Although Vicelin’s fortunes varied, so that at times he had to flee Wendish
attacks, he always returned to Segeberg and again took up the task of training
monks in theology, the Wendish language, and pagan customs.2
The Slavic and German frontier remained relatively static for many years,
but toward the middle of the twelfth century, the balance of power slowly began
to change. As the number of Germans grew, and industry and trade increased,
the clerical and secular rulers became more powerful; as they came tb realize
their potential, a number of them began a new movement of political expansion
toward the east which resulted in the subsequent colonization of lands across the
Elbe River. As a result of the work of Henry (Heinrich) the Lion (cl 129-1195),
Adolf of Schauenburg (count of Holstein 1130-1164), and Albrecht the Bear
(cl 100-1170), a change came about in Nordalbigensia that in the course of the
ensuing century completely reordered the complex mixture of settlement,
commerce, culture, and language along the shores of the Baltic Sea.
The noble houses these men headed became important during the period of
disorder following the investiture controversy, when the two great families of
Welf and Hohenstaufen contended for the imperial throne. In the course of this
struggle the territorial lords enhanced their powers at the expense of the emperors
and saddled Germany with an incomplete form of feudalism (which shares a
terminology and a noble culture with French and English feudalism, but has
numerous differences). Each of the lords who acquired the right to vote in the
imperial election became known as a "prince" of the Holy Roman Empire.
Although it has been argued that this German feudalism was no innovation, that
it was merely the culmination of a tradition by which emperors encouraged their
principal vassals to exercise local jurisdiction,3 it was nevertheless damaging to
hopes for a greater German unity and a truly effective imperial government. As
royal government weakened, power was exercised by a noble elite which could
only with great difficulty be persuaded to perform services to the state, but
instead seized on every lord’s death, every heiress’ marriage as an opportunity
for aggrandizement. The result was an ordered chaos. Underneath the seemingly
endless feuds lay some scruples about dynastic rights and contractual obligations,
but these were insufficient to prevent unscrupulous men from seizing any
opportunity to carve out independent states for themselves. This was especially
noticeable during the Wendish Crusade of 1147, when St. Bernard persuaded
Germans and Danes to coordinate their efforts against the Wendish pagans in
Mecklenburg and Pomerania. All that prevented the victors from dismembering
Northern Germany and Denmark in the Late Twelfth Century	3
the Slavic states completely was their inability to agree upon a division of the
spoils—and a feigned submission on the part of the pagan ruler.4 The wars
resumed soon, with Wends devastating the Danish islands and German frontier
settlements, the Christians committing equally horrible atrocities in the Slavic
territories.5 Christian victory came only after the Danes and Germans accepted
the leadership of Waldemar I the Great and Henry the Lion, who used their
military prowess and reputation to establish themselves as more powerful rulers
than any of their recent predecessors.
While it should be noted that Germans had no monopoly on expansionistic
urges, expansion was a well-established tradition in Germany at this time, so
much so that the noble families were extraordinarily mobile in terms of
geography, status, and interests. In fact, as we shall see, the most successful
dynasties were on the move almost every generation.6 Moreover, they were
amazingly self-confident and daring, defying imperial edict and ecclesiastical
censure with seeming impunity.7
Frederick Barbarossa
Imperial efforts to restrain the feudal nobles from making war on one
another failed utterly. The best which could be done was to encourage regional
alliances to enforce the Landfriede, the maintenance of peace until the emperor
or a designated representative could arrive and hold court, with the assembled
nobles assisting in rendering a judgment. In practice, this woiked poorly. Most
of the time the emperor was in Italy, too far away to bring his impressive
personality into play; and on his irregular visits to Germany he lacked the time
and the military resources to capture the stone castles of the major vassals one
by one. Therefore, although the weaker magnates sought imperial protection, an
action which should have strengthened central authority, in practice these appeals
tended to reflect the interests of the two leading families in the Holy Roman
Empire, the Welfs and the Hohenstaufens. In effect, the stronger lords were able
to manipulate this situation to their own advantage, especially in the north. They,
not the emperor, benefitted from the rapid expansion of the rural and urban
population, the growth of trade, and expansion eastward. It was they who
provided escorts for merchants, clerics, and pilgrims, thereby supporting a larger
military establishment than they could have afforded earlier. It was they who
levied tolls on the roads, bridges, and waterways; it was they who built the
castles and supervised the courts, thereby reaping the considerable benefits from
taxes and fines.8
In the course of time the ecclesiastical and secular lords of north Germany
extended their new taxes and regulations into the Wen$sh lands, exacting tribute
and services from a people whose economic development was lagging behind
that of the Germans. Wendish farmers were conservative. There was too much
at risk, and too little margin of error, to experiment with agricultural methods
developed further inland; furthermore, the small, isolated villages could not
provide the manpower to clear forests, drain swamps, and undertake manorial
4
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
agriculture. Under even the most favorable circumstances, the new payments and
labor duties would have been heavy burdens for men trying to scratch out a
living from the sandy soil of their swampy, wooded land, but coming as they did
in the train of war, they were crushing, indeed. Churchmen and chroniclers
denounced the excesses of Henry the Lion and his rivals in vain, arguing that
such misgovernment was impeding conversion, not aiding it. These denunciations
foreshadowed those which would later be heard in the Baltic, and we will see
that the lessons of the Wendish crusade and its aftermath were not lost upon
either German nobles or German churchmen. What ultimately transformed the
situation was the genius of the Wendish rulers, who wholeheartedly adopted the
trappings of western civilization—feudalism, churches, new farming practices—
and augmented the numbers of taxpayers and vassals by inviting German
peasants and knights to immigrate to Mecklenburg and Pomerania. Ultimately,
they were partly Germanized, i.e., they saved their lands, offices, and families
by adapting to the new situation, including learning German in addition to their
Slavic languages and intermarrying with their former enemies. Together with
their bishops and abbots, they reinforced their numbers and revenues to the point
that they could defend themselves. In the areas they yielded to the
Germans—Holstein, Schwerin, Lauenburg—the new rulers there, too, brought in
German, Dutch, and Flemish immigrants.9
Fully aware of the changes that had come about, Frederick Barbarossa
ceased his opposition to the new feudalism and, instead, sought to harness it to
the service of the state. His father a Hohenstaufen, his mother a Welf, this great-
nephew of the late emperor was able to reconcile all the quarreling factions of
the unhappy Empire and to restore peace. He conciliated the Welf faction in
1156 by recognizing his cousin, Henry the Lion, as duke of Bavaria and Saxony,
but at the same time he separated Austria from Bavaria to achieve a rough
balance in the south and, in hope of doing the same thing in the north,
encouraged the ambitions of Count Adolf II of Holstein and Duke Albrecht the
Bear of the North Mark (Brandenburg) to dominate Nordalbigensia. In
establishing equilibrium between the parties, Frederick hoped to prevent, or at
least determine the outcome of, serious disputes in the empire. Royal intervention
would be decisive: the emperor would periodically travel the length of the
country, holding court and relying upon the magnificence of the ceremonies and
the importance of the cases to attract the participation of the major lords and
many of their vassals.10 Unfortunately for those who had hoped this would
bring an end to the constant feuding among the nobility, as soon as Frederick
Barbarossa had established a system which would require his presence in the
country, he turned his back on Germany and concentrated on Italy.
Frederick, like his predecessors, was lured by the dynamism of Italy to such
an extent that he underestimated the difficulties of harnessing it. Italy’s rapid
economic development was strengthening those very forces which had defeated
imperial efforts to dominate the peninsula in the past: the communes, the city-
states which had fought for freedom from taxes and foreign administrators; the
Norman kingdom of Sicily; and the popes. If Frederick was to have any hope of
success, he had to act quickly. Moreover, if Frederick were to succeed in
Northern Germany and Denmark in the Late Twelfth Century
5
creating the type of Holy Roman Empire he envisioned, he needed possession of
Rome. This prospect frightened the popes, even those who were inclined to
cooperate with the emperor for the good of Christendom. And alliances with
individual popes was possible for short periods of time because Frederick
Barbarossa could not pursue his plans single-mindedly—there were so many
obligations inherent to the office of emperor, that he often had to turn aside to
deal with feuding vassals, burgher riots, disputed ecclesiastical elections, unhappy
relatives, participation in ceremonies, religious duties, and the defense of
Christendom. He was constantly on the move, hearing complaints, being
overwhelmed by flattery, deceived by his courtiers and subjects, and each day
attempting to find some resolution of any of his many problems. Understandably,
some days he simply sought solace in hunting and entertainment. Still, as often
as he could, he followed the seductive scent of money and power toward Italy.
Henry the Lion
The lord who profited most from the imperial settlement in Germany was
Barbarossa’s Welf cousin, Henry the Lion. A contemporary chronicler wrote:
This duke...was the son of Duke Henry [the Proud] and Gertrude,
daughter of the Emperor Lothar. Bereft of his father and mother while
still in the cradle, when he grew to manhood he was endowed with
physical strength and comely in appearance, but was especially
notable for his great intelligence. He was not corrupted by luxury or
idleness, but—as is the custom of the Saxons—he rode horseback,
hurled the spear, vied with his companions in running, and although
he surpassed all in fame yet he was dear to all....This man
had...received from the emperor the duchy of Bavaria. Learning the
character and habits of his men, by his great vigilance and wisdom he
soon achieved such fame that, after establishing peace throughout all
Bavaria, he became exceedingly dear to the good and a source of
great terror to the bad.11
Although powerful through his possession of Bavaria, Henry’s fame rested
on the success of his activities in eastern Saxony. There, where he had a freer
hand, he wrote his name large. By his foundation of cities, his encouragement
of trade, and his promotion of settlement, he made changes on both banks of the
Elbe that endured long after he and his royal English wife were laid to rest in
Braunschweig cathedral.
Henry was also a supporter of Vicelin’s effort$,to establish a bishopric for
the Slavs. Vicelin had originally put his hope in Count Adolf II of Holstein, but
after years of disappointment he made his way to Henry’s court. The Saxon duke
established him as bishop of Lubeck in 1150, then in 1154 arranged for the
emperor to authorize him to create new bishoprics among the Wendish Slavs as
soon as congregations could be organized by Vicelin’s missionaries.12
6
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
Jutland
The North Sea
Dith-
marsche
Rugen
’omerania .
iver	C
randenburg д
Silesia
Norths
Frisia о
Schleswig
Brabant
*Mai
Bavana
Tyrol
Austria
в Salzburg
Anhal
' л I Meisse
Thuringia
N?artyi^g a
Hol lan
Ripon
West Frisix • •.Oldert Г Stad
HolsteinJ _
Lflbeck
Mecklen-
^$!chwen}?rg
uenburg
Elbe
mourg-
Iremen
Ltlneburg
Saxony
Braun-*
Schauen-
buig
л Halberstad
л Goslar, л л
Magde-
burg
Lausitz
Aachen
Bohemia
Palatinate *
Swabia
Danube
iver
THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE
Monasteries:
M = Marienfeld
S = Segeberg
R = Reinfeld
L = Loccum
Northern Germany and Denmark in the Late Twelfth Century	7
It is not surprising that Lubeck remained a center of missionary activity and
demonstrated great interest in Baltic affairs. Consequently, this city, through its
clerics and merchants, had the closest possible ties to the Baltic Crusade, one of
the results of Henry the Lion’s generous and consistent patronage of missionary
bishops and enterprising merchants over many decades.
Although most local German lords would have conceded that these were
admirable traits, they nevertheless feared Henry’s lust for fame and wealth, and
not without foundation, for at one time or another all of them had to suffer from
his associated hunger for land and power. Links with England and the control of
Goslar were essential to Henry. To assure access to England he needed a friendly
archbishop in Hamburg-Bremen because that diocese lay athwart the vital water
routes of the Weser and Elbe Rivers, and he wanted personal control of Goslar
to guarantee the roads south from Liineburg and Braunschweig over the Harz
mountains to Bavaria. Western Saxony, in contrast, was of relatively little
interest to him. This spared him conflict with the archbishop of Cologne, who
was attempting to subject the Westphalian bishops and counts to his authority.13
In years to come, Westphalians of all classes, seeking to escape from social and
economic limitations imposed by tradition and the governments of the newly
powerful feudal and ecclesiastical nobility, emigrated to the east in larger
numbers than from any other region of Germany; many knights and burghers
were to go to Livonia.
Henry’s Enemies
The secular lord most opposed to Henry was Albrecht the Bear, whose
domains stretched east across the middle Elbe into what would become
Brandenburg. Albrecht was jealous of Henry’s lands and influence in the Harz
and Nordalbigensia and of his title, duke of Saxony. Their contest was fought out
along the Elbe, partly over the right to conquer the Wends, partly over the right
to control Magdeburg and the bishoprics which lay between their domains.14
The ecclesiastical prince most threatened by Henry the Lion was
Archbishop Hartwig I of Hamburg-Bremen, who was for his part, every bit as
land-hungry and power-greedy as Henry the Lion—and, furthermore, he coveted
Henry’s lands along the lower Elbe and Weser Rivers. Clearly, Hartwig’s models
were his colleague in Cologne and his own predecessors. More than a century
earlier, during the minority of Heinrich IV, Archbishop Adalbert of Hamburg-
Bremen had dominated northern Germany. Because Emperor Heinrich П1 had
granted extensive territories to the ecclesiastical rulers to counterbalance the
power of secular lords, Adalbert had acquired great wealth and power. But,
alarmed by his pride and ambition, the secular and ecclesiastical Saxon lords had
revolted and, led by the archbishop of Cologne, had destroyed Adalbert’s power
and left behind only a memory. It was the dream of resurrecting the glory of that
era which led the canons of the Hamburg and Bremen cathedral chapters to elect
Hartwig of Stade as archbishop in 1148. To the day of his death twenty years
later, Hartwig I fought the Welf at every opportunity.15
8
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
Unfortunately for Hartwig, his career was marked by a succession of
failures. Angered by the settlement of 1156, Hartwig refused to attend court or
send aid to the emperor in Italy. He pleaded the necessity of defending his
family inheritance in Stade and his ecclesiastical lands against Henry the
Lion—excuses that were hardly acceptable to the hard-pressed emperor—and
when his military resources proved inadequate, Hartwig had to flee Bremen,
leaving it in Welf hands. Shortly afterward he found himself on the list of
vassals reprimanded by the emperor at the Diet of Roncaglia and, as punishment,
lost control of the bishoprics of Lubeck, Schwerin, and Ratzeburg, which went
to his enemy, Henry the Lion. Hartwig’s attempts to regain imperial favor
brought him only more trouble because he was foolish enough to recognize the
anti-pope, Victor IV, just before that prelate died and his party began to collapse.
As punishment, Pope Alexander III transferred the Scandinavian bishoprics to
Archbishop Absalon of Lund. Even inactivity proved equally vain, because Welf
influence over his domains grew steadily. Finally, in 1166, Hartwig led the
Saxon nobles in a desperate revolt. The resulting disorder displeased Frederick
Barbarossa, whose Italian affairs were in crisis, and since he was desperately in
need of Henry the Lion’s knights, the emperor supported his cousin in restoring
order. The revolt collapsed, Hartwig died shortly thereafter, and his successor
was so subservient to Henry the Lion that a medieval chronicler, Arnold of
Lubeck, said it was better to pass over that period in silence. Hartwig’s long,
stubborn opposition to the Welf duke had not been without effect, however, for
it led to Frederick Barbarossa’s recovery of Goslar as his price for mediation in
1168. This created bad feelings between Welf and Hohenstaufen which worsened
with each passing year.16
North of the Elbe, the most important lord was Adolf II of Holstein.
Through continual war against the indigenous Wends and the Danish king, he
had conquered a rich country that he resettled with peasants from Holland, Frisia,
and Westphalia. By virtue of tremendous personal activity and courage, he
defended his conquests up to the last year of his life, and only then, in 1163, was
he forced to surrender his newly founded and prosperous city of Lubeck to
Henry the Lion. This loss was a terrible blow to the land-rich but money-poor
count, and the recovery of Lubeck was to remain an unfulfilled ambition of
generations of Holstein counts. His heir, who had the additional disadvantage of
assuming office at an early age, was unable to escape the domination of Henry
the Lion. And even after Adolf III attained his majority, he was unable to attain
the independence his family believed to be so essential. Although very ambitious
and brave to the point of rashness, Adolf was intelligent enough to wait for a
weakening in the Welf position before attempting to regain his freedom.
The last and most dangerous of Henry’s opponents was Albrecht the Bear,
who defied old age and Henry the Lion equally, fighting relentlessly against Welf
encroachments until death finally claimed him in 1170. With his passing, the last
great leader of the Hohenstaufen party was gone. All northern Germany came
under the influence of the Welf duke.
Northern Germany and Denmark in the Late Twelfth Century	9
Settlement and Trade
To all intents and purposes, Henry the Lion was sovereign in northern
Germany. With his expanded power in Saxony and his domains in Bavaria, it
appeared that he was the equal of Frederick Barbarossa. So secure was he that
in 1171 he was able to leave Germany on crusade to the Holy Land, and this one
act, this crusade, symbolizes what the Welf duke had achieved. He had united
Saxony and created a powerful state that could not only support colonization in
the east and promote German commercial interests in the Baltic but could also
revive the spirit that had been demoralized in the Second Crusade. The
achievements of Henry the Lion cannot be ignored. In a distant comer of
Germany a certain German unity was achieved, and, more importantly, move-
ments which were to dominate the following century—colonization, commerce,
and crusades—were set in motion. Henry had accomplished so much that even
the events which followed could not disrupt the direction he had given German
history in this part of Europe.
Why did Henry the Lion have such a far-reaching influence on northern
Germany? The answer is simple: this was a frontier region. When the Wendish
crusade of 1147 opened the regions across the Elbe to German colonization,
Henry had been the first man in the field. Consequently, he had won the lion’s
share of the new lands. Throughout the era of settlement and development he
was foremost among the lords in encouraging the foundation of cities and in
supporting the efforts of merchants to develop new markets.17
In settling the new lands, Henry and the other lords were wary of
establishing a strong noble class below them; they saw little need for landed
vassals. To attract colonists, they had offered significant concessions, so that
most communities were exempt from the traditional obligations. The lords
supported themselves and their followers not from the produce of their demesnes
but from the taxes of the villages and cities. Therefore, the rulers needed tax
collectors and justices, not landed vassals, and these offices could be filled by
ministeriales as well as by independently wealthy knights of noble ancestry.
There were also certain advantages to the use of ministeriales. These
descendants of free commoners, former serfs, and burghers were professional
warriors and administrators who could be removed at any time and, therefore,
unlike noble knights who had hereditary rights to land and offices, they could be
controlled. The ministeriale’s wealth and position were dependent on his lord’s
good will and political fortunes, and his social origin separated him from the
noble vassal. As a result, he was more dependable. If he was lost by either
natural death, being slain in battle, or entering a monastery, the lord did not have
to wait for his son to reach maturity in order to benefit from the military and
governmental skills a ministeriale provided—the lord could immediately replace
him by selecting a talented candidate from among the sons of rich peasants and
merchants who had equipped themselves to fight on horseback. Henceforth, that
ministeriale would be a Ritter (rider=knight). Noble birth was no prerequisite.
10
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
The result of this policy was to create a society in the north of Germany
somewhat different from that found elsewhere. Here the lord was supreme, but
his powers were limited. His nobles were weak, but most peasants and burghers
were satisfied to be governed by advocates who were often drawn from their
own ranks to act as judges, taxcollectors, and commander of the local militia.
Commerce was more important than farming (it was in the lord’s interest that the
merchants prosper because he shared in their wealth through the resulting
increase in tax revenues); in addition, the cities paid him to provide escorts and
patrols to ensure the safety of the roads. In short, Henry the Lion laid the
groundwork for the Hanseatic society that later developed in the region.18
Henry’s Fall
Despite the fact that northern society was more egalitarian than elsewhere
and that the lines between the classes were not starkly drawn, there were, of
course, nobles present. Some were from old Saxon families, some were nobles
of very minor rank, some were vassals of local importance, and some were from
ministeriale families with ambitions for higher status. A number of them were
identified with the House of Welf and profited from Henry’s successes, but most
of them saw Henry’s policies as a threat to their social position. For this reason
numerous nobles took every opportunity to oppose the Lion’s programs,
especially those which would bring more authority into his hands. When Henry
left in 1171 to crusade in the east, he took as many of these vassals with him as
he could, but dissatisfied men nevertheless remained behind to create minor
disorders. In repressing these risings, Welf partisans increased their holdings of
land and offices at the expense of their traditional enemies. As a result, every
rising brought a repression that heightened the dissatisfaction of an ever larger
number of knights and nobles; the fact that some of these were technically
Henry’s vassals did not diminish the danger they represented.
So dangerous was the dissatisfaction of these nobles and churchmen that
Henry did not dare go personally to Italy to support Frederick Barbarossa in
1174, when his presence was again needed. As long as there was a danger of a
revolt among the feudal nobility of northern Germany, Henry had to remain in
Saxony and keep watch over them, as he could not require all his vassals to go
again to Italy so soon after their crusading effort, and he did not dare take all of
his loyal friends out of the country, to leave their castles and cities vulnerable to
attack by rebels. Another reason for his refusal to support his cousin was his
growing confidence that he could defy an emperor who was tied down by wars
in Italy. Frederick Barbarossa came to Germany in 1175 to ask his vassals to
provide reinforcements. Unwilling to issue a call for a general levy, which he
could not us^ effectively, Frederick had to strike bargains with those individual
lords willing to go south. Henry’s offer was to exchange the loan of troops for
possession of Goslar. Frederick knew that Goslar would round out Henry’s
holdings, making Saxony a kingdom within the German kingdom, essentially
unassailable by imperial armies. The emperor, unwilling to grant such a
Northern Germany and Denmark in the Late Twelfth Century	11
concession, decided to fight on without assistance. Under such circumstances, it
is understandable that Frederick Barbarossa ascribed his subsequent defeat at
Legnano to Henry’s failure to send aid. Some of Frederick’s officials even
falsely accused Henry of having conspired with the Italian cities against the
emperor.
Imperial revenge was not long delayed. Although he had been defeated on
the battlefield, Frederick Barbarossa won a victory at the peace table that more
than compensated for his losses. And in doing so he cleverly struck at the Welf
party. The emperor agreed to remove bishops who had not been recognized by
the pope from their sees and to restore confiscated Church lands to their proper
owners, a move that affected Welf adherents. When the Welfish archbishop of
Bremen received the papal letter announcing his deposition, he suffered a stroke
and died, and the vacancy was filled with the imperial candidate. Shortly
afterward, several minor Saxon lords declared a feud against Henry the Lion, and
although the rising had tacit imperial approval, it was not completely successful.
In 1178, Frederick, therefore, summoned Henry to court, where the dispute
would be decided according to feudal law. But rather than face a hostile nobility
and an angry emperor, Henry chose to remain in Saxony and defended himself
as best he could. This was a clear violation of the Landfriede and provided an
excuse for his enemies to close in upon him. As the archbishop of Cologne, the
archbishop of Bremen, and the count of Holstein joined in the attacks, the Welf
duke was driven back within the narrow confines of Braunschweig and
Liineburg, his family domains.
From that time on many evils came on the land, because everyone had
risen against the duke, and every hand was against him, and his hand
was against everyone. The Archbishop Philip brought his troops on a
second invasion...and crossed the entire ducal territory with a powerful
army, and everyone feared him. Many disgusting and terrible things
happened on this invasion.19
The contest was still in doubt when Frederick Barbarossa threw his weight
against his cousin. The feudal nobility condemned Henry for failure to appear in
court, and the emperor personally led an army into Saxony. There was little
opposition. The Welf vassals deserted to the emperor, and only a few of Henry’s
more favored cities offered resistance. Judged by his peers according to feudal
custom, the Saxon duke was deprived of his fiefs and banished from the realm
for four years. The confiscated estates were divided among the men who had
declared their support of the emperor most opportunely, and although Frederick
Barbarossa did not profit directly, he was temporarily jid of a dangerous rival.20
The dismemberment of the Saxon duchy not only enriched the victors but
brought forth mutual jealousies which had been hidden for many years. The
archbishop of Cologne, who profited more than any other prince, began to
develop his Rhenish lands into a powerful base for future expansion. Next was
Bernard of Anhalt, the son of Albrecht the Bear, who seized the diminished title
12
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
of duke of Saxony and, consequently, theoretical suzerainty over the numerous
unruly vassals of the area. The archbishops of Magdeburg and Bremen, the
bishops of Paderborn and Hildesheim, and the counts of Thuringia, Holstein, and
Lauenburg each seized some lands. But no matter how much territory each lord
received, each believed that he deserved more. As a result, these lords, especially
the ecclesiastical princes like Adolf of Cologne, became Welf partisans in hopes
of robbing the recently enriched Hohenstaufen loyalists of their gains. Then-
ambitions to possess more power and more land were to create problems for the
Hohenstaufens in the future.
The example provided by Henry’s career was not lost on future generations.
It was especially important for clerics in the Baltic, whose plans to establish
ecclesiastical states were to be frustrated by semi-secular ambitions of the
military orders which provided the manpower and technical skills to conquer the
pagan lands. These clerics looked upon the crusading orders just as the north
German clergymen had seen Henry the Lion—a necessary evil as long as there
were dangerous pagans to be fought, but dispensable once the crusades had
succeeded. Because of their accumulated military resources and personal
alliances and friendships, however, they would not be easy to be rid of. But if
a bishop was sufficiently determined, sufficiently sophisticated about both north
German and imperial politics, and sufficiently flexible to switch parties at the
right moment, he could still make himself into a powerful ruler.
Henry Returns from Exile
For these same reasons, Henry the Lion, although temporarily defeated and
exiled, was not without hope of recouping his losses. He still retained his family
lands around Braunschweig and Liineburg, thus remaining among the first rank
of imperial vassals. Many subvassals and ministeriales remained loyal to him,
some of his former enemies professed their willingness to welcome him if there
were some chance of profit for them, and others hoped that his presence would
bring stability to a disordered situation. Furthermore, Henry could count on the
military and financial support of his Angevin relatives in England, and even the
king of Denmark might offer assistance. Then there was the pope. The
papacy—as represented by the pope, his cardinals, legates and other
officials—always fearful of imperial success in Italy, readily lent aid to
disruptive factions in Germany. Lastly, the men who had taken Henry’s lands
had not yet been able to secure their conquests against their jealous rivals; and
the emperor, who was in the distant south, was unable to render them much
protection. In short, all Saxony was unstable and many people, lay and clerical
alike, longed for a restoration of order. Henry’s partisans told him that he would
be welcomed back. Consequently, when he returned to Germany in 1184 he
expected to recover most, if not all, of his losses.21
This proved to be a misjudgment. Although initially there was no cry of
outrage and alarm, Henry did not allow his enemies to become accustomed to his
presence. Instead, he sought to restore part of his former influence in Saxony by
Northern Germany and Denmark in the Late Twelfth Century	13
interfering in the election of the archbishop of Bremen. This caused the
frightened princes to assemble and vote to exile him again. Henry was not yet
ready to fight against such numbers, and he therefore returned to England.
The archbishop elected with Henry’s help was Hartwig II (1185-1207), a
proud, stubborn, ambitious man whose desire to restore his see to its former
position of hegemony in Saxony was hardly consistent with the Lion’s program.
Hartwig II instinctively pursued short-term advantages, seduced first by
Hohenstaufen offers, then by Welf promises, and he was never able to set long-
term goals and work toward them. This inability to suppress his personal
characteristics—impatience, cleverness, ambition—in favor of party obligations
was to cause Hartwig II to waver between the Welfs and Hohenstaufens in all
future difficulties. As a result, he achieved little in spite of his many intrigues
and wars. He won neither trust, nor friendship, nor territorial rewards. Hartwig’s
failures may be seen as a result of the incompatibility of his goals and the
shortcomings of his personality rather than as incompetence or bad luck, though
the latter also played a role in his political misfortunes. His difficulties were
sufficiently imposing without the addition of party conflict. His see had been
disrupted by a generation of warfare; many advocacies were held by hostile
nobles, who could use their office as judge, taxcollector, and military commander
to undermine rather than further his policies; and the debts Hartwig II had
inherited from his predecessors could not be repaid from the inadequate revenues
his officials were collecting.
Then as now, lack of revenue was at the root of most administrative
problems. If Hartwig П could have raised more taxes, many of his troubles
would have been solved, but neither the citizens nor the peasants were eager for
higher taxes; and every attempt to increase revenues produced more resistance
than funds. The problem in the countryside was that most communities possessed
immunity from taxes that dated from the time of settlement, when the
archbishops had offered tax remission to peasants who would settle in the
marshes and reclaim the bottomlands. Now that the peasants were prosperous,
they were also sufficiently numerous and warlike enough to defend their
privileges. Protected by arms and the natural difficulties of the terrain, such
independent peasants would long remain a thorn in the side of the feudal
proprietors along the North Sea coast. Hartwig’s attempts to coerce the peasants
literally "bogged down" in the bottomlands.22 His armies’ failure to penetrate
the swamps to collect fines took him deeper into debt than ever. An illegal tax
on the citizens of Bremen brought an imperial rebuff and fine. Hartwig’s only
hope seemed to rest on help from outside. He entered into correspondence with
Henry the Lion.
If the archbishop was faced with seemingly insuperable difficulties, he
could take some small comfort in the fact that his"neighbors were faring little
better. The archbishop of Cologne was opposed by a coalition of minor lords
who hoped to limit his power before he became even more dangerous to their
liberties. The noble houses in Upper Saxony were feuding, and Holstein and
Denmark were on the verge of war. In short, there were many malcontents in the
14
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
area, and Henry the Lion was the man who could unite them. With a promise of
money it was possible to win over many princes; with the aid of English silver
the Welf set a widespread conspiracy afoot.
This time Henry waited patiently for a propitious moment rather than risk
a premature return that might provoke an imperial rebuke. His opportunity came
in 1189, when, to conciliate the pope and to demonstrate the unity of western
Christendom, Frederick Barbarossa set out on the Third Crusade with the kings
of France and England. North Germans had responded eagerly to the imperial
summons, and hardly a person of importance remained behind. Adolf of
Holstein, the counts of Schwerin, the archbishop of Bremen, and the sons of
Henry the Lion all took the cross; knights, burghers, sailors, and peasants joined
one or another of the several fleets or bodies of men leaving for the east. Once
the crusaders had departed, Henry returned to Saxony, and though many of his
followers were among the crusaders, he found sufficient welcome in the north
to frighten his enemies. Moreover, the frightful and unexpectedly sudden end to
the crusade made Henry’s invasion of Saxony very dangerous to the
Hohenstaufen nobles. When Frederick Barbarossa drowned in Asia Minor, the
feudal ties that had held all Germany loyal to him were loosened. Consequently,
German feudalism faced a crisis, and the heir to the throne, as well as most of
the nobles, hurried home to see that their rights and possessions would be
maintained. Henry’s invasion coincided with the death of the emperor to bring
a premature end to the Hohenstaufens’ fondest hopes—that the crusade would
recover Jerusalem and that the Holy Roman Empire would enjoy a much-needed
respite from war and confusion.
By this time, however, Henry the Lion was no longer as fearsome as his
reputation. Without foreign assistance, he could not hold Saxony against his
numerous deadly enemies. Although his brother-in-law, Richard the Lionheart,
who had assisted his return to Germany, was harassing the Hohenstaufen
emperor by interfering in Sicily, that was of little help in Saxony. Nor were these
tactics particularly effective in the Mediterranean, either: Richard’s interference
with both German and French interests, combined with his high-handed
arrogance, were to cause him to be hated by his allies in the Holy Land and to
lead to his subsequent imprisonment by Leopold of Austria. Beyond offering
money, Richard could be of no assistance in northern Germany. He was on
crusade when Henry needed help, and the best advice he could give Henry was
to make peace. When the Lion found that impossible, he turned to his old ally
and son-in-law, the king of Denmark.
Danish Influence Spreads South
At tl$ time Frederick Barbarossa became emperor Denmark was a
relatively insignificant kingdom, subject to the Holy Roman Empire and
continually distracted by civil war. Denmark’s ceaseless feuds, assassinations,
and widespread piracy made it appear that the waves of priests sent out by the
archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen had been able to wash only a shallow pool of
Christianity around the pagan souls of these Northmen. Proud, independent,
Northern Germany and Denmark in the Late Twelfth Century	15
warlike, the Danes had contented themselves with subjecting their equally proud
and warlike Scandinavian neighbors and extorting tribute from the tribes along
the shores of the Baltic. Neither rich, populous, nor well led, they had little
influence on affairs in Germany. This was to change, thanks to the efforts of
Waldemar I (1157-1182), Canute IV (1182-1202), and the great archbishop of
Lund, Absalon (1157-1201), when this far-flung kingdom was organized into a
state where officials and merchants could cross the seas and travel the roads in
safety, where churches could be built and endowed, and where most authority lay
in the hands of the king. (Although royal authority was limited by the assemblies
of rich peasants who served in the army, the nobility was only in the formative
stages of organization; so effective police power rested in the housecarls—the
professional household warriors—of the monarch and his officials.) The great
kings, assisted by Archbishop Absalon, bent their subjects to their will and
revived Danish greatness.
As Danish influence grew, it was inevitable that some arrangement be made
with the German state created by Henry the Lion. After some initial conflict, the
Danes and the Welfs found it more convenient to work as allies rather than
adversaries. Both Waldemar I and Henry the Lion sought to establish central
authority over their subjects; both opposed the Wendish Slavs and Adolf II of
Holstein; both were interested in opening the Baltic for trade; and both wished
to throw off the domination of a strong German emperor. However opposed their
ultimate goals were, for many years they found it convenient to cooperate in
furthering their mutual interests; through intermarriage they gave expression to
their belief that they shared a common destiny.
There were practical limits to this family alliance, however. When Henry
the Lion defied his sovereign, the Danish monarch gave him encouragement; but
once fortune turned against his Saxon father-in-law, Canute had no wish to
involve himself in a military conflict with Frederick Barbarossa. Confronted by
an imperial demand that he do homage, the king made a different and less
humiliating submission: he offered his daughter as a bride for an imperial son.
It was during this short-lived period of good relations with the emperor that
Canute replaced the Welf overlordship in Mecklenburg by forcing its Slavic
dukes to recognize his suzerainty. However, there was not a firm foundation for
the alliance of the two royal houses, and the projected marriage never took place.
But the Danish king did not need imperial support; indeed, his interests were
diametrically opposed to those of the Holy Roman Emperor, and the chaotic
situation in the north of Germany gave him ample opportunity to extend his
influence there.
When the peasants of Dithmarschen, feisty clansmen inhabiting the swamps
north of the Elbe where the river meets the North Seayrose against Archbishop
Hartwig II, everyone expected that the archbishop would be assisted by Henry
the Lion. However, Danish knights came to the peasants’ assistance, claiming
that whatever transpired in the lands north of the Elbe were a concern of their
monarch, who reserved to himself the right to decide any and all disputes in that
area. Henry and his followers, who had no military base in this region and little
16
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
to gain from even a successful war, chose not to dispute the claim. He thereby
gave implicit recognition to Germany north of the Elbe being in the Danish
sphere of influence in hope of obtaining Danish assistance for the recovery of his
hegemony in Saxony.
The interests of Danish king and Welf duke converged in the land which
lay between them, Holstein, whose count was conveniently absent on crusade.
Thus it was to the conquest of Holstein that Henry devoted his energies when he
returned from England. However, his resources were inadequate to accomplish
this speedily enough. When Adolf III returned hurriedly from the east and
obtained assistance from the dukes of Saxony and Brandenburg, Henry fled into
Denmark, where he hoped to obtain military support. Bishop Waldemar of
Schleswig had rebelled in an attempt to seize the throne. Everyone remembered
that his father had been king, that the monarch’s murder in 1157 at the hands of
a prosperous peasant had gone unrevenged because Waldemar and his brothers
were too young to join in the four-sided civil war which followed, and that his
entering the clergy was not a completely voluntary act—moreover, Waldemar
had the illegitimate children to prove that he was more suited to the secular
world than the ecclesiastical. When the canons of Hamburg-Bremen learned that
Hartwig II had opted for the Welf party, they shut the city gates against him and
elected the rebel Danish bishop as his successor. If this had been a real threat to
the stability of the Danish throne, Canute would probably have given Henry more
support, but the prospects for a Welf victory seemed so poor that the king
refused to do more than offer his father-in-law refuge. It was a wise move. When
Richard the Lionheart fell into the hands of Leopold of Austria, the English
silver that had held the Welf party together was diverted for his ransom, and the
Welfs went down in defeat.23
It was the pope who saved the Welf conspirators from their fate. Knowing
that it would be a political blunder to allow the Hohenstaufen party to become
too strong, the pope intervened on behalf of Archbishop Hartwig and saved his
office for him. Bishop Waldemar sailed off to Sweden to continue his rebellion
and was captured shortly afterward by his nephew. With Bishop Waldemar in
prison, and Canute ill, Danish affairs quieted down. With Henry the Lion and his
sons exiled to England and a strong emperor on the throne, north Germany was
again dominated by members of the Hohenstaufen party. The Welf party
survived, thanks to the papacy, but it was weak.
When a chronicler noted baldly that “about this time the old duke Henry of
Braunschweig died,”24 few people cared—only a handful of Welf supporters,
such as the one who wrote:
Now he is taken from us God be graceful unto us And soon give us
from that family Another such to come. Who will honor and enrich
the world. A noble fruit of Braunschweig, That was the worthy
Henry....
Adolf 1П of Holstein organized affairs in the north to his own liking.
Already he had impressed the mercantile community by his establishment of a
Northern Germany and Denmark in the Late Twelfth Century	17
new town in Hamburg which rapidly grew to importance, thereby making for
himself a reputation as a patron of trade. He reinstated the settlement policy
which had already begun to transform the northern landscape, thus becoming a
patron of agriculture. And in 1196, when another crusade to was being preached,
he became the sponsor of that as well. The very fact that Adolf could take the
cross and absent himself from Holstein for three years demonstrates what he had
achieved. Of course, he took many malcontents with him, including Hartwig П
of Hamburg-Bremen, but that, too, was a demonstration of his power.
This was a popular crusade. Germans seemed to want to atone for their past
disappointing showings in the Holy Land. Those who had accompanied Frederick
Barbarossa on the Third Crusade had never forgotten how their patriotic feelings
had been inflamed by insults from Richard and his subjects, or how the French
and English crusaders had refused to treat sick and wounded Germans. This
situation had led sailors and soldiers from Bremen to found a hospital in 1190,
the Order of Saint Mary of the Germans—the name reminiscent of an earlier
organization which had been absoibed into the Hospitallers in 1143. When
Emperor Heinrich VI died suddenly in 1197, the crusaders who had preceded
him to the Holy Land returned home quickly. At that time the Order of St. Mary
was converted into a military-religious order—an action approved by Pope
Innocent П1 two years later. This transformed back into warriors those pious
knights who had taken vows as friars to live in poverty, chastity, and obedience,
and who were then serving as lowly orderlies in the hospital wards. In the eyes
of the Church it was more important to have trained professionals bearing arms
in defense of the few remaining Christian castles and cities than it was to have
bedpans emptied. Knights could pray as well in armor as in kitchen smocks. This
military-religious “hospital” soon became known popularly as the German Order
(the Teutonic Knights). Although in its early years it grew slowly, ultimately it
became an organization of great importance in the history of the Baltic
Crusade.25
Another display of German piety occurred in 1190 in Holstein, as crowds
swarmed around a farmer named Gottschalk who reported that his soul had left
his body during the Welf siege of Segeberg and, in the company of angels,
visited heaven and hell. Men and women of all classes and ranks begged him for
information about their loved ones in the hereafter. His visions duplicated those
of Vicelin two generations earlier, though reflecting the interests of the laity
rather than the clergy.26 Such popular religious enthusiasm was easily mobilized
by gifted preachers for support of the crusade to Livonia.
The stability of northern Germany was to be short-lived. The contending
factions resumed their rivalry as soon as the Welfs dared to challenge the
Hohenstaufens again. The Italian policy of Emperor Hqinrich VI was responsible
for reviving the great duel between the popes and emperors, and this gave new
life to the Welf-Hohenstaufen dispute in Germany as well. Though this struggle
would be fought on German soil by German magnates, it would be fought for
foreign purposes and with foreign money. German unity would be destroyed, and
a new power would rule Nordalbigensia.
18
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
ENDNOTES
1.	My viewpoint may seem "Wolfish," influenced by James Westfall Thompson
and his Feudal Germany (New York: Frederick Ungar, 1966), but I am in
general agreement with the views of Geoffrey Barraclough’s The Origins of
Modern Germany (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1957), whose position is summarized
on p. 193: "Frederick Barbarossa had built well. His efforts and ability and firm
grasp of realities had rescued the Empire from the set backs of the Investiture
Contest, which had retarded and perhaps even perverted German development by
comparison with France and England. But there were certain problems
outstanding, both in Italy and Germany, when he died in 1190." Certainly
northern Germany was one of those problem areas. Frederick’s death, and the
sudden demise of his son, Heinrich VI, led to a breakdown in the imperial
system. As civil war divided the heartland of Germany, the north was set to drift
into the orbit of Denmark, then into virtual autonomy. Whatever one may think
of Thompson’s Welfish views, from the standpoint of North Germany they are
justifiable. See also, Benjamin Arnold, Princes and Territories in medieval
Germany (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991).
2.	Manfred Hellmann, "Bischof Meinard und die Eigenart der kirchlichen
Organisation in den baltischen Landem," Gli Inizi del Cristianesimo in
Livonia—Lettonia (Vatican City: Vaticana, 1989), 9-16.
3.	Arnold, Princes and Territories, 3-5, 282-3.
4.	Arnold, Princes and Territories, 235, 245; Friedrich Lotter, "Die
Vorstellungen von Heidenkreig und Wendenmission bei Heinrich dem Lowen,"
Heinrich der Lowe (ed. Wolf-Dieter Mohrmann. Gottingen: Vandenhoeck &
Ruprecht, 1980), 11-43; Karl Jordan, Henry the Lion, a Biography (trans. P. S.
Falla. Oxford: Clarendon, 1986), 32-34.
5.	Eric Christiansen, The Northern Crusades. The Baltic and the Catholic
Frontier 1100-1525 (Minneapolis: Minnesota, 1980), 48-69.
6.	Arnold, Princes and territories, 139-141; Robert Bartlett calls this
phenomenon "the Aristocratic Diaspora," The Making of Europe: Conquest,
Colonization and Cultural Change 950-1350 (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1993), 24-59.
7.	Arnold, Princes and territories, 234-5; Bartlett, Making of Europe, 85, 307.
8. Arnold, Princes and Territories, 42-43, 176-180; Jordan, Henry the Lion, 90f.
9.	William Urban, "The Wendish Princes and the ‘Drang nach Osten,’" Journal
of Baltic Studies, 9(1978), 116-128; Jordan, 72-88; Hermann Heckmann, ed.,
Mecklenburg Vorpommern (Wurzburg: Weidich, 1989), 12-16, 42, 57-65, ЮЗ-
106, 109-110, 131; for a general overview of this cultural amalgamation, see
Bartlett, taking of Europe, 197-242.
10.	Arnold, Princes and Territories, 48-52.
11.	Otto of Freising, The Deeds of Frederick Barbarossa, trans. Charles
Christopher Mierow (New York: Norton, 1966), 278; see essays by Wolf-Dieter
Mohrmann and Inge Maren Peters in Heinrich der Lowe, 44-84, 85-126.
Northern Germany and Denmark in the Late Twelfth Century	19
12.	Hellmann, "Bischof Meinhard," 15.
13.	The policies of Henry the Lion resemble, on a regional level, those of
Frederick Barbarossa on the national level. His goal was to divide and weaken
the independent princes and make them subordinate to his authority. From the
financial base provided by the cities (Henry founded his; Frederick fought to
conquer the communes in Lombardy), he expanded his influence over the
neighboring states. To assert that Henry believed in regional autonomy and
national development is only to say that he believed in protecting what was his.
Had he been emperor, he probably would have invaded Italy. Certainly his son,
Otto IV, adopted the Hohenstaufen "program" as soon as he had the opportunity.
In addition to Jordan, 217-226, see Austin Lane Poole, Henry the Lion (Oxford:
B.H. Blackwell, 1912), and Marcel Pacaut, Frederick Barbarossa (New York:
Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1970); H. Schmidt, "Die bremer Kirche und der
Unterweserraum im friihen und hohen Mittelalter," Stadt-Kirche-Reich. Neue
Forschungen zur Geschichte des Mittelalters (Bremen, 1983) [Schriften der
Wittheit zu Bremen, new series, vol. 9], 9-27.
14.	Jordan, Henry the Lion, 92.
15.	The rest of the chapter is taken from Otto of Freising, Deeds of Friedrich
Barbarossa; Helmoldi presbyteria Bozoviensis Chronica Slavorum, 3d ed.,
Bernard Schmeidler and Johann M. Lappenberg (Hannover: Hahnsche, 1937);
Arnoldi abbatis Lubecenisis Chronica, ed. Johann M. Lappenberg (Hannover:
Hahnsche, 1868) (hereafter cited as Arnold of Lubeck); and Annales Stadenses
auctore Alberto, ed. Johann M. Lappenberg (Hannover: Hahnsche, 1859)
(hereafter cited as Albert of Stade). All of these chronicles are found in the
Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores rerum germanicarum in usum
scholarum sepatarim editi. For an English summary, see Wilson King.
Chronicles of Three Free Cities: Hamburg, Bremen, Lubeck (London: J.M. Dent
& Sons, 1914). Herbert Schwarzwalder, Geschichte der freien Hansestadt,
Bremen (3 vols. Bremen: ROva, 1979), I, 39-43; Eric Christiansen’s first two
chapters of The Northern Crusades provide an excellent description of the
Wendish Crusade in the context of north European politics and societies. Much
shorter, but also good is Edgar Johnson, "The German Crusade on the Baltic,"
in A History of the Crusades, III (ed. Harry Hazard. Madison: University of
Wisconsin, 1975), 545-556.
16.	Jordan, Henry the Lion, 102-104.
17.	See Bartlett’s chapter "Colonial Towns and Colonial Traders," Making of
Europe, 167-196.
18.	Thompson, Feudal Germany, 292-337. One would think that Marc Bloch’s
Feudal Society (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1961) would put to rest all
ideas that feudal practices were uniform, as used to be suggested in "pontifical"
texts. It is absolutely essential to an understanding of the Baltic Crusade to
remember that feudalism was a growing and changing institution and that it
developed differently in different places. Feudal practices in Livonia and
Denmark were based upon the practices in northern Germany, but in each place
they evolved so as to satisfy local needs. Therefore, one cannot expect Livonian
20
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
customs to be the same as those customs characteristic of the classical feudalism
of northwestern France. To place this in a larger context, see Archibald Lewis,
Nomads and Crusaders, AD. 1000-1368 (Bloomington: Indiana University,
1988), 133-37.
19.	Arnold of Liibeck, from the year 1179; Arnold, Princes and Territories, 37,
confirms that "Ultimately the problem of Henry the Lion arose from the
determined opposition of many of the Saxon and Rhenish bishops and secular
princes to his high-handed methods." Jordan, Henry the Lion, 163: "Barbarossa
realized that the excessive power Henry had acquired in the course of time and
the almost kingly prestige he enjoyed in both East and West threatened to disrupt
the feudal fabric of the German state."
20.	Jordan, Henry the Lion, 174-180.
21.	Jordan, Henry the Lion, 187, notes that little is known about Henry’s
activities in these years.
22.	William Urban, Dithmarschen, A Medieval Peasant Republic (Lewiston, NY:
Edwin Mellen, 1991).
23.	Jordan, Henry the Lion, 187-194.
24.	Sachische Weltchronik, in Monumenta Germaniae Historia, Deutsche
Chroniken, ed. Ludwig Weiland (Berlin: Weidmann, 1877), П, 234.
25.	This hospital had its spiritual origin in a convent established perhaps as early
as 1118, but it vanished with the fall of Jerusalem in 1187. During the Third
Crusade a new hospital founded in mid-1190 at Acre adopted the earlier name.
In 1198, German crusaders determined to make use of knights who had taken
religious vows by transforming this nursing order into a military order. Gerard
Muller, Jerusalem oder Akkon? Uber den Anfang des Deutschen Ordens nach
dem gegenwartigen Stand der Forschung (Nordlingen: Wagner, 1984); Harmut
Boockmann, Der Deutsche Orden, Zwolf Kapitel aus seiner Geschichte
(Munchen: Beck, 1981), 26-29; Udo Arnold, "Entstehung und Friihzeit des
Deutschen Ordens," Die geistlichen Ritterorden Europas (ed. Joseph Fleckenstein
and Manfred Hellmann. Sigmaringen: Thorbecke, 1980) [Vortrage und
Forschungen, 26], 81-107; Indrikis Stems, "The Teutonic Knights in the
Crusader States," in vol. 5 of A History of the Crusades (Madison: University,
1985), 315-322.
26.	Walter Lammers, "Gottschalks Wanderung in Jenseits. Zur VolksfrOmmigkeit
im 12. Jahrhundert ndrdlich der Elbe," Sitzungsberichte der wissenschaftlichen
Gesellschaft an der Johann Goethe-Universitdt Frankfurt am Main, 19/2(1982),
7-30.
*
CHAPTER TWO
LIVONIA ON THE EVE OF THE INVASIONS
The western world of the twelfth century knew little of Livonia. Westerners
do not even seem to have taken much note of its best known product, amber,
which had once found ultimate resting places in Egyptian tombs and Roman
catacombs. For several centuries the inhabitants of the eastern Baltic, not
organized into kingdoms or dukedoms, had been little more than observers of the
march of conquest and trade that periodically made the region important to the
warriors and merchants who made the journey from Scandinavia to Byzantium
and back. During the twelfth century the native peoples began to fight back,
winning occasional victories which were not of sufficient importance to receive
more than a passing reference in the chronicles kept by monks in lands far away
but which indicate that they were growing in numbers and self-confidence. The
ancestors of the modem Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians, having rejected the
infrequent offer of salvation by the two competing bodies of Christians, the
Orthodox and the Roman Churches, also rejected the cultures borne by them.
Hence, though their societies were evolving slowly toward greater complexity
and wealth, in the main they continued to live quiet lives like those of their
ancestors, in which the cycles of birth, marriage, and death, plenty and famine,
victory and defeat in war, and the monotony of daily work repeated themselves
unheeded by outsiders.
Geography
Life was not easy in this northeastern comer of Europe. The cold, dry
springs were followed by short, rainy summers and long, bitterly cold winters.
The flat, sandy western coast was often wrapped in fog, and headlands jutted into
the stormy waters of the Gulf of Finland. In winter even the sea froze solidly,
halting all maritime travel for half the year. Consequently, the native peoples
luxuriated in the long summer days, watching the sun make its long low path
above the horizon and celebrating the summer solstice (St. John’s Day, June 24)
by staying up the entire short night, drinking, singing, dancing, jumping over the
communal bonfires, and making love. The summer, like life itself, was short but
intense and pleasurable. From the coast, a low, rolling plain extended into the
interior, where the high hills eventually descended toward the lakes, swamps, and
marshes that marked the natural frontiers with Russia. This plain, though
generally flat to the point of boredom, was occasionally broken by the remains
°f glacial activity: steep unforested hills, long moraines, wide and shallow lakes.
The numerous streams and rivers were broad and shallow, and flooded every
spring when the snow melted; in wide areas the streams meandered through low
swamps, separating the countryside into natural districts, so that people sharing
a common language nevertheless found it difficult to establish any government
22
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
above that of tribal councils. Much of the countryside was covered by forest,
with oak and beech predominating in the south and fir in the north; and there
were only a few open areas fit for intensive agriculture. Even these areas might
not have been capable of being cultivated if the climate had not been moderated
by the Baltic Sea, the salvation of the land, providing moisture and warmth as
well as linking Livonia to the commercial areas of the west, just as the various
rivers led to the commercial areas of the east.1 Fishing, unfortunately, like cereal
production, barely supplied domestic needs. Bees provided honey for mead, but
that was easily found everywhere north of the latitude where grape vines would
grow; and native beer was healthful but no product worthy of export. Besides,
exporting liquids required skilled craftsmen who could make barrels. The Balts
still lacked such artisans. Consequently, it was trade in furs and other luxury
items that gave Livonia such prosperity as it enjoyed rather than the natural
richness of the land. However, the warlike and piratical nature of the natives
discouraged merchants from visiting them, thus making the prices of imported
goods high and those exported low. According to Adam of Bremen:
There also are other more distant islands that are subject to the authority
of the Swedes. Of these islands the largest, the one called Courland,
takes eight days to traverse. The people, exceedingly bloodthirsty
because of their stubborn devotion to idolatry, are shunned» by
everybody....We are told, moreover, that there are in this sea many other
islands, of which a large one is called Estland. It is not smaller than the
one of which we have previously spoken. Its people, too, are utterly
ignorant of the God of the Christians. They adore dragons and birds and
also sacrifice to them live men whom they buy from the merchants. The
men are carefully inspected all over to see that they are without a bodily
defect on account of which, they say, the dragons would reject them.
This island is said, indeed, to be very near the land of women.2
Sweden
Baltic Sea
Gotland
Visby/^
Finland
&
Pskov
1VS
Lithuania
amland
Masovia
0
0
nr- Scmgallia
land
elia
Novgorod*
Estonia
Л . Denmark
Jutland
Norway
THE BALTIC
ABOUT 1180
North Sea
Samogitia
Lett-
allia
Polozk
River
Schleswi
Weser
River
gen
Pomerellia
Mecklen-Po^ra™3
lamburg burg
ВгеШ Brandenburgl°*r	vj ш
i Elbe Siver Poland
axonyV^....	River
ussia Jatwlg,a
Nemunas River
Bug
River
200 km
120miles
Livonia on the Eve of the Invasions
23
Adam of Bremen was very well informed on geographic matters, but even
he connected this little-known area with the legend of the Amazons and with the
Cynoceophali who had their heads on their breasts. He knew more about Thule
and Greenland than about the Baltic.3 Therefore, if this chronicler—universally
acknowledged as our best source—was so woefully ignorant of the lands lying
to his northeast, we can easily imagine what the rest of the population was
willing to believe. The truth was far different.
Descriptions of the native tribes which have survived are very similar to
those written by any civilized reporter about his more savage neighbors. A
chronicler of the Teutonic Knights summarized them thus:
There are numerous pagans who have oppressed us. One group is called
Lithuanians. Those pagans are arrogant, and their army does much harm
to pure Christianity. That is because their might is great. Nearby lies
another group of pagans, a strong people named Semgallians, who
dominate the land around them. They give hardship without relief to
those who live too close. The Selonians are also pagan and blind to all
virtue. They have many false gods and do evils without number. Nearby
is another people named Letts. All these pagans have most unusual
customs. They dwell together but farm separately in the forest. Their
women are beautiful and wear exotic clothing. They ride in the ancient
fashion. Their army would be very strong if it were all brought together.
Along the sea lies an area named Kurland. It is more than three hundred
miles long. Any Christian who comes to this land against their will will
be robbed of his life and possessions. The Oselians are evil heathens,
neighbors to the Kurs. They are surrounded by the sea and never fear
strong armies. In the summer, when they can travel across the water,
they oppress the surrounding lands. They have raided both Christians
and pagans, and their strength is in their ships. The Estonians are pagan
also, and there are many mothers’ sons of them. That is because their
land is so broad and so spread out that I cannot describe it. They have
so many powerful men and so many provinces full of them that I do not
want to talk more about them. The Livonians are also heathen, but we
have hope that God shall soon bring them from that.4
This last tribe mentioned, the Livonians, was the weakest of all and was the
first to confront, and succumb to, merchants and warriors from the west. Noted
for their great height, the "tallest people in the world," they lived scattered along
the seacoast in the Daugava (Dvina, Diina) river basin or in the Gauja river basin
slightly to the north, each clan dominated by a chief zwho held sway from a
hilltop fort.5 Subject to the Letts but also paying tribute to the distant duke (in
Russian, prince) of Polozk (Polotsk), the Livonians were nevertheless relatively
independent because they had almost no obligations to their nominal overlords
except occasional contributions of money.
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
24
2 Finland
Gulf of Finland
Baltic Sea
Dagtt
Oesel
Gotland
Baltic Sea
Saccah
Great Poland
Riga
urlan
Wierland
Hamen
Jerwen
Cu
Masovia
Unganma
Lsboig
a River
Adsel
reiden
okenhusen
rzike
Daug
Polozk
NORTHERN CENTRAL EUROPE
AND THE BALTIC
Gulfof
Holm
Selonia
Karelia
Novgorod
Lake
Peipus
Nalsen
Samian
River
Minsk
Pomerellia
Novogrodek
sia
'Black Russia'
Bug River
Aa River
S.amogitia<
(Lithuanian lowlan
Aukstaitiia
(Lithuania
emunas River	4
highlands)
Gardinaa
avia)
Grodno)
Vistula
Rive
Volhynia
Sandomir
Livonia on the Eve of the Invasions
25
Estonia had been undergoing significant changes in this twelfth century, too,
greatly influenced by developments to the east but perhaps even more by western
models, principally those in Scandinavia. The reason for this was that the east-
west trade route by sea from Gotland to Novgorod passed along Estonia’s
northern coast. The introduction of iron plowshares and winter rye permitted the
population to grow. The growth might have been swifter if the Estonians had
adopted the three-field system (one field planted in winter for early summer
harvesting, one planted in the spring for fall harvesting, and one left fallow).
However, this farming technique required a large team of animals to pull a heavy
plow. This plow, which turned the soil over in furrows, was necessary for the
thicker soils found in western and central Europe, but the sandy fields of Estonia
could be woiked effectively with a smaller plow drawn by only a span of oxen
or horses. Moreover, the type of labor associated with the three-field system
required the villagers to work as a unit and to live together (as on a western
manor). Most Estonians preferred to continue farming in the traditional two-field
system which allowed them to live scattered across the countryside and keep a
closer watch on their cattle and horses. Those who experimented with the three
field system could accomplish the fieldwork only with the help of slaves. Only
the noble class of betters (also seniores or elders) which rose out of the clan
structure had the ability to capture slaves and direct their labor. The most capable
warriors among these "chiefs" led raids south among the Livs and Letts, and
west to Scandinavia for slaves and booty; and to protect themselves from
reprisals and each other they built large new forts.
In some of the settlements specialists began to produce pottery and iron
tools. Though a class system may have been developing, it was nevertheless still
primitive, and the pre-feudal structure of these tribes prevented any one noble
from becoming sufficiently powerful to unify the nation, just as the individual
nature of farm ownership prevented the development of manorial practices which
would both increase production and serve as a base for feudal government.
Regular taxes were not required to pay the tribute—those amounts were collected
when Russian officials came in person to demand it, usually with an army
nearby—and the provision of animals for sacrifice in religious festivals was
arranged by their own priests, perhaps in the form of a community feast which
provided nourishment for the poor.6
Kurland (Courland) was a multi-ethnic region. The genuine Kurs, who spoke
their own language, lived in the interior and south. They were noted, as we see
above, for their military skills. Living as they did in a sparsely inhabited, heavily
wooded country surrounded by warlike neighbors, they had to be successful
warriors to survive. The warrior class known as Kurish kings were apparently
Pre-feudal nobles and elders of clans who had their own private forts. In southern
Kurland, Samogitians and Prussians joined the Kurs to produce a rich ethnic mix.
At the coast’s most northerly point dwelt a small number of Liv fishermen who
Practiced occasional piracy. But along the western shore, vulnerable to attack and
with fields consisting of little more than sand, there were no settlements at all.
Yet it was here, on these beaches and in Samland, to the south in Prussia, that
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
26
storms threw the golden amber onto the shores. Consequently, once foreign trade
was reestablished, whoever could dominate these almost deserted shores could
greet merchants which a sure knowledge that their polished "stones" would be
highly desired.7
Diverse as these people were and divided by language and mutual hatred,
they nevertheless had much in common.8 Their basic social unit was the
extended family, which usually was organized into clans. The foremost male of
the family was a senior and he met with other elders to form the tribal council
which was basically responsible for the government. Occasionally one of these
landed aristocrats ruled as chief, levying taxes and tolls and commanding the
army, but such instances were rare, and authority was limited in all cases.
Everywhere the commoners had considerable rights. The warrior class lived by
raising cattle and farming, as did the elders, and often possessed sizeable
personal estates. The peasant renters were free men, and although they probably
could not afford to outfit themselves for cavalry warfare, they were important
militarily as infantry, scouts, and raiders.
Warfare
Military technique was primitive everywhere. Pitched battles were rare,
whereas sudden raids in overwhelming force were common, followed by a swift
retreat before the victims could rally. The chronicler Henry of Livonia described
one such Livonian-Semgallian-German ambush of a party of Lithuanians
returning from a raid into Estonia thus:
The Lithuanians came with all their loot and captives, who numbered
more than a thousand, divided their army into two parts, placed the
captives in the middle, and, because of the excess depth of the snow,
marched single file over one path. But as soon as the first of these
discovered the footprints of those who had gone before, they stopped,
suspecting an ambush. Thus the last in line overtook the first and all
were collected in one formation with the captives. When the Semgalls
saw their great multitude, many of them trembled and, not daring to
fight, wished to seek safer places.9
Elsewhere he remarked:
The Lithuanians were then such lords over all the peoples, both
Christian and pagan, dwelling in those lands that scarcely anyone, and
the Letts especially, dared live in the small villages. Not even by leaving
their houses deserted to seek the dark hiding places of the forest could
they escape them. For the Lithuanians, laying ambushes for them at all
times in the forest, seized them, killing some and capturing others, and
took the latter back to their own country.10
Livonia on the Eve of the Invasions
27
The Lithuanians had evolved toward an organized state much faster than the
coastal Prussians, Kurs, and Livs, faster than the less numerous Letts and
Semgallians to the north. Evidence from the early thirteenth century suggests a
rudimentary yet powerful state with hereditary dukes ruling discrete territories.
The grand duke, Ringaudas, was later succeeded by his sons, Dausprungas and
Mindaugas, and a daughter was married to the principal noble of Samogitia,
Vykintas, whose sister was in turn married to Dausprungas. The heart of the state
was in the central highlands (AukStaitija), which Ringaudas governed through
vassals—most of whom were relatives. Lowland Samogitia was much less
organized: we know the names of more than forty districts in Samogitia, each
presumably with its dominant clan elder or noble princeling. Always
independently-minded, the Samogitians were very devout pagans who made life
miserable for any outsider who tried to govern or convert them. Deltuva lay
between the uplands and the low country but was less prominent politically than
either. After Mindaugas murdered Deltuva’s duke in order to marry his wife, that
region lost its importance altogether.11
Such raids as described above provided the Lithuanians with the goods that
other people obtained through industry and trade. It also brought them large
numbers of slaves. However, the woods surrounding each village were so wild
and thick that an able-bodied man could readily escape and make his way
homeward. This, and the primitive nature of agricultural organization, meant that
captives could not be used as serfs. Consequently, raiders often slew the males
and kept only the women and children. Perhaps they sold a number of males to
slave traders from the Byzantine and Turkish worlds.
It was the danger of such raids that made the wooden stockade or fort so
important to these tribes. Located on easily defensible sites, they consisted of
logs laid horizontally and bolstered by tower-like bastions. Roofed with wood
and bark and covered with clay, they were proof against the primitive siege
techniques of their neighbors. Most of the population still lived outside the fort,
however, in scattered settlements surrounded by nothing more than weak walls
or hedges which would keep cattle in or out as they wished, and which would
slow down the first rush of attackers. Life in these suburbs was more
comfortable and healthier than living in a crowded citadel, but the people were
always ready to hurry into the fort at the first sign of danger, knowing there
would be no attempt to defend the hedge.12
The Lettgallians seem to have had an arrangement with the Lithuanians. In
return for guaranteeing the Lithuanians safe passage through their lands to attack
the Estonians, Livs, and Semgallians, they would be spared injury themselves.
This left the Lettgallians at Gerzike and Livs at Kokenhusen in an ambiguous
situation, paying tribute to the ruler of Polozk and simultaneously been
subservient to the Lithuanians. Vladimir of Polozk may have a similar
arrangement himself—a weak prince, perhaps only one of several men claiming
the ducal title, he watched quietly as Lithuanian bands passed through his
territory to enrich themselves with booty from farmers and merchants in lands
subject to Novgorod, Pskov, and Smolensk. The general assumption of scholars
28
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
is that although his immediate predecessor had been a Lithuanian, Vladimir was
a Russian, somehow connected to the Russian ducal family which had ruled
Polozk earlier in the century. However, it may be that Vladimir was a Lithuanian
who took a Russian name upon baptism (as did his successor, Boris
Gynwilowitsch) and who may well have taken a Russian wife as well. That
would certainly explain the presence of Lithuanians in his armies and his
toleration of the pagan raiding parties which traversed his lands to attack Russian
and Estonian settlements.13
This warfare, constant and cruel, was rarely total. Lightning raids and sudden
retreats by mounted infantry, ambushes, and organized flights into the forts were
practically their only military skills. In the rare pitched battles, one mob would
hack away at another until one weakened; then the losing side would flee for
their horses. Casualties were heavy only because of the panic. This type of
warfare reflected the limited goals of the tribesmen, who wanted prestige, booty,
and prisoners, not land or tribute. The very sameness of the crops, resources, and
livestock each tribe possessed gave little impulse to economic aggression, and
lack of organization hindered political expansion. These tribes were therefore
pitted against one another in eternal but relatively bloodless petty warfare.
As we have seen, the Europeans of the late twelfth century knew little more
about these peoples and their petty feuds than they knew of the great ice sheets
which had once covered and formed the landscape of this area. This must have
become less significant after German and Scandinavian merchants suppressed
piracy in the Gulf of Finland, the route they took each summer from Gotland to
Novgorod, and after Baltic traders began to bring small quantities of mainland
products to Gotland. Nevertheless, for decades few individual traders—even the
daring merchants of Gotland—had found the profits from the purchase of amber
and furs on the mainland worth risking death at the hands of local pirates and
competitors; and the ones who did kept secret the knowledge they had gained
lest it be of advantage to their rivals. This reluctance to share information
changed little even after groups of merchants and sailors from Gotland began to
make regular visits to Livonia, except that, unable to remain completely silent
about their adventures, they invented wonderful and horrible stories of pagan
demons, murder rituals, and monsters. Such stories entertained their comrades,
impressed their children, frightened the girls who met them in port, and
confounded their competitors; they also lured adventurers and devout
missionaries to the area.
Trade
It was the arrival of western merchants in ever larger numbers during the
1180’s’that upset the traditional system of alliances and tribute by which the
eastern Baltic region had been governed. When German and Scandinavian
merchants began to visit the tribes there, they expected protection and justice,
and if the local rulers and their distant overlords hoped to retain their valuable
taxes and tolls, they had to provide maximum security from robbery and murder.
When native rulers failed to protect them adequately, the merchants acted in their
Livonia on the Eve of the Invasions
29
own behalf. To secure access to their markets, the German and Scandinavian
merchants became imperialists.
To be sure, the merchants had little interest in imperialism as such. They
were interested only in trade, not in conquest and government. But they were
operating in the farthest outreaches of the dynamic new society developing in the
west, and this society demanded the products available in the Baltic northeast.
The German economy in particular sought the furs, leather, honey and bees-wax
of Livonia. German merchants set out for the Baltic with those items the native
peoples wanted in exchange: iron weapons, cloth, glass trinkets, and probably
alcoholic beverages. The first and most basic requirement for trade was security:
a safe harbor for ships, a secure depot for goods, and a guarantee of justice for
all traders. They found these at Visby, a port on Gotland which had the further
advantage of being easily reached by merchants from Russia, Estonia and
Scandinavia, as well as from Germany. Waldemar I of Denmark and Henry the
Lion of Germany cooperated to secure the sea lanes to Visby, and soon a
thriving merchant colony grew up there. Later discoveries of coin hoards on
Gotland and the surrounding shores of the Baltic clearly demonstrate the
changing corridors of trade. Sweden and the Daugava basin gave way to the new
opportunities to sell German products in Novgorod via Gotland, the Gulf of
Finland, the Neva River, Lake Ladoga, and the Volkhov River.14 Although most
goods from the mainland could be purchased at Visby, many traders wished to
visit the sources of production, where the prices were lower and the demand for
western goods was greater. This was especially true for the Daugava River
communities, which had not been on the main line of international trade. But that
route was dangerous because of the likelihood of attack by Lithuanians, and the
merchants clamored for more protection—usually without much effect.
Consequently, few merchants had dared to sail upriver to Polozk or even visit the
communities along the lower river. For these reasons they were willing to
support any imperialist venture in the Daugava basin that might further their
mercantile interests.
Important as the merchants were in encouraging expansion into the eastern
Baltic, the Roman Church was even more important.15 Western churchmen were
ashamed of the fact that Livonians, Estonians, and Prussians remained pagan, but
they were even more concerned with the religious condition of the powerful
Russian communities lying to the east.
The Russians
The Russians were a multi-national people. Mainly Slavs, but with important
Minorities of Finns, Lapps, and various steppe tribes, феу lived in the forested
region north of the great steppe. At one time their empire had extended to the
Black Sea, but nomadic Cumans and Patzinaks now ruled those shores. The vast
Mid thinly populated forest and river country was divided into ten major states,
each named after the most important city of the region and governed by a
Member of the house of Rurik, the royal family purportedly founded by Swedish
30
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
Varangians who had passed through Russia to trade and raid the Byzantine and
Moslem worlds. Grand Duke (lit. Great Prince) Vsevolod 1П had continued
through his reign, 1176-1212, to apportion the duchies so that as genealogically
eldest, he governed Kiev, and those following him ruled Novgorod, Suzdal,
Smolensk, Galicia, etc., each prince advancing to the next most prestigious post
as death removed those ahead of him. In practice, however, then as in the past,
the brothers and cousins warred among themselves relentlessly, splintering the
country north and south, east and west. Each line of descent placed its ambitions
above the needs of Russia as a whole, but no duke was able to rule long enough
over one territory to establish his branch of the dynasty firmly; and not even
Vsevolod III, powerful as he was, was ready to abandon the traditional system
of lateral succession in the ducal offices for the principle of primogeniture, since
in theory this provided for territorial defense, with the most experienced men
ruling the most important centers. However, as seemingly endless family feuds
undermined the unity of the state (without succeeding in establishing strong local
dynasties which could substitute for the lack of a dependable grand duke), Russia
was left with the worst of all situations—a large decentralized and sparsely
populated state, preoccupied by personal and dynastic disputes, and led by grand
dukes who, though strong enough to frustrate their immediate rivals for control
of Kiev, were too weak to simultaneously deal with potentially dangerous
enemies on the frontiers to the east and west. The genealogically younger dukes,
transferred from region to region, lacked that assurance of being obeyed which
comes only from long-standing personal relationships between rulers and
subjects. These dukes were slowly losing authority to their boyars (landed nobles
whose principal duty was to appear with a retinue of trained warriors whenever
summoned by their lord) and they were being challenged even by the merchant
communities in the larger cities.16
Polozk lay on the trade routes which ran east and west along the Daugava,
north toward Novgorod, and south through the swamps to Minsk. In the early
twelfth century, when Polozk was able to control the Daugava through native
princelings, its dukes were free to lead their armies into Lithuania when not
involved in fighting relatives. In the closing years of the century the tributary
relationship between the Lithuanians and Russians changed; henceforth, Polozk
paid the pagans to leave them in peace and, if indeed the duchy had been
fragmented by dynastic conflict, some areas may already have accepted
Lithuanian dukes as rulers; Minsk was apparently occupied by a Lithuanian
garrison.17
Novgorod, Smolensk, and Polozk were important to Baltic trade because of
their control of the portages in the Valdai hill country. A merchant could sail
from Visby across the seas, then upriver to these cities, and there exchange his
goodi for the produce of the south and east. In theory, he could proceed east but
rarely if ever did so. More important than the products of China, Persia, or
Byzantium, however, were the furs of the north. The native Russian merchants,
therefore, tended to travel the river routes toward the northeast where hunters
collected precious furs or southeast to trade with Moslem, Byzantine, and Italian
Livonia on the Eve of the Invasions
31
merchants. Few sailed out into the Baltic to carry the products they had obtained
to Visby and other ports. Instead, it was Gotlanders and Germans who braved the
oirates and storms. As a result, the western settlements in Novgorod and
Smolensk, with their warehouses, dormitories, and churches, were much larger
than the equivalent Russian establishment in Visby. The trade in furs and goods
in transit brought wealth to these Russian cities, but much of the wealth was
spent in procuring grain supplies. And the princes of the house of Rurik ignored
the north in favor of the more populous and powerful cities of the south.18
32
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
The lack of grand ducal interest in Novgorod, compared to the care taken to
secure the family’s position in Suzdal, reflected the fact that the city—whose
power was later indicated by its title, Lord Novgorod the Great—was technically
independent after 1136. Laws were passed by the city council (yeche) and
enforced by the duke and a mayor (Posadnik) elected by the boyars. By tradition
the eldest son of the grand duke governed Novgorod, but from 1182-1200 it was
Vsevolod’s brother-in-law, Jaroslav. Attempting to rule autocratically through the
faction of boyars interested in Russian affairs, his policies were repeatedly
frustrated by a hostile posadnik and those boyars who were more interested in
western trade. When Jaroslav was replaced by Svjatoslav, Vsevolod’s three-year-
old son, the situation hardly improved. The duke’s authority remained
uncontested in the countryside, and since Novgorod could not defend itself or its
interests without the Suzdalian troops available to the duke (or his rival) and his
boyars, the question of the city becoming a true republic never arose.19
Novgorod was one of the largest cities in Europe. There was the
archbishop’s quarter with the cathedral, at least fourteen monasteries, dozens of
churches, five distinct residential districts with suburbs, the rich mansions of the
boyars and wealthy merchants, the foreign quarter (St. Peter’s) for visiting
merchants, and the central market. The merchants were extremely influential in
public affairs, since their taxes and tolls paid the costs of government and
defence, and their pious donations built and decorated the churches and
monasteries. But the merchants were a heterogeneous group and the only guild
seems to have been St. John’s, which was dominated by boyars who wished to
keep a share of the international trade and therefore bonded together to protect
their rights. The bulk of the urban population was made up of artisans who
produced trade items for sale locally and overseas. In addition, there were some
peasants and serfs who took whatever work they could find.20 Like other
contemporary city-states in the west, Novgorod did not find it practical to call
the Veche into session except for urgent matters; therefore, most business was
transacted by a Senate (Soviet gospod) of selected representatives and the past
and present posadniks, presided over by the archbishop.
Pskov, the Russian city closest to Estonia, has generally been looked upon
as a client state of Novgorod, although it was never quite clear whether the status
of "younger brother" was a relationship with the city or the duke. A better
description is that of a "symbiosis of weaker Pskov with a strong Novgorod."
Similar mercantile interests and the need to call upon the military aid of a strong
dynasty caused their fates to intertwine during this era when momentous political
changes were to occur.21
The Russians were Orthodox Christians, converted sufficiently recently (like
the Poles in the tenth century, but by Byzantine missionaries), that wide areas in
the countryside remained basically pagan. Novgorod disturbed these non-Russian
peoples little, so long as they paid tribute. Religion was an ethnic identity, not
an individual choice—as it remains today in many parts of the world.
Consequently, the Russians did not insist that the Letts, Estonians, Finns and
Karelians abandon their pagan ways and become Orthodox Christians.22 In the
33
Livonia on the Eve of the Invasions
of the western visitors, however, pagan and Orthodox practices were equally
** The Roman Church wished to win over the Orthodox Russians to
cognize the supremacy of the pope. There was also the matter of the Latin rite
versus the Orthodox, and the Roman disapproval of married priests. Compromise
was possible in these areas, but the West was adamant about uniting a divided
Christendom under the authority of the pope and about the need to extirpate
oaganism as an evil remnant of pre-Christian times. While the immediate
objective was the conversion of the pagan tribes along the coast, Roman Catholic
churchmen never lost sight of the more important Russian communities in the
interior. Also, the Russians were competitors who might convert the pagans in
Livonia and Estonia to the Orthodox faith. Already the natives there were
tributary to Russian dukes in Pskov and Novgorod, and to the dukes in Polozk.
Impelled by these motives (and by others pertaining to north German politics),
the haste to send missionaries to the Baltic region became ever more noticeable
during this period.
The Missionaries
Where the merchants lacked interest, the Church was willing to press
matters, and where the two groups had common interests, something was bound
to happen. When the secular powers in the Baltic were convinced that military
support was necessary for the expansion of trade and missions, the result was the
Baltic Crusade, a form of medieval imperialism that was to exhibit many of the
characteristics, both good and evil, of the European imperialism of more modem
times.23
That the missionary movement to Livonia eventually assumed an imperialist
form should be no surprise. The Christian state often acted as the carrier of the
Christian religion by imposing the latter on newly conquered subjects, and even
more often Christian rulers supported missions to neighboring lands as a means
of extending their influence abroad. This type of imperialism was not confined
to secular nobles; archbishops also sponsored missionaries for motives that were
as much secular as religious. Episcopal imperialism—bishops using the authority
granted to them by the pope, first to lead missionaries, then to organize crusades,
to create for themselves dioceses where none existed before—was to be an
important aspect of the mission to Livonia.
Because of their role in the conversion of the Danes, the archbishops of
Hamburg-Bremen traditionally exercised great authority over Scandinavian
affairs. But after they lost control of the Scandinavian bishops to the archbishop
°f Lund, this was no longer true. When Archbishpp Hartwig II heard of the
Pagans of the eastern Baltic, he saw an opportunity to extend his authority over
hem. By creating a series of suffragan bishoprics in Livonia and Estonia he
Lu^qJ*0 reP’ace *l*s l°sses’ а11^ also t0 forestall expansion in that direction by
Occasional western missionaries had been sent to Livonia before the latter
Part of the twelfth century, but their successes had always been short-lived. Even
34
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
the best documented of these heroic individual efforts, that of Fulco in Estonia
around 1170, is poorly understood. Apparently, the efforts of the exiled
archbishop of Lund, Eskil, and his French Benedictine hosts resulted in Fulco’s
being formally named bishop of Estonia, but by 1172 the missionary had
returned to Lund, having failed to persuade the native peoples to abandon their
nature cults.25
The mission of Archbishop Bruno of Querfurt and eighteen monks ended in
their death somewhere in Lithuania or its borderlands in 1009. While the
Germans founded a monastery in Querfurt in honor of the archbishop, it was the
Duke Boleslav who ransomed Bruno’s corpse and deposited it in the cathedral
in Gniezno (Gnesen), thereby assisting in elevating this church in the eyes of
Polish Christians above its competitors. Thus, it is clear that although Bruno was
never officially declared a saint, Poles and Germans alike considered him and his
followers martyrs; both also feared the pagans to the east. The chronicler’s
description of the event was the first time a westerner articulated the name,
“Lithuanian”.26 A similar fate befell Adalbertus, a Bohemian prince who had
taken holy orders. Sent by Pope Sylvester to convert the Prussians, he was
martyred in 996. Boleslav recovered his body, too, and buried it in Gniezno.
Subsequently, the pope raised the church to an archbishopric. The entire story
was retold on the famous bronze doors of the cathedral made in the 1170’s.
The Orthodox Church made some impact on the natives’ paganism, but, even
so, conversion was limited to the ruling classes of tribes subject to Russian
dukes. Consequently, the Lithuanians were more strongly influenced than the
Letts and Livs who dwelt in modem Latvia, and these tribes were more affected
than the western Estonians and Kurs. Some Letts were subject to Polozk, and the
eastern Estonians paid tribute to Pskov. In all cases, conversion signified the
political subordination of the local nobles, not the adherence of the entire
populace to a new faith.
It came as a great surprise to the first western missionaries that the Russians
did not see Livonia as a special preserve for the Orthodox Church, but allowed
the natives to choose whatever faith they wished to follow. The Russian rulers
did, however, insist on being paid for permission to preach and surrendered
neither any claim to sovereignty nor the right to revoke or modify the privileges
they granted. Even so, Duke Vladimir was extremely generous in his first
encounter with Roman Catholic missionaries and even sent Meinhard gifts.27
The native beliefs are not easily studied, though scholars today understand
them better than they did a generation ago. Local customs undoubtedly varied
slightly from region to region, depending upon the degree that foreign ideas had
intermingled with the natural tendency of all folk practices to evolve over time.
Without much question, Scandinavian paganism, Russian Orthodox beliefs, and
Roman Catholic concepts were all represented, but not all at the same time or
in the same places. Equally without question is that native beliefs were expressed
in seasonal ceremonies and celebrations, in a cult of ancestors, and in the
veneration of nature spirits. The Baltic peoples were concerned with planting and
harvesting, considered ancestors an enduring part of the family circle, and
worshipped their deities in holy woods.28
Livonia on the Eve of the Invasions	35
Marija Gimbutas, an authority on Baltic religion and women in history, sees
two distinct layers in the pre-Christian pantheon of Lithuania which was shared
along the entire coastline. The first she calls Old European, before 2500-3000
BC, whose principal deities were females who took multiple forms. For example,
a goddess could be a maiden, nymph or crone—representing birth, reproduction
and death, and whose life-cycle reproduced the phases of the moon. The goddess
Laima (related perhaps to Diana in the Roman pantheon) was a prophetess and
the giver of life at birth to both humans and animals. Ragana was the goddess
of destruction and rebirth, a malicious and dangerous deity; Germans would have
recognized in her Frau Hoile, Greeks the Gorgon. Other goddesses were
concerned with fertility and regeneration: Zemyna (Mother Earth) was a northern
Demeter worshipped by the practice of kissing the ground morning and evening.
The introduction of male Indo-European gods produced a rich hybrid pantheon
which was both pastoral and warlike. Dievas, the god of heavenly light,
represented the seasons. Together with Laima, he determined the length and
quality of human life just as he fixed the duration and strength of the sunlight
which fell on the fields. Given the northern climate of the Baltic, his ability to
determine the amount of daylight made him an important god, indeed. He was
celebrated on St John’s Day (June 24), the summer solstice, and at other
holidays marked by the astrological calendar. Perkunas was the god of thunder
and lightning, who purified and watered the earth. Germans would have
identified him with Thor. His death enemy, to make a pun, was Velinas, ruler of
the night, of anger and of madness. Velinas was a devil, the opposite of Dievas,
and constantly fought with Perkunas for supremacy.
There were some temples for the main gods, perhaps even chief priests, but
the sacred groves, trees, and rivers were much more important. In sylvan glades,
like those into which the Druids retreated, pagan priests conducted ceremonies
and retold the myths that gave meaning to life in an environment which could
be cold and harsh, warm and pleasant, brutal and ugly, loving and fair—
depending on the season and the fate Dievas and Laima foretold.29
There was also an elaborate cult of the dead, surrounded by ceremonies and
taboos; the one which particularly offended Christians was the offering of food
at the burial sites. This custom, seeking oracular guidance, and consulting
"witches" remained a part of rural custom into the twentieth century.30
What is less clear is the modem assumption that the Baltic peoples’ basically
democratic, peaceful, and hospitable cultures put them on a morally superior
level when compared to the more dynamic culture approaching from the west.
A belief that man should conform to nature rather than dominate it has its
attractive features, but it can also easily condition its adherents to accept a low
standard of living and technological backwardness. Completely misleading is any
suggestion that the Baltic peoples did not indulge in, did not profit from, or did
not enjoy, warfare.31 Maritime Estonians, Livs, and Kurs were well-known
Pirates, and the Lithuanians already enjoyed a reputation for terrorizing nearby
Peoples. Baltic society may have been less dynamic, less prone either to rapid
evolution or catastrophic dissolution than contemporary Scandinavia, Germany,
36
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
and Russia, but it did not provide an exception to the normal rules of human
behavior.
This society was not prone to sudden change, but change had to come once
Scandinavian and German merchants discovered that the inhabitants of the
eastern Baltic shore were eager to purchase iron tools and wool cloth. Then, in
1180 an Augustinian friar named Meinhard visited the Daugava (Dvina) basin:
He came to Livonia with a band of merchants simply for the sake of
Christ and only to preach. For German merchants, bound together
through familiarity with the Livonians, were accustomed to go to
Livonia, frequently sailing up the Dvina River. After receiving,
therefore, the permission of King Vladimir of Polozk, to whom the
Livonians, while still pagan, paid tribute, and, at the same time, after
receiving gifts from him, this priest boldly set out upon the divine work,
preaching to the Livonians and building a church in the village of
Uexkiill.... The next winter, the Lithuanians, after having laid waste
Livonia, took many into captivity. The same preacher, together with the
people of Uexkiill, avoided the wrath of the Lithuanians and took to the
forests. When the Lithuanians had withdrawn, Meinhard accused the
Livonians of foolishness, because they had no fortifications; he promised
them that forts would be built if they decided to become and be
considered sons of God. This pleased them and they promised and
confirmed by an oath that they would receive baptism.32
Thus occurred the most important decision in Livonian history, that of a
small band of Livs to undergo baptism in return for protection from hereditary
enemies. The next year, 1181, stonemasons from Gotland built two stone castles
on islands in the Daugava River. Both Uexkiill and Holm, as they were named,
were easily defensible and easily accessible to merchants from the west. It was
only after the completion of the castles, however, that Meinhard informed the
natives that he expected them to pay taxes for the upkeep of the castles and the
maintenance of the church. Or perhaps he had told them earlier but they had
taken it as an outlandish joke by a stranger. Whatever the reason, Meinhard
gained few new converts to his small following. Nevertheless, he had sufficient
success that Hartwig II of Bremen consecrated him bishop of Uexkiill in 1186
and sent priests to aid him.
Foremost among the new missionaries was Theodoric, a Cistercian monk
from Loccum, a monastery near Hannover. Quite possibly young Theodoric was
among the monks who had been sent to the new abbey at Reinfeld in Holstein
in 1186, the same year that Meinhard returned to Germany for his investiture.
The Augustinian monastery at Segeberg was less than ten miles from the
Cistercian foundation at Reinfeld, and undoubtedly Meinhard visited both
Segeberg and Reinfeld in hope of recruiting assistants. With his abbot’s
permission, Theodoric sailed east with Meinhard to take up the difficult
responsibilities of a missionary to the pagans, an event of far-reaching
consequence. The Augustinian mission was now augmented, and eventually
[jvonia on the Eve of the Invasions	37
superseded, by a more militant and aggressive religious order. God’s acres would
not just be sown but would be plowed, tilled, and reaped. The austere spirit of
Saint Bernard came to Livonia with Theodoric, and through Theodoric it
dominated the ensuing thirty years of Livonian history.33
The arrival of Cistercian missionaries created one problem Meinhard may not
have anticipated—a dispute over which clerical garb should be worn. The natives
were accustomed to the black robes of Orthodox priests. Meinhard himself,
following the tradition of the Augustine rule, wore white, and Theodoric, a
Cistercian, wore grey; the native spokesmen asked repeatedly if the different garb
did not signify that they were representing different gods—a question of
considerable importance to pagans, and, given the disputes between Roman and
Orthodox Christians, not an easy query to answer. Moreover, the various Roman
Catholic orders placed great weight on the symbolism of their garments—the
Cluniac and Cistercian monks wrangled fiercely over whose clothing was
standard and whose was "irregular.” To this was added the great difficulty of
maintaining an acceptable level of cleanliness—the frontier did not provide the
laundry facilities of a monastery. As a result, when monks were asked to approve
a priest’s request to preach the word of God among the heathen, they thought
seriously about the reputation of their order, represented as it would be by a
solitary individual who would certainly find it difficult to say the prayers at the
required intervals, would not be able to live on the approved diet, and would
most likely end up looking like a beggar or wearing a strange or even an
unchristian habit. Then they would ask, if the priest had entered the convent to
escape the temptations and trials of the world, why would he ever want to go out
in it alone to the pagans?34
Theodoric and several unnamed fellows sought new fields for missionary
work. He himself went to the Liv community at Treiden, more to the north,
where he settled and raised his own food. However, his farming practices were
so superior to the natives’ techniques that he narrowly escaped being sacrificed
to their gods:
Because the crops in his fields were quite abundant and the crops in
their own fields were dying because of a flooding rain, the Livonians of
Treiden prepared to sacrifice him to their gods. The people were
collected and the will of the gods regarding the sacrifice was sought
after by lot. A lance was placed in position and the horse came up and,
at the signal of God, put out the foot thought to be the foot of life.
Brother Theodoric prayed aloud and gave blessings with his hand. The
pagan priest asserted that the Christian God was sitting on the back of
the horse and was moving the horse’s foot forward; that for this reason
the back of the horse had to be wiped off so that God might slide off.
When this was done, the horse again put forth the foot of life, as before,
and Brother Theodoric’s life was saved. When Brother Theodoric was
sent into Estonia, he likewise endured from the pagans a great many
dangers to his life.35
38
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
Elsewhere the natives were satisfied with their traditional gods and, not
thinking the missionaries dangerous, allowed them to preach without harassment
until they began to make converts. Once the Christian priests began to demand
the payment of a tithe and threatened the use of force to collect it, their attitude
changed. Abandoning their skeptical tolerance, the Livs began to look upon the
missionaries and their converts as a dangerous and subversive element.
There can be no doubt that missionaries threatened the traditional mode of
life in Livonia. If Bishop Meinhard had only to maintain himself and a small
number of priests, the voluntary tithes and taxes from his flock might have
sufficed. But he also maintained castles with the garrisons and wanted to build
proper churches. Meinhard had assumed these expenses at the request of the
entire population (as represented by the elders). However, only those who had
accepted Christianity were obliged to pay the tax. This threw him on the horns
of a dilemma. He either had to increase the number of converts or coerce
everyone to live up to what he understood the original bargain to be. The former
solution was impractical: if the financial burden of Christianity was such as to
discourage converts, there was little hope of converting those who considered tax
exemptions important; in this case, it was to the Livs’ financial advantage to
remain pagan. On the other hand, if Meinhard abandoned the castles and returned
to a simple mission supported by foreign funds, he could not offer the military
protection that would induce the remaining tribes to become converts. As he saw
it, the problem was simple: he had promised protection which only soldiers and
castles could provide, and the money required to build fortifications and hire
garrisons was supposed to be provided by the converts. The solution was equally
simple: the natives should live up to their bargain and submit to baptism.
Unfortunately for Meinhard, the natives had no wish to place themselves under
his authority or to pay his taxes. A few probably saw that, in the end, Meinhard
would be dominant in the political as well as in the religious life of the
community, and indeed Meinhard could not deny this. His object was to establish
an ecclesiastical system similar to that in western Europe. Fundamentally, the
issue was power, though few—perhaps not even Meinhard—understood this
fully. They argued about taxes when the real issue was one of authority. Each
side put religion at the center of life, each firmly believed in what we today
consider superstitions, and each would have been horrified by modem secularist
concepts of reason and tolerance.
The implications of Meinhard’s position became clearer to the native elders
when he threatened compulsory conversion. They did not worry as long as he
had no army, but knowing that he might raise a mercenary force abroad, the
elders forbade him to leave the country. They left him freedom to travel and to
preach and did not object to his governing and taxing those who submitted to
him fireel^, but they would not allow him to coerce anyone into the Church or
to connive with foreigners against their independence.
The suspicions of the natives were confirmed when Theodoric slipped out
of the country and journeyed to Rome to ask for papal assistance. As Theodoric
had hoped, the supreme pontiff approved the use of force against the Livs, and
he returned north to raise an army on Gotland. He expected a quick success
Livonia on the Eve of the Invasions
39
because it appeared that the interests of the merchants and the Church coincided,
but in fact the merchants were much more interested in punishing pirates than
in assisting an elderly bishop in an armed campaign against good customers. The
result was a travesty of the crusading idea.
The expedition was well-planned. Theodoric raised an army from among the
German and Scandinavian merchants and persuaded the duke of Sweden to
accompany them. They planned to sail to Kurland and punish some notorious
pirates and then to proceed to the Daugava basin. The plan was good, but its
execution was poor, and the expedition went astray at the very beginning. Shortly
after leaving Visby, the fleet encountered bad weather, so that it made landfall
not in Kurland but in Estonia, where the army decided that one tribe was as
suitable a victim as another and behaved like a band of freebooters. Theodoric
was able to bring an end to the fighting and to begin negotiations with the elders
for the acceptance of Christianity, but the discussions were barely under way
when the duke of Sweden sailed home, taking most of the army with him. To his
chagrin, Theodoric learned that the duke had been interested only in exacting
tribute from the natives and, once it was collected, had no further interest in the
expedition. The few serious crusaders who remained behind could entertain no
hope of assisting Bishop Meinhard. As a result of the duke’s defection, the army
immediately disbanded and returned to Gotland.
Bishop Meinhard, disappointed by the outcome of the expedition, died soon
afterward (in 1196), leaving an empty title and a pitifully small number of
converts to Christianity.36 With him died the effort at a peaceful conversion.
However, his ideal did not perish: our principal source for the history of this era,
The Chronicle of Henry of Livonia, was written about three decades later to
admonish the German and Danish rulers to govern the converts to Christianity
justly and mildly. Like the Spanish churchmen in the New World three centuries
later, in their effort to reform behavior and protect the native peoples German
churchmen would provide contemporaries and later generations alike with the
stories of misconduct and cruelty that molded the stereotype of the evil crusader
(God knows they were bad enough without exaggerating!). The Spanish Legenda
Negra is paralleled by a Baltic counterpart.37
40
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
ENDNOTES
1.	Anatol Lieven, The Baltic Revolution. Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and the Path
to Independence (New Haven and London: Yale, 1993) opens his narrative with
an eloquent description of the forests and their impact on the native culture.
2.	Adam of Bremen, History of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen, trans.
Francis J. Tschan (New York: Columbia University Press, 1959), 197-198.
Swedish authority over the coastal regions dates back to the Varangian era, when
Vikings regularly sailed the rivers to the Black Sea and Byzantium. Some
historians attribute the foundation of the Russian state to these energetic
barbarians. By the time of Adam of Bremen, however, only distant memories of
ancient greatness remained. Even the geography is incorrect. Courland (Kurland)
is not an island, nor are there any Amazons.
3.	Tore Nyberg says that this was so universal that we should be skeptical about
locating ancient people on the basis of chroniclers’ accounts. "Skandinavien und
die Christianisierung des siidostlichen Baltikums," La Cristianizzaziqne della
Lituania (ed. Paulius Rabikauskas. Vatican City: Vaticana, 1989) [Atti e
Documenti, 2], 236-237.
4.	Livlandische Reimchronik, 2d. ed, ed. Leo Mayer (Hildesheim: George Olms,
1963), lines 322-377 (hereafter cited as Reimchronik). The translation into
English was done by Jerry C. Smith and William Urban, The Livonian Rhymed
Chronicle (Bloomington: Indiana University Publications, 1977 [Uralic and
Altaic Series, vol. 128]), 5-6.
5.	Evald Tonission, Die Gauja-Liven und ihre materielle Kultur (Tallinn: Eesti
Raamat, 1974), 9-14, *184-186.
6.	Enn Tarvel, "Gesellschaftstruktur in Estland zu Beginn des 13. Jahrhunderts,"
Feodal'nii Krestyanin v vostochnoi i severnoi evrope. Sbornik statei [The Feudal
Peasant in eastern and northern Europe] (Tallinn: Academy of Sciences, 1983),
149-159; Juri Selirand and E. Tonisson, Through Past Millenia, Archeological
Discoveries in Estonia (Tallinn: Perioodika, 1984), 116-119, 127; Harri Moora
and Anton Viires, Abriss der estnischen Volkskunde (Tallinn, 1964), 34-36;
Herbert Ligi, Talupoegade Koormised Eestis [Feudal duties of the Estonian
peasants] (Tallinn: Paamat, 1968), German summary, 298-300.
7.	Arturas Mickevicius, "Curonian Society within the Context of Viking and
Early Medieval Scandinavia," Towards a New History in the Baltic Republics
(Gothenburg, Sweden, 1993), 45-57; Tonission, Die Gauja-Liven, 188; note also
the excellent survey of Prussian and Jatwigian prehistory in Historia Pomorza,
I (ed. Marian Biskup et al. Poznan: Wydawnictwo Poznanskie, 1972).
8.	See Manfred Hellmann, Das Lettenland im Mittelalter: Studien zur
ostbalt&chen Fruhzeit und lettischen Stammesgeschichte, insbesonders Lettgallens
(Munster: BOhlau, 1954), Reinhard Wittram, Baltische Geschichte; die
Ostseelande, Livland, Estland, Kurland: 1180-1918 (Munich: R. Oldenbourg,
1954), and C. Engel and A. Brackmann, Baltische Lande, Vol. I of Ostbaltische
FrUhzeit (Leipzig: S. Hirsel, 1939); Marija Gimbutas, The Balts (New York:
Livonia on the Eve of the Invasions
41
praegei, 1963); Wilhelm Mannhardt, Letto-Preussische Gotterlehre (Riga:
Lettish-Literarische Gesellschaft, 1963); Ivar Paulson, "Alt-estnische Volks-
religion," Commentationes Balticae, 12-13,4 (1976), 205-49; Evalds Mugurevids,
"Krisfigas Ticibas Latvijas Teritorija 11-12. Gs. un Katolu Basnlcas Ekspansijas
Sakums," Vestis [Latvian Academy of Science], 5(1987), 10-27.
9.	The Chronicle of Henry of Livonia, trans. James A. Brundage (Madison:
University of Wisconsin Press, 1961), 49 (hereafter cited as Henry of Livonia).
I have chosen this translation over the Latin edition of Leonid Arbusow and
Albert Bauer, Heinrici Chronicon Livontae (2nd ed. Hannover: Hahnsche
Buchhandlung, 1950), because of the numerous quotations I wish to present in
English.
10.	Henry of Livonia, 90-91; Michal Giedroyd notes in "The Arrival of
Christianity in Lithuania: Early Contacts (Thirteenth Century)," Oxford Slavonic
Papers, 18 (1985) [New Series, XVIII], 7, that the Lithuanians under Ringaudas
were potentially capable of challenging the Germans but were not yet aware of
their own strength. Henryk Paszkiewicz, The Origin of Russia (London: Allen
& Unwin, 1954), 185-187, 192, for the Lithuanians’ evil reputation in this era.
11.	Michal Giedroyd, "The Rulers of Thirteenth Century Lithuania: a Search for
the Origins of Grand Duke Traidenis and his Kin," Oxford Slavonic Papers, 17
(1984), 1-9.
12.	Jacob Ozols, "Die vor- und fruhgeschichtlichen Burgen Semgallens,"
Commentationes Balticae, 14/15 (Bonn: Baltisches Forschungsinstitut, 1971),
107-213; F. Balodis, "Die Burgberge Lettlands," Studi Baltici 8 (1941-1942), 46-
91; for similar fortifications throughout Europe, Robert Higham and Philip
Barker, Timber Castles (London: Batsford, 1993).
13.	Paszkiewicz, The Origin of Russia, 193-94; S. C. Rowell, "Between
Lithuania and Rus’: Dovmont-Timofey of Pskov, his Life and Cult," Oxford
Slavonic Papers, (1992), 4; Hellmann, Das Lettenland im Mittelalter, 65, 145-
148.
14.	Gert Hartz, and Arkodi Molvogin, Visby Colloquium des Hansischen
Geschichtsverein (K61n: BOhlau, 1987), 67-81, 83-98; A. K. Vassar and Enn
Tarvel, "Itameren itSosassa asuvien heimojen taistelu Saksalais-Skandinaavista
agressiota vastaan 12. ja 13. vuosisadalla" [the struggle of eastern Baltic tribes
against German-Scandinavian aggression in the 12th and 13th centuries],
Eripainos, 69(1975), 6-27, with English summary, 27-29; From Viking to
Crusader. The Scandinavians and Europe 800-1200. (Ed. Else Roesdahl and
David Wilson. New York: Rizzoli, 1992), 74-81.
15.	Bartlett, Making of Europe, 254-260.
16.	John Fennell, The Crisis of Medieval Russia 1200-1304 (London and New
York: Longman, 1983), 1-13, 22-34.
17.	Jerzy Ochmariski, "The Eastern Lithuanian Ethnic Boundary," Eastern
Lithuania, A collection of Historical and Ethnographic Studies, (ed. Algirdas
Rudreckis. Chicago: Morkunas, 1985), 115-133; and Paszkiewicz, Origin of
Russia, 188-89; Fennell, Crisis of Medieval Russia, 16-17, 20-21, states that the
42
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
granu duke had lost control of this region by 1200, but believes that Lithuanian
influence becomes dominant only later.
18.	Fennell, The Crisis of Medieval Russia, 22-40.
19.	Fennell, The Crisis of Medieval Russia, 51-52, 57-58.
20.	Hinrik Birnbaum, Lord Novgorod the Great (Los Angeles, 1981) [UCLA
Slavic Studies, 2]; for archeology see B.A. Kolchin and VX. Yanin,
Novgorodskii Sbornik (Moscow: Nauka, 1982); From Viking to Crusader, 82-83.
21. Rowell, "Dovmont-Timofey," 1-3; Fennell emphasizes strongly Novgorod’s
appointment of the posadnik as evidence that city strictly supervised Pskov’s
self-government, Crisis of Medieval Russia, 17.
22.	Paszkiewicz, The Making of the Russian Nation (London: Darton, Longman
& Todd, 1963), 45-47, 317.
23.	Bartlett, Making of Europe, 15-8, 260-264, 295-297, 306-314.
24.	The Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen had led the missionary effort to
Scandinavia since the time of Saint Ansgar (831-865). From Viking to Crusader,
152-161. Under Archbishop Adalbert (1043-1072), Bremen seemed as powerful
as a second Rome, but during the Investiture Controversy the northern bishoprics
were taken away. Sweden was lost in 1104 beyond recovery, but Norway might
still be won back. Georg Gottfried Dehio, Hartwick von Stade, Erzbischof von
Hamburg-Bremen (Bremen: Diereksen & Wichlein, 1872), 30-32. See the
excellent essays (some in English) in Gli Inizi del Cristianesimo in Livonia-
Lettonia, and Tore Nyberg, "Deutsche, dMnische und schwedische
Christianisierungsversuche Ostlich der Ostsee im Geiste des 2. und 3.
Kreuzzuges," Die Rolle der Ritterordern in der Christianisierung des
Ostseegebietes (ed. Zenon Nowak. Torun: Nicolaus Copernicus University, 1983
[Colloquia Torunensia Historica 1]), 93-114; and James Addison, The Medieval
Missionary. A Study of the Conversion of Northern Europe A.D. 55-1300 (New
York and London: International Missionary Council, 1936). Archeologist Evalds
MugureviCs notes that although historians have speculated about the existence of
a Scandinavian bishopric in Kurland, there is as yet no material evidence for one.
"Skandinavische Geschichtsquellen des 9. bis 12. Jh. und archMologische Befunde
auf dem Territorium Lettlands," Studia Baltica Stockholmiensia, 9(1992), 130;
Nyberg, "Skandinavien," 237-243.
25.	Arthur VOobus, Studies in the History of the Estonian People (Stockholm:
Etse, 1969), I, 27-34; Nyberg, "Skandinavien," 237-243; Peter Rebane,
"Denmark, the Papacy, and the Christianization of Estonia," and Edgar Anderson,
"Early Danish Missionaries in the Baltic Countries," Gli inizi del cristianesimo,
171-178, 245-275.
26.	Manfred Hellmann, "Die P8pste und Litauen," La Christianizzazione della
Lituania, 28-29.
27.	Manned Hellmann, "Bischof Meinhard und die Eigenart der kirchlichen
Organisation in den baltischen LSndem," Gli inizi del crisianesimo in Livonia-
Lettonia, 20-21; Michele Maccarone, "I papi e gli inizi della cristianizzazione
della Livonia," Ibid., 32; Norbert Angermann, "Meinhard, der Apostel Livland,"
Arbeitshilfe, 51(1986).
Livonia on the Eve of the Invasions
43
28.	Estnische Volksbrauche (Tallinn: Perioodika, 1991); Ivar Paulson, "Alt-
estnische Volksreligion," Commentationes Balticae, 12-13/4(Bonn: Baltisches
Forschungsinstitut, 1967); archeological studies of pagan life are multiplying
rapidly* Often these have excellent illustrations and photos of artifacts. See, for
example, the catalog Rigas Arheologija 50 (Riga: Rigas vestures un kugniecibas
muzejs, 1988).
29.	Marija Gimbutas, "The Pre-Christian Religion of Lithuania," La
Cristianizzazione della Lituania, 13-25; Algirdas J. Greimas, Of Gods and Men.
Studies in Lithuanian Mythology (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana
University Press, 1992). These modem studies of the roots of the Baltic peoples
and their religion differ sharply from the more traditional western accounts of
Indo-Europeans migrating from an eastern European homeland; instead they
located the center of the diaspora much further south and east. Jaan Puhvel,
"Indo-European Prehistory and Myth," Yearbook of the Estonian Learned Society
in America, IV (1964-1967), 51-62.
30.	Nina Taylor, "The Folklore Origin of Mickiewicz’s Dziady. Olimpia
Swianiewiczowa’s Intepretation," Oxford Slavonic Papers, 22 (1990), 39-60.
31.	VOobus is the most prominent of the exile scholars who saw nothing but
good in native life, little but evil in the conquering peoples. According to
him-and he was a good scholar with an excellent command of the sources-the
Estonians had no desire for war or conquest. Studies, I, 13.
32.	Henry of Livonia, 25-26; Norbert Angerman, "Meinhard, der Apostel
Livlands," Arbeitshilfe, 51 (1986), 1-18.
33.	Friedrich Benninghoven, Der Orden der Schwertbruder (Cologne-Graz:
BGhlau, 1965), 20-23; papal encouragement of the missionaries came in 1190.
Urkundenbuch, III, no. 10a.
34.	Maccarone, "I papi," 45-47, 64-65.
35.	Henry of Livonia, 27-28; Constance Brittain Bouchard, Holy Entrepreneurs.
Cistercians, Knights, and Economic Exchange in Twelfth-Century Burgundy
(Ithaca: Cornell, 1991), 21,189, emphasizes the Cistercians’ willingness to found
monasteries in obscure locations and their enthusiasm for economic activity;
Bemhart Jahnig, "Zisterzienser und Ritterorden zwischen geistlicher und
weltlicher Macht in Livland und PreuBen zu Beginn der Missionszeit,” Die
Ritterorden zwischen geistlicher und weltlicher Macht im Mittelalter (ed. Zenon
Hubert Nowak. Toruri: Nicolaus Copernicus University, 1990) [Colloquia
Torunensia Historica V), 75, 83.
36.	Henry of Livonia, 28-30; papal approval of the mission was dated 27 April
1193. Liv-, Est-, und Kurlandisches Urkundenbuch, ed. Friedrich Georg von
Bunge (Riga and Reval: 1857-1875), Vol. I, document 11 (hereafter cited as
Urkundenbuch).
У1. Denunciations of the behavior of Columbus and Cort6s can be easily applied
to the Baltic Crusade,"With the exception of seeking gold and importing foreign
slaves. Magnus MOmer, "The Baltic Republics—Some Comparative Historical
Perspectives," Toward a New History in the Baltic Republics, 27-30.
Portugal
Sweden
Norway
Ireland^
Suzdal
orth Sea
ovgorot
olozk
Spain
Black Sea
ire
SwabiaBavaria
Hungary
Iransylvania
Serbia
Bulgaria
Baltic
Sea
в
LUbeck
Kiev
erejslavl
Vite
West-
"SouvinesJ^uJ
< land'
Volhyma
Smolensk
France
2 Verona
Austria
enice
Galicia
Constantinople
Turkish sultanate
of Iconium л.A
Armenia
MOOrS
Brindisi
Sicily
unisia
Aina = A
Bamberg = В
Bremen = Br
Cologne = C
Gelnhausen = G
H = Hamburg
L = Lund
Modena = M
Nuremberg = N
M
I?
Д Rom
( ) Naple
Jerusalem
Damie
0
0
300 km
180 miles
Mediterranean Sea
Wurzburg =W
EUROPE IN THE LATE 12TH
AND EARLY 13TH CENTURIES
'aspian\
'ea
Persia
THE ORGANIZATION OF THE BALTIC CRUSADE
The mission to the eastern Baltic began during a period of great upheaval
in Germany. There were bitter civil wars, each complicated by papal intervention
and recurring calls for crusaders to the Holy Land. There was also an economic
vitality, marked by the increase in the population and the spread of foreign
commerce. Intellectual and spiritual greatness existed there, too, though other
cultures eventually profited most from these qualities. And, not to be overlooked
was a rapid development of military technology. In short, because of political
failures, what would otherwise had been a period of greatness became no more
than an era of economic progress. The Baltic Crusade, caught in the maelstrom
of politics, was assured of some success because of the general current of the
times and the weakness of its victims, but its progress depended upon the state
of affairs in Germany and Scandinavia.1
Meinhard had failed in his mission to Livonia because he lacked the
military might to crush the natives. It was obvious to practical men of that period
that force was the only means for the speedy baptism of the populace, and most
Christians agreed that—for both spiritual and financial reasons—baptism was
absolutely necessary for every individual. Many Germans and Scandinavians, and
some Slavs, too, were willing to earn eternal life by participating in a military
expedition to "protect” the Livonian Church, but because of the political situation
at any one time they were not always available for service abroad. Therefore,
Meinhard’s successors had to take advantage of the occasions which favored
military intervention in the east, and through a combination of wits and luck
somehow survive the less propitious periods.
Civil War In Germany
For seven years the Emperor Heinrich VI had ruled with a strong and
heavy hand; though making many enemies in the process, he had reestablished
imperial prestige. He had also made constitutional innovations, especially in the
naming of a group of electors whose purpose would be to choose the emperor.
This body was neither well-defined nor universally accepted when his sudden
death in 1197 left a three-year-old son heir to the throne. His enemies saw the
new electorial process as a means of undoing the work that Heinrich and his
father, Frederick Barbarossa, had accomplished. The Hohenstaufen party in
Germany played right into their hands by nominating as his successor Heinrich’s
brother Philip rather than his young son. This elevation of practical
considerations above legitimacy created a legal conundrum perfectly suited to
those who hoped to take advantage of the crisis for their own purposes.2
Because strong emperors tended to exert a great deal of influence in Italy,
the interests of the papacy seemed to lie in keeping German^ weak. Certainly the
Hew pope, Innocent III, believed that Heinrich VI had been too dangerous. As
Innocent saw it, Pope Celestine had tried to bring together the interests of papacy
and empire in areas of .irreconcilable conflicts, and Heinrich had succeeded in
encircling the Papal States, a situation that threatened the independence of the
Papacy. Innocent saw the separation of Sicily from the Holy Roman Empire as
a bare minimum for papal safety, and he was determined to accomplish this in
46
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
any way necessary. Brilliant, ambitious, and forceful, and often considered the
greatest of the medieval popes, he saw this crisis of succession as a God-given
opportunity to rescue the papacy from the Hohenstaufens. If this had been his
sole concern, however, the medieval papacy might have developed in other
directions than it did. Not only was he determined to free the Papal States from
the danger of secular domination, he was also intent on extending papal influence
across Europe, so that all important issues would ultimately be decided by the
pope. Therefore, even had the German emperor been willing to give up his rights
in Italy, he would still have come into conflict with the pope. As the strongest
ruler in Europe, the emperor would have to face the papal challenge most
squarely.
The interests of the English monarch also conflicted with imperial
ambitions. Richard the Lionheart saw the members of his Angevin family being
dispossessed by the Hohenstaufen emperors. He could not ignore the appeals for
aid by the adherents of the Welf party in Germany and by the Normans in Sicily
in the name of his sisters Matilda and Johanna, though perhaps he should have.
Richard was not a wise king, but he was proud and chivalrous. For that reason
he generously gave aid to the Welfs, and he encouraged the Sicilians; and such
was his hatred for the Hohenstaufens that while on crusade, he resisted no
opportunity to insult their followers. But Richard also had another motive for
mixing in German affairs: Philip Augustus, the Capetian monarch of France.
Although Richard had greater resources than his opponent, he could not easily
bring them to the defense of Normandy, which led him to foresee the loss of the
province unless the Welfs joined him in an effort to utterly overthrow the French
king (as came to pass in 1215 at the Battle of Bouvines). However, under the
present circumstances neither Richard nor the Welfs could be of much use to one
another. Nevertheless, they were all reluctant to abandon the sweet illusion that
family solidarity and mutual interests were sufficient to overcome every hazard,
even the great distances which lay between them.
Supported both covertly and openly by Pope Celestine III and King
Richard, the archbishop of Cologne rallied the scattered adherents of the Welf
cause to the support of Otto, the youngest son of Henry the Lion and also
Richard’s nephew. Provided liberally with English silver, the archbishop was able
to bribe many undecided nobles and churchmen to attend a large assembly of
princes willing to make Otto German king and emperor-elect, an ambition he
achieved in the early spring of 1198.3
Because there were two candidates for the imperial throne, each elected
by a large number of secular and ecclesiastical rulers and each crowned with
pomp and ceremony but neither having clear title, it remained for the pope to
choose between them. But the new pope, Innocent III, was in no hurry. He
delayedfcn making the decision, pointing out irregularities in each election and
coronation, and bided his time. There had been procedural errors in each case,
but these were of less importance than the concessions he intended to obtain
from the candidates. In particular, he wanted a promise to sever the connection
between the Holy Roman Empire and the kingdom of Sicily. If this—and
more—were not forthcoming, a short civil war in Germany would not harm the
The Organization of the Baltic Crusade
47
cause of the papacy. Innocent III was not a pope to stand by and wring his
hands; he was determined to take measures to force concessions from every
monarch in Europe. Germany was a good place to begin, and the disputed
election was a good excuse.
Innocent played his role of impartial judge very cleverly. By not revealing
his strategy to his enemies, he kept them in suspense as to which candidate he
would support; in any case, he knew that an immediate declaration would have
been ineffective because neither side would abandon its cause until its candidate
had been struck down by a mailed fist. While quietly watching events unfold, he
solidified his own position inside the Church. Meanwhile, in the summer of 1198
the Hohenstaufens and Capetians formed an alliance against the Welfs and
Angevins, and each German party sought to buy as many supporters as its
foreign money would allow. The chronicler Albert of Stade remarked laconically:
"Philip and Otto fought bravely against one another to the great harm of the
Empire. Richard, King of England, supported his nephew Otto with money."4
The outbreak of civil war in the Holy Roman Empire, and Richard’s
repeated insults, prompted the German crusaders in the Holy Land to return
home as quickly as possible. Among them was an ambitious prelate:
Hartwig, the archbishop of Bremen, sailed from the Holy Land to
Venice and went from there to Bremen. He brought with him relics
of the holy Anna and the sword of Peter, the one with which he
had struck off the ear of Malchus. The pilgrims return *d as a result
of the death of the emperor, after they had made a truce with the
48
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
When Hartwig returned to Europe his first impression was that a
Hohenstaufen victory was inevitable, and in May 1199 he joined with other
prelates in writing the pope on behalf of Philip.6 As he proceeded north,
however, he found the Welf strength so formidable that by the time he reached
Bremen he was wavering in his resolve. Nevertheless, he sent troops to support
the count of Holstein against the Danes.7
Adolf of Holstein found the situation extremely serious. Although his
domains had not experienced disorder or invasion, he was surrounded by Welf
or Danish vassals and allies, and though he could call upon aid from
Hohenstaufen-inclined princes for the time being, he could not expect much help
later if those rulers felt threatened by attack themselves. He had chosen sides,
but, like most princes of the area, his loyalties were primarily to himself,
and—like the others—he hoped the fighting in the Rhineland would be decisive,
one way or the other.
Bishop Berthold’s Mission to Livonia
It was during this period, in the midst of this uproar, that the mission to
Livonia was converted into a crusading venture. In 1197, before his departure to
the Holy Land, Archbishop Hartwig had invested Berthold, the Cistercian abbot
of Loccum, as bishop of Uexkiill. The younger son of a ministeriale family
which had colonized the swamps along the Elbe River at Aites Land, he was
familiar with many of the noble families of the region and complexities of local
politics. Berthold accepted his new duties grudgingly, perhaps displeased that
Hartwig had been stripping the land of soldiers for his own crusade, perhaps
displeased at being taken from his quiet duties and sent into the whirlpool of war
and politics. That meant that Berthold’s first venture into Livonia would have
only minimal military support.8
He went to Livonia, came to Uexkiill, took over the patrimony of
the church, and gathered into his presence all of the more
important Livonians, both Christian and pagan. He strove to please
them with food, drink, and gifts, and said that he came at their
invitation and that he had succeeded his predecessor as sole heir.
They received him cordially at first, but at the consecration of the
cemetery at Holm,9 some conspired to bum him in the church,
others to kill him, and others to drown him. They charged that he
came because he was poor. After considering this beginning, he
went secretly to the ships and back to Gotland and on to Saxony.
He bewailed both to the lord pope and to the bishop, as well as to
all the faithful of Christ, the ruin of the church of Livonia. The
lord pope, therefore, granted remission of sins to all those who
should take the cross and arm themselves against the perfidious
Livonians.10
The Organization of the Baltic Crusade
49
Berthold returned to Livonia in July of 1198 with an army. The Livs
gathered their forces opposite the Christians, and though they were unwilling to
submit to mass baptism, they offered to allow Berthold to stay in the land to
compel his converts to remain faithful; but he would be allowed only to
persuade, not force, others to believe in Christ. This was not sufficient for
Berthold. When the natives refused his demand for hostages, and killed several
German foragers, he ordered an attack. His army was not large, but it was well
equipped. He not only had heavy cavalry, armored knights on warhorses which
easily overthrew the small Baltic ponies that failed to move out of their relentless
path, but he also had infantry armed with crossbows, pikes, billhooks, and
halberds, as well as protected by iron armor and leather garments.11 By
comparison, the Liv forces were practically unarmed. Moreover, they were not
particularly numerous and their military tradition was one of perceiving a
predictable defeat As the western proverb put it, discretion was the better part
of valor.
Ironically, Berthold was almost the only Christian casualty. Although the
Saxon knights quickly routed the native units, Berthold’s horse bolted, carrying
him into the enemy’s ranks among the sand dunes, where he was cut down
before rescuers could reach him. After taking a terrible revenge for his death, the
crusaders left small garrisons in the castles and sailed home.12
The clergy and one ship of merchants remained. Now the wind
filled the sails, and lo! the treacherous Livonians, emerging from
their customary baths, poured water of the [Daugava] River over
themselves, saying: "We now remove the water of baptism and
Christianity itself with the water of the river. Scrubbing off the
faith we have received, we send it after the withdrawing
Saxons."13
Soon afterward the monks were attacked. Unable to go into the fields,
they saw their crops perish from neglect. Then, hearing that death had been
decreed for any priest who remained in the land past Easter, the frightened clergy
fled back to Saxony.
This episode made it clear that occasional expeditions were inadequate to
the task of subduing the pagans in Livonia, and it was equally plain that it would
be a great task to raise a large force for long-term service abroad from a divided
and disorderly Germany. When Archbishop Hartwig II looked about for a
suitable successor to the martyred Berthold, he looked first among his own
relatives, because ties of blood and marriage were even more important in those
troubled days than usual. His choice was his nephew, Albert von Buxhoevden,
who was a canon in the Bremen Church. The selection was sensible, and
nepotism provided no argument against him in those days, but rather in his favor.
The close relationship between the archbishopric and the crusade was now
reinforced by family ties-and young Albert became bishop of Uexkiill with the
blessing of the Church.14
50
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
Bishop Albert’s Crusade
Because the crusade was so dependent upon the archbishop, its success
was largely determined by the fortune of archiepiscopal politics, which in turn,
were determined by the Welf-Hohenstaufen struggle for the imperial crown. At
first all went well for the archbishop. By driving a hard bargain for his support
of the count of Holstein against the Danes, he recovered Stade, a fortress on the
left bank of the Elbe, standing on the only high ground between Hamburg and
Bremen. Stade also controlled traffic on the Elbe and was the center of an area
of rich bottomland filled with crops of grain and fruit; moreover, its name was
associated with ancient claims to the entire lower Elbe region. For decades the
archbishops had striven to recover Stade—the essential first step to the recovery
of archiepiscopal power such as his distant predecessors had enjoyed. This, in
turn, mean that Hartwig’s support of the Baltic Crusade could be interpreted as
a reassertion of Hamburg-Bremen’s traditional role as a missionary center.
The most important man in the north was not the archbishop, however, but
King Canute of Denmark. Guided by his brother Waldemar, the sickly monarch
advanced Danish banners in several directions at once. He exhausted Count
Adolf of Holstein simply by concentrating a number of knights along the frontier
and forcing him to employ expensive countermeasures. He drove the
Brandenburg duke out of Pomerania and sent an expedition to Estonia (of which
we know too little). It was not an overtly aggressive policy; the Danes threatened
here, then there, and day by day wore down their opponents without having to
commit themselves in the Welf-Hohenstaufen struggle.
Bishop Albert’s travels in 1199 illustrate how well he understood these
political realities. He traveled overland from Bremen to Lubeck, where he
boarded a ship bound for Gotland, for it was absolutely essential to gain the
assent of the Visby merchant communities before organizing any military
expedition to the eastern Baltic. In this case, the merchants were eager to
participate, and 500 of them took the cross to Livonia. Albert then returned to
Denmaik to visit Canute, Waldemar, and the venerable archbishop of Lund. He
spoke to the needs of the Livonian Church, and undoubtedly discussed the
advantages that Christianity in general, and Denmark in particular, would receive
by establishing a bishopric on the banks of the Daugava. It is not stated what
Albert promised the Danes, but from the claims that Waldemar later brought
forth it seems probable that there was some submission to Danish overlordship,
especially in Estonia. Albert then left for Germany after having obtained a vague
promise of support amounting to a friendly neutrality. His next venture was at
the court of Philip of Hohenstaufen, the leading candidate for the throne of the
empire.
*
King Philip went to Magdeburg on the day that our Lord was bom
of the maiden he had chosen as his mother. There an emperor’s
brother and an emperor’s son went in one garment, although they
had three titles. He carried the true scepter and the true throne. He
strode easily in full calm. After him came a high-born queen, a
The Organization of the Baltic Crusade
51
rose without thorns, a dove without gall. All gazed upon them. The
Thuringers and Saxons performed court service so that the most
fastidious would be satisfied.15
It was a glittering occasion, immortalized by the poetry of the Minnesinger
Walther von der Vogelweide. The Hohenstaufen adherents appeared, as well as
many Welfish and neutral nobles. Adolf of Holstein, Hartwig of Bremen, and
Bernard of Saxony presented themselves. It was at that time that Philip
confirmed Hartwig’s possession of Stade, disregarding the Welf claims.16
Hartwig most likely introduced his nephew to the emperor immediately
afterward. Albert, allowed to address the assembled court, described the proposed
crusade, after which he obtained a promise of imperial support. Then he turned
to the papal legate, a silent witness of the proceedings:
In the presence of the king an opinion was asked for as to whether
the goods of the pilgrims to Livonia were to be placed under the
protection of the pope, as is the case of those who journey to
Jerusalem. It was answered, indeed, that they were included under
the protection of the pope, who in enjoying the Livonian
pilgrimage for the plenary remission of sin, made it equal with that
to Jerusalem.17
This was what Albert had been waiting for. He may already have visited
Pope Innocent personally, for his schedule would have allowed time for a trip to
Rome, and he most likely knew that the pope had approved the crusade. But
never could he have announced the decision so effectively as at the court at
Magdeburg. With the support of the Danish king, the Hohenstaufen candidate for
the crown, and now the pope, any noble or cleric who wished to escape the
conflict in Germany could do so by taking the cross to Livonia. Since Mends
and relatives were now beseeching every noble, ministeriale, and cleric to declare
their allegiance in the conflict, many men faced a terrible dilemma: a choice
between the loss of honor and the loss of all their worldly possessions. Albert
offered an escape from this dilemma: no one dared accuse a crusader of
cowardliness or dereliction of duty.18
Albert had several special privileges in the papal letter—and he would
receive even more in 1201. First of all, no matter what emergency might arise
in the Holy Land, Albert did not need to fear that any crusaders he had
laboriously recruited would be suddenly ordered to fulfill their vows in the
Middle East. Secondly, he could assume that he would be able to call on
reinforcements without asking special permission from the pope—and by
repeatedly obtaining confirmation of these rights, he created a perpetual crusade
of annual summer expeditions sailing from Lubeck to Livonia. Lastly, whenever
he encountered objections from any abbot or prelate about releasing his monks
or canons to serve as missionaries he could display the papal edict allowing him
to recruit suitable priests as missionaries. Among other rights granted, Albert had
52
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
authority to give his canons the Augustine rule and habit, thereby freeing them
from their previous ties to powerful orders such as the Cistercians.19
Albert preached the crusade across Saxony and Westphalia. He won over
a number of volunteers, most notably Conrad von Dortmund and Hartberg von
Iburg,20 but not as many as he had hoped. Few came from Holstein, where
Count Adolf had called up every available knight for service against the Danes
(but all in vain—he had to surrender the great fortress at Rendsburg and the land
of Dithmarschen in return for a truce). Most of Albert’s crusaders were of
common or middle-class origin and, therefore, neither as well equipped,
disciplined, or experienced as the Saxon nobles. Of these commoners, several
hundred Frisians were the most important; these hardy warriors had already made
a reputation in the Holy Land, and their skill in sailing and marsh warfare would
be much appreciated in Livonia.
The crusaders sailed from Lubeck to Gotland, where the volunteers from
Visby joined the fleet, and its twenty-three vessels proceeded to Livonia. Each
of these heavy, decked vessels could carry a hundred or more fighting men and
their supplies; so Bishop Albert had a respectable army. Its size and the memory
of their losses in the previous battle were sufficient to prevent the natives from
offering open resistance. Still, the Livs fought back; although the population fled
into the forests, their warriors attacked single ships and ambushed small
squadrons of calvary, a method which demonstrated a skillful use of their
traditional tactics, but which was not successful against the crusaders’
overwhelming numbers and enthusiasm. When Bishop Albert proposed a parley,
the elders agreed to come.
Called by the Germans to a drinking party, they all gathered at the
same time and were shut up in one house. Fearing lest they be
brought across the sea into Germany, they presented about thirty
of their better boys from the region of the [Daugava] and from
Treiden to the bishop. He received them with joy and, committing
the land to the Lord, returned to Germany.21
Albert most likely entrusted some of the hostages to the canons of his
chapter. Each cathedral was supposed to have a "scolasticus" to train the boys’
choir in music and Latin. Albert would most certainly have insisted on a choir
for mass. Moreover, we know of several translators in future years who were
apparently native boys trained as priests in Livonia. In any case, Albert did not
send hostages to Segeberg as had been past practice. In the beginning most of
them were held in Uexkiill, but after 1201 they were kept in Riga.22
Because it was obvious that hostages could do no more than maintain a
tenuous peace with a portion of the Liv population, Bishop Albert had to raise
another army. He sent Theodoric to Rome to explain the situation, with specific
instructions to obtain permission to organize a second crusading expedition and
to prohibit trade between Christians and the unconverted tribes. The pope obliged
him by publishing the necessary documents, and the Gotland merchants later
The Organization of the Baltic Crusade
53
agreed to prohibit trade with Albert’s enemies, which assured him a monopoly
of the local trade and access to a considerable source of revenue.23
Pope Innocent followed up his grants by issuing still further privileges in
the following year. Undoubtedly initiated at this time, although perhaps
introduced earlier by Meinhard as well, the requests involved difficult questions
of church theory and tradition which had to be researched before an answer
could be given. For example, successful Baltic warriors expected that one of the
rewards for victory would be permission to choose additional wives and
concubines from among the women taken captive. But, in addition, there was the
custom of providing for a widow by having her marry her late husband’s brother.
This form of polygamy was more offensive in the eyes of Christian observers
than the primitive distribution of prisoners among the nobles. It was also more
important to the pagan women, providing as it a guarantee of status and security
no matter what befell their husbands. What was the church to require of
converts? Throw all second wives into the street? Understanding the dilemma of
the Livonian churchmen, Innocent made a liberal interpretation of the law—in
order to avoid endangering the soul of any potential convert, the Livonians were
bound to church law only after conversion, which allowed him to permit
arrangements made under pagan law to remain in force. The decree was
appropriately known by its joyful opening word, Gaudeamus, and this same spirit
continued through to its conclusion, "do whatever you believe is in their interest,
since only that which is well done is that which improves the lives of men.”
Nevertheless, missionaries noted that women were reluctant converts to
Christianity, and they suspected them of secretly continuing pagan practices and
of teaching ancient folklore to their children.24
When Albert returned to Germany in the fall of 1200 the political situation
was no longer favorable for appeals for crusaders. Hohenstaufen forces had failed
to take the Welf stronghold at Braunschweig but had captured Lauenburg, their
second most important city. There were persisting rumors that Otto’s brother,
Heinrich, planned to desert the Welf cause, but he and other wavering princes
remained loyal. There was no decisive battle, and when the long, daik, wet North
German winter arrived, all military activities were suspended, while the
countryside lapsed into an insecure and deceptively peaceful state. Albert’s call
for volunteers was most effective when knights fearing that their party faced
imminent defeat could place themselves and their property under papal protection
by going on crusade, and when victors were free for new ventures; it was least
likely to be successful during stalemates, when powerful men might anticipate
being richly rewarded—if circumstances changed quickly—for a timely
declaration of allegiance to the winning side. An additional factor was sheer
exhaustion. Not every knightly family shared the enthusiasm for crusading
equally, and not even the most devout crusaders had the money and stamina to
go abroad year after year.
In the spring of 1201 the war began anew. In March, Pope Innocent III,
after having obtained a promise from Otto to separate Sicily from the empire,
recognized the Welf candidate as the properly elected German king. This sent a
54
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
chill through the Hohenstaufen forces, but especially through Adolf of Holstein.
At a moment when the Hohenstaufen army was in the north, close enough to
assist him if he were attacked, he had invaded Dithmarschen and taken it from
the Danes. He had awaited the Danish counterattack, but it did not come. Philip’s
forces soon moved away, leaving Adolf and his ally, Hartwig of Bremen, to fend
for themselves. After the Hohenstaufen forces had crossed the Rhine, the Danes
attacked. The Danish vassal, Duke Heinrich Burwin of Mecklenburg, inflicted a
devastating defeat on Adolf, capturing seventy Holstein knights in the first
encounter. A local chronicler, Albert of Stade, summarized the campaign briefly:
Philip and Otto tested their strength on the Moselle. Canute, king
of the Danes, besieged Hamburg, and his brother, Duke Waldemar,
crossed the Elbe to attack Count Adolf. Hamburg was taken and
Count Adolf had to surrender to the duke.25
Bishop Albert sailed from Lubeck for Livonia just as the Danish invasion
was beginning, but he had not been able to recruit many "pilgrims,” as they were
called. He had only persuaded two minor Saxon nobles to take the cross. One of
these, Conrad von Meiendorf, he enfeoffed with the castle at Uexkiill,26 since
he no longer had much interest in those island stations. He had decided to found
a city at Riga, where a natural harbor was formed by the confluence of a small
stream and the Daugava River. After building a wall across the narrow stretch
of land between the rivers, he moved the cathedral chapter to this site and began
the construction of an appropriate building dedicated to the Virgin Mary, who
was to be his recruiting "symbol" in the future. What potential crusader could not
be recruited to fight for the "Land of the Blessed Virgin?" And as the city was
large, he invited merchants and fishermen, regardless of national origin, to settle
there permanently. The largest contingent came from Bremen, thereby
establishing a connection of custom and kinship which remained strong
throughout the centuries. Then, despite the cold and primitive conditions, Albert
set an example by wintering there himself.27
Civil War In Germany
It was as well that Albert did not return to Germany, and perhaps his
decision to remain in Livonia had been determined by the reports of Danish
victories there. Soon after Albert had cleared Lubeck harbor, the Danes captured
the Lubeck fishing fleet and took the leading citizens as hostages, which
eliminated that city as a military asset to the count of Holstein. Then the Danish
forces marched to Hamburg and other towns, as we have seen, and captured
those relatively small centers one by one. Adolf of Holstein temporarily eluded
capture by crossing the Elbe, but in the winter of 1200-1201 he returned
suddenly to retake Hamburg, after which Duke Waldemar hurried south and
besieged the town again. When the protective lake and the Elbe unexpectedly
froze, Adolf saw that he could no longer defend the city, and he surrendered.
The Organization of the Baltic Crusade
55
Many expected Waldemar to be content with exacting homage from Adolf
and leave him the governance of his domains, a policy of the Danes in
Mecklenburg, Schwerin, and elsewhere, but an unfortunate incident occurred to
cast doubt upon Adolfs usefulness to Waldemar.
The Saxons suggested that the count go up to Lauenburg and
surrender the castle, after which he could go free with his men.
Count Gunzel of Schwerin agreed to help Adolf. Count Adolf took
an oath on this and went to Lauenburg...but there were
Dithmarschers, who, when they learned that Count Adolf was in
the camp, made such an uproar and would have killed him because
he was so often an enemy of their land, that Count Gunzel and the
others had to keep him well escorted and protected, as the duke
had ordered, and use all their power to keep him alive. When the
duke came with his men, [Adolf’s] honor was shattered.28
The outcome was that Adolf forfeited his lands, and Waldemar decided to
replace him. The archbishop of Bremen fared little better:
About Christmas, one thousand two hundred and two years after
God’s birth, the great prince, King Otto, ordered an assembly of
the army. His brother Heinrich came with a great force. Also
Count Simon of Tecklenburg brought many knights and knights’
sons to the army at Stade, where they besieged the place closely.
They took it and captured Bishop Hartwig of Bremen.29
Otto IV imposed a harsh peace upon the archbishop, stripped him of Stade,
occupied Bremen, and replaced his advocates with Welf adherents. Any forces
which had been resisting the Danes were now so weakened that it was merely
a question of time until North Germany was pacified.
The Danish forces did, in fact, enjoy a swift succession of victories in
Holstein under new and more vigorous leadership. As it happened, the ailing
King Canute of Denmark and his powerful archbishop, Absalon, passed away.
Waldemar succeeded to the throne, and the royal chaplain, Andreas Sunesen, was
installed in Lund. Andreas, who owed his elevation both to family prestige and
royal friendship, understood that the welfare of his archbishopric was inextricably
bound to that of the kingdom. For that reason he was to be a consistent supporter
of Danish expansion, especially expansion toward the east, and it is not without
justification that some Danish historians call him the "Apostle to Livonia."30
This coincided nicely with Waldemar’s need to avoid conflict with the Welfs
over hegemony in North Germany.
On New Year’s Day 1202, Waldemar and Otto IV, each having concluded
his siege successfully, met and formalized a family alliance. Thus, two decades
after the fall of Henry the Lion, the North of Germany passed back into Welf
and pro-Welf hands.
56
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
Isolated by winter and the consequent cessation of travel, the crusaders in
Livonia could not have received intelligence of these events. The Danish and
Welf occupation of the main recruiting areas and the ports for assembly and
departure boded ill for the future of the crusade as planned by Bishop Albert and
Theodoric. When Albert arrived in Lubeck in the spring of 1202, the importance
of all this became clear. He gave up all hope of sending more than a few men
east that summer and concentrated on plans for 1203.
Theodoric’s Innovations
Although Bishop Albert was absent in Germany and Theodoric remained
in Livonia, they were nonetheless working together. Albert was petitioning for
permission to embark on certain new programs and was seeking the men to staff
these programs, while Theodoric was putting them into effect, anticipating that
permission would be forthcoming. First of all, Albert sought approval to move
the bishopric from Uexkiill to Riga, which was easily accomplished. Albert then
obtained permission for his brother Engelbert to leave the monastery at
Neumiinster in Holstein to become the prior of Saint Mary’s. Secondly, he
wanted a Cistercian monastery at Dunamunde (lit. Mouth of the Daugava), a
strategic location which would afford refuge for pilgrims (crusaders) and
merchants immediately upon entering the estuary. From the military standpoint,
a fortification was needed there as well. A Cistercian abbey, with Theodoric at
its head, could provide all this. Although Diinamunde was sufficiently isolated
from large native settlements that monastic discipline would not be threatened,
there were sufficient Livs to supply the monks with the basic necessities and a
labor force. Diinamunde was located at a point which every merchant vessel had
to pass—and Cistercians, despite their austere rules and penchant for isolating
themselves from the world, had always been very interested in practical affairs
such as commerce.31 Thirdly, Albert wanted to find a crusading order that
would provide knights and men-at-arms for the year-round defense of the colony
and permit the proper occupation and administration of the castles.32
The last two ideas came from the productive mind of Theodoric, that
enthusiastic Cistercian who had played such a role in initiating the military
expeditions to Livonia. Such an endeavor was in the tradition of Saint Bernard,
who had organized crusades, assisted in the foundation of crusading orders, and
spread Cistercian monasteries across Europe. Theodoric had visited Rome three
times (once in 1199 and twice in 1200), and each time he had taken every
opportunity to preach the crusade en route. Very likely, he had arranged for
potential crusaders to borrow money to finance their travel, pawning their lands
and offices to the nearest Cistercian abbot His visits to Marienfeld had won over
Abbot Flfcrenz, who made his monks available for assignment to the new
monastery at Diinamunde. The foundation of the crusading order was a complex
undertaking, and of the many spiritual fathers, Theodoric was the most
important.33
The crusading order was brought into being by a small group of
Westphalian nobles and clergy. Theodoric himself had come from Loccum, a
The Organization of the Baltic Crusade
57
Cistercian monastery on the middle Weser, and he had returned there for visits
at every opportunity. This had brought him into contact with the famous comrade
of Henry the Lion, Bernard of Lippe, who had entered the Cistercian monastery
at Marienfeld and later, against his abbot’s wishes, had left it to become abbot
of Loccum. Before entering the monastic life of one of the most austere religious
orders of that time, Bernard had been to Livonia on crusade, probably on the first
expedition with Bishop Berthold. Now, at Theodoric’s urging, he encouraged his
friends to go to the defense of the Church in Livonia. His close friend, Abbot
Nicholaus von Hardehausen, who also had a connection with Marienfeld, visited
a number of the Westphalian nobles who were in the first contingent of knights,
and Abbot Florenz of Marienfeld later became the first priest to enter the
crusading order. This small group of Cistercians convinced a few nobles to take
the vows of poverty, chastity, obedience, and to go to war against the enemies
of the Church. Pope Innocent П1 approved the foundation of the order, named
it the Militia of Christ (Fratres Militiae Christi), and gave it a rule based upon
that of the Templar Order.
Why a new order? Why did Albert and Theodoric not call upon one of the
established crusading orders? The most likely answer is that the established
orders were reluctant to spread their resources too thinly—the Baltic was just too
far from Jerusalem; in addition, out of a combination of fear and poverty, Albert
would have made such niggardly proposals that powerful and wealthy
organizations could have foreseen little profit from investing men and money in
his campaigns; lastly, the crusade lacked clear goals in terms of geography or
time. Albert probably had his fears concerning this new order—he anticipated the
customary demand for exemption from episcopal authority and the tithe—but his
need for soldiers was so great that he acquiesced to Theodoric’s wishes.34 He
insisted only that the future master of the order render him an oath of obedience.
Other outstanding questions, such as what the sources of financial support and
the limits of autonomy would be, were not discussed fully—a misfortune in view
of later difficulties. The first members of the Militia of Christ who sailed to
Livonia in 1202, soon acquired a more lasting name, derived from their
distinctive costume. Clad in a white mantle with a red insignia—a cross and a
sword—they were called Swordbearers or, more popularly, Swordbrothers.35
With the arrival of the Swordbrothers the political landscape in Livonia
was complete. The estates (bishop, canons, abbots, merchants, visiting crusaders,
vassals, and native chiefs) were ready to interact in those complex and evolving
relationships which have an effect on public policy in every time and place but
were particularly important in this era. Western men believed that important
!ssues merited prolonged discussion and that every estate, through its spokesmen,
had a right to speak its mind. Moreover, they believed that whatever agreements
were reached in such councils were valid only if written down and witnesses
attested to the accuracy of the document. Alternatively, the lord had to be so
Powerful that his word was law. Albert’s failure to put in writing his
understanding of the crusading order’s role in the crusade probably reflected his
optimistic view of the years ahead.
58
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
Each of the men who assisted in creating the crusader state in Livonia had
different plans for the future. Hartwig П of Bremen and his nephew, Albert von
Buxhoevden, foresaw the establishment of bishoprics throughout the eastern
Baltic region, modeled on those of contemporary Germany where the prelate was
a secular ruler as well as a religious figure. Theodoric and his Cistercian friends
foresaw the forced conversion of the natives and the establishment of monastic
settlements across the countryside, each ruling the natives in Christian fashion.
The Swordbrothers had as their model the crusading orders in the Holy
Land—autonomous political bodies of great wealth and high prestige which
fought on behalf of Christendom even when secular rulers and churchmen lost
their nerve and enthusiasm. Behind the bishop, the missionaries, and the
crusading order, were the "pilgrims," mostly individual knights and merchants,
each hoping for eventual salvation and perhaps enrichment in the near
future—the knights through the acquisition of booty and office, the merchants
through increased trade. Interested, but still neutral, was the Danish monarch,
who looked forward to the day he could lay claim to all Livonia and reap all the
rewards with minimum effort. The natives, of course, were not consulted. •
ENDNOTES
1.	Friedrich Koch, Livland und das Reich bis zum Jahre 1225 (Posen, 1943);
Rudolph Usinger, Deutsch-ddnische Geschichte, 1189-1227 (Berlin, 1863); and
Richard Hausmann, Das Ringen der Deutschen und Danen um den Besitz
Estlands bis 1227 (Leipzig: Dincker & Humbolt, 1870).
2.	Arnold, rHnces and territories, 26, 34f; Thomas Curtis Van Cleve, The
Emperor Frederick II of Hohenstaufen (Oxford: Clarendon, 1972), 24-33.
3.	Barraclough, Origins of Modern Germany, 204-9; Van Cleve, Frederick II, 34-
35.
The Organization of the Baltic Crusade
59
4	Albert of Stade, 353; Jonathan Riley-Smith, The Crusaders, A Short History
(New Haven: Yale, 1987), 109-120, 130-32.
5.	Albert of Stade, 353.
6.	Hamburgisches Urkundenbuch, ed. Johann M. Lappenberg (Hamburg: L. Voss,
1907), I. 279.
7.	Anderson, Early Danish Missionaries, 266-271.
8.	Bemd Ulrich Hucker, "Der Zisterzienserabt Bertold, Bischof von Livland, und
der erste Livlandkreuzzug," Studien Uber die Anfange der Mission in Livland, 39-
64.
9.	This island in the Daugava had long been a site visited by foreign merchants,
especially those from Gotland. MugureriCs, "Skandinavische Geschichtsquellen,"
126. The church was small, typical for a western parish, and stood just outside
the castle. Evalds MugurgriCs, "Aspekte der Kulturkommunikation anhand
archdologischer Funde im baltischen Raum," Kommunikation und Alltag in
spatmittelalter und fruher Neuzeit (Wien: Osterreichische Akademie der
Wissenschaften, 1992) [Philosophisch-historische Klasse Sitzungsberichte, 596;
Veroffentlichungen des Institute fur Realienkunde des Mittelalters und der friihen
Neuzeit, 15], 454.
10.	Henry of Livonia, 31-32. For techniques of promoting the crusade, see Simon
Lloyd, English Society and the Crusade 1216-1307 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1988);
for the Cistercian ties to the aristocracy, see Bouchard, Holy Entrepreneurs, 165.
11. Philippe Contamine, War in the Middle Ages (trans. Michael Jones. Oxford:
Basil Blackwell, 1984), 72-73.
12.	Henry of Livonia, 32-33.
13.	Ibid., 34.
14.	Gisela Gnegel-Waitschies, Bischof Albert von Riga: ein Bremer Domherr als
Kirchenfiirst im Osten (Hamburg: A.F. Velmede, 1958).
15.	Die Gedichte Walthers von der Vogelweide (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter,
1964), 23, 25.
16.	Hamburgisches Urkundenbuch, I, 280.
17.	Henry of Livonia, 35-36. A papal pronouncement had already been issued
in October. Hamburgisches Urkundenbuch, I: 280. The privileges of crusaders
are described in James Brundage, Medieval Canon Law and the Crusader
(Madison: University of Wisconsin, 1969), 142-189.
18.	VOObus commented that Albert was "a man who, though he wore a bishop’s
garb, did not have the qualities of a shepherd of souls, a heart touched by the
deepest in the Christian religion. He was obsessed by power and his interest
belonged to the extension of power. He felt at home in the camp of men out for
booty, recruiting warriors and working tirelessly toward his life’s goal-that of a
territorial magistrate.” Studies, I, 46.
19.	Maccarone, 57-67.
20.	Outline biographies of these nobles, like those named elsewhere in the
chronicles and records, can be found in Astaf von Transehe-Roseneck, Die
ritterlichen Livlandfahrer des 13. Jahrhunderts (Ed. Wilhelm Lenz. Wurzburg:
Holzner, 1960), 17.
60
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
21.	Henry of Livonia, 37.
22.	Friedrich Amelung, Baltische Kulturstudien (Dorpat, 1884), 1,58, and II, 211,
who indicates the school may not have operated formally until 1211.
23.	Henry of Livonia, 38; the embargo was effective in preventing the native
peoples from equipping additional warriors because they were utterly dependent
on imported weapons and on iron for making weapons. Vassar and Tarvel,
"Itameren itSosassa asuvien heimojen taistelu Saksalais-Skandinaavista agressiota
vastaan 12. ja 13. vuosisadalla," 28.
24.	Maccarone, 70-77; James Brundage, "Christian Marriage in Thirteenth
Century Livonia," Journal of Baltic Studies, 4/4(1973), 313-320.
25.	Albert of Stade, 353.
26.	Transehe-Roseneck, Uvlandfahrer, 18.
27.	Henry of Livonia, 38-41; Friedrich Benninghoven, Rigas Entstehung und der
friihhansische Kaufmann (Hamburg, 1961); Bartlett, Making of Europe, 194-196;
William Urban, "Saint Mary and the Dragonkiller," in Marian Library Studies,
2 (1971), 89-94.
28.	Neocorus, Chronik des Landes Dithmarschen (ed. Friedrich Christoph
Dahlmann. Kiel, 1827), I, 345-46.
29.	Braunschweigische Reimchronik, 530.
30.	Friedrich Miinter, Kirchengeschichte von Danemark und Norwegen (Leipzig,
1823), I, 356-68; Peep Peter Rebane, "Archbishop Anders Sunesen and the
Danish Conquest of Estonia," YEARBOOK of the Estonian Learned Society in
America, 5 (1968-75), 24-37.
31.	Bouchard, Holy Entrepreneurs, 21, 189, emphasizes the Cistercians’
willingness to found monasteries in obscure locations and their enthusiasm for
economic activity.
32.	The enduring popularity of such orders until 1291 is demonstrated by Helen
Nicholson, Templars, Hospitallers and Teutonic Knights. Images of the Military
Orders, 1128-1291 (Leicester, London and New Yoik: St. Martin’s, 1993).
33.	Benninghoven, Schwertbruder, 37-74; Bouchard, Holy Entrepeneurs, 40-41.
34.	Nicholson, Templars, Hospitallers and Teutonic Knights, 18-19.
35.	Sven Ekdahl, "Die Rolle der Ritterorden bei der Christianisierung der Liven
und Letten," in Inizi del Cristianesimo, 221-23, 231-34; for general background
on crusading, see essays in The Holy War (ed. Thomas Murphy. Columbus: Ohio
State, 1976) and chapters in Bartlett, Making of Europe, 255-268, 308; also
Boleslaw Szezesniak, The Knights Hospitallers in Poland and Lithuania (Paris:
Mouton, 1969).
%
CHAPTER FOUR
DENMARK AND LIVONIA
While the crusade in the eastern Baltic was still in its infancy, the life of the
tiny bishopric of Riga could have been snuffed out by native rebellion, Danish
hostility, or German indifference; but it survived, and in halting fashion grew
stronger. Because there never was wholehearted support for the venture in any
of the larger states of Europe, the crusader state in Livonia became a minor pawn
in the complicated struggle among German emperors, Roman popes, and the
monarchs of England, France, and Denmark. Nevertheless, Bishop Albert
managed to take some advantage even from these conflicts.
Danish Hegemony
By the spring of 1203 King Waldemar had strengthened his grip on the new
conquests north of the Elbe. Over the Christmas holiday he held court in Lubeck,
to which his opponents or their representatives had come to negotiate the terms
of their surrender. The strongest of these, Adolf of Holstein, obtained his
freedom after surrendering the fortress at Lauenburg, leaving his sons as pledge
for his good behavior, and promising to live quietly in Schauenburg. Adolf left
for his family lands in Schauenburg, hoping the king—in a quixotic chivalric
gesture—would reconsider his decision and allow him to retain Holstein; that did
not happen—Adolf’s richest land was demanded in forfeit. The weaker
nobles—Ludolf von Dassel, Heinrich von Dannenberg, and others—recognizing
their danger, offered homage to Waldemar and gave him hostages, thereby saving
their lands. It was expected that the king would bestow Holstein upon Wilhelm,
his Welf son-in-law and the brother of Otto IV, but no decision had been
announced.
The suspense this created proved advantageous to the king. No one dared
displease him for fear of injuring his party’s chances (faint though the
Hohenstaufen prospects were, even they hoped that the king might listen to
Adolfs pleas). So secure did Waldemar consider himself that he consented to
release from imprisonment his uncle, Bishop Waldemar of Schleswig, whom he
had held captive on charges of treason. Since this issue had impeded an
understanding with the papacy over the disposition of disputed territories,
Waldemar was now probably looking forward to the time when his state would
encompass not only Denmark and northern Germany but also the lands along the
coast of the Baltic Sea, including even those now occupied by the tiny bishopric
in Livonia.1
The import of the Danish victory was clear to everyone in Riga. Albert
anticipated that Waldemar would soon be interested in his crusader state; and, if
Waldemar insisted that he render formal homage like the other minor lords, how
could Albert refuse? It is all but certain that Albert visited Waldemar during the
62
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
winter of 1202-1203. His freedom to travel throughout the Danish domains leads
us to believe that an understanding had been reached: the crusade would be
neither a partisan venture, nor would it infringe upon Danish claims to nearby
territories. In return, the bishop could preach the crusade to Livonia in northern
Germany, collect men and monies, and transport them to the east.2
In order for such an understanding to have been reached, Bishop Albert
must have represented himself as an independent agent, a servant of the Church,
and have emphasized his usefulness to Danish interests. Had he chosen to ally
himself with either the Welf or Hohenstaufen parties, he would have encountered
difficulties, for the northern principals of both parties were soon surprised by the
actions of the Danish monarch. Everyone had expected Waldemar to enfeoff his
Welf son-in-law with the forfeited county of Holstein or return it to the
Schauenburg dynasty. But he did neither. He turned, instead, to his nephew,
Albert of Orlamunde, a member of a family traditionally hostile to the Welfs. It
was a clever move on Waldemar’s part but very unpopular. This meant that
should the Welfs win the struggle for the imperial throne, they would have too
weak a hold on the north to expel the Danes easily. On the other hand, should
the Hohenstaufens prevail, this grant could be presented as proof of having
assisted them to achieve victory. Meanwhile, neither party dared object too
strongly, as they were busy with their civil war in the Rhineland and could not
afford to make new enemies.3
Nor was Danish overlordship considered a dire fate except by those who
prided themselves upon the nobility of their birth. The royal family was clearly
believed to be of superior ancestry, but below the king, one’s status reflected
one’s relationship with the monarch. The king’s companions, his housecarls,
were a form of nobility, but they came from the ranks of the prosperous
peasantry. In short, they were the descendants of Vikings, not of knights. This
implied that all free men were more or less equal. Distinction was based more
on talent and wealth, less on birth, than was the case in Germany, although
ancestry was important. The king was no tyrant, nor did he impose on his
subjects a religion strange to them, neither did he impose excessive taxes.
Resistance to him was rooted in that apparently universal desire for absolute
independence, a desire which was so strong in Scandinavian society that
Waldemar had to war constantly to maintain his power. He was sustained in this
struggle by an unusually warlike group of clergymen with goals of their own,
one of which was to dominate the new church in Riga.
Founding the Crusader State
Though he had obtained permission to preach the crusade to Livonia, Albert
had only moderate success in doing so. Relatively few warriors volunteered to
accompany him east. Only the minor nobles Arnold von Meiendorf and Bernard
von Seehausen are worthy of mention; the other crusaders were but simple
knights and merchants. Albert found it necessary, as well as desirable, to rely
upon his own family; and his brother Theodoric (Dietrich) became the first of his
many relatives to sail to Livonia.4 Theodoric was to be his advocate, responsible
Denmark and Livonia
63
for the administration of secular government and the conduct of war; he was a
good choice—active, courageous, and intelligent. In all, sixteen ships, carrying
perhaps a hundred warriors apiece, set out on the treacherous voyage. In a
chronicler’s words,
Not fearing to undergo prosperity and adversity for God, [Albert]
committed himself to the raging sea. As he approached the Danish
province of Lyster, he came upon the pagan Esthonians of the island of
Oesel with sixteen ships. They had recently burned a church, killed
some men and captured others, laid waste the land, and carried away
the bells and belongings of the church, just as both the pagan
Esthonians and Kurs had been accustomed to do heretofore in the
kingdom of Denmark and Sweden. The pilgrims armed, wishing to
avenge the losses of the Christians; but the pagans, knowing that they
were going to Livonia, feared greatly and said deceitfully that they had
made peace with the people of Riga. Since the Christians believed
them, the pagans escaped their lands for the time being.5
But not for long. After their arrival in Visby, the crusaders learned that they
had been duped, and when the Oeselian ships reappeared—probably using
Gotland as a landfall on the way home—they set out in pursuit, captured two
vessels, and killed about sixty pagans. Albert then sent the bells, church
ornaments, and prisoners, all of which were found aboard the ships, to the
Danish primate, Andreas Sunesen, who was the foremost confidant of the king.
In this way he could offer proof that the crusade was indeed in the Danish
interest and at the same time ingratiate himself with these powerful men.
As soon as the new arrivals had disembarked, the crusaders, who had been
in Riga since the previous winter, made preparations to leave. Albert was to
remain, but he sent his closest associate, the Cistercian brother Theodoric, and
a prominent native chieftain, Caupo, with the fleet when it departed. They had
urgent business in Rome.
Pressing though his business was, Theodoric could not hurry directly to
Rome. Travel was expensive and exhausting, and the duty of preaching the
crusade called for as many stops as practical, for it was necessary to bring his
personal influence to bear on potential crusaders—especially those who might
bring a sizable body of troops. The travelers almost certainly visited Marienfeld,
where they conferred with the abbot about the new monastery at Diinamunde,
which, being fortified, presented the order with a moral challenge. They may also
have discussed the desire expressed by some crusaders to be able to leave their
money and goods in the safekeeping of the abbot there.6 Afterward they
continued by slow stages to Rome.
Now on his third visit to the holy father, Theodoric was well acquainted
with Pope Innocent III, and undoubtedly the two men agreed upon the necessity
of impressing the tall Liv noble who had come so far to visit the pope. Pope
Innocent welcomed them in a most gracious manner and bestowed lavish gifts
64
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
upon them: 100 pieces of gold to Caupo and a Bible written by Pope Gregory
to Theodoric. Caupo was suitably impressed, and afterward remained loyal to
Christianity and his feudal German lords, even when such loyalty was opposed
by many of his own people. In turn, Caupo made an impression on the pope (and
perhaps the two subsequent popes—the future Honorius III and Gregory IX were
cardinals at the court and presumably present at this interview).
Neither gold nor Bible, impressive as these gifts were, was the object of
Theodoric’s visit He informed the pope of the progress made by the crusaders
and sought his aid in recruiting more soldiers. He especially asked for papal
confirmation of the military-religious order he had founded and Bishop Albert
had sanctioned. He was probably successful in this, for by the time he returned
to Livonia, in September 1204, the Order of Swordbrothers had apparently
received papal approval.7
The year 1203 passed without much success on the part of the crusaders in
Livonia. Indeed, by the spring of 1204 the outlook for the future was bleak. If
the knights who had taken the cross the previous year had elected to sail away
with Bishop Albert, when he returned to Germany to preach the crusade,< the
crusaders’ foothold at Riga would probably have been lost. These men had no
desire to endure another miserable winter in the East, but many were willing to
remain throughout the summer. Whether replacements came or not, they
emphasized, it was their intention to sail for home before winter closed the seas.
The civilians of Riga agreed to stay as long as the crusaders, and if the next
convoy brought reinforcements, they would remain permanently. It was a tense
summer for the Rigans, who were so few in number that only twenty men were
available to pursue cattle thieves. The tenseness grew as the days shortened and
the temperature fell. At last the knights prepared to sail, and it was only as they
cleared the mouth of the Daugava that they met Theodoric’s fleet, consisting of
three small ships loaded with men and supplies. This tiny reinforcement saved
the crusade.
The homeward journey of the crusaders is instructive in the terrors of
thirteenth-century sea travel:
The before-mentioned knights labored long with their companions in the
struggle with the rough sea and at length came to a region of Estonia.
The Estonians, wishing to take their lives and their possessions,
attacked them with ten pirate ships and twelve other ships. God
preserved His people, however. They suffered neither adversity nor
sorrow from the enemy; rather, one of the pirate ships was broken to
pieces by the Christians, some of the pagans were killed, and others
miserably drowned in the sea. They hooked another pirate ship with an
iron hodk and tried to drag it toward themselves. The pagans, however,
wishing rather to be endangered in the sea than to be killed by the
Christians, jumped from the ship one by one. While they fell into the
danger of death, the other ships departed and escaped. Although
Almighty God does not cease to test His elect ones, now placed in
various tribulations, like gold in fire, nevertheless He does not desert
Denmark and Livonia
65
them entirely, but rather, rescuing them from all evils, puts their
enemies in greater fear. They continued in many labors, spending
especially many days in hunger, thirst, and cold. Although they had
very little food, they received fifty shipwrecked Christians standing on
the shore and, mercifully helping them, shared and consumed all their
food. And when this alone remained, that they might die of hunger,
behold how the dawning visited them from on high. A large merchant
ship arrived, gave and sold them food, refreshed the starving ones, and
they were filled. They went on, however, and fell into very serious
danger, for a storm threw them among some very dangerous rocks out
of which they came with great fear and difficulty. They arrived at the
port of Visby on the vigil of Saint Andrew [29 November], took on
food, and then sailed to the shores of Denmark. Being unable to bring
the ship to shore because of the great amount of ice, they left it in the
ice and, taking their possessions with them, returned to Germany
through Denmark.8
It is no wonder that few captains would venture out into the sea from September
to May and that the crusaders remained isolated from their homeland for more
than half of each year.
In spite of their small numbers the crusaders made headway during the
winter of 1204-1205. Under the abbot’s direction, the crusade developed an
organization and its own distinctive technique of warfare. Most important, the
Order of Swordbrothers took on definite form. Theodoric must be given credit
for the formation of this new military-religious order, having envisioned it years
before and having contacted friends and fellow clerics in Westphalia on its
behalf, and even speaking to the pope and at last obtaining approval from all
parties for its foundation. Most helpful were a group of clerics and knights
associated with the Cistercian monastery at Marienfeld, and particularly Bernard
of Lippe, a famous warrior who had entered the abbey for the good of his soul
after his feet had gone lame. With the help of these pious men Theodoric had
recruited volunteers, drawn up a formal structure of organization and rules, and
transported the new members and their equipment to Riga, presumably in his
three ships.9
The Order of Swordbrothers
Because crusading orders are so important to the Baltic Crusade, both in
Livonia and Prussia, some special thought should be given to their significance.
Crusading orders were preferred to secular armies because they were generally
cheaper to raise and maintain, better disciplined, and always available (the last
consideration being particularly important for a crusade in a distant land like
Livonia, which experienced great fluctuations in the strength of the annual
convoys of volunteers, many of whom stayed only for the summer months). On
the other hand, crusading orders were notoriously ambitious and were often
66
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
composed of hotheaded fanatics who quarreled with anyone and everyone. For
these reasons Albert distrusted the orders and attempted to limit the power of this
new one. Abbot Theodoric, on the other hand, was a Cistercian, and since the
time of Bernard of Clairvaux, his order had been noted for its promotion of the
crusading ideal and the crusading orders.
The Order of Swordbrothers was filled with men of various backgrounds.
The most important members were knights, living as friars (differing from monks
chiefly in that their duties took them outside the monastery)—often they are
referred to as knight-brothers; a handful were priests; and the relatively numerous
lower class members were servants and men-at-arms—however, their influence
was very limited. It is no more possible to give a simple explanation to a
thirteenth-century knight’s renunciation of the world than it is in the twentieth
century to explain individual actions of people we scarcely know, but we can set
the personal decisions in a cultural milieu and abstract from it some general
meaning, however little this may apply to individual cases. The thirteenth century
encouraged the renunciation of the world and its shabby pleasures, extolled the
virtues of the monastic life, and praised any type of service to the Church. The
greatest gift a layman could give was the sacrifice of his life on crusade; the
greatest act for a cleric was to retire into the cloisters—the military order
combined these acts and motives. Also, the military order expressed the new
ideals of chivalry in a manner not yet equaled by the secular knighthood. Friar-
knights combined love of combat, travel, pageantry, and glory with the
veneration of the Virgin Mary, the perfect lady and the patroness of the Baltic
Crusade. Religious ideals and societal values converged in the military orders.10
There were also, of course, less idealistic motives for entering a crusading
order: landless younger sons whose fathers could not find an heiress for them to
marry; ne’er-do-wells and incompetents seeking an easy life; criminals eager to
evade the law; and old men, repentant of their past behavior, anxious to escape
the flames of hell—all found a respectable haven in their cloisters and a purpose
to life in fighting the infidel. More important, however, was the fact that
monastic life, which presents such a contrast to present day comforts, was not
an aberrant shock to thirteenth-century initiates. Everyday life in a military-
religious order consisted of practice for war, prayer, and entertainment.
Equipment and food were never lacking, and prestige was high. Women might
be a problem, but the need for a woman is often a product of societal pressure,
and thirteenth-century society neither exerted the same pressure as ours on its
clergy nor expected as much. Sex could be sublimated into war and prayer. And
a cold shower in Livonia, even when preceded by a sauna bath, was a very cold
shower indeed. AU considered, the disadvantages of monastic life did not weigh
so heavily upon those generations as to over-balance the popular encouragement
and support of the monastic vocation, and especiaUy the nobles’ support of the
military orders. Moreover, the class that formed the ranks of the Swordbrothers
was the ministeriale class—knights who were often poor and landless, and hardly
the comfortable, pleasure-seeking nobles one might imagine. For them warfare
was a means of social advancement, even of family enrichment. A knight who
Denmark and Livonia
67
rose to high office in a military order enjoyed great prestige, exercised power,
and could dispense patronage to friends and relatives. As we shall see, these
ministeriales, these ambitious would-be nobles, filled the ranks of every
crusading army as secular volunteers, mercenaries, and members of the crusading
orders.11
Of those knights who chose the world, many echoed Friedrich von Hausen’s
plaint to his lady:
My heart and my body wish to part, they who have so long traveled
together. My body wants to fight the pagans. But my heart has chosen
one lady above all the world. And ever since, I have been troubled
because heart and body will no longer agree. My eyes did me this great
harm. Only God can decide their quarrel. I thought that I should be
freed of this burden when I took the cross in God’s honor. In duty, my
heart should be with me there. But its loyalty forbids it. I should be a
proper living man if my heart would give up its foolish resolve. Now
I well see that it cares nothing as to what end I come.12
The convention of courtly love, which had just come to Germany (perhaps
introduced by Henry the Lion’s English wife, a daughter of Eleanor of
Aquitaine), encouraged this kind of devotion to one’s lady. The Germans,
however, tended to view love with somewhat less refinement than the French;
hence the popularity of the Niedere Minne, the earthy and suggestive poems of
love. But they also produced many Hohe Minne, in which the ideal lady is subtly
identified with the Virgin Mary, an identification very important to the Baltic
Crusade, which often referred to the Virgin as "Maria, die vrowe min."13
Nevertheless, we must remember that only a small fraction of the
population, even of the nobility, opted for the monastic life; and some of those
who did lacked real alternatives. One or more sons of each noble were expected
to enter the clergy, but most chose the secular clergy, where opportunity for
advancement and prestige was greater than among the regular clergy, often better
than for those sons who attempted to make a career as mercenaries or mini-
steriales. In general, the richer the family, the more likely it was that the sons
would seek a career in the secular clergy rather than in the monastic clergy.
Nobles who entered monastic orders maintained a distinct sense of their
class, as was customary for the time. At no time during the medieval period were
men really equal; the acknowledgement of class cut across the lines of nationality
and religious status. If this had not been the case, certain aspects of the Baltic
Crusade would be much easier to understand; as it was, however, the nobles in
the Order of Swordbrothers would have preferred to erect stiffer class barriers
than they did. However, in their efforts to recruit rich and powerful initiates, they
faced intense competition from older and more established rivals. Therefore, the
organizers found it necessary to recruit members from the ministeriale class
which supplied the bulk of the German knighthood and was still open to wealthy
and capable members of the middle and even the lower classes. The order’s
68
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
ranks were filled, consequently, by sons of ministeriales who were not always
of the nobility, though they were ’’knights.” By accepting these ’’lower class”
volunteers, the Swordbrothers gained the reputation of being an upstart
organization, a ’’second class" military order. No doubt, this disparagement of
their status contributed to the outrage felt by the true nobles (Edelfrei) among the
knight-brothers when Bishop Albert, their social inferior by birth, attempted to
require them to swear oaths of fealty to him.14 After much haggling, they
reached a compromise by which Master Wenno gave the bishop a promise of
obedience (a technicality important to medieval nobles which is easily lost to
modem readers who do not follow the niceties of American bureaucrats testifying
to Congress, where testimony under oath can be quite different from information
given in a hearing, and where the most obscure nuances of the language can be
invoked to demonstrate that, by their interpretation of the chosen words, the
officials were not attempting to mislead anyone).
The rules of this military-religious order were based on those of the Templar
Order (again the result of Cistercian influence). Each knightly member took vows
of poverty, chastity, obedience, and war against unbelievers; each received a
horse, armor, weapons, clothing, and a man-at-arms (a sergeant) to assist him.
He had already been trained for war; therefore, upon being dressed in his white
mantle with its red cross and sword, he was ready to fight for his faith and the
honor of his order.
A second class was composed of priests, who, though few in number, were
highly respected and honored. Spiritual advisors to the Swordbrothers, they alone
could hear their confessions and grant absolution. Like the knights, they had
completed their training before joining the order; a few transferred from
established religious orders. They served as chaplains in the castles and convents,
not as pastors in the countryside churches. (Priests to serve the needs of native
converts and German immigrants were appointed and supported by the bishops.)
The servant class consisted of three branches. Highly trained soldiers, the
men-at-arms or sergeants served as mounted warriors and were often armed as
knights. The professional infantry operated the siege weapons, garrisoned the
castles, and occasionally spearheaded the advancing battle line. Cooks, smiths,
bakers, and other servants performed all the tasks necessary to feed, clothe, and
house the numerous personnel of the military order. In keeping with its low
status, this class wore simple dark clothing embroidered with a red sword, the
symbol of the order.
It is possible that there was already a fourth class of auxiliaries (the
confratres), composed of the nobles and merchants of Riga. They would have
supported the order in return for such favors as the granting of commercial rights
in its lands, participation in its fraternal activities, and burial in its cemetery.
Probably a number of knights and soldiers also served in the order during the
time they were on crusade.
The head of the order was the master (magister), elected by the membership
for life. The first master, Wenno, although vested with complete authority, in
practice consulted either the entire membership at a general assembly or any
penmark and Livonia
69
convent chapter, together with his officers, on all important matters. Under him
was a hierarchy of officials: the vice master presided in his absence; the treasurer
supervised all incomes and expenditures; the marshal was responsible for all
equipment; and the chaplain also probably held the office of chancellor and, as
such, was in charge of all correspondence. On the local level, heavy
responsibilities were given to the castellans, who were in charge of the castles
and convents of the order, and to the advocates, who lived among the natives as
administrators, collecting taxes, supervising justice, and commanding the militia.
The general assembly, which was supposed to be an annual affair, was
attended by all who could be spared from duty. In times of emergency, special
sessions were held for the officers and experienced men form the major
convents. At these assemblies they made reports, discussed policy, and elected
new officials and installed them in office. Occasionally guests were invited.
Great pomp, pageantry and revelry could be enjoyed at these periodic gatherings.
Of the officers, only Master Wenno was responsible to the bishop of Riga;
the order itself was an independent religious foundation, responsible only to the
pope, and was determined to remain so—a fact that annoyed Bishop Albert, who
wanted to gather all power in his own hands. As a result, Albert and Wenno
were on a collision course from the very beginning, although this situation was
masked by the weakness of the master in these early years.15 At that time
Albert could put as many as a thousand mailed warriors in the field, whereas
Master Wenno had no more that fifty or a hundred armed riders. The powerful
Bishop Albert could therefore risk giving the Swordbrothers lands and
responsibilities in Livonia now; future difficulties he could take care of when
they arose.
The Conquest Resumes
By the time the Swordbrothers were well established, the crusaders’ arms
had begun to reduce the native districts one by one. The endemic warfare of the
region contributed greatly to this success, as the weaker tribes were always
willing to accept Christian aid against the stronger. The crusaders thus held the
balance of power, and the heavily armored knights, though few in number, were
decisive in battle. The first battle in which the Swordbrothers participated
illustrates this situation:
In the seventh year 1205, about Lent, when these tribes are more
accustomed to engage in war, the Lithuanians moved against Estonia
with a force of almost two thousand men. They descended along the
[Daugava] and passed by the city....After a few days, Viesthard, a noble
of the Semgalls, hearing about the Lithuanian expedition, came
hurriedly to Riga and spoke in admonition to the Germans for having
permitted the enemy to cross their boundaries peacefully. For now that
they had learned the location of the place, they might possibly in the
future destroy the city with its inhabitants. Although they did not wish,
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THE BALTIC CRUSADE
because of the weakness of their forces, to fight before the bishop’s
return, Viesthard, being a warlike man, excited them to battle and
promised to bring a great many Semgalls to their aid....When the army
arrived, the hostages were delivered into the hands of the Germans and,
their loyalty thus demonstrated, the Semgalls obtained both help and
friendship. For the retinue of the bishop, with the Brothers of the
Militia of Christ, and Conrad, a knight of Uexkiill, together with a few
others who could be spared, went out to the army in a high place where
they and the Semgalls awaited the return of the Lithuanians....At length
the Lithuanians returned with numerous captives and indescribable
booty in flocks and horses, entered Livonia, and proceeded gradually
from village to village. At last they turned aside to the fort of Caupo
and trusting the peace of the Livonians, spent the night among them.
The scouts of the Germans and Semgalls inquired discreetly about their
return and announced this to their own army. The next day, some other
scouts followed the former and reported that the Lithuanians wished to
return through the Rodenpois short cut to Uexkiill. When they heard,
these reports, the whole army rejoiced and all prepared in rivalry for the
fight. The Lithuanians came with all their loot and captives, who
numbered more than a thousand, divided their army into two parts,
placed the captives in the middle, and, because of excessive depth of
snow, marched single file over one path. But as soon as the first of
these discovered the footprints of those who had gone before, they
stopped, suspecting an ambush. Thus the last in line overtook the first
and all were collected in one formation with the captives. When the
Semgalls saw their great multitude, many of them trembled and, not
daring to fight, wished to seek safer places. Thereupon certain of the
Germans approached the knight Conrad and begged insistently that they
go first into battle with the enemies of Christ. They asserted that in was
better to go to death gloriously for Christ than, to the confusion of their
tribe, to take flight dishonorably. Conrad, with his horse and himself
well-armored, like a knight, attacked the Lithuanians with the few
Germans who were on hand. But God sent such fear into the
Lithuanians and they were so dazzled by the brightness of the German
arms that they turned away on all sides. The leader of the Semgalls,
perceiving that the Lithuanians were so terrified through the mercy of
God, exhorted his men bravely to go into battle with them. Thus the
army was assembled and the Lithuanians were dispersed on all sides of
the road like sheep. About twelve hundred of them were cut down by
the sword.16
*
The Semgallians expressed their pleasure at the victory by massacring the
Estonian prisoners they had taken from the Lithuanians and by carting away
wagons fully loaded with severed heads for a victory celebration; this act
apparently had some connection with beliefs that the dead walked the earth until
they could finally make their way to the Netherworld; thus, this seemingly
Denmark and Livonia
71
barbaric act was probably a means of obtaining revenge upon a hitherto
invincible foe, much in the spirit of raping women prisoners in order to insult
their husbands and fathers. The loot, mainly horses and flocks, was divided
among the victors; but the main reward for the Christians was prestige: they had
inflicted an overwhelming defeat on the most warlike people in the Baltic.
Furthermore, they knew that the natives hated one another more than they feared
their new foreign rulers and that they could use this hatred to their advantage.
Distractions
Although this victory was important, another success had just as great an
impact on the Livonian crusade. In the Middle East, the Fourth Crusade had
taken Constantinople in 1204. Contemporaries did not worry that it had been
completely diverted from its goal, that it further divided the already antagonistic
Greek and Latin Churches, and that it fatally weakened an ancient bastion of
Christianity in the east. What was important was the sheer existence of another
success, after so many years of failure. Christendom was now united, and the
war against the infidels could be resumed without fear of Greek betrayal—the
common excuse for defeats which had really been due to incompetence,
inexperience, and the Saracens’ courage. The capture of Constantinople, which
gave more impetus to the crusading movement in general, was to result in a
greater interest among Germans in joining the crusade against the heathens in
Livonia. Nevertheless, the laconic north German chroniclers, for the most part,
contented themselves with the notation that ’’Constantinople was taken by the
Latins.”17
Directly to the north of the Byzantine empire, but only halfway to the Baltic,
a battle was fought in 1205 which tipped the scales of history for all
time—though few could have realized at the moment that Red Russia (the
princedom lying where modem Belarus, Ukraine, Poland, and Rumania come
together) would thereafter slowly swing from its identification with Kievan
Russia to closer ties with Poland. In this battle King Leszek of Poland and
Conrad of Masovia slew Duke Roman, then divided his principality into two
parts—Galicia (Halicz) and Volhynia, the former becoming every year more
Polish, the latter remaining Russian. This was the result of Polish immigration,
a Slavic Drang nach Osten which was less dramatic than the German, but
ultimately almost as significant.18 Roman’s widow was entrusted with the
government for her infant sons, Daniel (Danilo) and Vasilko. She later arranged
for Daniel to marry the daughter first of Mstislav of Novgorod, then of
Dausprungas of Lithuania; for Vasilko she picked first a Russian, then a Polish
princess. Dausprungas and Mstislav would be important for the Baltic Crusade
in the coming years, as Daniel would be, too, later on.
In Germany, the civil war continued unabated, but fortune now favored
Philip of Hohenstaufen. The Welf party was weakened by defeats inflicted upon
its English ally and by desertions. The French monarch, Philip Augustus, had
captured Normandy from King John, and the pope was pressing demands that
72
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
John grant more independence to the English church and offer his kingdom as
a papal fief. These difficulties combined with John’s unpopularity with the
English people to prevent him from continuing the financial and political support
which had helped keep Welf forces in the field. In Germany, at the same time,
Otto’s brother, Heinrich, went over to the Hohenstaufens. The most serious blow,
however, was the defection of the archbishop of Cologne, and although Pope
Innocent III had removed that prelate from office and arranged for the election
of a pro-Welf successor, the damage had been done. In a major battle near
Cologne, Philip of Hohenstaufen routed the Welfs, and had the pope not
supported his cause, Otto would have been compelled to withdraw from the war.
These developments, naturally, had an impact on northern Germany. It is
worth digressing briefly to observe how cleverly Innocent used local antagonisms
to embarrass his opponents. Archbishop Hartwig of Bremen was a Hohenstaufen
supporter who had often protested various actions of Welf adherents; in
particular, he had quarreled with Heinrich of Braunschweig and the archbishop
of Cologne. Innocent had ignored these protests until the aforementioned rules
changed their party adherence; then the pope took up the complaints on
Hartwig’s behalf, ignoring his requests that all past complaints about the Welfs
be forgotten.19
Waldemar remained in firm control of his provinces and took advantage of
every opportunity to strengthen his position. Faced with opposition from the
counts of Schwerin, he authorized Albert of Orlamunde, who was now count of
Holstein, to enforce the royal will. The counts were humbled, but from this time
on they were hostile to the Danish king, the significance of which was yet to be
recognized. When Bishop Philip of Ratzeburg refused to submit his election to
Waldemar for confirmation, the monarch was not able to remove him from
office, but he made life so uncomfortable in Ratzeburg that this must have been
among the reasons that Philip later went on crusade to Livonia. Opposed in
Pomerania by the duke of Brandenburg, Waldemar made a counter move by
marrying into the royal house of Bohemia. And his prestige rose even higher
when Innocent III forced Philip Augustus to reinstate the Danish princess
Ingeborg as the rightful queen of France. Danish power and prestige waxed
steadily.20
Political developments of the past year had favored his mission, so that
Bishop Albert spent the winter of 1204-1205 preaching the crusade in
Westphalia, where he found many Welf nobles who were seeking refuge from
party strife. On the one hand, they did not wish to antagonize the pope by going
over to the Hohenstaufens, but on the other hand they did not wish to lose their
property by continuing to serve in a lost cause. When Albert pointed out that
they could go on a crusade whereby they and their estates would be protected by
law and cifetom, Count Heinrich von Stumphenhusen, Cono von Isenburg, and
many other Westphalian and Rhenish nobles took the cross. Also, many
Hohenstaufen supporters were being encouraged by Innocent to leave the
country; for example, he ordered Hartwig of Bremen to send crusaders to
Livonia, which presumably would weaken the Hohenstaufen party in Saxony; and
indeed many volunteered for the crusade. Bishop Albert also recruited his brother
Denmark and Livonia
73
Rothmann, who was an Augustinian friar in Segeberg, a monastery that had long
been interested in the Livonian mission—after all, Vicelin had founded the
convent for the express purpose of training monks as missionaries. Certainly, the
more flexible rules of the Augustinian friars were more suitable for missionary
duties than the strict observances of the Cistercian monks. With all these factors
operating in his favor—the success of the Fourth Crusade, peace in the Danish
provinces, the trend in the civil war, and the active support of the pope—Bishop
Albert was able to sail for Livonia with the most formidable army yet raised.
There may well have been a thousand well-armed crusaders, to whom he could
add the fifty to a hundred members of his own crusading order.21
The Conquest of the Livs Completed
The very size of the crusader force cowed all resistance in the area of Riga
and brought the coastal Livs firmly under German control. Although a thousand
men may not seem like a formidable force today, by medieval standards it was
a respectable body of men. There were perhaps only 20,000 Livs in all, and
some of them had already cast their lot with Bishop Albert. In the interior there
were perhaps 40,000 Letts. These peoples probably never contemplated calling
on the 170,000 Lithuanians or the 150,000 Estonians for help, since they were
traditional enemies; and the 25,000 Semgallians and 32,000 Kurs would have
weighed little on the scales of power. Some Livs and Letts looked upstream to
Polozk for help, but Duke Vladimir, his eyes probably fixed on the dynastic wars
in Russia, was slow to realize what significant changes were occurring along the
lower Daugava.22
The holiday season of 1205-6 was a joyous one for the crusaders, and Riga
was lively with the pageantry of chivalry. Such entertainment was very popular
and one of the main attractions of the crusade. Indeed, the Baltic Crusade laid
great stress on the ceremonial aspects of knighthood and chivalry—including
drama, such as the drama designed to instruct the natives in the history of the
prophets. When the armies of Gideon and the Philistines charged onto the stage,
the natives fled the area in fear of a massacre.23
The winter passed quietly, if not comfortably—every winter was terribly
cold in Livonia—because they had not yet learned to build comfortable convents
with covered walks along the walls, central heating, and bathhouses. Construction
of dwellings, churches, and warehouses had started, however. Among the most
solid buildings was the square Swordbrother convent-fortress just outside the
walls with its chapel dedicated to St. George.
Danger arose in the spring of 1206, when Bishop Albert was confronted
with the double menace of Russian hostility and native rebellion. Vladimir of
Polozk claimed a tributary sovereignty over the Daugava basin which the early
German missionaries and traders had recognized in various ways. As the time
came to renew these ties, Albert sent his most trusted aide, Abbot Theodoric, to
Polozk with presents for the prince. Unfortunately, he was robbed en route, and,
after his arrival, was kept in close confinement while Vladimir conferred with
74
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
emissaries from the Livonian tribes who were urging him to drive the Germans
away. Meanwhile, Theodoric, hearing that Vladimir was planning to send an
army downriver to Riga, bribed one of the Livs to tell him what had been
decided, then managed to send a warning to Albert. When Vladimir learned of
this, he summoned Theodoric and questioned him carefully. Theodoric
courageously stood up to him and in forceful language presented the German
cause. As a result, the Polozk duke did not launch an immediate invasion but,
after reasserting his right to decide on religious policy in the Daugava basin, he
sent ambassadors to accompany the abbot back to Riga and mediate the disputes
between the crusaders and the natives, and to arrange a personal meeting with
the bishop at the end of May. In appearance he was acting in an impartial
manner, as the overlord of both parties; in reality, he was plotting a massacre.24
On the day appointed for the meeting, Albert failed to appear. Nevertheless,
the Livs around Treiden and Holm rose and massacred those Germans and native
Christians who were unlucky enough to be within reach. Bishop Albert, who
already mistrusted Vladimir’s ambassadors because of the information he had
received about the plot, now refused to parley with them at all. Instead, he.chose
a military solution to the rising. Within a short time Albert’s household troops
and the Swordbrothers recaptured the castles, killing the rebel leader and many
of his Lithuanian allies. However, even with the assistance rendered by the
Semgallians and Caupo, they were unable to take all the rebel strongholds. Albert
therefore departed for Germany to raise more troops. Meanwhile, the natives who
were still in rebellion fled to Polozk and asked the duke to come to their aid.
This time Vladimir was more receptive than he had been earlier.
Shortly after the crusaders whose term of service had expired sailed for
home, Vladimir brought his army down the Daugava River on rafts to reassert
his authority. The remaining crusaders were surprised by the sudden arrival of
troops from Polozk but were still able to repulse the attack on the castle at Holm.
Since this was the Russians’ first experience of a western castle and the
crossbow, twenty Germans were able to hold the castle for eleven days.
Moreover, the Russian advance on Riga halted when they encountered the
caltrops scattered on the road. This medieval equivalent of land mines was a
small iron device with four spikes which always landed with three spikes resting
on the ground to become a solid base for the upright spike. Any horse which
stepped on one sustained a fearful injury and, if the horse fell over, it would
throw the rider among other caltrops. Russian efforts to build a duplicate of the
crusader catapult literally backfired. Then news arrived that ships had been
sighted approaching Riga—it was a fleet of Danish troops under the archbishop
of Lund—and Vladimir hurriedly withdrew. His rafts were unsuited for fighting
a fleet of cogs bearing large numbers of well-equipped knights. The hasty retreat
cost the (kike his traditional payments of tribute, and although memory of his
hegemony lived on through the years, neither he nor his successors could do
anything to restore the lost prestige. The Lithuanians under Ringaudas, perhaps
emboldened by this debacle, attacked Polozk so fiercely that Vladimir found it
necessary to pay tribute and heed Ringaudas’ wishes in foreign policy.25 Earlier
Denmark and Livonia
75
defeats at pagan hands may also have contributed significantly to his failure at
Holm.
At the end of this crisis the crusader state at Fdga was now independent of
allegiance to Polozk, a status Albert’s men were determined to maintain against
all challengers, even despite the presence of a Danish army in Riga which had
the potential of making Waldemar the new overlord. No one doubted that the
Danish king had designs on the eastern Baltic. For several years he had planned
a campaign against the island of Oesel (Saaremaa) to avenge attacks on his
kingdom by Oesel’s notorious pirates, but it is clear, too, that he had a more
ambitious goal for the expedition. In January 1206 the pope granted permission
to the archbishop of Lund to establish a bishopric in Livonia, which the Danish
monarch had planned to utilize to extend his rule over the eastern Baltic.
Waldemar and the archbishop landed on Oesel and built a castle at one of the
harbors, from which their knights had been able to terrorize the countryside. At
the end of the summer, when it was obvious that the campaign was a failure,
Waldemar had the castle burned and sailed home. He, unlike Bishop Albert, had
no crusading order he could ask to stay in such a dangerous post through the
winter. The archbishop and the bishop of Schleswig, the royal chancellor, sailed
to Riga, arriving, as described above, just barely in time to save the garrison at
Holm. The archbishop, a noted scholar, spent the winter in Riga teaching
theology and preparing the clergy for the spiritual guidance of the recently
baptized natives. We would not be far amiss, however, to view this visit as a
preparation for subordinating the Rigan bishopric to the authority of Lund and
the Danish monarch. The presence of the archbishop, the chancellor, and their
retinue would also help preclude another Russian or Lithuanian attack and
dissuade the natives from rebellion.
Administrative Organization
In this same winter Albert’s brother Theodoric introduced advocates into the
Livonian countryside to supervise justice, collect taxes, and organize the militia.
They laid heavy taxes upon the rebellious tribes but treated their loyal allies
leniently. There were two kinds of taxes, the Kornzins, which was a fixed
payment, and the Kornzehnte, a variable amount based on the harvest. Often
referred to simply as Zins and Zehnte, either could count as the tithe (decima).
In addition, there was the labor requirement—work on castles, churches, roads,
and fields—called the servitium. While records are lacking for the beginning of
the century, those which survive from the end of the century indicate that
peasants were expected to work on their lord’s private fields (aloid) at their own
expense, even to the extent of bringing their own bread to eat. Naturally, the
Peasants’ work had to be finished before they could return to their own
individual fields.26 Even in this early period there were many abuses of justice
by the new magistrates. However, historians are not in agreement as to how
much work was required in this early period. Was it two days’ work in the
sPring and two in the fall, or two days a week? The lesser amount seems more
76
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
likely. Also, we are informed of abuses in detail because the German churchmen
complained about them to the bishop and (later) to papal legates and even to the
pope himself. Lastly, the complaints are in no way different from those raised
about magistrates in Germany at this very same time. In short, government was
oppressive everywhere, and Livonia was no exception. The crusaders were men,
not saints; they were nobles or burghers, not followers of SL Francis (who was
just now winning great popularity in Italy for proposing sweeping changes in the
ways that men treated one another).27
In retrospect, we can see that a better alternative to oppressive foreign rule
was probably oppressive native rule based on models from Russia, Scandinavia,
Poland, or Germany. That is, given that the only method of preventing western
nobles from taking crusading vows was to adopt Christianity, the native leaders
could have accepted Christ and permitted the collection of tithes to support the
clergy and build churches. At the same time, to avoid domination by a foreign
bishop (for it would be years before a native-born priest was ready for the post),
they would have to accept one of their number as the head of a secular state and
serve him as feudal vassals. Inevitably, this would have meant taxes and labor
services for the peasantry. No doubt, some native leaders seriously considered
this alternative, probably each seeing himself in the role of head of the new state.
However, this was tantamount to a revolution which would sweep away the
traditional rights and privileges of the clans and elders.28 Moreover, the Russian
model was impractical due to the absence of mercantile centers, and the Baltic
nobles were not yet familiar with German and Scandinavian feudalism.
Consequently, unable to describe what their future state should resemble (or
disliking what they heard), the native elders consequently chose to rely on valor,
luck, and playing the foreigners against one another. After all, their country had
been invaded before, and until now they had succeeded in repulsing every attack.
They considered themselves likely to emerge victorious from this encounter as
well.29
Lastly, there was the matter of religion. Although many would have it so,
not every culture is equally creative in every respect. Every culture attempts to
meet its perceived needs at any given moment, adapting its previous practices or
adopting new ones as the needs change. Without question, paganism met many
of the needs of Baltic society before the arrival of Christians from east and west.
However, we can properly doubt that the power of pagan myths transmitted
orally would in the long run have been able to match the intellectual
achievements of Christian saints and scholars. Nevertheless, Roman Catholic and
Orthodox missionaries alike must have found it difficult to explain concepts
which require an education grounded in logic, philosophy, literature, and
theology. To reach the common people, they had to rely on stories rooted in
Greco-Romin and Hebrew traditions. We know from the stories of martyred
converts that missionaries were successful at least to a limited extent. Moreover,
we know that this success frightened devout pagans and their priests who worried
about losing the favor of their gods—the weather would be unfavorable, the
animals become sterile, the crops die. Some pagans made up their decision by
Denmark and Livonia
77
casting lots or putting the priests through the ordeal—in effect, asking the pagan
gods for their opinion.30 A larger number chose to submit the matter to the gods
of battle. While remaining friendly toward Orthodoxy, which accepted the right
of non-Russian ethnic groups to persist in their traditional religious beliefs, the
Livonian and Estonian elders and priests came to believe that the less tolerant
Roman Christianity had to be extirpated root and branch.
Frustration in Germany
When Bishop Albert arrived in Germany he learned that the Hohenstaufen
party was close to winning the war; in fact, when Philip of Hohenstaufen
captured the archbishop of Cologne in battle in the early fall of 1206, resistance
practically collapsed. Innocent III recognized his defeat and sent two legates to
parley with the victor. Philip’s rival, Otto IV, commanded a rapidly
disintegrating army and offered only occasional resistance as he retreated
northward.
It was incumbent upon Bishop Albert to speak to Philip as soon as possible,
since the Danish threat was now as clear as the Hohenstaufen victory. There was
no need for further duplicity. Albert had to win support from Philip of
Hohenstaufen or accept Danish overlordship. He made his way across Saxony
and Westphalia to Holland, everywhere preaching in the streets and churches,
telling of his crusade and its hopes, successes and difficulties, and winning
volunteers. Then he returned eastward, finally arriving at Philip’s court (probably
the one held in Gelnhausen on 2 February, 1207). Albert asked Philip for
assistance, "since there was no king to aid him.” In particular, he wanted Livonia
to become a fief of the Holy Roman Empire. Philip, however, still only German
king, not yet emperor (and he was still fighting for even that lesser title); he was,
therefore, unwilling to perform any action which might appear to be questionable
legally. He did invest Albert with his lands—just as he would later invest the
Swordbrothers—and promised him an annual donation from the royal treasury.
However, when no money was forthcoming, the chronicler huffed, "If one could
only get rich from promises!"31 But even the subsequent assassination of Philip
could not undo the acquisition of another important legal check to the claims of
the archbishop of Lund and the Danish crown. Albert was free to counter Danish
claims to his homage by protesting that he was no longer a free agent or able to
offer fealty whenever he pleased.32 He could attempt once more to persuade the
Swordbrothers to offer homage. However, neither the Danish monarch nor the
knight-brothers were won over by his arguments.
It is a testimony to the determination of Bishop Albert and Abbot Theodoric
that with the aid of only a small number of German nobles, clerics, and
merchants that they met and overcame the obstacles provided by native
resistance, bad weather, and Russian competition. Bishop Albert had located an
attractive site for a mercantile center at Riga and persuaded immigrants to settle
there, had instituted a governmental system for the countryside which included
local aristocrats as vassals, had founded a monastery and sent missionaries into
78
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
the interior, and had created an army of household troops and crusaders. He had
made himself and his subjects independent of Russian supervision and tribute,
averted submission to the Danes, and had won the recognition of pope and
emperor-elect. Credit must be given to Theodoric for stimulating interest in the
crusade, for founding the Order of the Swordbrothers, and for guiding the colony
during Bishop Albert’s frequent absences. Two men, working for different but
complementary goals through different means, had established a crusading state
that would permanently change the course of history in the Baltic.
ENDNOTES
1.	Arnold of Lubeck, Ch. 6, para. 17; From Crusader to Viking, 84-87, 110-111.
2.	Adolf Holm makes the unfounded statement that Waldemar forbade crusades
to Livonia, which seems most unlikely. See his Liibeck, die freie und Hansa
Stadt (Bielefeld: Velhagen and Klosing, 1900), 22.
3.	The Danish-Welf alliance almost collapsed as a result of this. Koch, Livland
und das Reich, 19-20; Usinger, Deutsch-danische Geschichte, 117-22.
4.	Transehe-Roseneck, Livlandfahrer, 19-20
5.	Henry of Livonia, 41.
6.	Reinhard Schneider, "Garciones Oder Pueri Abbatum. Zum Problem
bewaffneter Dienstleute bei den Zisterziensem,” and "Giiter- und Gelddepositen
in ZisterzienserklOstem,” Zisterzienser-Studien I (Berlin: Colloquium,), 11-35,
97-126.
7.	Ibid., 43; Benninghoven, Schwertbriider, 53-54.
8.	Henry of Livonia, 46-47
9.	Benninghoven, Schwertbriider, 54-62.
10.	Christiansen, The Northern Crusades, 82-86.
11.	Most Swordbrother knights were so obscure that we do not even know the
names of more than 7-8% of them, or the origins of more than 2-3%.
Ritterbrilder in livlandischen Zweig des Deutschen Ordens (ed. Lutz Fenske and
Klaus Militzer. K01n, Weimar, Wien: BOhlau, 1993), 14.
12.	Medieval Lyrics of Europe, trans. Willard R. Trask (New York: World
Publishing Co., 1969), 89.
13.	Reimchronik, 1. 12017. Compare this conception of Livonian monastic life
to that in Benninghoven, Schwertbriider, 60-62.
14.	Friedrich Benninghoven, "Zur Rolle des Schwertbriiderordens und des
Deutschen Ordens im politischen Gefuge Alt-Livlands,” Zeitschrift fur
Denmark and Livonia
79
Ostforschung, 41/2 (1992), 164; for the class consciousness of the era, see
Bartlett, Making of Europe, 43-51.
15.	Benninghoven, Schwertbriider, 54-62; Friedrich Georg von Bunge, Der
Orden der Schwertbriider: deren Stiftung, Verfassung und Auflosung (Leipzig:
E. Bidder, 1875); Alan Forey, The Military Orders From The Twelfth to the
Early Fourteenth Centuries (Toronto and Buffalo: University of Toronto, 1992).
16.	Henry of Livonia, 47-49.
17.	"Do wart Constantinople van den Latinen gewiinnen, "in Sdchsische
Weltchronik, 238.
18.	Norman Davies, God's Playground, a History of Poland (Oxford: Clarendon,
1981), I, 48, 50-53, 86; Hellmann, "Die Papste und Litauen," 33; Fennell, The
Crisis of Medieval Russia, 28-30.
19.	Hamburgisches Urkundenbuch, I: 300-304; Usinger, Deutsch-danische
Geschichte, 131-32; Koch, Livland und das Reich, 20.
20.	Hans Witte, Mecklenburgische Geschichte (Wismar, 1909), I: 145-46.
21.	Kaspar Elm, "Christi Cultores et Novelle Ecclesie Plantatores," Gli Inizi, 128-
130, 154-159.
22.	Benninghoven, Schwertbriider, 65-66.
23.	Reinhold Schneider, "StraBentheater im Missionseinsatz. Zu Heinrichs von
Lettland Bericht uber ein groBes Spiel in Riga 1205," Studien liber den Anfange
der Mission in Livland, 107-121.
24.	Benninghoven, Schwertbriider, 71.
25.	Benninghoven, Schwertbriider, 71-73, 85-86.
26.	Ligi, Talupoegade, 300-301.
27.	Henry of Livonia, 45-68.
28.	Bartlett discusses the widespread phenomenon of native elites adapting to the
challenge of aggressive newcomers, Making of Europe, 55, 301-302.
29.	The most famous description of a raid on Estonia is found in the Njal Saga.
This is summarized in From Viking to Crusader, 18-22.
30.	Henry of Livonia, 27-28, 75.
31.	Henry of Livonia, 68.
32.	Henry of Livonia, 68; Manfred Hellmann, "Altlivland und das Reich," Felder
und Vorfelder russischer Geschichte (Freiburg: Romback, 1985), 61-67; "Der
Deutsche Olden im politischen Gefiige Altlivlands," Zeitschriftfiir Ostforschung,
40(1991), 481-499; note carefully the criticism of the foregoing by
Benninghoven, "Zur Rolle des Schwertbriiderordens," 165-171.
LIVONIA ON THE EVE
OF THE CONQUEST
Visby
Baltic Sea
THE BALTIC
DURING THE EARLY
CONQUEST, 1200-1205
Gotland
Visby
0
° >
Gulf of Finland
Oesel
Pskov
Gulf of Finland
Gotland
Tallinn
LIVS
erake
KURS
PRUSSIANS
Wierland
iver
SELONIAN
Narv
River
Estonia
accalia
Hamen
Jerwen
Polozk
ESTONIAN
Gauja
River
Lake
eipus
RUSSIANS
Gulf of
Riga
LETTS
RUSSIANS
Polozk
LITHUANIANS
Karelia
Novgorod
Lake
Peipus
Ungannia
Gauja
Л1Уе701о’"Т
Pskov
Diinamiinde^rr^a
^T^UexkflU
Selonia
200 km	Sem$tjlia^(ver
^OmUes Kurland	Lithuania
Lettgallia
enhusen
rzike
Daugava
Rive
CHAPTER FIVE
CRUSADER SUCCESS IN LIVONIA
Bishop Albert could have taken considerable pride in his recent successes.
Amid the political feuds of his homeland, he had played the Welf and
Hohenstaufen parties against one another, and the Danish monarch against his
German enemies, in a skillful and unobtrusive manner. The result was that by the
end of 1206 the crusader state at Riga was firmly ensconced, secure against
native attack, flood, or Russian intervention. Albert counted on the friendship of
the pope and the support of the future emperor to ward off domination by the
king of Denmark. If friendship could have been translated into action and if more
material aid had been available, he probably would have triumphed over all
obstacles, but the revival of the Welf-Hohenstaufen dispute slowly sapped his
hope of obtaining papal and imperial assistance, undermined his authority over
his subordinates, and eventually put the crafty bishop at the mercy of his rivals
and enemies.
Albert Organizes His State
When Bishop Albert returned to his church with a large army in June 1207,
the Danish prelates had already sailed for home. It is unlikely that Albert wished
to meet them; he had no desire to set any precedent or make any promise that
might later be embarrassing. In any case, he no longer needed or wanted their
help. Among his recruits were two counts who were accompanied by so many
warriors as to overawe the natives. Even the Liv chieftain, Vetseke, though
subject to the duke of Polozk, hurried downriver to assure Albert that
missionaries would be welcome to preach throughout the pagasts (districts) of
Kokenhusen. It appeared that Albert was in firm control, so that he was able to
pass the summer and fall baptizing natives, building churches, and organizing the
local government.
Albert undoubtedly believed that time was on his side. If he could but delay
the inevitable confrontation with the Danes, he would weather any difficulty.
However, the Swordbrothers chose this moment to ask for one-third of all
conquests, future as well as present, a request they believed was only just.
Although they were not yet numerous (their income was insufficient to sustain
rnore than a few hundred mounted warriors), they were strong enough to be the
Christians’ mainstay during those winter months when crusaders were few in
number. Because they were permanently stationed in Livonia, they could perform
valuable, perhaps indispensable service to the crusade, but in order to increase
their numbers and wealth they needed more land. They aspired to the power and
Prestige of the crusading orders in the Holy Land, where military orders carried
out the brunt of warfare against the unbelievers.
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THE BALTIC CRUSADE
It was this ambition that worried Albert. In the Holy Land such orders had
quarreled among themselves and with the secular rulers so often that they had
often disrupted the crusading effort more than they had aided it. Albert wanted
to avoid internal trouble at all costs. Because he did not want a rival in Livonia,
he sought to postpone a final decision over the lands, saying that he could not
grant what he did not possess but that he was willing to grant them one-third of
his present holdings. This, of course, was but a fraction of the expected
conquests, and Master Wenno rejected the offer. The brothers must have believed
that if they harassed the bishop sufficiently, they could force him to comply with
their wishes. During the previous winter they had probably had long
conversations with the Danish officials, and the possibility of using the Danes
against the bishop could not have been overlooked. Also, Albert had met with
an emperor who was still excommunicated, which suggested that the crusading
order could expect a sympathetic hearing from the emperor’s foe, the pope.
When everything was calculated in, Master Wenno and his knight-brethren had
reasons to believe that they could benefit by delaying a settlement; nevertheless,
they had to have funds immediately to cover current operating expenses, and new
sources of income were available only if they accepted the bishop’s offer. In the
end, both parties temporized, agreeing to divide the territories already occupied
and to talk about future conquests later.
The occupied lands were divided into three parts. Albert had first choice,
then Master Wenno. The remaining portion then went to the bishop. Since the
order had to relocate some of its operations from what was henceforth the
bishop’s lands, Albert compensated Wenno for the property and improvements.
In return, Wenno promised to pay the bishop one-quarter of all the tithes
collected in his territories. The knight-brothers accepted all this but did not agree
to foreswear any future claims—and before long they appealed the matter to the
pope in hope of obtaining a more favorable ruling. In all this maneuvering, we
can see both Bishop Albert and Master Wenno playing a double game. Each
sought to advance his cause in Livonia by playing politics in the papal, imperial
and Danish courts. Complicated by the long-standing antagonisms between
regular and secular clergy, this quarrel created mistrust and even hatred between
the two parties that were never eliminated.
Bishop Albert also had difficulties with his own administrators and vassals.
Even in the best of times there was corruption and rebellion, but in periods of
upheaval and absentee government, as in Livonia, they were multiplied:
The bishop sent priests into his parts and left the Brothers to administer
their own part. That year a certain pilgrim knight, Gottfried, was also
sent to Treiden to administer the office of magistrate in secular law. He
went through the parishes, settling the disputes and quarrels of men,
collected money and a great many gifts, and, sending a little bit to the
bishop, kept most of it for himself. Accordingly, certain other pilgrims
who resented this broke open his chest and found nineteen silver marks
which Gottfried had realized from property that he had stealthily
collected, not counting much more which he had already dissipated.
Crusader Success in Livonia
83
Because he had acted unjustly in perverting judgment and oppressing the
poor, in justifying the iniquitous and levying toll on the converts, by the
just judgment of God it so happened that, to the terror of other such
men, he should incur such a humiliation, and he afterwards died a
shameful death, as some report.1
(The last phrase is a medieval moralism meaning that he was not punished
but should have been.) Obviously, Albert faced a serious recruiting problem:
considering the opportunities and obligations capable and honest men faced in
the Holy Roman Empire, few were willing to take employment far away in a
strange and dangerous land; on the other hand, those with few scruples and much
haste to enrich themselves and then return home to spend their money saw in
Livonia a "heaven-sent opportunity"—a phrase Albert and the preachers of the
crusade must have used, but with a very different intent. His first advocate was
a priest, but the inherent contradiction in a priest’s duties (to absolve one from
sin and grant forgiveness is incompatible with society’s expectation that judges
will mete out punishment to criminals) caused Albert to appoint secular
advocates thereafter. Moreover, Albert had troubles even with his honest
administrators, as this incident illustrates:
At this time there arose a quarrel between the king of Kokenhusen and
Daniel, the knight of Lennewarden. For the king had caused Daniel’s
men many inconveniences and, although warned, had not ceased his
molestation. The armed men of this Daniel, therefore, rising up at night,
went hastily with him to the fort of this king. They arrived at dawn and,
finding those within the fort sleeping and the watch itself, moreover, less
than properly watchful, they mounted the walls suddenly and reached the
very center of the fort.... They seized the king.... The bishop and all his
men regretted this very much, for they did not approve of what had been
done. The bishop then ordered the fort to be restored to the king and all
his wealth to be given back and, summoning the king, honored him with
gifts of many horses and many suits of precious garments.2
The Liv noble pretended to be satisfied, but the incident had made him into
an implacable enemy. Such confrontations accorded severe blows to Albert’s
policy of conciliating the native leadership. As a result of this quarrel and others
like it, Albert was losing the confidence of those native nobles whose rights he
could protect, rights they had enjoyed under the loose Russian hegemony and as
independent clan chieftains. He had hoped to convert them into a western-style
feudal nobility, as had been done in Mecklenburg and Pomerania only a few
decades before. There, as Albert knew well from personal observation, pagan
Wendish clan chieftains had become Germanized knights. Breaking neither all
ties to the past nor to the Slavic peasantry, they had provided for the defense and
governance of the country. If this policy failed, Albert would have to turn to the
model adopted in Schwerin during that same period, which was to import knights
from Germany and give them lands and honors. Albert could easily appreciate
the difficulties involved in this, not the least being that the native nobles would
not give up their lands and status peacefully. Albert was a frustrated man. On the
one hand, he had to placate the German nobles and administrators already in
Livonia, who had little patience with the natives’ ignorance of feudal customs (or
their dislike of them); on the other, this handful of Germans could not defend the
country unless they had massive support from the native peoples. Albert had
little time to study the problem—he had hardly left the presence of his angry
subject (who seemingly had not yet understood what it meant to be a vassal)
when a pagan army crossed the Daugava:
On that very Christmas night the Livonians sent messengers to inform
the bishop that a Lithuanian army had entered Livonia. Other messengers
subsequently followed the first to report on the men killed and captured,
on the churches laid waste, and on all the evils which the pagans had
brought upon the new church. When the bishop heard these things, he
called together the pilgrims, the Brothers of the Militia, the merchants,
and all his own men, and told them all, for the remission of their sins,
to make of themselves a wall for the house of the Lord and to liberate
the church from its enemies. They all obeyed, prepared themselves to
fight, and sent to all the Livonians and Letts the following threat:
"Whosoever does not come out to follow the Christian army shall be
punished by a fine of three marks.” Fear filled all and, hearkening to this
threat, they met the people of Riga on the banks of the [Daugava]. They
then went together to Lennewarden, assembled within the town, and
awaited in silence the return of the Lithuanians. They then sent scouts
to investigate their route. The Lithuanians, with all their captives and
loot, met these scouts near Lennewarden and crossed the [Daugava] over
the ice at night. The leader of their army climbed the banks, and
approached the fort with his companions. He then called the leader of
the fort, demanded the whereabouts of the Christian army, and said:
"Go, tell the Christians who, two years ago, killed my army as if it were
asleep, as it returned from Estonia, that now they will find me and all
my men awake." After they had heard this speech, the Christians
hastened to the battle of the Lord and followed the enemy at dawn.3
The Lithuanian leader was probably Grand Duke Ringaudas, the most
powerful military figure of the region. In any case, the boastful challenge was
perfectly appropriate for a man whose power rested on success in war and local
politics.4 Nevertheless, the battle ended in a Christian victory—and a perfect
model fdfc the strategy subsequently adopted for the defense of Livonia against
raids across the Daugava. Already Albert had deprived the Lithuanians of their
allies at Kokenhusen and Gerzike, who had allowed them free passage through
their countries; now he sent the army to conquer Seiburg on the south bank of
the Daugava, thereby eliminating Selonia as a land which raiders could safely
cross on their way to Livonia and Estonia. In succeeding years Albert extended
Crusader Success in Livonia
85
a line of castles along the Daugava to serve as watchposts and assembly points
for the militia. Rarely could Albert’s defending forces intercept a raiding party
as it entered Livonia, but they could send out timely warnings to endangered
communities; then, after collecting the militia at the border castles closest to the
raiders’ way home, they pursued the heavily-laden Lithuanians so relentlessly
that they usually recovered some of the booty and prisoners; occasionally they
killed large numbers of their surprised enemies. As a result, the native peoples,
able to protect themselves for the first time against traditional foes, began to
evidence less hostility to their new rulers. There seemed to be some advantages
to the foreign presence which they could set against the obvious drawbacks.5
Not all the natives responded favorably, however. For example, Vetseke of
Kokenhusen massacred the German workmen who were rebuilding his strategic
castle in stone. He had begun the rebellion the day the crusaders were to have
sailed for home, and if contrary winds had not delayed the sailing, the Christians
would have lacked the strength to attack him for half a year. As it turned out,
300 crusaders volunteered to stay through the winter, and when Albert reached
Gotland he hired mercenaries and sent them to Livonia. When the new crusader
force marched out of Riga, Vetseke’s Russian garrison was unwilling to face it.
Setting fire to the fort, they withdrew to Polozk Vetseke, abandoned as well by
his Lettish and Selonian subjects, who prudently hid in the dense forests, fled
upstream as well. Kokenhusen became Bishop Albert’s most important castle.
Civil War in Germany
When Albert landed in Germany, he learned that strife had broken out in the
diocese of Hamburg-Bremen. The old hostility between the two cathedral
chapters had revived at the election of a successor to Albert’s uncle, the late
Archbishop Hartwig. The majority of canons in Bremen cast their votes for
Bishop Waldemar of Schleswig as the man most likely to organize resistance to
the Danish king, who had to be driven from Germany before they could restore
the archbishopric to its old power and prestige. But the canons with Welf family
ties realized that this would be harmful to their relatives who had won lands and
offices from the archbishop as late as 1202. This minority, led by Burchard von
Stumphausen, withdrew to Hamburg and held a second election, which Burchard
won. Both candidates sent to Rome for confirmation.
Bishop Waldemar probably hoped that the forthcoming settlement between
Pope Innocent and Philip of Hohenstaufen would include an agreement to award
him the diocese of Bremen. But in any case he looked upon the archbishopric as
only a stepping stone to the Danish throne. Burchard probably expected that any
candidate who was favorable to the Welfs and the Danes would be accepted.
Poth men were disappointed—despite all the efforts to influence him, Pope
Innocent П1 refused to confirm either candidate. They then appealed to arms.
Purchard took up residence in Hamburg and captured Stade with the help of
banish knights. Bishop Waldemar was escorted to Bremen by his son-in-law,
Bernard of Saxony, and with the help of a well-drilled army of peasants from
86
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
Stedingen recaptured Stade. Thereafter the war was stalemated: Burchard
controlled the right bank of the Elbe and Waldemar the left. The outcome was
finally determined not by the candidates and their armies but by an unexpected
turn in the Welf-Hohenstaufen dispute.6
Everyone had known that the fighting in the Rhineland would be decisive
and, therefore, each party had tended to ignore the conflicts elsewhere, such as
the Danish-Welf successes in the north earlier and now the victories of
Waldemar of Schleswig. But few had suspected that the far-off struggle would
be so protracted. The defection of Archbishop Adolf of Cologne to the
Hohenstaufens had almost wrecked the Welf cause at one point, but papal
intervention rescued the situation. The pope could not maintain the Welf position
alone, however, and at last Cologne was lost. Otto IV retreated to Saxony, then
to Denmark, and finally to England. Unable to resist any longer, his followers
recognized Philip as the properly elected German King. Although Philip offered
Otto lands and a daughter’s hand if he would abandon his claims, Otto refused.7
Otto must have been praying for a miracle, and in June of 1208 it occurred:
while Philip was gathering his forces for the decisive battle, he was murdered by
Otto von Wittelsbach in personal dispute.8
Philip’s assassination left Otto the only candidate to be German king and
Holy Roman Emperor. No one was willing to continue the struggle—at least not
risk family possessions on the hope that Philip’s pregnant widow would produce
a son, or wait for the teenaged Frederick in distant Sicily to assert his claim on
the throne. Though fearful of Otto’s vengeance and fully aware of his lack of
character—his arrogance, his disdain of law and tradition, and what one has to
call either "bad luck" or "incompetence" were well-known—the Hohenstaufens
were unwilling to resume the bloodshed. Only shortly before they had made a
peace with Otto’s followers. Now they preferred to negotiate with him to see if
he would guarantee their individual winnings. Otto, temporarily most amenable
to pope and nobles, promised everything that was necessary to win election. He
expected his coronation would follow quickly.
King Waldemar of Denmark was not pleased by the turn of events. He saw
a strong emperor as a threat to his possessions and trusted the Welfs no more
than he did the Hohenstaufens. Therefore, he ceased his support of the pro-Welf
candidate for the archbishopric of Hamburg-Bremen, whereupon Burchard
resigned. This did not mean, however, that King Waldemar supported his hostile
uncle, Waldemar of Schleswig, who was unacceptable to the pope in any case
because he had entered Bremen against the pope’s expressed command. If he
could not install a pro-Danish prelate, King Waldemar would see that the
vacancy in Bremen remained unfilled. His enmity was confirmed as, week after
week, the minor German lords from both parties approached the new emperor
with pleas for assistance against the Danes.
Otto IV, however, had no interest in a war with Denmark. He was less
German than English (Norman English, or French) by birth and training. The
Angevin heritage was very strong, and if anything can be said about that family,
it is that they always thought on a grand scale. Otto IV was like his cousins in
this respect—perhaps most of all like King John of England. If ever there was
Crusader Success in Livonia
87
a Welf program for Germany, Otto IV did not believe in it. His model for the
Empire was not Welf but Hohenstaufen, but few realized it as yet. Otto, who was
too clever to prejudice his prospects by talking too much, allowed everyone to
believe that their plans were his plans. He took in pope and princes. For the
moment he took in those who were willing to gamble on his reformation, those
who counted on rewards for loyal service, and those who calculated that Otto
would pursue a policy of peace and harmony with the Church (since that was in
Otto’s own best interests). In short, he misled everyone, everyone, that is, except
the wily King of Denmaik.
When the German nobles assembled in Halberstadt in September 1208 for
the formal election, they still hoped for imperial help against the Danes. All the
powerful magnates of the north were present to offer Otto fealty, including such
former enemies as Bernard of Saxony, Hermann of Orlamunde, and Adolf of
Schauenburg. By May, when the nobles next met, they were disabused. Bernard
of Saxony cried in vain, "How long must your revenge keep you occupied in the
East? You have what you wanted. It is time to go north!"9 Instead, Otto went
south for his coronation. However, almost immediately after being crowned by
Innocent Ш, he alienated the pope, and within two years, by invading Frederick’s
kingdom in southern Italy, he had earned papal excommunication. Otto must
have known that the popes feared a powerful emperor above all; and therefore,
each pope in turn found it necessary to protect the independence of those lords
and kings who could offset imperial authority in Italy. Nevertheless, the emperor
was persuaded that he was sufficiently powerful to do what was necessary to
bring Christendom together and provide it with leadership.
The northern lords were not pleased with Otto’s policies, but they knew they
could not fight the Danish monarch alone. Consequently, several of them
followed Otto into Italy, hoping to earn sufficient favor that they could
eventually call upon him for help against Waldemar; as late as the year 1210,
Bishop Philip of Ratzeburg, Adolf of Schauenburg, Adolf von Dassel, and
Heinrich of Schwerin were still at Otto’s Court.10
The ensuing turn of events was as unfavorable for Albert as for the princes
and prelates of north Germany. His uncle, the archbishop, had always looked
favorably upon his crusade. But now Hartwig was dead, and the archbishopric
was tom by civil war. Philip of Hohenstaufen, who had supported Albert as
much as he could, had been murdered even as he succeeded in restoring
peace—and therefore would have had disposable resources for crusading—and
his throne was now occupied by Otto IV, who had no interest in the Baltic. The
situation could have been even more serious, but the Danish king was busy in
Sweden, and the count of Holstein was occupied by rebels. Albert was not
important enough to distract them, and therefore he could still preach his crusade
without interference. But the future, clearly, promised a day of reckoning, which
Albert might with luck postpone but could not avert.
88
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
Conquest of the Letts
Although Albert sent little immediate aid to Livonia, affairs in that region
prospered. His officials, though still inexperienced and undoubtedly corrupt, were
strong enough to suppress native dissent. More importantly, they provided
military victories over the traditional enemies of the Livs and the Letts. The
prospect of revenge and booty on one hand and the memory of Estonian and
Lithuanian butcheries and enslavement on the other were sufficient to guarantee
the temporary loyalty of the Liv and Lett nobles to their new Christian rulers. In
addition, there were now more German knights in the country, and the native
warrior class had not yet devised a means of neutralizing their effectiveness or
emulating their skill. The Order of Swordbrothers was growing in numbers, and
since Riga now contained more comfortable buildings and the possibility of
starvation was no longer a danger, more crusaders were willing to winter in
Livonia.
The crusaders also had an ideal: Bishop Albert’s self-serving manipulation
of the Virgin cult. This most popular of all medieval cults undoubtedly .won
many volunteers to the Baltic Crusade since Livonia was dedicated to the
Blessed Virgin. Several years later, Albert explained to Pope Innocent III:
"Holy Father, as you have not ceased to cherish the Holy Land of
Jerusalem, the country of the Son, with your Holiness’ care, so also you
ought not to abandon Livonia, the land of the Mother, which has hitherto
been among the pagans and far from the cares of your consolation and
is now again desolate. For the Son loves His Mother and, as He would
not care to lose His own land, so, too, He would not care to endanger
His Mother’s land."11
It was an easy step from Saint Mary’s Cathedral to the land of the Blessed
Virgin, and a very clever pretext to persuade devout men to enlist under his
banner.
Bishop Albert had need of many good men, as the chronicler said: "At this
time the Rigans and the Christians who were in Livonia desired peace, but it did
not come; they were seeking good things, and behold, trouble!"12
In the summer of 1208 the Semgallians proposed a raid into Lithuania. Those
responsible for the government of Riga decided against the venture, but so many
crusaders insisted upon participating in it that the authorities gave them
permission to do so. Fifty knights—a very considerable force when augmented
by ten men-at-arms for each knight, together with the native militia—went to
Semgallia to join in the attack on Samogitia, but they still had much to learn
about nativfc warfare. When the Semgallians saw that the Lithuanians were
waiting for them, they fled as quickly as they could, for the customary local
tactics were to fight unprepared foes only, preferably women, children, and old
men. The Germans did not understand this, having been raised by a different
model of personal courage and espousing very different battle tactics; also in
Germany the penalty for defeat was usually no worse than embarrassment and
Crusader Success in Livonia
89
the payment of ransom, only rarely the loss of life or enslavement. Consequently,
when their allies fled, the Germans drew together and stood their ground against
the much larger Lithuanian army. Only a few of them survived. The moral was
not lost on the Germans in Riga:
Praying to heaven, all the elders and discreet men decided that
thenceforth they ought not to confide in the multitude of the pagans, nor
ought they to fight with pagans against other pagans, but that they ought,
hoping in the Lord, to proceed boldly against all the tribes with the now
baptized Letts and Livonians.13
Abbot Theodoric, the most influential figure in the circle of men who ran the
crusader state, saw that the possibility of success was greater to the north and
east than to the south. Christianity had already penetrated Estonia to some
degree; also, Estonians were wealthier and more numerous than the Livs and
Letts—silver ornaments were widely displayed and so plentiful that families
could bury them with the dead—and they had a class of warriors who could
perhaps be incorporated into a feudal system. More importantly, the Estonians
lacked unity, being divided by feuds, swamps and dialects; and although the
Russian dukes of Novgorod and Pskov collected tribute from the eastern tribes
of the Estonians and Letts and from time to time acted as judges in those
districts, they did not normally provide the fortresses with garrisons which could
assist the people against immediate dangers. Russian armies were, by local
standards, huge, but mobilization was a long and costly process. Novgorod would
not send an army west except for the direst emergency, and only when the duke
was not involved in more pressing dynastic conflicts. These facts suggested that
the Estonians were vulnerable to attack. In addition, since the Estonians were
hated by the Livs and Letts for their past aggression and present arrogance, the
crusaders could count on their native auxiliaries to participate in a war against
them with considerable enthusiasm.14
To demonstrate this fact, the Letts did not wait for permission to begin the
war. Letts, commanded by their local chiefs, Russin and Waridote, attacked
Saccalia, defeating the local forces, then slaughtering people until "the tired
hands and arms of the killers failed them." They brought back cattle, horses,
flocks, and "a great many girls, whom alone the army was willing to spare in
these lands." They divided their booty among themselves before returning home,
where they found the Christian leaders waiting, angry that the truce with the
Estonians had been violated. While the Estonians cremated their dead and
bewailed their losses, the Liv and Lett leaders sat down with the Germans to
discuss what should be done next. The council ended with an agreement to offer
the Estonians a truce and to await Bishop Albert’s return before deciding upon
the next step. The Estonian elders, hurriedly assembling in Odenpah to discuss
their response, almost lynched the German emissaries who used the opportunity
to preach the Christian message. However, cooler minds among the elders
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THE BALTIC CRUSADE
rescued the missionaries at the last moment, and ultimately the assembly
accepted the proffered cessation of hostilities.15
This pause in the conflict allowed the crusaders to resolve the internal
disputes which had become acute during the Swordbrothers’ advance north-
eastward from their territories along the Livonian Aa River into Lettgallia and
toward Estonia.16 If Albert thought that in dividing the land he had bestowed
only undesirable and indefensible territories upon the brothers, he was mistaken;
as we shall see, he had little interest in advancing in a direction which would
lead him to an inevitable collision with the Danish king. The Estonians, divided
as they were by swamps and forests into essentially autonomous tribes, were
more vulnerable than anyone had imagined, and Theodoric, who had played a
part in the foundation of the Swordbrothers, doubtlessly encouraged the knights’
aggression, even though it threatened to involve everyone in a desperate war. The
arrival of Abbot Florenz of Marienfeld to consecrate the new abbey at
Diinamimde probably reinforced Theodoric’s influence and weakened that of the
Rigans who adhered more strictly to Albert’s instructions.
Albert’s men, particularly his brothers, still retained control of policy, but
only barely. Events were moving too swiftly, and the bishop’s strong hand was
needed. As time passed, Master Wenno tended to become more and more
independent. He and his brother-knights saw an opportunity to convert the Lettish
tribes around Wenden—a territory which had not yet been divided—and resented
the efforts of episcopal officials and relatives to thwart them. The bishop’s men
feared that the Swordbrothers would simply occupy the lands and refuse to give
the bishop his share and that giving aid to the Letts would involve all the
Christians in war with the Estonians at a moment when all their resources were
needed along the Daugava River to secure the southern frontier against the
Lithuanians.
The Swordbrothers themselves were divided as to whether they should
submit to the orders of the absentee bishop. However, the faction advocating
immediate war at last won control and began to attack those Estonians who
refused to recognize that they now ruled the northern Letts. Albert’s officials
intervened and negotiated a truce of one year’s duration, at the end of which
Albert was to be back in Livonia. He could settle the situation at such time,
presumably in his own favor.17
This solution hardly satisfied the Swordbrothers. The faction wishing to defy
the episcopal officials was apparently led by Berthold, the new castellan at
Wenden, the order’s central convent-fortress.18 The faction that wished to
submit was apparently led by Wickbeit, who had governed Wenden until deposed
by the formal vote of the membership because of his unmanly submission to
episcopal authority. As Wickbert’s influence declined, he lost hope in his
prospects for future advancement in the order and may have even feared for his
life. He fled to the protection of Albert’s men but failed to find the safe refuge
he had hoped for:
Abhorring the fellowship of holy living and disdaining the Militia of
Christ, [Wickbert] came to the priest of Idumea, said he wished to await
Crusader Success in Livonia
91
there the arrival of the bishop, and wished to obey the bishop in all
things. The Brothers of the Militia, Berthold of Wenden and certain
other Brothers and servants, followed this Brother as if he were a
fugitive, seized him in Idumea, led him back to Wenden and threw him
in chains.19
Wickbert was released later, but by then any influence he might have had
was completely shattered. Later, after Albert’s return, Wickbert murdered Master
Wenno and the chaplain with an ax and took flight. The Rhymed Chronicle
reported, "They caught him quickly in the neighborhood and put him painfully
on the rack. No one said much for him, and in that the Germans were good folk.
Be he knight or servant, they put him to death as people should traitors."20
Subsequent to this, however, Berthold failed to be elected master. Perhaps
the Swordbrothers were shocked by the whole business and realized that Berthold
was not guiltless, though that was not to excuse Wickbert’s actions. A more
moderate knight, Volquin (Volkwin), became master. Volquin had a difficult, if
not impossible, task: to satisfy the demands of Berthold’s faction without
antagonizing Albert. Under the circumstances, Volquin had as much success in
the years to come as could be reasonably expected. Well-born, well-connected,
and possessed of numerous personal virtues, he was universally respected. This
respect was his main asset, and since the order lacked prestige, it was all the
more important.21
When Albert returned to Riga in March 1209 he was given news even more
mournful than the murder of Master Wenno: his brother Engelbert, the prior of
Saint Mary’s, also was dead. Engelbert, whose activities are rarely mentioned in
the sources, was among Albert’s most dependable officials, and he could not be
replaced. Even though his successor, Johann von Scheida, served loyally and
well in the years to follow, no one could be trusted as much as a relative. That
left only his brother Theodoric and a brother-in-law, Engelbert von Thisenhusen,
who appeared shortly afterward. Theodoric was apparently busy in southern
Estonia at this time, in the years 1209-1211, as he was replaced as advocate of
Riga by a visiting crusader. Theodoric’s marriage at this time to a daughter of
Vladimir Mstislavich, governor of Pskov since 1208, was a political triumph of
the highest order. This dynastic alliance promised to secure for him possession
of the most important fortress in Ungannia, Tartu (Dorpat, Jurjev), and the
friendship of Duke Mstislav Mstislavich of Novgorod. Engelbert returned to
Germany after a short visit in Riga, and, like Theodoric, became a rich vassal in
the diocese of Dorpat fifteen years later, a territory then ruled by Albert’s
younger brother, Hermann!22
Bishop Albert brought a large army with him as well as several important
nobles from the area of Magdeburg. These crusaders represented two distinct
factions, one associated with the Welf party, the other with the archbishop of
Magdeburg, whose ambitions to extend his authority eastward were well-known
(and the name of his seat, ‘the fortress of the Virgin,’ was supremely appropriate
for justifying his jurisdiction over lands dedicated to the Mother of God).23 To
92
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
one of these nobles, the first of three brothers to become crusaders, he gave the
castle at Dolen (to which he either gave his name or from which he took the
title); to another, Rudolf von Jerichow, he gave half the income of Kokenhusen
as a tax fief. Rudolf occupied the castle, a third of which went to the
Swordbrothers (dividing the buildings and the incomes of castles was common
in Livonia) and made it into a strong point for the defense of Livonia against the
Lithuanians.24 However, Rudolf remained only one year before returning home.
He was wise to do so—the next three men to hold title to the castle were killed
by Lithuanians in 1214.
Important though Kokenhusen was, since it stood close to the point where
the river changes from a northerly to a westerly flow, it could not monitor the
main Lithuanian invasion route into Lettgallia and Russia. Gerzike, about forty
miles southeast by river, was the key to that route. Traditionally, the "king" of
Gerzike had been forced to play a sharp game, balancing the duke of Polozk
against the Lithuanian grand duke and, more recently, placating the newly arrived
Germans. Since the decline of Polozk’s fortunes made the Lithuanians his
strongest neighbors, Vsevolod tended to respond to their wishes rather than to
those of the Germans. This was unacceptable to Albert, who was attempting to
establish a defensive line along the river. Unable to persuade the native ruler to
change his ways, Albert sent men to capture Gerzike. This was the deepest
crusader penetration of the interior to date. The bishop had no wish to destroy
the city; although he allowed his soldiers to sack the houses and the churches
(the citizens were Orthodox), he restrained them from unnecessary slaughter,
thereby perhaps saving the life of Vsevolod’s wife—the daughter of a
neighboring Lithuanian noble. Ordering that the prisoners be kept as hostages in
Riga, Albert sent word to Vsevolod that all would be forgiven if he surrendered
quickly. When he appeared, the bishop made a proposal:
If you will avoid henceforth association with pagans and, accordingly,
not destroy our church through them and, at the same time, not lay
waste, through the Lithuanians, the land of your Russian Christians; if,
moreover, you will grant your kingdom in perpetuity to the church of
Blessed Mary, in order to receive it back from our hand, and rejoice
with us joined in peace and harmony, then, when these things have been
done, we will restore the queen with all the captives to you and always
furnish you faithful aid.25
Vsevolod accepted these terms, thereby becoming a vassal of the bishop. As
a token of the agreement, Albert gave him three banners, and the Lettish chief
swore loyalty to the Rigan prelate. Although the attempt to convince the native
nobles to iccept a feudal role ultimately failed completely, Albert’s persistence
indicates that his conception of the new order was not that of a Livonia run by
foreigners for foreign benefit but that of a feudal state with the bishop of Riga
as lord and the native nobles as vassals.
Crusader Success in Livonia	93
Ambitions on Estonia
Further indications of Albert’s ambitions can be adduced from his Estonian
policy. Not interested in expansion to the north or northeast, he sought to restrain
the Swordbrothers from attacking the Estonians. He saw no profit in such an
attack. Maritime Estonia was probably already promised to King Waldemar, so
that if Albert succeeded in conquering the area, he would have to surrender it.
Also, the Estonians of Oesel and of the western provinces were proven warriors
who might be more than a match for the crusading forces available now. Better,
therefore, to let King Waldemar fight his own battles and to use the crusaders
to establish Christian control along the Daugava. Nor was he interested in
fighting those Estonian tribesmen. As we have seen, the Estonians in Ungannia,
with their central fort at Tartu, were tributary to the Russian city of Pskov, and
because Albert’s brother Theodoric had married a daughter of Vladimir
Mstislavich, he had every hope of acquiring sovereignty over southeastern
Estonia without fighting. Such a progression of events would fit perfectly into
his policy of making minimum changes in the existing society and governing
through established local authorities.26
Because Albert’s policies were so directly opposed to the ambitions of the
Swordbrothers, a fundamental conflict lay ahead, as the Swordbrothers
disregarded episcopal commands and continued to press into Estonia. Nor were
they alone in such an endeavor.
King Waldemar of Denmark was interested in Estonia, also, especially over
the northern and western provinces. Some of his predecessors, like King Canute,
had exercised hegemony over the entire eastern Baltic, and his ambition was to
re-establish this empire. Consequently, he dominated northern Germany, involved
himself in expeditions to Pomerania, Prussia, and Sweden, and kept a close
watch on events taking place on the eastern shore of the Baltic. His interest was
thus confined totally to the Baltic. Several years earlier, to curry favor with
Innocent III, he had promised to take the cross, but when the pope reminded him
of his obligation, Waldemar had set it aside with the plea that he could not leave
his kingdom. Disorder in Germany was too dangerous. When this excuse ceased
to be valid, the pope pressed the matter more strongly. When he placed the
Danish kingdom under papal protection so that no one would dare attack it in the
absence of its monarch, Waldemar had to make some pretense of fulfilling his
vow. Instead of making the long journey to Jerusalem, however, he undertook
an expedition to Samland to punish some pirates. Because the crusade to Livonia
had equal rank with the crusade to Jerusalem, this action fulfilled his crusading
vow in a technical sense, but it was primarily part of a continuing Danish interest
in a Baltic empire.27
Despite the efforts of the Danish monarch and the crusaders and the
merchant communities combined, the seas were still not safe for Christian
commerce. Individual cogges could be boarded by swarms of smaller pagan
vessels, and even Christian fleets were not safe. As Albert and the crusaders
sailed for home in the spring of 1210 they encountered Kurish pirates near
94
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
Gotland. These formidable warriors were likely to have been natives of north
Kurland who spoke a Finno-Ugric language; thus, they were related more closely
to the Estonians of Oesel than to the Kurs. They were no doubt sailing their
large fishing boats constructed of bent wood held in place with braces, a
technique which gave the vessels more flexibility and rendered them less likely
to splinter on one of the submarine boulders of the rock-strewn coastal waters.28
About thirty knights and a large number of commoners died in the ensuing
combat; the defeated Christians sailed away, leaving dead, wounded, and
drowning comrades to the pagans. The Kurish victory was apparently avenged
within a few years. Although sources do not mention any specific incidents, we
know that every Christian merchant vessel plying the waters to and from Riga
would have passed through the Kurish fishing waters; and since a cogge would
have been better manned than a fishing boat (which, in contrast to a pirate crew,
had as few men as possible on board) and under favorable sailing conditions was
faster, the Christians probably eliminated most of the pagan fleet and its sailors
one vessel at a time through opportune attacks on the fishermen. We can assume
that the Kurish economic system, which operated close to the margin of survival
in any case, collapsed before 1230.
More Civil War in Germany
Albert found north Germany in turmoil, a situation unsuitable for recruiting
crusaders. Waldemar of Schleswig, sustained by the peasants of Stedingen and
the citizens of Bremen, still maintained control of the left bank of the Elbe. Only
once had he wavered—when, depressed by the apparent hopelessness of his
situation, he had resigned, but his retirement was of short duration because the
Bremen canons selected Gerhard of Oldenburg as his successor. This led to
widespread protests by those who feared the ambitions of the house of
Oldenburg—the traditional enemy of Stedingen and Bremen—and Waldemar
returned to lead resistance against the Danes, the pope, and now the house of
Oldenburg as well.29
In theory, the emperor was to intervene in crises such as this and, with the
help of the princes, to restore order in a just manner. But Otto IV could not
intervene, as he was in Italy; his deputies in Germany had little influence; the
nobles were distracted by the local war and confused by Otto’s apparent lack of
interest in their concerns. Nevertheless, Innocent III was only partially successful
in his efforts to recreate the party opposed to Otto. No one had foreseen a
possible renewal of the struggle between the emperor and the pope. Otto was a
Welf, and the Welfs were what modem historians refer to as a state’s rights
party. Having been a papal ally for years, Otto had suddenly taken up the
Hohenstaufqp program—to make war on papal allies in order to become ruler of
all of Germany and Italy. In northern Germany this manifested itself in Otto’s
urging Waldemar of Schleswig to continue his feud against their common
enemies. Soon "Welf and "Hohenstaufen" were labels with such little meaning
in the north that it would be better to call them pro- and anti-Danish factions.
Crusader Success in Livonia
95
Nobles and prelates of Welf and Hohenstaufen backgrounds alike had
identified themselves with Otto’s cause. Now, with Otto’s excommunication
anticipated at any moment, they found themselves in a predicament. They had
nothing to win and much to lose from the renewal of hostilities between pope
and emperor and therefore looked for safe refuges. The bishops of Verden,
Ratzeburg, and Paderborn declared their intention to accompany Albert on his
next crusade.30 Ignoring an excommunication would have been ruinous for
them—a fact that Bishop Philip of Ratzeburg must have stressed during his
interview with Otto in Italy when they agreed upon the crusade as a reasonable
excuse for taking their knights out of Germany, thereby denying them to the
papal alliance.31
From Saxony Albert had traveled to Rome, and on 20 October—shortly
before the pope issued the excommunication—he had an interview with Innocent
III at which Master Volquin of the Swordbrothers was present. The pope
resolved a number of issues, but he was also interested in unifying the crusaders,
if possible, and in preventing either party from seeking aid from the emperor,
which led to Innocent’s delay in defining exactly what Albert and Volquin’s
feudal relationship should be. It was not possible to describe the duties prelate
and crusading order had toward one another without infuriating at least one party.
Rather than antagonize anyone, he left Albert’s and Volquin’s responsibilities so
vague that future disagreements were inevitable.32 Regarding the delicate
situation with Denmark, Innocent was equally cautious. He merely warned Albert
to shun the evil influence of Waldemar of Schleswig; rather, he should support
Gerhard of Oldenburg. Albert probably suggested that he would have fewer
difficulties if he were entirely free of obligations to the archbishop of Bremen;
and apparently the pope agreed, because he not only declared that Bremen was
to have no authority over Riga, but he granted Albert the right to found
bishoprics and monasteries and to change his cathedral chapter from the
Augustinian to the Praemonstratensian rule—perhaps a suggestion from Bishop
Philip as a step toward independence. So eager was Albert to forward these
reports to Livonia that he sent messengers overland through Prussia that very
winter. Volquin was less than pleased.33
When Albert returned north he found the princes in arms against the
Danes—Brandenburg, Saxony, Bremen, and Schwerin having combined against
King Waldemar. But Albert could not afford to offend Denmark, and he
remained neutral in word and deed, if not perhaps in thought. Besides, these men
were overmatched. He accordingly concentrated on gathering his crusaders
together for the voyage east.34
Invasion of Estonia
During the bishop’s absence, Livonia had been ravaged by war. The native
Peoples, previously divided, had begun to cooperate against the westerners.
Estonians came down from the north and from the east, Lithuanians moved up
from the south, and some Livs rebelled while the Kurs sailed in from the west.
96
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
The latter force almost captured Riga, but the city was saved when, as the
Germans were trying to forget their quarrels over land in the face of the common
danger, Caupo and the Livs came to their aid—seemingly demonstrating that
hostility to the neighboring tribes and loyalty to the new religion were more
important to them than any independence that might be gained, since a crusader
defeat would have meant only a change of masters for them. Even so, the
situation was desperate, and only through combining their strength were the
Christians able to defend their castles against numerous attacks. The most serious
defeat occurred when a crusader force was ambushed on the road to Wenden.
Caupo’s son was among the fallen, and some of the prisoners were burnt alive.
Martyrdom was fine in theory, but it did not defend castles. Rescue came in the
form of winter, whose onset forced the attackers to lift their sieges and return
home.
Stung by these setbacks and threatened by renewed attack in the spring, the
Christians decided to secure their northern flank immediately. They already had
alliances with Vladimir of Pskov, and now commercial and friendship treaties
with Vladimir of Polozk were sealed by a Swordbrother representative who
substituted for the wounded Rudolf von Jerichow. In addition to providing
security against attack, the Swordbrothers’ success seem to have strengthened
their growing friendship with the merchants. Albert’s brother-in-law, Engelbert
von Thisenhusen, directed the attack on Fellin, the stronghold of the Saccalians:
The pagans would listen to nothing about God or the Christian name.
They rather threatened war and donned the arms of the Germans which
they had seized at the gate of the fort during the first engagement. On
the heights of the fort they gloried in these arms, they prepared
themselves for war, and with their shouting they jeered and mocked at
the army. Russin and the Letts, however having taken all the captives
and slaughtered them, threw them into the moat and threatened to do the
same to those who were in the fort. The archers, meanwhile, killed many
men and drove them all back to the stronghold, while other men built a
tower. The Livonians and Letts carried wood and filled the moat up,
from bottom to top, and pushed the tower over it. The Letts and
ballistarii went up to the tower, killed many men on the battlements with
arrows and spears, wounded many, and for five days a very great battle
raged. The Estonians strove to bum down the first pile of wood by
casting a great deal of fire from the fort onto the carts. The Livonians
and Letts threw ice and snow and put it out. Arnold, a brother of the
Militia, labored there day and night. At last he was hit by a stone and
crossed over into the brotherhood of the martyrs. He was an extremely
religious man and was always praying. He found, as we hope, that for
which he prayed. The Germans built a machine and, by hurling stones
night and day, they broke down the fortified places and killed men and
innumerable beasts of burden in the fort. Since the Estonians had never
seen such things, they had not strengthened their houses against the force
of such missiles. The Livonians added dry wood to the pile of wood up
Crusader Success in Livonia
97
to the plankwork. Eylard of Dolen climbed up on top. The Germans
followed in arms, removed the planks,and, on the inside, found another
wall which they could not get through. The men of the fort gathered up
above and forced the Germans back by throwing stones and logs. The
Germans came down, brought flames to the fort and set it on fire. The
Estonians pulled apart the flaming planks and the burning timbers of the
wall and dragged them away. On the next day, when the burning was
over, they replaced everything, and the survivors nerved themselves once
again for the defense. There were, however, many corpses of the slain
in the fort, there was a shortage of water, and nearly everyone was
wounded, so that now they gave out On the sixth day the Germans said:
"Do you still resist and refuse to acknowledge our Creator?" To this they
replied: "We acknowledge your God to be greater than our gods. By
overcoming us, He has inclined our hearts to worship Him. We beg,
therefore, that you spare us and mercifully impose the yoke of
Christianity upon us as you have upon the Livonians and Letts."35
This was a significant victory, for Fellin controlled all Saccalia, but it was
not yet an unconditional victory. The Estonians surrendered hostages and
accepted priests, but no Christian garrison was introduced into their fort. The war
continued with the other tribes—which were now fighting according to a
common strategy, attempting to wear down their enemies with offensive
operations. A new name was being heard, that of Lembit, a Saccalian noble with
notable gifts for political and military leadership.36
On the very day Albert and Volquin arrived in the spring of 1211 an
Estonian army from Saccalia was in the process of besieging Caupo’s fort at
Treiden. The siege had not been pressed too closely at first because the
crossbowmen who had been sent from Riga shot down every man who came
within range. However, as the pagans gained experience they achieved so much
progress that the defenders feared a desperate attack might succeed in storming
the defenses. Such an assault would have violated the traditions of native
warfare, but the Estonians saw the Germans as such a threat to then-
independence that unless they struck quickly, they would never be able to defeat
the invaders. Caupo might even succeed in unifying all the Liv tribes, an event
which would be dangerous enough in itself.
Although their assumptions as to the necessity of a decisive victory were
correct, the Estonian siege of Treiden nevertheless proceeded too slowly. Albert
had brought with him the bishops of Ratzeburg, Verden, and Paderborn, Count
Helmold von Plesse, as well as the famous warrior—now Cistercian monk—
Bernard of Lippe. Each was accompanied by forces large enough that the
Christian army must have numbered 3,000 men. Realizing that the loss of
Caupo’s fort might be ruinous to the Christian cause, since Caupo was the most
loyal supporter the Christians had, Albert marched his forces out at the earliest
moment:
98
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
They donned their weapons, put the trappings on their horses, and with
their infantry, the Livonians, and their whole company...crossed the Aa
[Gauja], went on through the night, and approached the pagans. They
arranged the army and instructed it for the war. The infantry they sent
ahead on the major road which leads to Wendendorf. The knights,
however, followed on the road which leads to the right. The infantry
marched cautiously and in orderly fashion. When morning broke they
came down from the mountain and saw the fort and the pagan army, and
the valley was between them. Immediately they beat joyfully upon their
drum and enlivened the spirits of their men with their musical
instruments and their song. They called down God’s mercy upon them
and swiftly hurried towards the pagans. After crossing a little stream
they halted for a moment to collect themselves in a group. When the
pagans saw them, they were terrified by the unmistakable prospect. They
ran, got their shields; some of them rushed to the horses, others leaped
over the barricade, and they all assembled in one group. They troubled
the air with their shouts and came out in a great multitude to meet the <
Christians, throwing a shower of spears upon them. The Christians
caught the spears with their shields, and when the pagans had run out of
spears, the Christians drew their swords, marched closer and commenced
the fight. The wounded fell and the pagans fought manfully. The knights
saw the strength of the pagans and suddenly charged through the center
of the enemy. The trappings of the horses threw terror into the enemy.
Many of them fell to the ground, the others turned to flight, and the
Christians pursued those who fled. They caught them and killed them on
the road and in the fields. The Livonians from the fort went out with the
ballistarii and met the fleeing pagans. They scattered them on the road
and enveloped them. Then they slaughtered them, up to the German
lines. They pursued the Estonians so that few of them escaped and the
Germans even killed some of the Livonians as if they were Estonians.37
Other units cut off the retreat by land and by sea. The slaughter at Treiden—
perhaps as high as 2,000 men—must have included the flower of the Saccalian
warrior class. Now that the way was open to expand north into central Estonia,
Albert had the delicate task of permitting the crusaders to prepare an offensive
in that direction without losing control of the situation. He knew that the
Swordbrothers were ready to sweep in, as other orders had done in the Holy
Land and as the Teutonic Knights were soon to attempt doing in Hungary,38 and
make themselves masters of the region. Therefore, the bishop of Riga took steps
to constrain Volquin and his men while he attempted to win over the Estonians
by peaceful^means—possibly offering the Estonians terms similar to those
accepted by the Livs and Letts, whereby the elders would become episcopal
vassals, thus allowing him to dispense with the services of the Swordbrothers.
Albert’s first and shrewdest move was to appoint Abbot Theodoric as bishop
of Estonia. Theodoric, one of the founders of the Swordbrothers, had been their
constant supporter. As bishop, however, he would have responsibilities which ran
Crusader Success in Livonia
99
counter to their ambitions. Also, Theodoric could deal with the Danish king,
perhaps taking some of the pressure off Riga. With coastal Estonia thus taken
care of, Albert presumably assisted his brother Theodoric in securing the inland
provinces from his base at Tartu. To cover his rear, he appointed Bernard of
Lippe to the vital post at Diinamunde. Bernard was a seasoned warrior who had
entered the Cistercian order a few years previously, and although no longer
young, he was in good health. Without question Bernard could cope with any
difficulty; certainly he could stand up to anybody (he feared neither pagans nor
crusading orders) and he was a proven military leader. On crusade in Livonia
was Bernard’s son and namesake, the bishop of Paderborn, and perhaps another
son, Hermann (certainly by 1212), which led to speculation that the Lippe family
was scouting the situation for its own advancement. Albert negotiated anew the
tithe with the native tribes, promised the Gotland merchants safety, justice, and
financial stability, and confirmed the division of the lands with the
Swordbrothers. When all this was complete, he left the government in the hands
of the bishops and sailed back to Germany to recruit more crusaders.39
At this time, as often happens during invasions, a plague broke out. The
disease was probably worst among the Livs, who huddled together in the forts
and drank impure water from easily infected sources; this situation allowed the
disease to spread rapidly. It was a hard blow to this people, which soon began
to disappear as a separate entity, giving way linguistically to the more numerous
Lettgallians (Latvians).40
In the following winter, 1211-1212, the crusaders made a discovery which
would prove decisive in military strategy: they learned that winter was the best
season for warfare. All their subsequent campaigns were based on this seemingly
elementary innovation. In Saxony the winters were long and wet but relatively
mild, with snow covering the ground only a few days each year. Persistent mist
and light rain made the ground soggy and the roads impassable. This
combination of wet and cold endangered the health of those who remained away
from shelter for extended periods. Fighting on horseback under such conditions
was difficult, and if knights took advantage of the occasional freeze to sally out,
a sudden thaw could disconcert them considerably. Consequently, Saxon knights
tended to spend the long winter evenings in their drafty houses and castles
awaiting the return of spring.
In Livonia, on the other hand, a continental climate prevailed. Winters were
much longer and colder, the ground and rivers froze, and the air was dry, so that
winter was often more suitable for cavalry operations than summer. The swamps
froze, the underbrush was less obstructive, and the natives had more difficulty
hiding their tracks. The knights took to heart the lessons they had learned from
their experiences the previous winter and began a systematic campaign to break
the back of Estonian resistance. More than 4,000 crusaders—infantry and
cavalry—used the frozen rivers as highways into the heart of hostile territory.
The success of the crusaders’ operations had caused their Russian neighbors
considerable anxiety for some time, but dynastic conflicts over possession of
Kiev and the grand ducal title had prevented Novgorod from taking effective
100
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
action. Young Svjatoslav’s insecure reign in the duchy ended once in 1205, when
his father had sent his eldest son, Constantine, to rule in his place, but the
brother had managed to alienate so many boyars that Vsevolod П1 sent
Svjatoslav back in 1207 with orders to avoid trouble. Again in 1208 Svjatoslav
was replaced, this time by the energetic and capable Mstislav (the daring)
Mstislavich, who then sent his brother Vladimir to govern Pskov. The new duke
faced down the troops Vsevolod III sent under Constantine to depose him, but
it was not until the grand duke’s death in 1212 that he felt sufficiently secure to
respond to Novgorod’s concerns about Estonia.
Mstislav collected a massive army from Novgorod, Pskov, and Smolensk, but
his invasion of Estonia was short-lived; he withdrew quickly, apparently leaving
behind a small Pskovian force in Jerwen and Harrien to collect tribute, then
marched south to assist his cousin, Mstislav the Old, capture Kiev.41 The
demonstration of Russian strength, and perhaps promises of military support
against the apparently intimidated Germans, inspired Lembit to assemble an
Estonian army, which he then persuaded to rebel. Lembit personally led the
slaughter of the priests. However, any hopes he may have had for an immediate
offensive to the south were dashed by a Lithuanian attack on Pskov which
required the citizen army to hurry home from northern Estonia. Undoubtedly, the
pagan attack would have been even more devastating if the Lithuanians had not
panicked at a sudden, unexplained noise and fled.42 Why Albert’s brother
Theodoric and his father-in-law Vladimir were not working together well at this
time is not clear. The chronology is garbled, the sources cannot be reconciled,
and motivations seem to be at cross purposes with actions; of course, human
beings are often so perverse in their behavior that the logical minds of historians
are left in complete confusion and frustration—and it may be the case here that
a family quarrel was followed by a reconciliation, followed by yet another
dispute, that Vladimir was simply acting on his brother’s orders, or that he had
already been replaced by a new governor.
When Albert returned to Livonia in the spring of 1212 he obtained a truce
with the Russians which brought an end to fighting for three years, during which
time Albert would be permitted to send missionaries into Estonia; whether he
sent missionaries there or not is unclear—there is no record of such activity.
Although Albert renegotiated the commercial treaty with Vladimir of Polozk so
that the duke acknowledged the bishop was to be independent from any feudal
subordination such as might be claimed from years past, Albert could not obtain
immediate control of Estonia before the Swordbrothers and their allies were
ready to move. This delay was to prove fatal to his plans.43
In 1213 the citizens of Pskov overthrew Duke Vladimir and his German son-
in-law, denouncing their policies as failures which benefitted only the Germans,
and sent helj> to their Estonian neighbors.44 This should have made easier the
prosecution of an all-out attack on the Germans, but in fact had the opposite
effect. Civil War had again consumed northern Russia, with Yuri Vsevolodovich
of Suzdal and his brother Jaroslav invading Novogorod in 1213, being bought off
temporarily by Mstislav giving a daughter to Jaroslav in marriage, then fighting
on until defeated in 1216 at the Battle of the Lipitsa River. In 1214 Mstislav was
Crusader Success in Livonia
101
not even present in Novgorod, having gone southwest to Galicia to look into the
chaotic situation there. This left a vacuum of power along Novgorod’s western
frontier. Consequently, until Vladimir was returned to power in Pskov in 1216,
the northern Russians watched on almost passively while the crusaders and
pagans battered one another in Estonia. In spite of the promises implied in the
payment of tribute, Novgorod sent no significant aid to Lembit. As a result,
Russian intervention in these decisive years failed in its basic intent—to drive the
westerners out—and succeeded only in forestalling Bishop Albert’s hope of
establishing his brother securely in southeastern Estonia.45
Conflicting Views of the Future
We might be able to understand Albert’s policy better if we remind ourselves
of his goals. He wished to govern by means of officials who would be
responsible to him and through minor vassals as well—preferably native elders
but also some German nobles—who would serve as ministeriales and advocates.
He would entrust all important positions only to members of his family or to
prudent clerics. Just as he had once made his brother Engelbert prior of Saint
Mary’s, he now gave important posts to the exiled Theodoric and Vladimir (who
went back to Russia in 1214 after falling out with his subjects),46 and he relied
on relatives in Germany to recruit crusaders for him. Nepotism was common
practice in northern Germany, not an innovation, and was certainly understood
by men like Bernard of Lippe, whose family was notorious for it. Having thus
placed trustworthy men in positions of command, Albert conciliated the natives
by offering them protection and justice and by allowing them to govern
themselves as long as they recognized the supremacy of the bishop, paid their
taxes and tithes, and followed the Christian religion. In short, Albert wanted a
strong, independent feudal state, organized along western lines but conforming
to native practices wherever necessary.
This policy was challenged by the Russians, by the Order of Swordbrothers,
and by the Danes, who, in a sense, were the most dangerous, because in 1206
the archbishop of Lund had obtained papal authority to supervise all missionary
activity in the Baltic region. The Russians also wished to rule Livonia, but
inasmuch as they could not provide security to the natives, their influence was
declining. At the beginning, the Swordbrothers were a lesser threat than the
Danes or Russians, but in the end they proved the most dangerous: they were too
strong to crush and too active to ignore. Besides, their cooperation was needed
for the defense of Livonia.
As Albert could not afford a civil war, he sought to prevent the order’s
becoming more powerful. This policy only antagonized the order, and the bishop
clashed with Master Volquin on issue after issue, such as their basic
disagreement over the policy toward the natives. Albert, in hope of winning the
allegiance of the native tribes, offered redress to grievances against the intolerant
knights, and thus, when the Livs rose against the order in 1212, following a
disturbance over an inheritance in his own domains, he was able to quell the
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THE BALTIC CRUSADE
disturbance easily. But however popular Albert’s program was with the
natives—and it was not always popular—he was to have repeated troubles with
his competitors: the Danes, the Russians, and especially the Swordbrothers.
Bishop Albert had heard many complaints against Volquin’s men, and it was
always the same story: the knights believed in conversion by the sword and
could not understand the process of conversion by persuasion; they used this
excuse to enrich themselves through confiscations, new taxes, and extraordinary
labor services. The accusations were probably exaggerated: friendships between
individual knights and native nobles can be demonstrated, some Letts and Livs
were admitted into the order as confratres and serving brothers, and Master
Volquin had a friendly relationship with semi-independent Tolowa, a recently
converted Orthodox community.47 The basic problem was two-fold: first, Master
Volquin was pressed for resources to build castles and to create a functional
secular government; second, the bishops’ officials and vassals were jealous and
fearful of the friar-knights, and they lacked the power to make the increasingly
self-reliant order obey Albert’s instructions.
Although Albert promised to correct the injustices to the natives around
Segewold, the problem was so complicated that he could not move quickly
enough to prevent the unrest from developing into violence. Philip of Ratzeburg
and Albert’s brother Theodoric were sent with the prior of Saint Mary’s to
Segewold to investigate, but the situation soon became one of open rebellion
against the entire Christian culture which was being imposed on them. Because
the rebels were advocating a return to paganism, Albert felt compelled to support
the Swordbrothers, and thus the episcopal army marched north.
Albert and Bishop Philip were personally present to observe their forces fill
the ditches and move wooden towers to the wall, allowing them to attack the
rampart and the base at the same moment. The rebel commander, Russin, was
slain by an arrow on his own rampart while talking peace, and other elders were
seized during another conference.
At length they gave up, raised Blessed Mary’s standard on high, and
bowed their necks to the bishop. They humbly besought him to spare
them and promised that they would immediately accept the neglected
faith of Christ, that they would henceforth observe the sacraments
faithfully, and that they would never again call to mind pagan rites. The
bishop had pity on them. He forbade the army to sneak into the fort or
to kill the suppliants, or to deliver the souls of so many to hell fire.48
As punishment, the taxes of the Livs in the order’s lands were doubled (the
Zehnte); only the previous year he had reduced the tax to the Zins. If Albert was
willing to d&l with the natives in such a severe manner, it should be no surprise
that his officials were even harsher. The obligations of the Livs who had not
rebelled remained unchanged.49
Albert sailed back to Germany in the spring of 1213, having bound the
crusaders to observe the truces he had made with all the neighboring peoples. He
Crusader Success in Livonia
103
had left Philip of Ratzeburg in charge of affairs, and although the bishop of
Munster brought a few reinforcements, the total number of crusaders in Riga was
too small to have warded off an attack easily.50 In the long run, as far as Albert
was concerned, there seemed to be no alternative to relying on native nobles.
However, there was an alternative—the ideal state envisioned by Volquin’s
Swordbrothers was that of the crusading orders in the Holy Land. Those brothers
wished to be independent of any outside power, free to govern and expand their
lands as they saw fit. Their public ambition was the same as Albert’s: the
conversion of the natives. Their private ambition was perhaps the same: the
exercise of power. But their methods differed widely. To become independent,
they had to have their own financial resources. First of all, that meant lands.
Since 1210 they had ruled one-third of the conquered lands in Livonia without
any supervision by Albert’s advocates; they also had possessions in the Holy
Roman Empire—a village in Holstein, a small village in Saxony, and a large
residence in Lubeck for messengers and knights waiting for ships.51 They had
to overcome the resistance of the bishop, and this could be done only with
outside help; so the Swordbrothers began to involve themselves in international
politics. They visited the pope and asked that he remove their lands from the
supervision of the bishop of Riga—if possible to appoint for their lands a
separate bishop (presumably Abbot Bernard), who would be more sympathetic
to their needs. Unsuccessful in this, they went to his rival, Otto IV, who granted
their request and declared their lands to be an independent fief of the empire, just
as Albert’s diocese was. Henceforth, they considered themselves the bishop’s
equals, not his subordinates. Subsequently, Bishop Philip and his fellow prelates
from Verden and Paderborn arbitrated a division of the conquered lands between
Bishop Albert and the Swordbrothers.52 Otto was not particularly interested in
these problems, except that it meant an easy acquisition of adherents to his cause,
and perhaps anticipating further imperial help, the crusading order began to draw
away from the papacy.
Innocent in Intervenes
Innocent III was not a pope to be defied or ignored with impunity. Perhaps
the strongest pope in the history of the Church, he had humbled the monarchs
of France, England, and Spain, had fought German parties to a standstill, and had
launched crusade after crusade in every direction. Under his urging, the crusading
movement reached its apogee—in the Holy Land, Egypt, Constantinople,
southern France, and the Baltic. (In 1212 even the children went on crusade.)
When Innocent finally decided to crush Otto’s pretensions to rule over Italy as
well as Germany, it was but a short time until his candidate, the Hohenstaufen
Frederick II, crossed the Alps and rallied a great number of Germans to his
cause. Frederick’s victory even resulted in Bishop Otto of Munster taking the
cross. After Theodoric pled his case, the emperor released him from prison on
the condition that the prelate immediately sail for Livonia in the company of the
bishops of Verden and Paderborn.53 Despite his early successes, Frederick could
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THE BALTIC CRUSADE
nevertheless not take and hold all the castles and cities of the Welf forces. In
fact, it was not the Hohenstaufen army that finally defeated Otto IV but rather
that of King Philip Augustus, for it was the French victory at Bouvines in 1214
that knocked both the Welf and Angevin forces out of the war. Otto lost his
crown, and King John of England barely saved his.
As Frederick II moved down the Rhine, the northern lords requested his
assistance in driving the Danes from Holstein, Mecklenburg, and Pomerania; but
Frederick came to an understanding with King Waldemar in which those lands
were left under permanent Danish control, which angered and dejected the
northern princes. Some, such as the counts of Schwerin, swallowed their pride
and submitted to the Danes. Others continued to plot a war of liberation, without
imperial help, similar to that fought by their fathers against Henry the Lion
thirty-five years earlier. All continued to plead with the young emperor, but in
vain. Frederick II understood that hostile neighbors would give refuge to his
enemies, enabling them to undermine his every effort to restore peace and order.
Even Frederick was unable to attack Otto in his Saxon stronghold. Lacking the
resources and time to invade any neighboring kingdom, the emperor chose *to
make peace on the best terms he could get and concentrate on restoring order in
Germany.54
Pope Innocent’s impressive display of power in overthrowing Otto IV caused
the Swordbrothers to reconsider their alliance with the Welf party and with the
Danes. Soon they returned to the papal court in Rome. As Albert was busy in
Germany, Bishop Theodoric had to cut short his visit to Holland and hurry to
Rome to answer the charges brought by the Swordbrothers against the bishop of
Riga. Innocent III had already ordered Abbot Bernard of Lippe to defend the
interests of the crusading order against Bishop Albert, but when Theodoric
informed the pope that he had been duped into believing false accusations, the
pope sternly warned the knights against future deceptions. Theodoric represented
Albert’ cause faithfully, and the pope ordered every prelate in the north to send
priests to Riga to assist in the conversion and guidance of the natives; he also
reconfirmed Riga’s independence of metropolitan control. Theodoric then
traveled north to Lubeck, where he, Albert, and the representatives of the
Swordbrothers took ship for Riga. The company could not have been convivial.
Bishop Philip’s Administration
When Philip of Ratzeburg learned that the Danish king was still dominant
in north Germany, he decided to remain in Livonia rather than return to Rome
with Bishop Albert to attend the Fourth Lateran Council. In any case, he had
supported the Welf cause so loyally and so long that he was far from eager to
meet the popdface to face. He and Bishop Theodoric would go to Rome later.
Meanwhile, he would attend to affairs in the crusader state so that Albert could
sail back to Germany and from there travel to Italy. The bishop of Riga could
put in a few good words for him, praising his service for the Baltic crusade,
which would moderate the pope’s anger over his earlier refusal to abandon his
allegiance to Otto IV.
Crusader Success in Livonia
105
In this sense, it was ironic that the first problem for Philip to resolve was a
question of treason. Philip suspected the loyalty of the Lettish ruler of Gerzike,
Vsevolod, who had failed to perform court service—he had not once visited the
bishop. He was especially suspicious of the fact that Vsevolod’s father-in-law,
who had been captured by Swoidbrothers on his way home to Lithuania from
Novgorod and held in Wenden, had committed suicide in prison. Philip construed
this as a confession of guilt to accusations of having plotted a joint Russian-
Lithuanian attack on Livonia. When he summoned Vsevolod to court to explain
these matters, the chieftain failed to comply. Seeing no practical alternative to
the use of force, Philip sent knights against Gerzike. Vsevolod, knowing that he
could not hold the castle against the crusaders, fled to Polozk, whence he
continued the struggle against the Germans. Thus, an important native ruler who
might have converted and established a precedent by which German and native
noble classes merged and by which conversion might have been achieved
peaceably, had fled abroad to the crusaders’ Orthodox foes. Only the presence
of Caupo prevented the complete collapse of Albert’s policy of working toward
a feudal state based on the participation of important native nobles, who would
eventually serve as knights and take the place of the Swordbrothers in regional
defense. Eventually, as happened in Schwerin, once a sufficient number of
natives had been trained as priests and become canons in the cathedral chapter,
a native Livonian would be elected bishop. In place of gradual assimilation, the
remaining choices for the native ruling classes became either to accept Russian
help in driving the Germans from the land or to become the crusaders’ lower-
class servants. The Gerzike debacle was a critical turning point in the history of
the Baltic states because it committed the Letts to a policy with only two
unhappy alternatives; besides, Caupo’s decimated Livs were insufficiently
numerous or powerful to undergird the feudal order envisioned by Bishop
Albert.55
The second of Philip’s immediate crises also had an ironic aspect to it, in
that the Letts needed help in their wars against the Estonians on their northern
frontier; western help, as well as the introduction of western methods of
government and warfare, might provide them victories in the place of their
traditional defeats. The participation of nobles like Vsevolod of Gerzike could
have given the Letts a greater voice in their fate, and would perhaps have
modified the crusader policies along traditional local lines. As it was, even
though Philip and the Swordbrothers seem to have consulted with Lettish leaders,
there were too few of them and none had a substantial retinue, much less the
desired experience in western warfare. Consequently, the crusader leaders made
aU important decisions themselves. The crusaders committed many cruel deeds
m the ensuing conflict with the Estonians, but the native peoples were equally
cruel to one another. When the Swordbrothers took a large native force to
Rotalia that winter (1214-1215),
they found all the men, women, and children, and everyone, large and
small, in the villages, for they had not been forewarned of the army’s
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THE BALTIC CRUSADE
approach by any rumors. In their wrath the soldiers struck them and
killed all the men. Both the Livonians and Letts, who are more cruel
than the other nations, like the servant in the gospel, did not know how
to show mercy. They killed countless people and slaughtered some of
the women and children. They wished to spare no one in the fields or
in the villages. They stained the streets and every spot with the blood of
the pagans.56
This was typical of a Baltic campaign—little warning and practically no
possibility of escape. There was the surprise attack in winter, then the slaughter,
followed by marching the prisoners—soon to be slaves of the crusaders and their
native allies—back into Livonia. Then came the retaliation. While pagan hatred
may have been most intense against the crusaders, there was plenty to spare for
the crusaders’ Lettish and Liv allies. Without much question, the vicious
pendulum of atrocities which had already existed before the crusaders’ arrival
was made to swing more violently during these wars of conquest.
Early in 1215 Estonians from Oesel, Rotalia, Saccalia, and Ungannia invaded
Livonia by land and sea. Part of their plan—to block the mouth of the
Daugava—was frustrated only by the chance arrival of a Count of Oldenburg-
Wildeshausen57 and Albert’s two brothers in two cogs at the same moment that
a force from Riga was engaged in attacking the pagans. Elsewhere, Livs and
Letts evaded the Estonians’ attacks by fleeing into the forests and forts. As the
Estonians retired, the Christian natives gathered for a retaliatory attack upon
them.
They entered Ungannia, despoiled all the villages, and delivered them to
the flames. They burned alive all the men they could in revenge....They
burned down all the forts, so that they would have no refuge in them.
They sought out the Ungannians in the dark hiding places of the forests
and the Ungannians could hide from them nowhere. They took them out
of the forests and killed them and took the women and children away as
captives. They drove off the horses and flocks, took many spoils, and
returned to their own land. As they returned, other Letts again met them
on the road and they marched into Ungannia. What the former had
neglected, the latter performed.58
To read further from this long and blood-soaked passage is unnecessary—the
Saccalians and Ungannians, including even the indomitable Lembit, sued for
peace and offered to undergo baptism as well as pay tribute; the other tribes also
broke off hostilities. The atrocities of war change little throughout the ages, and
the descriptions of border warfare in Livonia are similar to accounts of frontier
conflict throughout the world; but in few areas has the intensity of warfare
endured as long as it was to last in the medieval Baltic. Passages cited above fit
almost every campaign waged in this area for the rest of the century by Christian
and pagan alike; it certain described the Oeselian attacks on the Livonian coastal
settlements and the Christian counterattacks later that same year.
Crusader Success in Livonia
107
In March of 1215, during Lent, the wooden houses inside the original wall
of Riga were engulfed by a catastrophic fire. The cathedral of 1201 was
destroyed, the great bells falling into the smoking rubble and damaged beyond
repair- However, since the foundations for a new basilica had already been laid
in the villa extra mures in 1211—and presumably a portion, perhaps the present
south wing, was already standing—the canons were not without a place of
worship and they quickly ordered a replacement for the ’’sweet-sounding” war
bell. The walls were soon extended to encompass the new dwellings which were
being constructed for the bishop and his clergy. However, it was not the enlarged
city which impressed visitors—it was the plans drawn up by Albert and his
canons for a brick church in the gothic style, ninety meters long with three
aisles!59 Such was the measure of their ambition—St. Mary’s would be the
largest church in the Baltic.
The Lateran Council of 1215
In the summer of 1215 bishops Philip and Theodoric sailed for Lubeck en
route to the church council in Rome. To their surprise, they found affairs in
northern Germany relatively stable. The last news they had received before
winter closed the seas told that King Waldemar of Denmark had been surrounded
by a hostile coalition of minor princes; he had instinctively attacked the most
dangerous of these, his uncle, Waldemar of Schleswig. But this attack on Stade
was disrupted by the intervention of the Welfs, forcing Waldemar to withdraw
across the Elbe. The outlook grew bleaker when shortly thereafter Otto IV
returned north and promised to support the princes in their war of liberation. At
first all went badly for the Dane. Otto captured Hamburg, then hurried south to
defeat and capture the chief figure of the Hohenstaufen party, the archbishop of
Magdeburg. During the next year, 1216, King Waldemar improved his position,
capturing Stade and Hamburg. Waldemar’s subsequent agreement with Frederick
П left him securely in possession of the coastland of northern Germany except
for Otto’s Saxony and those parts of Frisia held by Bishop Waldemar. The king’s
victory would also herald the end of the war around Bremen, where Bishop
Waldemar’s supporters were to bow to the overwhelming numbers of enemies
and acknowledge Gerhard of Oldenburg as archbishop. When that happened,
Gerhard, knowing that his rival continued to lurk in the Frisian marshes, offered
significant concessions to the citizens of Bremen and the peasants of Stedingen.
However, after inspecting his diocese, the new archbishop realized that he would
be unable to raise significant revenues from his devastated lands. He learned that
Bishop Waldemar had liquidated most of the church assets to pay his troops,
leaving little for Gerhard to use in paying his own heavy debts. Moreover, he
still had to maintain an expensive army to ward off the remnants of his rival’s
forces. The only assistance he could expect to be forthcoming from Frederick П
Was permission to revoke grants of privileges to the burghers of Bremen, because
the emperor was thinking only of his impulsive promise to take the cross. Even
though Gerhard no longer had to worry about Otto IV after May 1218—he died
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THE BALTIC CRUSADE
of dysentery complicated by a purgative—the archbishop did have to contend
with his heir, the precocious Otto the Child. Seeing no end to his need for
mercenary troops, Gerhard realized that he had to levy new taxes and reclaim his
church’s lost properties, but how he could do this without antagonizing his
subjects was an insoluble problem.60
Gerhard probably did not analyze the situation as logically as we have done.
He was not a person capable of planning ahead, but even more to the point, he
was a thoroughly medieval man. Just as we find it difficult to understand why
Frederick, the most rational man of his era, would suddenly take the cross or
why Otto IV would issue deathbed orders that his corpse be flagellated for his
many sins, we discover that the motives for some of Gerhard’s actions lie deeper
than mere incompetence. Gerhard was a noble and a churchman. He despised his
family’s enemies, most secular rulers, some religious orders, and all commoners.
These were traits shared to a greater or lesser extent by the noble churchmen in
Livonia.
When Bishops Philip and Theodoric landed in Lubeck, they learned that the
war in northern Germany was no longer as important as it had been and npt to
be compared with the universal fervor for the crusade in the Holy Land. Even
the Danish vassal, Albert of Orlamunde, had written the pope that he intended
to take the cross to the Holy Land. Accordingly, all attention was drawn to
Rome, where hundreds of prelates began to converge for the Lateran Council of
1215.
The bishops were exhausted, however. Shortly after leaving the Daugava
they had encountered stormy weather that drove their nine ships into a harbor on
Oesel, and bad weather prevented them from sailing away before the natives had
blocked the harbor with sunken vessels. Surrounded by hostile enemies, they
witnessed more enemy ships coming in daily until they were so greatly
outnumbered that death seemed certain. Nevertheless, their vessels escaped
destruction by fireships at the last moment because a shift in the wind—which
they attributed to fervent prayer—and hard labor put out the fires. Then the
Christians put the anchors on small boats, rowed under the cover of archery fire
until they were ready to drop the anchors, then pulled the vessels forward on the
anchor ropes. Fighting off continuous attacks, they threaded their vessels
cautiously between the sunken hulls and out of the harbor, but even unfavorable
winds kept them from escaping. The Estonians continued their attacks on the
fleet. Above the shouting and the clashing of weapons the chanting of the mass
continued unabated. After three weeks the crusaders’ food was exhausted, and
still the winds were unfavorable. Finally on 22 July, the winds changed and the
crusaders sailed to Gotland. There they rested and resupplied their vessels before
sailing on to Lubeck. Bishop Philip, who had continued his journey south into
Italy despite a serious illness, died in Verona.61 Theodoric proceeded alone to
join Albert.
The Lateran Council was the greatest assemblage of churchmen in the
memory of living men, and its subjects of discussion were worthy of the time
and expense involved. Among other important topics, Pope Innocent П1 proposed
a new crusade. Emperor Frederick II was to lead it, and all secular quarrels were
Crusader Success in Livonia
109
to be laid aside for four years so that all who wished to take the cross could
participate in this great enterprise. To finance the crusade the pope proposed an
income tax of five percent on all members of the clergy, except the cardinals and
the pope, who would contribute ten percent. Agreement was soon reached, and
it was decided that the fleet should sail from Brindisi in June 1217.
Bishop Albert did not miss this opportunity to profit from the general
enthusiasm for crusading. In November he spoke to the assembled crowd about
his efforts to promote Christianity in northeastern Europe, describing the trials
and tribulations of war in cold and distant lands. He told of his crusaders’ past
successes and of their hopes for the future, pleading that the Baltic Crusade not
be neglected by the Church fathers. The pope responded by recognizing Livonia
as the Land of the Virgin Mary and by issuing a call for a new crusade to
Livonia. Albert then hurried north to the court of Frederick II, and there in
January or March 1216 spoke to the emperor. After the emperor had given him
encouragement and promised assistance to his crusade, Albert rushed north.
Crusaders in Abundance
The crusaders meanwhile had gathered, as usual, in Lubeck and, as soon as
the weather permitted, Albert sailed with the annual contingent. When they
arrived in Riga he learned that war with Novgorod and Pskov was imminent.
There had already been border raids, and outright war was in the offing. As was
true before, the situation reflected the greater conflict among the foremost
members of the ruling dynasty in Russia, Jaroslav being supported by the pro-
German faction among the Novgorod merchants and Mstislav the daring the
darling of their Russia-first opponents. The Battle of the Lipitsa River on April
21, 1216, resulted in total victory for Mstislav the daring, his brother Vladimir,
and Constantine. Jaroslav Vsevolodovich retired to Perejaslavl, beaten but
unbowed. When Mstislav arrived in Novgorod and Pskov, he was determined to
set right affairs in those cities, collect tribute from Estonia, and, if he could,
drive the Germans away from the Russian frontier.
Threatened with invasion by thousands of Russian troops, Albert’s supporters
had tried to conciliate the Swordbrothers by giving them territorial concessions
so as to form a united front against this most formidable enemy. Albert agreed
with the terms they had negotiated with the crusading order: he would retain one-
third of Estonia, and the Swordbrothers and Bishop Theodoric would divide the
rest equally. Having reached this agreement, the Christians invaded Saccalia and
Harrien with the intent of subduing the region before the Russians could
intervene in force. Soon thereafter Duke Vladimir invaded Ungannia, ravaged the
land as a warning to its inhabitants against surrendering to the Germans, and sent
Pskov’s declaration of war to Riga with a captured merchant. (Merchants were
generally considered neutral in these matters; indeed, the Rigans considered
robbery much more reprehensible than the murder of their subjects.) The
Germans, in turn, captured Russian tax agents in Ungannia and held them until
Mstislav arranged for their release.62 Presumably, both sides agreed to allow
по
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
merchants to conduct their business regardless of the political situation, a policy
which was continued into the future.
This de facto truce was possible because Mstislav’s interest in Estonia was
considerably less than his fascination with Galicia, where the nominal ruler, the
sixteen-year-old Daniel Romanovich, had been forced to flee ahead of Hungarian
troops which then occupied his duchy. In late 1216 or early 1217 Mstislav was
approached not only by representatives of the duke’s mother but also by
spokesmen sent by Leszek the White of Cracow, the Polish king. Mstislav,
understanding well that a prolonged absence from the North would tempt
Jaroslav to march on Novgorod, visited Kiev to discuss his options with the
grand duke. The question was, what kind of compromise would persuade
Jaroslav to wait patiently while Mstislav investigated the chances of successfully
rotating into office in the distant southwest.63
Meanwhile, the crusaders used the respite to build a castle at Odenpah
(Bear’s head). This secured southern Ungannia just as Tartu protected the north.
When the Pskovians complained about this intrusion into their territories, the
Swordbrothers gathered a large number of Ungannians and invaded Russia:
On the feast of the Epiphany [6 January 1217], when the Russians are
accustomed to occupy themselves more with their feastings and
drinkings, they divided their army among all the roads and villages.
They killed many people, took captive a great many women, and drove
off many horses and flocks. They took much loot and, having revenged
their injuries with fire and the sword, they returned rejoicing to Odenpah
with all the loot.64
Duke Vladimir then called upon Novgorod for assistance, and together their
armies (which the Germans estimated at 20,000 men) invaded Ungannia, drove
the Swordbrothers back into Odenpah, and besieged the castle there for seventeen
days. Certainly the Russians had many men, perhaps too many, because their
supplies proved to be insufficient for a long stay. However, the garrison had run
out of food, too. When Volquin, Berthold, and Theodoric, the bishop’s brother,
had brought 3,000 troops to raise the siege, they were beaten and driven within
the walls of Odenpah. As a result, inside the castle Germans hungered, outside
Russians. At last Vladimir proposed that the Germans surrender the castle to him
on his promise to allow them to return unhindered to Riga. A truce being agreed
upon, the Germans marched out. However, after Vladimir persuaded his son-in-
law, Theodoric, that he should come to Pskov to confirm in the presence of the
people the terms of the agreement, the citizens of Novgorod instead took him
home with them—presumably for the same reason. Although the rest of the army
escaped without incident, Albert had temporarily lost his only dependable
commander and with him his best claim to lead the crusade militarily.
Knowing that another defeat would be disastrous and that it would be the
Swordbrothers alone who would profit any from victory, Albert sought to turn
this truce into a general peace. However, the Russians informed him that they
Crusader Success in Livonia
111
were determined to destroy his state. When Albert sailed to Germany in the
spring of 1217 to recruit more soldiers, Estonia appeared lost, and even Livonia
was threatened. The danger from Novgorod and Pskov was not as great as he
had feared, however. The Russian attitude to all this is indicated in the Chronicle
of Novgorod, which describes the entire campaign in very few words but devotes
paragraphs to civil wars which westerners have found incomprehensible and
obscure, but which involved important dynastic rights and were spread over vast
distances—in this case Mstislav the daring rode to Galicia to fight against the
Hungarian king. In short, the Russian dukes regarded Livonia as a sideshow, a
nuisance perhaps, but one which seemed to be under control.65
For the Germans the situation was quite different. Albert was therefore
overjoyed to find that this was a good year for raising crusading armies. Innocent
III had ordered the bankrupt Archbishop Gerhard to make his required
contribution of five percent of his income and pressed the nobility so hard that
many of them took the cross for the Holy Land. As the pope’s life drew to a
close, he became increasingly insistent about everyone fulfilling his crusading
vow; again he warned Archbishop Gerhard to make his monetary contribution
to the crusade. Albert reminded everyone who would listen that crusading vows
could be fulfilled quickly and cheaply, and equally effectively, in Livonia. As a
result, many people from north Germany, especially poorer knights and
commoners, answered his summons. Meanwhile, Bishop Theodoric had been
preaching the crusade from city to city and court to court, thereby establishing
firmly a practice by which the bishops of Livonia would peregrinate through the
Holy Roman Empire, assisting fellow prelates in holiday celebrations, witnessing
installations of new bishops, and using every public and private opportunity to
recruit crusaders for the conquest of their sees.66
The pope’s insistence that everyone fulfill his crusading vows embarrassed
Albert of Orlamunde, who suddenly learned that many of his vassals had
volunteered to undertake the journey to the Holy Land. He had already taken the
cross himself, but the vow to go on crusade often did not specify a particular
date or destination, and he intended to sail to Livonia. Naturally he wanted his
vassals to accompany him. He wrote the pope, asking that his vassals be allowed
to fulfill their vows in Livonia, and Pope Honorius III, Innocent’s successor,
granted his request. By the spring of 1217 Count Albert was ready to sail. We
cannot be certain of his motive for making this crusade. It may have been
connected with the plans of his Danish overlord to establish a foothold in
Estonia; alternatively, he may have been caught up in the general enthusiasm for
crusading. Whatever his justification may have been, preachers sent out with the
blessing of both pope and emperor had criss-crossed the land, exhorting men and
women to take the cross, and the emperor employed his powerful personality to
influence every visitor to court to do the same. It was also of great importance
that Albert be able to return speedily to Holstein, since Otto IV was then still
alive and dangerous in Braunschweig. This was a final proof for northern nobles,
as well as for German merchants, it was much more convenient to crusade in
Livonia than in Palestine.67 Nor was Count Albert the highest ranking lord to
112
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
take the cross in a moment of enthusiasm only to experience practical problems
in fulfilling his vow. Considerations of time, expense, health, and the danger of
leaving the country unprotected bore even upon Frederick II, who by not sailing
with the fleet for Egypt, thereby deprived it of the numbers and leadership
necessary for victory. However that might be, as a result of the crusading
enthusiasm which Frederick had generated during this year, one crusade sailed
for Damietta and disaster, while another sailed for Livonia and victory.
A new phase of the Livonian crusade had begun. Albert was no longer in
full command. He had relied upon papal blessing, imperial help, and native
vassals, and all had failed him. His household forces were insufficient, even
when augmented by the native militia, to drive away the Russians; until his
brother Theodoric was released, he was forced to rely upon the ambitious Lippe
family for the administration of the lands he did control; and the Swordbrothers,
who had the only substantial body of troops available for combat, were aware
that he could neither suppress them nor survive without them. The Russians
could destroy Albert’s state anytime they could put aside their dynastic quarrels
long enough to make a major cooperative effort to do so, and at long last the
Danes were entering the competition, coming to make good their claims on
Estonia. Indeed, the bishop’s command of the situation had somehow slipped
away, and he was now practically at the mercy of his rivals.
ENDNOTES
1.	Henry of Livonia, 70. This is very similar to misgovernment in the archdiocese
of Hamburg-Bremen; see Hamburgisches Urkundenbuch, I: 319.
2.	Henry of Livonia, 76.
3.	Ibid., 72-73.
4.	Giedroyd, Rulers of thirteenth-century Lithuania, 9; Henry Lowmiariski, Studja
nad poczqtkami spoieczehstwa i pahstwa litewskiego, II (Wilno, 1932), 224-231.
5.	William Urban, "The Organization of the Defense of The Livonian Frontier,"
Speculum (July 1973): 525-32.
6.	Footnote in Hamburgisches Urkundenbuch, I: 320-21; Usinger, Deutsch-
danische Geschichte, 134-45; Albert of Stade, 355; Heinrich Schmidt, "Zur
Geschichte der Stedinger," Bremisches Jahrbuch, 60/61(1982-1983), 27-33;
Bernd Ulrich Hucker, "Die Imperiale Politik Kaiser Otto IV. im baltischen Raum
and ihre Personnellen und materiellen Grundlagen," Visby Colloquium, 42-43,45-
46.
7.	Braunschweigische Reimchronik, 537. She died a week after her marriage.
8.	Sachsistfhe Weltchronik, 238; Van Cleve, Frederick II, 51, 67-69.
9.	Arnold of Lubeck, Ch. 7: para. 15.
10.	Usinger, Deutsch-danische Geschichte, 149.
Crusader Success in Livonia
113
11.	Henry of Livonia, 152. The Virgin Cult was strong among all the crusading
orders, but especially among the Swordbrothers’ successors, the Teutonic
Knights. See Mary Ellen Goenner, Mary-Verse of the Teutonic Knights (New
York, AMS, 1944).
12.	Henry of Livonia, 79.
13.	Ibid., 81. The Semgallians had a foreign policy of their own, balancing the
threats of the Lithuanians and the Germans against one another. This policy
succeeded in maintaining the independence of that people for many decades.
William Urban, “The Military Occupation of Semgallia in the Thirteenth
Century,” Baltic History (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1974), 21-34.
14.	Selirand and Tonisson, Through Past Millenia, 132-148.
15.	Henry of Livonia, 86-87; Tarvel, “Gesellschaftstruktur in Estland,” 156.
16.	Hellmann, Das Lettenland im Mittelalter, 128.
17.	Benninghoven, Schwertbriider, 95-97.
18.	Berthold’s origins remain obscure. Ritterbriider, 114; Evald MugureviCs, “Die
militarische Tatigkeit des Schwertbriiderordens (1202-1236),” Das Kriegswesen
der Ritterorden im Mittelalter (ed. Zenon Hubert Nowak. Toruri: Nicolaus
Copernicus University, 1991) [Colloquia Torunensia Historica VI], 126-127, for
a summary of excavation results at Cesis (Wenden).
19.	Henry of Livonia, 88-89; Wickbert was a native of Soest in Westphalia.
Other than that, nothing is known about him. Ritterbriider, 606.
20.	Reimchronik, 710-16.
21.	Benninghoven, Schwertbriider, 98-104, identifies the new master as Volquin
II of Naumburg. If this is correct, Volquin’s family was closely connected to the
noble houses of Lippe and Schwalenberg, to the Cistercian abbot of
Hardenhausen, and to Bishop Albert; moreover, his presumed son Widekind later
became grandmaster of the Teutonic Knights and another son, Louis, also was
a member of that order and became German Master. Ritterbriider, 462, neither
accepts nor rejects this hypothesis.
22.	Transehe-Roseneck, Livlandfahrer, 19, 31-33.
23.	Hucker, "Die Imperiale Politik Kaisers Otto IV,” 52-53, for the crusaders see
Transehe-Roseneck, Livlandfahrer, 23-35.
24.	Transehe-Roseneck, Livlandfahrer, 31-33, 44.
25.	Henry of Livonia, 92-93. Also Hucker, Die Imperiale Politik Kaiser Ottos IV,
51, The interests of the Lithuanians were turning to the south, toward Black
Russia which bordered Volhynia and Masovia. The Galician-Volhynian Chronicle
(trans. George Perfecky. Munich: Fink, 1973) [Harvard Series in Ukrainian
Studies, 16], 26; Konstantinas Avizonis, "Die Entstehung und Entwicklung des
litauischen Adels bis zur litauisch-polnischen Union 1385," Historische Studien,
223 (1932), 4-33, 58-79.
26.	Henry of Livonia, 120; Urkundenbuch, III, no. 15a. The marriage to the
daughter of Vladimir Mstislavich was followed by Russian help in capturing
Odenpah. Benninghoven, Schwertbriider, 105; Ritterbriider, 293, suggests that
the events Benninghoven describes in 1214 fit better here in 1209.
114
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
27.	Friedrich Christoph Dahlmann, Geschichte von Dannemark (Hamburg:
Friedrich Perth, 1840), I: 360-61; Koch, Livland und das Reich, 32; Hausmann,
Das Ringen des Deutschen und Danen um den Besitz Estlands, 3-4;
Urkundenbuch, 3: document no. XVa; Paul Johansen in his Die Estlandliste des
Liber census Daniae (Copenhagen: H. Hagerup, 1933), 107, says that this event
indicates the Danish interest in Prussia, but he contends that Waldemar had no
interest in Kurland, Semgallia, or Lithuania.
28.	Arturs Eiiens Zalsters and Gunita Izolde Poldme, “Die Fischersiedlungen
Nordkurlands.” Paper at the AABS Conference in Toronto, Canada, June 1992;
V. PSvulSns, "Latvijas tautibu Kugunieciba agra Feodalisma laitemeta,”
Feodalisms Baltijas Refeiond (ed. H. Rolva Riga: SuCkas, 1985).
29.	Albert of Stade, 355; Usinger, Deutsch-ddnische Geschichte, 151-69;
Hamburgisches Urkundenbuch, 1,341; Schmidt, ”Zur Geschichte der Stedinger,”
33-38.
30.	Henry of Livonia, 96.
31.	Hucker, "Die Imperiale Politik Kaisers Otto IV," 54-55.
32.	Benninghoven, Schwertbriider, 114-117.
33.	Ibid., 108-9; Urkundenbuch, I, no. 16. Later, in 1213, Bishop Albert was
freed from all metropolitan claims. Urkundenbuch, I, no. 26; Koch, Livland und
das Reich, 43.
34.	Usinger, Deutsch-ddnische Geschichte, 164-64.
35.	Henry of Livonia, 105-6; Philippe Contamine, War in the Middle Ages (trans.
Michael Jones. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984), 102-106, describes the siege
machines; among the fallen was the Swordbrother marshal. Ritterbriider, 88.
36.	Benninghoven, Schwertbriider, 110-111, 119.
37.	Ibid., 111-12. Bishop Albert may have been intending to use Caupo and other
converts as feudal vassals, thus avoiding the dangers involved in importing
ambitious Germans. However, he hesitated to grant them the land and income
necessary to maintain such a status, then he failed to subject the Liv peasants to
the kind of taxes and services required of Lettgallians or Estonians, much less
what would be necessary to support a class of knights. Thus he found himself
in a dilemma: he could not afford to hire mercenaries or enfeoff knights, he did
not trust the Swordbrothers, and he could not rely on crusaders continuing to
volunteer for service in sufficient numbers. Consequently, he looked to Caupo
and other converts as his principal fighting force even though they lacked the
equipment and training of knights. He granted lands and offices to his relatives,
despite the awkward fact that two brothers were clerics and thus were prohibited
from having families and in this manner root the dynasty firmly in the new land.
38. Karol G6rski, L’Ordine teutonico, alle origini dello stato prussiano (Torino:
Einaudi, 1971), 37.
39.	Ibid., 113-14; Benninghoven, Schwertbriider, pp. 116-17; Koch, Livland und
das Reich, 43; The possibility that Bernard was exploring the possibility of
establishing his family as rulers in Livonia is explored in Paul Johansen,
"Lippstadt, Freckenhorst und Fellin in Livland. Werk und Wirken Bernhard II.
zur Lippe in Ostseeraum," Westfalen-Hanse-0 stseeraum (Munster, 1955), 95-160;
Crusader Success in Livonia
115
and Bernd Ulrich Hucker, "Der Plan eines christlichen KOnigreiches in Livland,"
Gli inizi del Cristianesimo in Livonia-Lettonia (Vatican, 1989), 102, 106.
40.	TOnisson, Die Gauja-Liven, 187-188; Benninghoven, Schwertbriider, 119.
41.	Fennell, The Crisis of Medieval Russia, 34-35, 47-49, 52.
42.	Enn Tarvel, "Livlandische Chroniken des 13. Jahrhunderts als Quelle fur die
Geschichte des Schwertbriiderordens und Livlands," Werkstatt des Historikers der
mittelalterlichen Ritterorden. Quellenkundliche Probleme und
Forschungsmethoden (Toruri: Nicolaus Copemius University, 1987) [Colloquia
Torunensia Historica IV], 176-177. Henry of Livonia, 119, mistakenly says that
the attackers were Estonians.
43.	Henry of Livonia, 117-23. Chronicle of Novgorod, 1016-1471, trans. Robert
Michell and Nevil Forbes, Camden Third Series, Vol. 25 (London, 1914) 52.
Clearly, the German invasion was not foremost in Novgorodian concerns.
44.	Our understanding of politics in Pskov through this era is extremely
limited—the sources are poor and contradictory. Apparently Vladimir quarreled
with his brother Mstislav the daring, who removed him, although Henry of
Livonia, 120, 133, says that he fled to Polozk, then to Riga, and was made
magistrate of Idumea until he became too unpopular; in any case, he seems to
have been replaced in Pskov by Vsevolod, the young son of Mstislav the Old,
but whether this occurred in 1213 or earlier is not clear. Fennell, Crisis of
Medieval Russia, 35, 54-55.
45.	Rowell, "Dovmont-Timofey," 4.
46.	Henry of Livonia, 133-135.
47.	Benninghoven, Schwertbriider, 118,122-123; for a more detailed analysis of
Livonian feudalism as it developed, see Astaf von Transehe-Roseneck, "Zur
Geschichte des Lehnwesens in Livland," in Mitteilungen aus dem Gebiet der
livlandischen Geschichte, 18 (1903).
48.	Henry of Livonia, 128.
49.	Benninghoven, Schwertbriider, 125-126, says that the bishop was surprisingly
forgiving and generous in this peace settlement. The incident worsened his
relationship with the Swordbiothers, however.
50.	Urkundenbuch, III, footnote to no. 40.
51.	Klaus Militzer, Die Entstehung der Ordensballeien im Deutschen Reich
(Bonn-Godesberg: Wissenschaftliches Archiv, 1970), 164.
52.	Hucker, "Die Imperiale Politik Kaiser Otto IV," 57-58; Benninghoven,
Schwertbriider, 126-131.
53.	Hucker, "Die Imperiale Politik Kaiser Otto IV," 58-59.
54.	Van Cleve, Frederick II, 95, remarks that few of Frederick’s acts have been
more criticized than this. However, Frederick could not afford to have hostile
neighbors.
55.	Benninghoven, Schwertbriider, 134-135, estimates that the Swordbiothers had
about 400 German troops, 1300 Livs and Letts; Albert had 500 Germans, 1600
Livs and Letts, and 500 to 1000 pilgrims annually.
56.	Henry of Livonia, 138.
57.	Transehe-Roseneck, Livlandfahrer, 38-39.
116
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
58.	Henry of Livonia, 145.
59.	Henry of Livonia, 139; Bemhart Jahnig, "Die AnfUnge der Skraltopographie
in Riga, Studien Uber die Anfange der Mission in Livland, 145-146; for results
of the excavations between 1938 and 1987, see the catalog to the exhibition,
Rigas Archeolo$ija 50.
60.	Albert von Stade, 356; Wilhelm von Bippen, Aus Bremens Vorzeit: Aufsatze
zur Geschichte der Stadt Bremen (Bremen: C. Schunemann, 1885), 124; Van
Cleve, Frederick II, 103, 109, 111-2; "Die imperiale Politik Kaiser Ottos IV,"
49-50.
61.	Henry of Livonia, 147-51.
62.	Just as Jaroslav held Novgorod merchants hostage after his defeat until he
was offered. Fennell, Crisis of Medieval Russia, 48-49.
63.	Fennell, Crisis of Medieval Russia, 37.
64.	Henry of Livonia, 157-58.
65.	Chronicle of Novgorod, 58, indicates the Russians killed two German leaders,
captured a third, and took 700 horses as booty.
66.	Friedrich Georg von Bunge, Livland, die Wiege der deutschen Weihbischofe
(Leipzig: E. Bidder, 1875).
67.	Hausmann, Das Ringen der Deutschen und Danen um den Besitz Estlands,
9; Usinger, Deutsch-danische Geschichte, 194-440.
LIVONIA 1217-1223
Baltic Sea
Visby
OesezbfArensburg
Ddnam
'\Sezngallia
Karelia
Pskov
ten
Seloma
Fellin
Tartu
(Dorpat)
Sedde River Odenpah
Wolma
Treiden
In italics: areas still pagat
or still largely so in 1223
In regular print: Principal	Samogitia
Christian castles and cities 1217;	s
in bold, those conquered or founded 1217-1223
Wenden
Scgewold
Riga Kokenhusen
rzike
Daugava River
Nalsen
LITHUANIA
CHAPTER SIX
THE CONQUEST OF ESTONIA
The ringing declarations of the Fourth Lateran Council on behalf of the
crusading movement and the subsequent decision by the University of Paris that
evasion of the crusading obligation was a mortal sin forced many princes to
fulfill the vows they had taken many months or years earlier. The importance of
this development for Livonia lay in the fact that, at last, the Danish king could
no longer delay participating in the holy war against the pagans in the eastern
Baltic. At an earlier time Bishop Albert would have been overjoyed, but in 1217
his enthusiasm was dampened by the changed circumstances: the Danish
hegemony in north Germany and the Baltic practically eliminated any hope he
had of profiting from any successful war. Also, King Waldemar himself would
not participate as yet. Only his principal vassal, Albert of Orlamunde, the count
of Holstein, and ten of his men had received papal permission in December of
1215 to fulfill their vows in Livonia rather than journey to the Holy Land.1
Danish Ambitions
Waldemar made certain that Albert would play no significant role in the
upcoming summer campaign by forbidding him to sail to Riga with the crusader
force. Albert was represented by Bernard of Lippe, an elderly warrior of great
reputation who had been named abbot of Diinamunde. Bernard’s family had
fought on the opposite side from Bishop Albert’s family during the Welf-
Hohenstaufen struggle, but now that was past history, suitable for fireside
recitation but no longer of significance. The immediate goals of these two men
were exactly the same—the defense of Livonia, followed by an invasion of
Estonia—the expansion northward which Albert had long resisted. There was a
short-lived crisis in April of 1216: rumors were whispered of an impending
invasion from Polozk and Lithuania for which the ships and men had already
been collected, but the enterprise ended suddenly. Just as Duke Vladimir was
boarding his vessel he collapsed and died. The crusaders believed God had
intervened to save them. This turn of events left each prelate and noble free to
pursue his own hopes for the future.
Count Albert was Waldemar’s most important vassal, and as such he was
ready to carry out his lord’s plan to incorporate Livonia into the Danish empire.
Abbot Bernard was crusty, combative, and ambitious, but he could no longer be
relied upon to serve any master selflessly—he and his son Hermann, who had
probably participated in two previous expeditions to Riga, had seen the
possibilities for enriching the family in the Baltic; the example of the Holy Land
suggested that there was room for new lordships beyond the borders of Albert’s
domains. And Albert was not there to limit their plans. In early 1217 he returned
to Germany. In short, the crusaders from Holstein came as a welcome
118
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
reinforcement to Albert’s handful of knights in Riga, and they relieved Bernard
of the necessity of relying completely upon the Swordbrothers’ services, but their
presence portended a change in the goals of the holy war: the crusade could
become a means of expanding the Danish empire. Just as Waldemar I had used
the Wendish Crusade to acquire new lordships in North Germany, Waldemar II
was watching this crusade to see whether he might be able to reestablish the
long-vanished Danish authority over Estonia. Waldemar was apparently still
waiting and watching, keeping his own counsel, but, without question, rumor
already had him readying his forces for a massive intervention in the Baltic.
Albert had no choice but to accept the situation. His administrators in Riga
had probably already seen the need to acquiesce as well. The impending arrival
of what many must have seen as a Danish vanguard could not have come as a
surprise to the Rigans—the first merchant ships of the year would have brought
letters as well as rumors. In all likelihood the Estonians and Russians were aware
of stories concerning the Danish plans as well, probably from the same
merchants; in any case they had decided that the western threat had grown
dangerous enough—through the months they had been consulting about
combining their forces for an invasion of Livonia in September. News of this
reached the West quickly, probably via the same merchants who had informed
them about the German and Danish plans.
Since the fall of 1216 Russian and German armies had been marching
through Estonia, burning villages, taking strongholds, demanding tribute. Savaged
by the marauding forces, the Estonians gave up hope of defending themselves
without outside help. Having to choose between masters, Lembit decided that the
Russians were now the more distant and less dangerous; moreover, he knew that
the Orthodox dukes and boyars believed in their moral obligation to aid the tribes
which paid tribute to Pskov and that they regarded the Roman Catholic bishop,
Albert, who had supplanted the duke of Polozk as overlord of neighboring
Lettgallia, as a dangerous rival. In response to the Estonian plea, Vladimir led
Pskov’s forces against OdenpMh in January of 1217. Soon, however, Vladimir
accepted a truce so that Mstislav the daring could make a summer expedition to
Galicia. Although Mstislav had agreed to join Lembit in September for a joint
attack on the German castles, he was obviously not going to be present
personally—in fact, he had no desire to return to Novgorod; he had arranged for
one daughter to marry Daniel of Galicia and another King Andreas of
Hungary—an arrangement which left him in control of a region which was
potentially much more valuable than Novgorod. He left Svjatoslav of Smolensk,
the son of Mstislav the Old, to govern Novgorod in case his absence was to
prove temporary. This was an unhappy choice from the point of view of anyone
who wanted a leader of vision and energy, someone who knew how to profit
from the Oeselians’ willingness to descend by surprise on Riga from the sea as
soon as the defenders had gone north to relieve the besieged fortresses.2
When the Rigans learned that the posadnik of Novgorod and Vladimir of
Pskov had promised to bring a large army to join the 6,000 Estonians from
Rotalia, Harriett, Wierland, Reval, Jerwen, and Saccalia who were already
The Conquest of Estonia
119
assembling near the Lettish frontier under Lembit’s command, they gathered
together their own forces to met them. Then, apparently, when they learned that
Orthodox commanders were moving slowly, burdened perhaps by the siege
equipment and supplies necessary for assaults on fortified positions, they saw this
as a possibly fatal error on their enemies’ part.
The Battle at Fellin
The Catholic leaders—Albert of Orlamunde, Master Volquin, and Abbot
Bernard—knowing how difficult it would be to defeat the united enemy armies,
decided to march north immediately with all their available forces and fight
Lembit before the Russians arrived. This would finish the mainland Estonians
and the leader who had brought them together by courage, eloquence, and
organizational skill. About half of the 3,000 Christian troops who marched north
in September were Saxon crusaders, Swordbrothers, and vassals of the episcopal
household; the rest were Livs and Letts, some led by Swordbrother officers, the
rest by Caupo. Under Volquin’s command, the crusader army marched cautiously
northward through the many fir forests, probably using native scouts to probe the
woods and swamps for ambushes and using parallel routes whenever they were
available in order to prevent the army becoming strung out along any one narrow
path. Visibility could not have been as much as a hundred yards in any direction,
with the best view being deep in the deciduous forests where the thick overhead
canopy shut off light to undergrowth. Wherever meadows existed, brush and
young trees would have curtained off visibility—in this frontier zone, where
cattle theft was easy, it is unlikely that grazing animals would have been left
anywhere long enough for them to have eaten everything they could reach,
thereby clearing a view into the woods. Consequently, at every open field the
crusaders proceeded forward in battle formation, expecting attack, then returned
to the roads as quickly as the way was shown to be clear. They had to see every
ford as a potential battleground where knights would be at a disadvantage. When
the crusaders reached the hilly and wooded country north of Fellin, their scouts
captured several Estonians and tortured them to divulge information.
Learning that the Estonians were eager to fight the crusaders even though
their Russian allies had not yet arrived, Volquin divided his forces into three
formations: in the center the Saxon knights and their followers (both mounted
and infantry), with the Letts and the Livs to the left and right respectively. When
each unit was in position, he gave the order to move forward. They had not
Progressed far up the road when the Estonians came out of the wood, mounted
and in three bodies of troops.
The quality of the troops must have been very mixed in all the native units,
Estonian, Lett, and Liv alike. Each tribe must have lost many of its best warriors
ln previous fighting, and each tribe, knowing that everything was at stake in this
°ne battle, must have brought onto the field every old man and stripling capable
of carrying a weapon. The sudden appearance of the Estonian forces would have
disguised this fact somewhat and disconcerted the Christians, and the speed of
120
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
their attack made it impossible for the crusaders to bring their crossbowmen
forward before the battle was joined. Thus, the Estonians managed to escape
most of the normally deadly missile attack. Even so, though the Estonians
outnumbered the Christians, they were not as well armed and their formations
were less orderly (the Germans regularly describe them as Haufen, essentially
“crowds”). On the other hand, the German knights lacked the room to deploy in
their preferred formations. The knights customarily drew up for the charge in a
triangular formation with their best and most daring riders at the point, with the
rest of the cavalry following along to widen the gap these men made in the
enemy lines until the enemy formation burst apart. In this case, the army, being
composed of mixed units, seems to have had a broader front, with the horsemen
arrayed in successive lines—the bishop’s men forming one line, Swordbrothers
according to their convents, and the crusaders yet another—and using the
infantry as support troops bringing up the rear.
All three Christian units charged at the same time. The Saxon knights in the
center broke through the cavalry formation opposite them, scattering the
Estonians in all directions—there was no stopping a charge of heavy cavalry on
favorable ground, and any cavalry unit, once routed, is almost impossible to
rally. While the pagan horsemen sought to save themselves among the woods to
their rear, the Saxons turned to attack in the rear the pagan units which were still
fighting. On the left flank, where Lembit had taken his stand, the combat raged
on fiercely until one of the Lett chiefs slew the Estonian chief, stripped the body,
and cut off his head. On the right flank, the Livs under Caupo, somehow became
confused by the swift developments in the center of the battle and were perhaps
also intimidated by the intense hail of spears from the Estonians directly in front
of them. Whatever the reason, they had swerved to the left and begun to pursue
the Estonians fleeing the center of the battlefield ahead of the charging knights.
Perhaps terrain features or woods had obscured their view of the enemy, perhaps
excitement and lack of discipline had caused them to break ranks in a rush for
booty and plunder. In any case, by turning to the left, they exposed their flank
to the enemy formation opposite them and could not respond effectively when
the Estonians charged. The Livs were routed from the field, having suffered
heavy casualties. Although the Saxons had come to the rescue within minutes,
the damage had been done: Caupo had fallen. The victors pursued the Estonian
fugitives into the wood and killed many of them there, so that perhaps more than
a thousand perished in that afternoon’s fighting. After tending to the wounded
and dead, the Christians divided the 2,000 captured horses and all the weapons
and other booty equally among themselves.3
The crusaders mourned the death of Caupo, their friend who had done so
much for Christianity in Livonia and without whose aid their mission most likely
would have^failed long before. His tribesmen doubtless mourned him as well.
Two decades earlier they had been the most despised of all the tribes, victims of
attack from all quarters, but for several years now they had been on the
offensive, repaying their enemies for the terror which had been inflicted on them
over the decades, and enriching themselves with booty. Their chief had been
The Conquest of Estonia
121
admitted to the councils of the Christians and entrusted with military commands.
Their tribal prestige had never been so great. With Caupo’s death, Albert’s hopes
to establish his episcopal state on the solid foundation of native vassals’
cooperation vanished. Native hopes of retaining any measure of self-rule above
the level of the village disappeared as well.4
The inland Estonians also mourned. Their terrible battle losses certainly
amounted to at least a sixth, perhaps almost a third, of all the adult males in the
country. The death of Lembit alone was such a blow to tribal morale that the
inhabitants of Saccalia accepted Roman Catholic Christianity and surrendered
hostages. Representatives of other nearby tribes came forward, accepted the
crusaders’ conditions, and agreed to pay a tax to Bishop Albert in perpetuity,
after which they were to be left in peace. Their Russian allies did not proceed
further west to reverse the judgment of this battle.5
Count Albert, however, was not satisfied with the surrender of the tribes
along the Livonian frontier. Because the maritime Estonians, notorious pirates
and old enemies of the Danish kingdom, remained strong and vigorous, he
proposed an expedition to Oesel. The other crusaders, however, had little interest
in such an expedition. After the victory they were no longer in dire need of
Danish aid, and they were unlikely to win anything beyond fame and praise.
Why should the Rigans provoke a war with such fierce warriors when there were
other conquests to be made? They were more interested in consolidating their
control over the interior provinces of Estonia, which they had already divided up
among themselves. Naturally, Albert of Orlamunde, a Danish vassal, viewed all
this differently, and he proceeded throughout the fall and winter of 1217 with
plans for an attack of his own (alone if necessary), until the melting of the ice
made it impossible for an army of foot soldiers to cross to the islands. At that
time the Rigans agreed to a compromise by which their armies marched through
Rotalia and Reval, forcing the natives there to accept baptism, surrender
hostages, and pay tribute. Count Albert could not have been pleased that the
tribute was to be paid to the Rigans rather than to King Waldemar.
Waldemar Imposes his Will
In the spring of 1218, accompanied by Abbot Bernard, Count Albert met
King Waldemar and Bishop Albert in Schleswig. Without doubt, he informed his
lord that it would be easy to extend Danish control over Estonia and Livonia: all
that was necessary was, first, to have troops and vassals in the area to “defend”
Danish interests; and second, because the Danish monarch controlled the German
Ports and important recruiting areas, as well as the sea lanes, to stop temporarily
the flow of crusaders to the east, thereby disabusing Bishop Albert from his
belief that the military victories now allowed him to be independent of royal
authority. The king need not even act directly, which might have earned him a
Papal rebuke; he could "allow” the archbishop of Bremen to hinder the
Movement of crusaders through his lands and through Lubeck. Bishop Albert
Proudly refused to bow to Waldemar’s wishes—perhaps certain that, as a church-
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man, he was safe from violence, imprisonment, or open harassment—but he soon
learned that Waldemar was more subtle than expected. He would have to choose
between submission and endangering the very survival of Riga.
The aged archbishop, Gerhard I of Hamburg-Bremen, who was technically
responsible for preventing Albert and his crusaders from sailing to Livonia, had
also been provoked by Bishop Albert’s recent independent ways; relations
between the Rigan prelate and his superior were not what they had once been.
The long civil war in the Bremen diocese was responsible for much of the
misunderstanding which had arisen from the lack of assistance Albert had
received from Bremen in the years when Albert needed all the help he could get.
Now that the war was over, Gerhard I still had severe financial troubles and
pleaded the excuse of poverty in refusing Albert’s requests for money and troops.
It is possible that Albert had discussed the situation with the pope and had
complained about the lack of cooperation; certainly he looked forward to the day
when he would be free from subordination to Bremen. Nevertheless, the pope
presumably acted on political considerations rather than Albert’s complaints
when he transferred the Riga bishopric to the care of the archbishop of
Magdeburg. The latter had played a significant role in the Hohenstaufen victory
and was traditionally responsible for the missions to the east. As far as
Archbishop Gerhard was concerned, this was the final provocation. He responded
to the challenge by restricting the preaching of the crusade and preventing the
embarkation of crusaders from Lubeck. He would disrupt the crusade, if
necessary, to recover his authority over the bishop at Riga, and he could do it
with Waldemar’s silent approval.6
Although there were other ports available—Wismar and Rostock, for
example—Albert had invested so much time, energy and money in Lubeck ships,
captains and sailors that he may have had no choice other than to submit to
Waldemar. In the company of Count Albert and Abbot Bernard, he went to the
king and humbly asked for his assistance. Once agreement had been reached that
Estonia, and presumably Livonia as well, would be subject to Denmark, the king
announced that the ports would be opened to the crusaders to Livonia. Albert did
not sail to Riga in 1218, but he did send a small force under the command of the
dean of Halberstadt. It was significant that another Danish vassal was sailing
with the fleet, one Heinrich Burwin (Borewin), the Slavic duke of Mecklenburg.7
Russian Invasion
The Danish reinforcements were sorely needed by the crusaders in Livonia
because of the likelihood that Novgorod would at last send its army west. The
Russians had not appeared the previous year, but in August of 1218 a great force
led by Vladimir of Pskov marched into Estonia. The crusaders had ample
warning of this movement because the Russians had sent agents ahead to
mobilize potential Estonian rebels in Jerwen and Wierland. Although few
Estonians joined the invasion force, the news of its approach reached the
crusader army of 3,000 men:
The Conquest of Estonia
123
The Russians spent the whole day crossing the river which is called the
Mother of Waters and they came toward the Livonians. Our scouts
returned to us suddenly and said that the army of the Russians was
approaching. We rose up quickly and arranged our army so that the
Livonians and Letts would fight on foot and the Germans on their
horses. When our army was in order, we marched toward them. When
we had reached them, those of our men who were first forthwith sped
toward them and, fighting with them, turned them to flight. They
pursued the Russians vigorously and captured the banner of the great
king of Novgorod, as well as the banner of two other kings, and killed
the men who carried them. They fell here and there along the road and
our whole army followed them until finally the Livonians and Letts,
who were running on foot, dropped out. Each of them then mounted his
horse and followed after the Russians. The fleeing Russians, about two
thousand in number, came to a little stream, crossed it, and halted. They
gathered their whole army together and beat their drums and sounded
their pipes. King Vladimir of Pskov and the King of Novgorod went
around the army, encouraging them to fight. The Germans, after they
had forced the Russians as far as the river, also halted, for they were
unable, because of the multitude of the Russians, to cross over the river
to them. The Germans gathered on a little knoll by the river, awaiting
the arrival of their men who were following. They arranged their army
a second time, so that some on foot, some on horses stood opposite the
Russians. Whatever Livonians and Letts came up the little knoll by the
river, where the battle lines were formed, when they saw the size of the
Russian army, immediately drew back. Each one of them fled after the
other one, seeing the Russian arrows coming at them.8
Fewer than a hundred knights (with perhaps a thousand supporting troops)
stood against a force estimated, by the chronicler, at 16,000—a figure not beyond
belief. They defended the crossing for the remainder of the day while the foot
soldiers escaped, but this chivalric action could not hold back such a large army
for long. The Russians penetrated to Wenden and ravaged the area with little
hindrance for several days. The crusaders and their native allies withdrew into
the castles, sallying out only occasionally to harass small groups of marauders.
In the end, according to Henry of Livonia, it was not crusader resistance but
news of a Lithuanian attack on Pskov that caused the Russians to retreat,
followed by Lettish raiders who took such revenge as they could. (It is not clear
whether this story is an unintentional repetition of the sorry end of the Russian
invasion of 1212, or whether that account was confused with the events of this
year—probably the former.)9
The Russian chronicler of Novgorod did not think it was an important
campaign. He says simply that the Russians went there, fought with the enemy’s
Patrols, besieged some forts for two weeks, and returned safely.10 He was
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probably right. Novgorod was more interested in Mstislav’s enterprise in distant
Galicia. Not long afterward, Russian emissaries came to discuss peace.
Since the maritime Estonians had joined the Russians in attacks upon the
Livs and Letts, it was to be expected that the crusaders would make an attack in
reprisal as soon as possible. In February 1219 the German and Slavic crusaders
raided the province of Reval, where the cold was so intense that many died of
exposure and frostbite; but in spite of such hardship, the raid was a great success,
as many prisoners and their flocks fell into Christian hands. The crusaders, proud
of their resemblance to an Old Testament army, returned and divided the loot
among the participants.
Additional destruction was caused by a Lithuanian army which crossed the
ice from Kurland to Oesel sometime during this period, then proceeded through
central Estonia, turning south through central Livonia, and plundering all the
while until it was overhauled by the Ascheraden garrison near Lennewarden and
destroyed.11
The Conquest of Estonia
By early 1219, instead of facing the prospect of defeat at the hands of the
Russians, as was the case a year earlier, Bishop Albert’s administrators and
Master Volquin were looking forward the conquest of all of Estonia. Their
plundering raids through the coastal territories had cowed the last pagans on the
mainland and prepared the way for an attack on the islanders. A great army of
crusaders was gathering overseas to deliver the decisive blow. Bishop Albert had
persuaded numerous warriors to take the cross to Livonia, most notably the duke
of Saxony, Albrecht of Anhalt, the imperial marshal and one of the foremost
nobles in Germany; there was the advocate of Magdeburg, Burchard von
Querfurt, and Rudolf von Stotle as well. Also, King Waldemar was making
preparations of his own to secure his claims to the coastal provinces which lay
along the water route from Gotland to Novgorod. The king raised a huge army
in Denmark, summoned his chief vassals to come in person and somehow
provided a large fleet to carry the warriors across the Baltic. Among those
accompanying him were the archbishop of Lund, the bishops of Schleswig and
Roeskilde, and Wenceslaus, the Slavic duke (prince) of Rugen. Also present in
this army was Theodoric, the Cistercian missionary and abbot, now nominal
bishop of Estonia, who could hope to receive lands in Estonia only if he attached
himself to the Danish monarch.
At the meeting in Schleswig the archbishop and the king had insisted that
the two armies coordinate their plans. Albert’s crusaders were to land in Riga,
join with the Christians there, and march north. Meanwhile, Waldemar would
proceed alofcg the northern coast to the secure harbor at Reval, where an
Estonian fort stood on a high citadel; the Danes were well acquainted with the
place, since merchants and missionaries had visited it often. In effect, they
planned a pincer attack on the most strategic location in the country, with the
intent of delivering it into Waldemar’s hands. As it happened, however, Albert
and his followers either did not or chose not to understand the implications of
The Conquest of Estonia
125
royal claims to Estonia. Misunderstandings would arise from this in the near
future that would plague the crusaders for many years to come.12
Waldemar brought a great army to Estonia, and although contemporary
estimates of its number are completely fanciful, he may well have had a
thousand troops or more with him. When he landed at Reval, he found the
citadel fortress empty.13 Although this probably represented a seasonal
migration of the Estonians to a more fertile area nearby to work the land and
fish, the crusaders assumed the place had been abandoned out of fear. Falsely
believing that the natives had given up all hope of resistance, the Danes spread
their camp near Reval and began to build a great castle that would serve to
secure their conquest. Such presumption almost cost the king his life, for the
Estonians gathered their entire force (one or two thousand warriors) and made
a surprise assault on the Danes, breaking into their encampment at several points
and cutting down the crusaders. They made a special effort to murder Waldemar
but mistook the tent of Bishop Theodoric for the royal pavilion and slew the
bishop instead. The Danes were fleeing in every direction, pursued by the
vengeful natives, when the Slavic troops from Riigen came to the rescue, rallied
the Germans and Danes against the attackers, and drove them back so fiercely
that the battle became a massacre. Before the fighting ended, more than a
thousand natives had perished. The ancient Danish claim to Reval was confirmed
by the seal of recent victory. Waldemar did not remain long in Estonia. He
completed stone castle on the Toompea (named for the later cathedral [Dom]
there), installed his chaplain as bishop of Estonia, and sailed away before the
onset of winter. The Danish bishops remained there to baptize the natives and
instruct them in the faith, building the first church of St. Nicholas at the foot of
the citadel as a place for worship and for storing trade goods. Undoubtedly many
troops and merchants remained there with him. The Estonians came to call this
settlement Tallinn (the city of the Danes).
The Danish vision of the future was, as might be imagined from the nature
of their society described earlier, not the same as that held by the Germans in
Riga. Danish rule was to be characterized by a lessened reliance on feudalism,
more trust in the commoner warriors to obey the commands of the episcopal
royal governor, and on Waldemar’s prestige. The royal housecarls were not
present. Instead, everything rested on the belief that Waldemar could and would
return swiftly and certainly to punish any rebellion; and that eventually a day
would come when the Estonians would realize, as had the Slavic Wends, that it
was in their interest to be part of the Danish empire.
The death of Bishop Theodoric marked the end of a phase of Livonian
history. For two decades this dedicated Cistercian had labored for the Church,
training missionaries and building monasteries in this distant land and defending
them with crusades and a crusading order. Now, the conquest almost complete,
Theodoric was no longer needed. Not even Albert was needed, though it would
be harder to remove him from power. It was ironic that a Cistercian, a member
of the most puritanical of all the orders, should die from having been mistaken
for the splendidly arrayed King of Denmark.
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The Conquest of Semgallia
While the Danes were occupying the north, Albert’s crusaders were busy
south of the Daugava, responding to a request from the Semgallians of Mesoten
for aid against the Lithuanians. Albert’s administrators had probably already been
approached with a promise to undergo baptism in return for protection. Certainly,
they were well aware of the strategic location of Mesoten, which was situated on
a tributary of the Semgallian Aa only a short distance from the Daugava. The
placement of a castle there would protect the southern Christian flank and permit
easy access to Semgallia; and, because of the swamps and thick forests between
the Semgallian Aa and the Daugava, it would have been difficult to establish any
outpost closer to Riga or better suited as a base for scouts to patrol that frontier.
When Albert arrived, he gave the native elders a hearing and acceded to their
request, knowing full well that it meant war with the other Semgallian tribes and
probably conflict with the Lithuanians as well. Indeed, he had probably already
decided to make this alliance before he left Schleswig, for it was at the court of
the Danish king that he had invested Bernard of Lippe as bishop of Semgallia,
with the understanding that the noted warrior would have the responsibility of
defending his new see. And when Archbishop Gerhard I died in the summer of
1219, Bernard’s son was his successor! Gerhard II not only lifted the ban on
Albert’s departure, but he undoubtedly encouraged volunteers from the Stade
region to assist his father’s enterprise.14
Clearly, diverting the crusader army to the south was not what Waldemar
had expected, nor was the announcement that an army and a bishop would soon
arrive what the Mesoten elders had in mind when they asked for German aid.
The Semgallians’ motives can be clearly discerned through the entire century,
from the first treaty in 1203 to the last in 1289—they wanted maximum
independence from all their neighbors. They were willing to pay tribute or taxes,
within reason, and to perform military service, to anyone strong enough to collect
it, but not at the cost of having foreign interference in their daily lives. What we
see clearly in Semgallia can be discerned to have been the case in each region
of the medieval Baltic—tribes acted in their self-interest much like miniature
nations, pursuing a foreign policy which was more single-minded in its goals
than might appear from the shifting alliances that the tribes made, first with
Christians, then with pagans—to maintain a maximum of independence. The
elders of the tribe debated the pros and cons of each possible alliance, balancing
the terrible risks of retaliation for changing sides against the sure loss of freedom
involved in acquiescing to tyrannical rule. Modem historians find it as difficult
to acknowledge the existence of interests below the national level as medieval
historians were unable to imagine alliances which were not based on religion, but
the Semgallian elders’ actions demonstrate that tribal interests were more com-
plex and more sophisticated than westerners of yesterday and today have been
willing to recognize.15
The Conquest of Estonia
127
Because of this commitment to the Semgallians at Mesoten, the crusader
army that gathered in Riga in July of 1219 had no expectations of marching to
Estonia. Only a few troops had been sent to Mesoten, however, when news came
that the Russians from Pskov had invaded Lettish territory. The Swordbrothers
and the bishop’s men hurried north but arrived too late to find the retreating
Russians. Leaving the natives to raid Pskovian territory in reprisal, the crusaders’
leaders decided to continue their march north and subject the few remaining
independent tribes in Estonia. Once there, they allowed their native allies,
including many Estonians, to bum and slay as they wished; and these wild troops
killed the males, enslaved the women and children, and drove away the livestock,
until the elders came to seek peace. Thousands had died, but all other mainland
Estonians now hurried to seek the baptismal font. According to Henry of Livonia,
the native haste to make the right choice between baptism or death produced
ironic situations: once, as the priests were trying to sort out who had been
baptized previously and who still worshipped the ’’evil god,’’ promising converts
"sufficient temporal goods in this life, and also eternal life in the future,’’ the
service was interrupted by a panic. The priests hurried ’’to the ministry of shields
and swords,’’ only to discover that the approaching force was composed of
recently acquired allies returning from a devastating raid on their still pagan
countrymen.16
Overwhelming force and terror had ’’christianized’’ northern Estonia, areas
claimed by the archbishop of Lund and the bishop of Reval on behalf of King
Waldemar but now occupied by Rigans. However, the problem of ownership of
Estonia had to be ignored for the moment because, while the crusader forces
were occupied in the north, Semgallians from Terweten had attacked Mesoten.
Although the Semgallians’ effort to bum the log walls of Mesoten had
failed—those approaching the moat with firewood being shot down by the
crossbowmen—they did succeed in ambushing the ship bearing reinforcements
at a narrow place in the river, killing thirty members of the crew and passengers
and forcing the survivors to turn back. When the Christian garrison heard that,
they abandoned the fort and fled back to Riga, pleading a lack of supplies and
manpower to maintain themselves. Immediately thereafter the natives of Mesoten
renounced the crusader alliance, reverted to paganism, and joined in attacks on
the Daugava Livs. Albert was unable to make war on the ’’rebels’’ until the
Swordbrothers and native troops returned to Riga.
In February 1220 Bishop Albert gathered together his household troops and
vassals, the Swordbrothers, and the forces led by Duke Albrecht of Saxony,
totaling, according to the chronicler, about 4,000 German troops, and an equal
number of Liv and Lettish warriors—a number exaggerated perhaps three-fold
from the possible.17 It was deepest winter, the best time of year to cross the
many swamps and rivers southwest of Riga. The army advanced to Mesoten and
commenced a siege, using a new type of catapult which had only recently been
introduced into Europe:
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THE BALTIC CRUSADE
They seized the village which was thereabouts and took off spoils and
besieged the fort, making war upon it for many days. Some of them
built a tower, others put up the paterells, others used the ballistas, others
built hedgehogs and began to dig at the ramparts from below. Still
others carried up wood, filled the moat with it, and pushed the tower
across it, while others began to dig beneath its shelter. Many of the
Semgalls in the fort were hit by stones and were wounded by arrows,
while many were killed by the lances of the Livonians and Letts from
the tower. The rebel mob did not cease fighting back at this. At last the
larger machine was put up and great rocks were cast at the fort. The
men in the fort, seeing the size of the rocks, conceived a great terror.
The duke took charge of the machine, shot the first stone, and crushed
the enemy’s balcony and the men in it. He shot a second one and
dislodged the planks and logs of the rampart. He discharged a third one
and pierced and shattered three large logs in the rampart and struck
some men. After seeing this, the people in the fort fled from the
ramparts and sought safer places. But since they had no refuge, they .
asked for quarter so that they could come down and make their plea to
the bishop....They were told that they must give up the fort and
everything in it in order to keep their lives. These terms displeased
them. They returned to the fort and the fight waxed fiercer than before.
All the devices of war were introduced. The knights protected
themselves with their armor and went up the ramparts together with
their duke. They wanted to take the summit of the fort, but they were
still pushed back by those half-alive men in the fort. After this, much
wood was piled up in heaps and set on fire and the treacherous knaves
were smitten by every means until, at last, in exhaustion, on the
following morning, they gave up.18
Only a few men had come out of the fort, however, when another band of
Semgallians appeared at the rear of the crusader army. Most of the troops
hurriedly formed a line of battle, but some of them stayed behind and massacred
the prisoners. As it happened, the newly arrived Semgallians and Lithuanians saw
that the crusaders’ strength was too great to contend with and hurried away.
When the crusaders returned to the fort, they learned that, because of their
massacre of the prisoners, the surviving Semgallians had resolved to fight to the
death. The siege was resumed and carried to its inevitable conclusion. The few
survivors lost all their property and were scattered among the small villages. The
fort was destroyed, and in its place Bishop Bernard built a new castle, which was
to become the military and administrative center of his diocese.
The Swoljdbrothers were pleased that their participation had resulted in
giving them a claim upon the conquered lands. In addition, Volquin and Albrecht
became fast friends, recognizing in one another a fundamental honesty and sense
of honor that was rare in those days despite the universal praise everyone gave
to those virtues. Whatever their other faults were, no one ever doubted where
The Conquest of Estonia
129
either Volquin or Albrecht stood on any issue then, the next day, or in the distant
future.19
The Semgallian campaign was not the end of the warfare in the winter of
1219-1220. Two weeks after returning to Riga with their booty, the crusaders
were summoned to hurry to northern Estonia. Pagans from Oesel, having crossed
the hills and swamps separating Jerwen from the maritime provinces, were
attacking the "converts" with the intent of forcing them to renounce their Danish
lords and again join in the war against Christianity and foreign rule. The bishop
of Reval, unwilling to leave his castle undermanned, was unable send out an
army to drive the intruders away; and, although the local natives were still more
fearful of him than of the islanders, unless something was done, his new subjects
would have to give in to the more immediate necessity: they would join forces
with the islanders and attack him in his citadel. To forestall this, he called upon
Bishop Albert to come to his rescue.
Since the crusaders did not know exactly where the pagan armies were, as
they proceeded north they divided their army into three bodies, each marching
on a different road into Estonia—the Livs on the left, the Saxons and
Swordbrothers in the center, and the Estonians on the right. When the German
column had reached a point from which smoke could be seen rising from the
burned villages, the knights donned their armor and advanced. When Duke
Albrecht saw the Oeselians, he asked, "Are these Christ’s enemies?" And being
told they were, he said, "Now let us attack them."20 The fighting was fierce, but
the crusaders were greatly assisted by the bravery of the native troops, and
especially by the native women the Oeselians had captured, who, though
unarmed, assaulted the islanders from the rear. Attacked from all sides and badly
outnumbered, the pagans were routed; more than 500 of their warriors lay dead
on the battlefield as the survivors fled homeward. It was a victory of all the
crusader forces, foreign and native alike.
The crusaders then marched across the maritime provinces to Reval, stopping
here and there to smoke refugees out of their caves; in all, they despoiled about
"a thousand souls" in Harrien, suffocating some, killing others, and making the
rest captive.
Albert’s Conflict with the Swordbrothers
The crusaders now considered themselves masters of interior Estonia. They
had won the region by force of arms, had baptized the natives, and had
established their right to levy taxes and to raise troops from the tribes. But they
did not understand that these regions had been pledged to Waldemar, and when
Archbishop Andreas and the Danish bishops in Reval asked that the hostages be
sent to them, they refused to do so. Master Volquin, in particular, was annoyed,
because he had understood his order would receive one-third of Estonia, and only
now was he informed of arrangements that might reduce its share. He protested
to his new friend, Duke Albrecht, but with little effect. The duke might
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THE BALTIC CRUSADE
sympathize; he might promise aid in the future; but at the moment he could only
advise that the knights submit to Danish demands.
Angered by Albert’s supposed trickery, the Swordbrothers sent Rudolf von
Kassel, the castellan of Wenden, to speak to the king. Rudolf was the head of the
faction of the order that had long opposed cooperation with Albert, and,
ambitious and alert to all possibilities, he understood that Waldemar might favor
the order over the bishop if the situation were fully explained to him. Rudolf
succeeded in his mission: the Swordbrothers offered their service to the Danes,
and in return, the king gave them Saccalia and Ungannia; thus, central and
southern Estonia went to the Swordbrothers, northern and western to the Danes,
and Albert was excluded altogether. Nevertheless, Albert continued to send
priests into the disputed provinces to baptize natives and collect hostages and
taxes, acts which provoked the Danish churchmen in Reval. He also sent a
messenger overland through Kurland and Samland to his brother Hermann, an
abbot in Bremen, to ask the archbishop of Magdeburg to name Hermann Bishop
Theodoric’s successor. The Rigans (i.e., the citizens, merchants, various
churchmen, and natives), disapproving of the policies of all the contending
parties, forced the Swordbrothers to renounce their pact with the king and return
to the original agreement regarding the division of the land. They could do little
about their bishop, but they were not happy that his quarrel with the
Swordbrothers had been revived and that now conflict with Denmark loomed on
the western horizon.21
Bishop Albert was not present at these discussions in Riga because he had
already sailed for Germany with the crusaders (perhaps in the same fleet with
Rudolf of Wenden). When he arrived in Lubeck in the late summer of 1220 and
learned that Archbishop Andreas had complained to the king about his actions,
he hurried to Rome—perhaps fearing arrest and hoping to plead his case before
the supreme pontiff. Danish diplomats followed after him to represent the king.
The interview was bitterly disappointing for the Rigan prelate. Pope
Honorius III listened politely but gave him no encouragement. He declined to
raise Albert to archiepiscopal rank (the best method of freeing him from
domination by Lund or Bremen) and did little toward ending the renewed
blockade at Lubeck. Albert then went to the emperor and was turned away again,
this time with the advice to make peace with the Danes and wait for better times.
Frederick was preoccupied with preparations for his crusade, well-aware of the
pope’s displeasure with his having already postponed his departure three times.
But the emperor could not simply pack his bags and ride off—he had to leave
Germany stable and at peace. And since Albert’s requests would have created
more problems than they could have resolved, Frederick wanted none of them.
The last thing the emperor needed was conflict with Denmark. Moreover, in the
spring he had issued a Privilegium ad Favorem Principum Ecclesiasticorum [A
grant of rights to the ecclesiastical princes], protecting archbishops such as
Gerhard against infringements of their rights and attacks on their property.
Technically Albert’s desires were not covered by the specific protections
The Conquest of Estonia
131
guaranteed by that document, but they did run contrary to the spirit of a grant
designed to make the ecclesiastical vassals sovereign in their own lands.
After recrossing the Alps, Albert conferred with various men acquainted with
the political situation in north Germany. Apparently all of them advised him to
submit to Waldemar. Early in 1221 Albert and his brother Hermann, now bishop
of Leal (the maritime provinces of western Estonia), decided to do just that.22
It would have been foolish indeed to oppose the Danish king at that moment,
for never had the fortunes of the monarchy rested on so firm a foundation.
Waldemar commanded the loyalty of all the Danes, governed much of northern
Germany through vassals, and was in effect lord over even greater regions by
virtue of his strong army and navy. The Swedes obeyed his wishes; the young
dukes of Brandenburg looked to his leadership; Count Gunzel of Schwerin
surrendered half his lands as dowry to a royal Danish bastard; and the
Swordbrothers and others in Livonia had offered Waldemar homage.23
Bernard of Lippe
If Albert’s troubles had been confined to the Danish Church and monarch,
he could have submitted with more grace, but he was plagued by the ambitions
of the Swordbrothers and Bernard of Lippe. The grievance of the Swordbrothers
was that Albert was withholding land from them, thus preventing them from
assuming the independent status they craved. Having already gone over to the
king, they looked forward to rewards for their loyalty. The challenge presented
by Bernard was more complex, as he had entered the Church after a long and
active life and had many friends as well as numerous and active progeny. Shortly
after he had become bishop of Semgallia, one of his sons was elected
Archbishop Gerhard II of Bremen, so that once again a family connection existed
between the archbishopric and Livonia. In fact, he spent some time in Stade,
apparently assisting his son in establishing his authority. If Bernard chose to
support Bremen’s traditional claim to Livonia, he could destroy Albert’s carefully
devised independence; and, in fact, Bernard’s son, Archbishop Gerhard II, did
prevent Albert from preaching the crusade and he enforced Waldemar’s
prohibition of pilgrims sailing east. Bernard was at Waldemar’s court on a
friendly visit when the monarch burst out in anger against the Rigan bishop,
saying that he would rather rule over pagans than Germans. In short, Albert had
reasons for assuming that the Lippe family represented a danger to himself and
his crusade.
At the same moment that Albert perceived that the Lippe family was
dangerous, he could not afford to make an enemy of Bernard, who was an
important potential ally in the struggle against the Swordbrothers. After
Volquin’s men confiscated everything they had earlier promised the bishop in
Saccalia, Bernard accused them of using the ordeal of glowing iron to settle
judicial cases—a superstition he knew Pope Honorius strongly disapproved of.24
Albert and Bernard could not trust one another, but their common interests as
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bishops pulled them together even more strongly than their opposed dynastic
ambitions drove them apart
Transplanting the Lippe interests to the east was not beyond contemplation.
For many years now peasants, burghers, and impoverished knights had been
streaming eastward in Poland and Pomerania to take cheap land and improve
their lot. Slavic and Danish rulers invited these hard-working, hard-fighting
taxpayers in large numbers, ultimately overwhelming the native population. The
Rigans were also issuing similar invitations to burghers (though not to farmers).
Far-sighted lords could see opportunity for great enrichment and advancement.
And, just as Henry the Lion had fought over Saxony and the trans-Elbe region
in the twelfth century to make himself great, so might Bernard of Lippe carve
out a state even farther east. Bernard’s eye may have fallen first on central and
south-eastern Estonia—Saccalia and Ungannia—and the Lettish provinces just
inland from Riga. Possible proof of this lies in the city plans of Fellin and
Wolmar, which strongly resemble those of Lippstadt in Germany. He probably
developed a great interest in western Estonia in 1217 while he was absentee
bishop (Weihbischof) of Leal. In short, Bernard may have been a first-rate
opportunist, seeking lands for his office which he could transfer to his sons
before his death—which was exactly what Albert was doing for his family! Only
Bishop Bernard had the disadvantages of not yet possessing either the land or the
title to it. Perhaps with Waldemar’s aid, he could acquire both.
Against the Danes and the Swordbiothers and Bishop Bernard, if that
alliance were to develop further—say, if the bishopric of Reval became vacant,
or if Waldemar were able to resolve Bernard’s troubles with the order—the
bishops from the Buxhoevden family would be helpless. Albert and Hermann
were not allowed to return to Livonia. After Bernard had sailed east, promising
to represent their interests, they remained in North Germany watching settlers
immigrating eastward, listening to the talk of restive nobles, but, display their
aging crusading bulls as they wished, without Danish permission they could not
sail to Livonia with the army of five hundred to a thousand crusaders needed to
defend and extend their states.25
Danish Hegemony in Livonia
In March 1221 Albert and Hermann went to Waldemar in total submission,
surrendering not only Estonia but Livonia as well. The only concession they
obtained was that their decision would have to be properly ratified by their
vassals, allies, and subjects in Riga, a concession the king could hardly fail to
grant as it was a basic principle of feudal law. Now that Albert and Hermann
had properly humbled themselves, Waldemar bowed to the papal requests that
he reopen tfop port of Lubeck and allow crusaders to sail to Livonia. Shortly
thereafter, Albert departed with a very small fleet. Only one important noble
accompanied him, the count of Homburg, the other pilgrims being simple knights
and clerics. Bishop Hermann, who had offended Waldemar and Archbishop
The Conquest of Estonia
133
Gerhard by going to Magdeburg for consecration as bishop of Estonia, was not
allowed to depart for the east.26
There had not actually been a total blockade of crusader traffic eastward.
Adolf of Dassel, a minor noble who had an important relative (the imperial
chancellor), had been in Livonia during the winter of 1220-1221, and King John
of Sweden had established a short-lived foothold in Estonia in the summer of
1220. King John, who had succeeded King Eric in 1219, had brought the Duke
of East Gotland, several bishops, and a large army to Leal, where he built a
castle, garrisoned it, and then sailed away. Because the Germans were to the
south and the Danes to the north, the Swedes erroneously believed their position
was safe. A castle at Leal, threatening the warlike Oeselians, practically invited
attack, and early one August morning in 1220 the long ships of the nearby
islanders landed there and a large army disembarked. Soon the pagans had set
fire to the castle, forcing the garrison outside its walls, where a massacre ensued.
They killed over 500 Swedes, including the duke and a bishop, and allowed very
few to escape. Shortly afterward the Oeselians besieged Reval for two weeks,
threatening even that stronghold. Because of such setbacks, the Rigans welcomed
Albert on his return in May 1221.
The Swedes did not give up their ambitions, they merely moderated them by
looking for less powerful native peoples to conquer. The examples set by the
Germans and Danes were too alluring, the memory of their Viking forebearers’
exploits in the east too vivid, for the Swedes to remain at home. Perhaps they
could not defeat the Danes or even the Oeselians, but surely they were more than
equal to the task of occupying the Finnish coast and Karelia, thereby closing in
on the Neva River, the principal artery of trade with Novgorod. Their first
crusade to Finland occurred in 1157, after which they had made periodic
invasions, and by 1209 the pope had authorized the archbishop of Lund to
appoint a bishop for the conquered tribes. The almost forgotten task of
Christianizing this coastline was now remembered and acted upon. Leading this
program was an English-born prelate, Bishop Thomas, who had been a canon in
Uppsala and for the next quarter-century acted in the spirit of his twelfth-century
martyred crusader predecessor, Bishop Henry (also an Englishman) and of his
sponsors in the papal curia. Like Bishop Albert in Riga, he was directly
responsible to the pope, not to any churchman in Sweden, Denmark, or Germany.
In the years to come, while the Germans and Danes were fighting in Estonia, the
Swedes were quietly (or so the dearth of records implies) establishing themselves
to the north and east.27 In the long run this would be to the Swedish advantage.
They were still far too weak to challenge the Danes for hegemony on the seas
which were of consequence at the moment—those lying between Lubeck, the
straits dividing Copenhagen from Lund, and Gotland)—but they were positioning
themselves well to dominate the shipping lines of the future, those between
Gotland and Novgorod.
Novgorod was in no position to drive the Swedes away. In 1221 the boyars
in Novgorod had "requested" the eight-year-old Vsevolod to depart, and had
called upon Yuri (now, after Constantine’s death in 1218, grand duke) to send
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them another ruler, he sent Michael, his brother-in-law, but within a short time,
he had fled the scene of communal disorder. The second time Novgorod sent a
delegation, it was to ask specifically for Jaroslav Vsevolodovich. Since Mstislav
the daring had now renounced permanently all rights to rule in Novgorod, this
was the end of his dynasty’s importance there and the beginning of Jaroslav’s.28
Waldemar was a clever politician and a forceful ruler, but lately his
successes had followed so closely upon one another that he had become
overconfident. In the full knowledge of his power and authority, he did not
expect any serious resistance to his rule, especially from the Rigans, who were
dependent on crusaders and merchants being able to cross the Baltic Sea to them.
But the Rigans, nevertheless, did not acquiesce. The churchmen, citizens, and
native tribes rejected Albert’s agreement with the king, declaring they would risk
losing all before they would submit. When the archbishop of Lund heard of this,
he invited a delegation to visit him in Reval to discuss the matter. Archbishop
Andreas, the Danish primate, was a skillful and honest churchman, as well as a
Danish patriot, and he brought the disgruntled German crusaders to a policy of
cooperation by promising to intercede with the king on their behalf. Albert and
the Swordbrothers returned home, reasonably satisfied with the proposed division
of Estonia, but when they learned that Waldemar had sent an advocate to govern
Riga, they were alarmed. The Danish effrontery implied that the king saw no
need to honor his promises or respect his subjects’ rights. The Rigans responded
angrily, refusing to recognize the advocate’s authority in any way. When the
official finally tired of the Rigans ignoring him and decided to depart, his
supposed subjects would not even give him a ship or pilot to take him to
Gotland. The advocate managed to hire a ship, but his voyage home was
uncomfortable and dangerous. The Rigans saw his sufferings, beset as he was by
contrary winds and currents, as divine retribution for having embarked on such
an evil enteiprise. The citizens, merchants, and natives—knowing that Waldemar
would be furious at their actions—called an assembly at the episcopal castle at
Treiden to discuss what they should do; in the end they all swore an oath to
oppose the Danish king and all other enemies of their independence.
“All other enemies" meant the Swordbrothers. The crusading order remained
true to Waldemar because, even though they had been forced to renounce their
treaty with him regarding the division of Estonia, they saw themselves as the
favored vassals of the Danish monarch, sure to receive rich grants of land and
authority. For this reason they refused to join the other Rigan estates in the
protest and even arrested some of the native elders, preventing them from
attending the assembly. Such mistrust was created that the bishop and his
followers refused to send aid to the Swordbrothers when a Lithuanian and
Novgorodian army invaded Livonia that summer in retaliation for Christian raids
into Estonia ^and Russia. Inasmuch as these raids were by-products of the
Swordbrothers’ occupation of Saccalia and Ungannia, which was exacerbating
relations with the Rigans, the Rigans did not consider it their fight. Why should
they assist the Swordbrothers? Only the count of Homburg, who was free to
serve as he pleased, went to the aid of the knight-brothers, but his assistance was
insufficient to ward off invasion. The Lithuanians and Russians plundered areas
The Conquest of Estonia
135
where the inhabitants had already surrendered to the Germans and then withdrew
again into Polozk territory, followed by native raiding parties of Livs, Letts, and
Estonians, who took as full a revenge for their losses as they could. This was to
be the last dangerous invasion for many years—perhaps because Duke Mstislav
of Smolensk, Yuri’s middle son, took Polozk in 1222, depriving the Lithuanians
of their indispensable base for incursions into Russia and Livonia. As the
Germans began to lose their fear of outside attack, the crusaders were better able
to concentrate on their internal quarrels.29
Quarrel though they did and resist though they might, the German crusaders
in Riga understood that Albert could defy the Danish monarch only as long as
the situation in north Germany demanded Waldemar’s personal intention,
meaning, in practical terms, as long as the archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen
continued to be a military threat. Gerhard was angry that royal influence over the
canons had eclipsed his authority over the cathedral chapter in Hamburg; and
now, in 1221, the citizens of Bremen rebelled against the archbishop’s new taxes
and broke the chain that blocked traffic on the Weser. While the archbishop was
seeking to come to terms with the citizens, Albert of Orlamunde took advantage
of the unfortunate prelate’s plight to destroy the important fortress at Harburg,
opposite Hamburg. Beset by rebellion, by papal demands for contributions to the
crusade to the Holy Land, and by attack from Holstein, the archbishop submitted
to the king. Gerhard remained angry but was powerless to act. Waldemar was
now free to sail for Estonia with his vassals in the spring of 1222.30
The King of Denmark, too, after collecting a great army, came with
Count Albert to Oesel and began to build a stone fort, ihe Danes went
out to fight against the Oeselians and, alone, they were not strong
enough. But Count Albert and his men came to their aid, turned the
Oeselians to flight, and killed many of them, while the rest fled. The
venerable Bishop of Riga also came with the Master of the Militia and
his Brothers and with certain Livonians and others who had been sent
from Livonia to the King of Denmark in Oesel. The King rejoiced at
their arrival. He spoke to them about the gift by which Livonia had been
given to him. They would not agree with him, but rather all
unanimously dissented, as they had been instructed by all the people
living in Livonia. They besought him to desist from troubling Livonia
and to allow the land of the Blessed Virgin to remain free. After taking
counsel with his prudent men, therefore, the King at length restored
Livonia and everything pertaining to Livonia to the Bishop with
complete liberty. He abandoned the royal rights in Saccalia and
Ungannia to the Brothers of the Militia and all spiritual rights to the
Bishop. He added that they should render perpetual fealty to himself and
that they should not refuse their aid to his men, both against the
Russians and against the other pagans. They promised their aid faithfully
and forever, both to him and to his men.31
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THE BALTIC CRUSADE
This compromise in the summer of 1222 climaxed the series of Danish
military and political victories. Less than a total success, it could nevertheless not
be seen as a setback; it laid the foundation for a future relationship which
Waldemar thought could be turned to his advantage. He still controlled the sea
lanes; he had installed an advocate in each of the four territories under his
control (Harrien, Jerwen, Wiek, and Wierland) and appointed his first vassals;
in addition, the bishop and the Swordbrothers had sworn fealty to him.
Furthermore, the king had weakened the position of the Rigan bishop by granting
extensive lands to the Swordbrothers and by encouraging their independent ways.
Master Volquin and his brethren now possessed an immense territory in the
center of the new conquests, bounded on the north by Danish lands and on the
south and west by Bishops Albert, Hermann, and Bernard. They controlled
Lettish and Estonian tribes through a chain of castles (Riga, Segewold, Wenden,
Fellin, Odenpah, and Tartu) and a network of advocates and priests. Their
Estonian holdings gave them twice the land area and, therefore, twice the
potential income of the bishop to support their army, and they had the (grudging)
allegiance of the most warlike natives of Livonia as well. So Master Volquin and
his knights looked forward to a glorious future. But all was not as secure as it
appeared. The natives were not reconciled to foreign rule, especially not on
Oesel; the Russians were jealous; Albert and the Rigans were hostile; and, in the
final instance, the friar-brothers’ security rested on Waldemar, who had left a
rather small garrison in Reval. Soon the structure of Volquin’s state, imposing
but basically unstable, came crashing to the ground.
The Estonian Revolt
The first sign of danger came from Oesel. As soon as the crusader fleets had
departed for home, the Oeselians gathered to besiege the Danish castle.
Ordinarily the castles had proved impregnable, and the Danish and German
crusaders had probably looked upon the disaster at Leal as a result of what they
might have called typical Swedish thickheadedness rather than pagan skill or
valor, but the natives were no longer as backward in the military arts as they had
been two decades earlier. They were becoming skilled in the use of machines of
war, some of them copied from the weapons used by supposedly pro-Christian
tribes on the mainland; and they employed them most successfully against the
unprepared castle garrison on Oesel, so that within five days the Christians sued
for terms and surrendered. Albert’s brother, Theodoric, and a number of Danish
hostages were left as pledges for peace, the others went to Reval, and the castle
was leveled to the ground.
Knowing they were not safe as long as any crusader remained in Estonia, the
Oeselians senftmessengers to the mainland tribes, exhorting them to fall on their
foreign magistrates and murder them. In January 1223 the other tribes responded
with a bloody massacre of the garrisons at Fellin, Odenpah, and Tartu. Perhaps
as many as a third of all the Swordbrothers perished in these bloodbaths or were
captured, and there was a tremendous loss of supplies and munitions. Certainly
it was a terrible blow to the crusading order, as only 700 of the 1,200 German
The Conquest of Estonia	137
troops survived. The Estonians then appealed to the Russians, asking immediate
aid against the remaining Christian strongholds, and meanwhile converged on
Reval, intent on reducing this all-important Danish castle.32
Because of their staggering losses, the Swordbrothers could not rush to the
assistance of the beleaguered Danes in Reval, although they well understood that
they could not recover their lost territories without strong Danish support. Not
even Albert could wish the Danes ill in this situation. Therefore, everyone was
much relieved when the Reval garrison sallied out and dispersed the besiegers.
But the Swordbrothers’ elation turned to depression when news arrived from
Denmark that the king was a prisoner of Heinrich of Schwerin. The protector and
ally of the Swordbrothers was in the hands of his enemies and could send no aid
to Estonia!
The Swordbrothers, having made many enemies in the past, would now have
to pay for their arrogance and ambition. Their territories were under constant
attack, their numbers too few to defend themselves properly (much less recover
the castles in Estonian hands). Needing immediate help, which could only come
from Riga, the knight-brothers swallowed their pride and sent Master Volquin to
beg for assistance under whatever conditions might be set forth. Albert was in
Germany, but his administrator, the experienced prior of Saint Mary’s, called the
estates together to ask their advice. As one voice they demanded that the order
recognize the territorial settlement by which one-third of the conquests fell to the
bishop of Riga, one-third to the bishop of Estonia, and one-third to the
Swordbrothers. It was a great sacrifice for the Sword-brothers; but a third of
Estonia was far better than nothing, and they agreed to the terms.
The Rigans dared not gloat too much over their competitors’ bad luck. In
view of the seriousness of the uprising, it was a luxury they could ill afford.
Raising an army as quickly as possible, the Rigans advanced north. It was not
a large army, however, and though the Rigans took many prisoners, they were
unable to recapture any of the castles. Returning to Livonia, they beheaded their
captives as an act of revenge and as a warning. Little could be done until the
next fleet of crusaders arrived, but they looked forward to that time because they
expected it to bring a very large army, indeed.33
Bishop Bernard arrived in the spring of 1223 with numerous knights. He had
been two years in raising this force, which he planned to use in Semgallia to
conquer the remainder of his see. Now, of course, he had to turn north instead,
and the princedom that the Lippe family no doubt dreamed about had to be
postponed. As he had but one more year to live, the postponement was to be
fatal to his family’s ambitions. In addition, the bishopric in Semgallia was to
remain so small and insignificant that it was ultimately dissolved.
By the time Bernard arrived in Riga, the crusaders had fought an Estonian-
Russian force on the Sedde River (Ymera), killing 500-1,500 men. However,
most of the frontier areas remained vulnerable to attacks which equaled in
ferocity those the Letts had made upon Russia (penetrating almost to Novgorod)
and Estonia the previous winter. Shortly afterward a large army led by Jaroslav
swept through Ungannia, across Livonia into Saccalia, and on to Oesel, then back
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through Wierland and Jerwen. Everywhere he took from his Estonian allies those
Germans they had been holding prisoner; in return, he left garrisons in the
castles. As soon as he retreated, the crusaders counterattacked. Reinforced by
Bishop Bernard, a crusader force of 8,000 warriors marched to Fellin. Because
of the castle’s superior design and the natives’ newly found skill with stone
throwers, the attack could not be pressed quickly. The towers loaded with
catapults and smaller missile weapons were less effective in overcoming the
castle’s fortifications than the heat, disease, and exhaustion of the native
defenders.
Since the heat was, indeed, exceedingly great and there was a multitude
of beasts and men in the fort, and they were perishing from hunger and
thirst, there was a great pestilence because of the excessively great
stench of those who had died in the fort and the men began to get sick
and die. The rest who remained were not strong enough to defend
themselves and gave themselves, still alive, and all their belongings into
the Christians’ hands.34
The crusaders then hanged those Russians who had come to the aid of the
pagans. This was less important in deterring Russians from re-entering the war,
however, than was a distant battle on the Kalka River.
Leader of the Russian princely coalition which took a large army onto the
southern steppe was Mstislav the daring, duke of Galicia. He had come to the aid
of his father-in-law, Khan Kotyan, the Polovtsian ruler who had helped him
stabilize the political situation on the ranging grasslands between the Danube
valley and Kiev. As the Chronicle of Novgorod uncertainly notes:
That same year, for our sins, unknown tribes came, whom no one
exactly knows, who they are, nor whence they came out, nor what their
language is, nor of what race they are, nor what their faith is; but they
call them Tartars. ...God alone knows who they are and whence they
came out. Very wise men know them exactly, who understand books;
but we do not know who they are, but have written of them here for the
memory of the Russian Knyazes and of the misfortune which came to
them from them.35
The enemy was a Mongol army dispatched by Genghis Khan against the
powerful Moslem states which lay just east of the Caspian Sea. This army had
gone on to defeat the kings in the Caucasus region, then moved against the
steppe tribes living north of the Black Sea. Mstislav the daring had little idea
what the Mongol intentions were, but he was not about to allow them to
dominate the steppe. He knew little more about their tactics, but what he had
heard caused him to regard them as dangerous opponents. Having persuaded all
the important dukes of South Russia that they must join together to meet this
threat, he proceeded to the lowest crossing of the Kalka River in hope of barring
The Conquest of Estonia
139
the Mongol advance eastward. Unfortunately for the Russians, there was no
unified command of the huge army which had been assembled. When Mstislav
sent his son-in-law, Daniel, across the river to reconnoitre, he soon had to hurry
to his rescue. Mstislav the Old and his supporters, though summoned to hurry,
chose not to render prompt support. Consequently, when the Polovtsian horsemen
fled in panic from the Mongol charges, Mstislav and Daniel had no choice but
to follow them. The Tatars then closed in on the remaining Russians—six
dukes—practically annihilating their thousands of experienced warriors.36
The khan executed the noble captives in a gruesome fashion in retaliation for
the dukes’ having murdered the envoys who had brought his original demand for
surrender. Duke Mstislav of Smolensk, who had sent five hundred men to the
Kalka, is thought to have come to Albert in Riga to warn him about the Mongol
approach and seek his help. Mstislav the daring returned to Galicia, where he
died in 1228 after fending off the enemies on all sides, leaving his lands to be
divided between his son-in-law Daniel (who took Galicia) and Vasilko (who
inherited the more northerly Volhynia). Khan Kotyan survived, but his tribe’s
days of importance were at an end.
To everyone’s surprise, except those who had closely followed the Mongol
pattern of advance, strike with deadly effect, then retreat, the Mongols vanished
from the western steppe as quickly and silently as they had come. Grand Duke
Yuri reassigned members of the dynasty to replace the fallen dukes; and while
he was successful in maintaining peace and order in Suzdal, which was now
beginning to take on the appearance of being the heartland of the nation, he was
unable to prevent civil disturbances elsewhere—Galicia, Kiev, and Novgorod
became ever more unmanageable.
Concern about the consequences of the disaster on the distant Kalka may
explain why the force Jaroslav sent into Ungannia in late 1223 did not do
anything beyond reinforcing the garrisons in OdenpSh and Tartu, although it may
also be true that he feared the plague which was raging in Livonia, and he may
have been worried about the boyar opposition in Novgorod which did, indeed,
cause him to flee the city at the end of the year. Whatever the reasons, the
Russian actions were insufficiently forceful to affect the course of the war. Yuri
sent his son, Vsevolod, to Novgorod in Jaroslav’s place, and when he, too, fled
for his life, the grand duke marched on Novgorod with a massive army. Faced
by the determined citizens, however, Yuri agreed to a compromise by which he
accepted a large payment of money and went away, leaving the city to its own
devices. Novgorod alone was unable to intervene in Estonian affairs effectively.
By relying on an essentially defensive strategy and failing to take strong action
against the crusader bases in Livonia, the Russians were forfeiting Estonia to the
more determined Germans.37
The Swordbrothers, though more than decimated by the rebellion, moved
forward alone to recapture Tartu, the key to the province of Ungannia, but their
forces proved inadequate to the task. Because the castle was held by Vetseke, the
former king of Kokenhusen, and contained a large garrison of Russians and
Estonians who used it as a base for raids into Lettish territory and Saccalia, it
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was important that it be recaptured. Also, because the Danes were Christian
allies, the knight-brothers sought to render assistance to their beleaguered castles.
The Swordbrothers’ activities in the north made it clear to all that they still held
to their alliance with Waldemar and were awaiting only his release to recover
their lost territories. The only fault in the knights’ reasoning was that Waldemar
was unable to regain his liberty for many months; and by pursuing an
independent course of action, they risked the hatred of Bishop Albert, Bishop
Hermann, and the other Rigans.38
King Waldemar’s Downfall
Waldemar had become overconfident and arrogant and these faults
precipitated his downfall. To be sure, he had reasons for self-confidence: his
navy controlled the Baltic, his army dominated northern Germany and Sweden,
and his vassals ruled loyally and without difficulty. Although he was not a
renowned crusader, he enjoyed the favor of the pope and the Church. His
enemies were weak and divided. Still, he was not secure, and when Pope
Honorius continued to ask him to go on crusade to the Holy Land, time and time
again he refused, pleading his many enemies as an excuse. He may not have
believed that himself, but his enemies in north Germany were to be the
peipetrators of his destruction.39
Jealousy and fear were not the only emotions plaguing the minor lords along
Waldemar’s southern frontiers; revenge and outrage were equally important. The
Germans viewed Danish intrusion into their kingdom and the Holy Roman
Empire as an insult. If they had been able to convince the imperial candidates to
lead a war against Denmark, they would have thrown Waldemar out of Holstein
and Mecklenburg long before; but Philip, Otto IV, and Frederick II had been
busy in Italy and the local rulers were too weak to succeed alone. Nevertheless,
armed coalitions had opposed the Danish monarch several times and gone down
to defeat, each time acquiring new grudges that were considered suitable grounds
for instigating another war. Such a grudge was nursed by Heinrich the Black of
Schwerin, who some years earlier, together with his brother Gunzel, had fought
unsuccessfully against Waldemar. After his defeat and submission, Heinrich had
left for the Holy Land on crusade and been absent several years, leaving his
lands to his brother’s administration. Gunzel, as it happened, had but one child,
a daughter of marriageable age, whom Waldemar forced to many a royal
bastard, and after the young couple died, the king seized half of Schwerin as the
inheritance of their infant son. Not content with half of Schwerin, Waldemar
occupied the remainder by the time Gunzel died. Thus, it is not hard to imagine
the anger of Heinrich the Black when he returned and found his family
dishonored arid practically dispossessed. His grievance was such that, in avenging
himself, he destroyed the Danish empire.
Heinrich the Black could resist Danish might neither openly nor alone. He
had few knights, fewer friends, and almost no base of power. Consequently, he
pretended to swallow his pride and in May of 1223 asked Waldemar to confirm
his possession of such lands and rights as remained, whereupon Waldemar
fhe Conquest of Estonia
141
invited him to the royal encampment on the island of Ly6, a favorite hunting
spot just off the mainland. The count of Schwerin then plotted one of the most
daring schemes of the epoch: he would kidnap the king from the very midst of
his retainers.
Proud and arrogant because of his continued successes, his wealth, and his
power, Waldemar had no fear of Heinrich the Black or of any other enemy. He
was on an isolated island in the center of his kingdom, surrounded by royal
vessels in a sea that was practically a Danish lake, and protected at every
moment by numerous royal bodyguards and vassals. It was a festive occasion,
with hunting, feasting, and much drinking—too much drinking, in fact. When
Waldemar invited Heinrich to the wassail, both men drank late into the night. In
the early hours of the morning the drunken knights stumbled back to their tents,
and everyone fell into deep slumber—everyone except the count of Schwerin.
Calling his men together, Heinrich gave them their final instructions and sent
them to carry out their assigned tasks. He himself led the main party of
conspirators to the royal encampment, where the king and his eldest son slept;
others secured the ships and prevented anyone from coming to the rescue.
Rushing out of the darkness, the count’s men overwhelmed the watchmen and
penetrated the royal tent. There was considerable noise and excitement as the
king resisted, but he and several bodyguards were at last captured, while many
others were slain. Heinrich’s raiding party then fled into the woods, regrouped
and made for the ships. Within a few hours they were on the mainland, hurrying
through lands loyal to Waldemar toward Dannenberg, a fortress on the Elbe
south of Schwerin, where he could safely confine the prisoners. As news of the
deed flew on the wings of rumor and good tidings through the countryside, most
people were breathless at the audacity of Heinrich of Schwerin, knowing what
reprisals he would suffer for his rashness. Few thought that he would get away
with it.40
The Danes were taken aback. Who would take charge of the government?
Who would revenge king and kingdom? Not only was the crown prince also a
victim of the kidnapping, but neither was any other high official available to give
orders. Archbishop Andreas had resigned his post, and his successor at Lund had
not yet been confirmed; the bishop of Roeskilde was on a pilgrimage to
Jerusalem. Without proper leadership, the Danes could do little but grumble at
German treachery, as did one chronicler: "We have seen how the Germans rarely
or never are successful or victorious except through treason and fraud, which
come to them naturally, as is shown in the capture of the two kings and in other
matters."41 In the end, Albert of Orlamunde became the chief protector of the
kingdom.
Efforts to obtain the king’s release through the emperor and the pope failed.
Frederick II had no real interest in the affairs, except that he deplored acts of
treason which might be emulated by his own enemies, and the pope hesitated to
use excommunication because it would fail to be effective. The bishop of
Wurzburg, who was the first to be ordered to begin negotiations, died
mopportunely, and the archbishop of Cologne, who was next assigned the task
142
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
of forcing Heinrich of Schwerin to give way, was killed while resisting
kidnappers himself. In any case, his plan to transfer the king into imperial
custody was not sufficiently far-reaching for Frederick Il’s ambitions. The
grandmaster of the Teutonic Knights, the imperial advisor Hermann von Salza,
who next conducted the negotiations on behalf of the emperor understood better
what Frederick wanted. Moreover, having no personal ambitions to further, he
could patiently and singlemindedly work for concessions from each party in
order to advance the imperial cause. Knowing that the king would eventually pay
a high price for freedom, Hermann did not hurry the proceedings.42
As the months passed Heinrich continued to ignore all demands that he
release his captives unconditionally. He kept the king imprisoned, defying pope
and emperor alike, because he knew that Waldemar would refuse to honor any
promises made in captivity—instead, the king would promptly lead his armies
into Schwerin and destroy Heinrich. He had to have better guarantees than a
royal signature. In August and September of 1223 the imperial court was held
in Bardewick and Nordhausen, with young King Heinrich presiding on behalf of
his father, Emperor Frederick II. All the great lords, lay and secular, assembled
there. Albert of Orlamunde represented the Danish interests. Opposed to him
were Heinrich of Schwerin, Adolf of Dassel, Heinrich of Dannenberg, and Adolf
of Schauenburg, son of the former count of Holstein. The negotiations for
ransom were laborious and slow because the Heinrich of Schwerin asked an
impossible price—in essence, that the Danes renounce all lands south of the
Eider to the emperor and pay 40,000 marks in ransom to Count Heinrich—and
when the Danish representatives agreed to these conditions on July 4, 1224, the
count still refused to release the king—it was one thing to promise to give up
lands, it was yet another to deliver them. And Albert of Orlamunde was unlikely
to do anything which undermined the welfare of the Danish kingdom or his own
position in Holstein.
It was obvious to all that the Danish monarch would be a prisoner for many
months to come, at least until a test of arms resolved the question as to whether
or not Denmark without a leader was stronger or weaker than its enemies.
Heinrich of Schwerin kept urging his peers to risk an immediate attack upon the
Danish kingdom, arguing that such an opportunity might not come again for
many years. Hermann of Salza did little to discourage the formation of this grand
coalition, but he did nothing which could be inteipreted as imperial blessing. As
one by one the northern lords committed themselves to Heinrich’s scheme, the
aged Bishop Waldemar of Schleswig, seeing the Danish throne vacant, emerged
briefly from his cloister at Loccum to make yet another attempt to seize it for
himself. When he discovered that he could rally no support to this enterprise, he
returned to the monastery, this time for good.43
Albert a$d his brother Hermann were in Germany at this time, preaching the
crusade to Livonia—they had obtained a new papal bull granting them
permission to raise a crusading army, thereby overriding any objection the
archbishop of Bremen or other enemies might have dared to raise. To them, the
Danish fall from greatness must have seemed heaven sent; Waldemar, who had
been their greatest enemy, could interfere no more. They visited him in his
The Conquest of Estonia	143
pannenberg prison and obtained his permission to return to Livonia in the spring
of 1224 with their many crusaders and were welcomed joyfully by the Rigans.
The news of the Danish debacle had spread throughout the country, and even
the Swordbrothers understood the full implications of the new situation. When
Albert explained the new division of Estonia—he was to receive the maritime
provinces in the west, Hermann was to receive Ungannia, and the Swordbrothers
were to retain Saccalia—Volquin did not demur. The friar-knights accepted then-
reduced share of the conquests, and although they secretly resented the treaty,
they armed themselves to assist the others in occupying their lands; otherwise,
they would have been left with next to nothing. The aged Bishop Bernard
surrendered the hostages he had been holding for Albert. When he passed away
shortly afterward, with him died the Lippe hopes of becoming masters of
Livonia.44
Recapture of Tartu
Bishop Albert, once again in command of the crusade, summoned all his
vassals and allies for an attack on Tartu, which had been reinforced by a garrison
of two hundred Russian professionals. The Swordbrothers, merchants, citizens
of Riga, native militias, and episcopal retainers joined the crusaders in the siege
of the well-fortified castle there. The assault lasted many days and cost numerous
lives. The crusaders had offered to allow the Russians to leave honorably with
all their weapons and possessions, but were refused. The besiegers filled in the
ditches, set huge fires next to the walls, and brought up towers and engines of
war, while the Russians and Estonians fought back with every means at then-
command. The noise of instruments, songs, clashing shields, and shouting
continued day and night through the smoke and dust of the battlefield. When, at
last, the crusaders approached the wall with their largest siege tower, the
defenders broke down part of their burning ramparts and sent incendiary wheels
down on the wooden tower, but the crusaders warded off these attacks and
finally assaulted the breach. Albert’s half-brother, Johann von Appeldom,45 was
the first upon the ramparts, and the castle fell soon afterward. The defenders
fought to the last, asking no mercy and receiving none. Vetseke died sword in
hand, depriving the crusaders of their anticipated joy at hanging him. Of all the
men in the garrison, the crusaders spared only one, a vassal of the grand duke’s,
as a messenger was needed to report the outcome to his Russian lord. The
crusaders then rebuilt the fortress in a western style and named it Doipat.
The battle had an important effect on the natives’ attitude, convincing them
at last of the crusaders’ prowess. The Oeselians freed Albert’s brother Theodoric,
who then settled as a landlord in nearby Ropp, and the maritime tribes came to
pay their long-delayed tribute. The Ungannians surrendered to Bishop Hermann,
who began to parcel out fiefs to loyal supporters, notably to Johann von Dolen,
Helmold von Liineburg, and his own relatives, Engelbert von Thisenhusen,
Theodoric, and Rothmar. To Count Burchard of Oldenburg, on his second
crusade to Livonia, he gave Kokenhusen—though Burchard stayed only two to
144
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
four years before returning to Germany and abandoning his claim to an
unidentified Theodoric, whose lands later passed by marriage to the
Thisenhusens. Conrad von Uexkiill (Meyendorf) received half of Gerzike—
presumably partially on the basis of his marriage to a daughter of Vsevolod, the
former native ruler. Even the Russians came to make peace.46
There was no possibility of an effective Russian counterthrust. Yuri sent his
his brother-in-law, Michael Vsevolodovich, to rule as duke in Novgorod, but
when the citizens paid him a "fine" to go away, the grand duke knew that
restoring order there could be achieved only after a bloody battle. Yuri saw
Novgorod as an expensive obligation, hardly worth the risks and frustrations.
Yuri again ordered Michael there, but Michael instead sent his own minor
son—the figurehead of a figurehead. In the next ten years five different men and
boys "ruled" in the city. Meanwhile, nobody was guarding the frontiers.47
For the Estonians this era was a disaster. When one counts the men slain in
combat—figures which in each instance are within the range of the credible—and
compares that total with the estimated population of the country, the resulting
figure is almost unbelievable. The survivors were required to pay taxes (double
taxes for rebel tribesmen) and perform labor services. Yet, in the longer view,
the disaster was not as terrible as it first appeared. The "better" class continued
much as before, performing military service in return for exemption from taxes;
a class of free peasants somehow survived; and serfdom did not become
widespread until after the uprising of 1343 and became dominant only in the
sixteenth century. Once the immediate terror had passed into mourning and then
into resignation, life went on.48
Bishop Albert once again appeared to be the dominant figure in Livonia.
Only a few years before, his future had been bleak indeed, as King Waldemar,
Bishop Bernard, and Master Volquin had threatened to ruin him altogether. Now
one of them was captive in Germany, one was dead, and the remaining one was
sullen and impotent. If only he could acquire the title "archbishop of Riga" and
complete the subjugation of the crusading order, he would be invulnerable to
both external and internal attack—the vassals, ministeriales, mercenaries, and
German-trained native militia could defend the frontiers, and their taxes would
pay for the upkeep of a large military and clerical establishment. But there were
numerous problems with the Swordbrothers, the citizens of Riga, the international
merchant community, and the native tribes; and it was urgent that he come to an
agreement with each of these groups before the Danish kingdom recovered.
Believing it was impossible to work out solutions through normal channels in
time, in the fall of 1224 he asked for papal help. Only a papal legate could cut
through the countless difficult problems and impose his decision on the
recalcitrant. On the last day of the year, Honorius III agreed to send a former
vice-chancellbr, Bishop William of Modena, one of the most capable and honest
men of his generation, and gave him full authority to act in his name in Holstein,
Gotland, and in all lands on the southern and eastern coasts of the Baltic Sea.
fhe Conquest of Estonia	145
When Waldemar, languishing in prison, heard this news, he must have
realized that the legation of the Bishop of Modena could mark the beginning of
a new era in Livonian history. Unless the king, sword in hand, could reverse the
trend of events, the Danish era in Livonia was over.49
Waldemar at Liberty again
Waldemar was released from prison in December 1225. A major reason for
the delay was the pope’s demand that Heinrich of Schwerin be punished. After
voicing fear that Heinrich’s action would set a precedent and thereby threaten the
stability of every throne in Christendom, Honorius III discovered that many
nobles and churchmen sympathized with the count; he therefore refrained from
using his power of excommunication or interdict out of fear it would be
ineffective. In November of 1225 Hermann von Salza worked out an agreement
for Waldemar’s liberation which was almost exactly like that of a year earlier,
except that this time Waldemar promised to sail on crusade to the Holy Land
before August 1226 with at least 100 ships. This would presumably give him
time for prayer and reflection, so that by the time he returned home he would
have forgiven and forgotten the humiliation of his kidnapping. Of course, having
sat two years in a cell, Waldemar had had plenty of time for prayer and
reflection—and he seemed little inclined to forgive and forget. Therefore,
Heinrich of Schwerin needed more guarantees than Frederick Il’s preoccupation
with his crusade and his willingness to use crusading as a means of postponing
hard decisions about persistent problems. Therefore, Heinrich held out for
Waldemar’s cession of all lands south of the Eider to the empire, Waldemar’s
offering homage to the emperor, and Waldemar’s delivering five relatives to
Heinrich of Schwerin for ten years as hostages, as well as paying a ransom of
45,000 marks.
This treaty satisfied the princes of the north only because they had already
determined the fate of the Danish kingdom on the field of battle. In January 1225
Gerhard of Bremen, Heinrich of Schwerin, Heinrich Burwin of Mecklenburg, and
Adolf IV of Schauenburg (who had recently married Hedwig of Lippe, the niece
of Archbishop Gerhard) had defeated Albert of Orlamunde and Otto the Child
of Liineburg (Waldemar’s nephew), at MOlln, capturing the former and routing
the latter. Heinrich imprisoned Albert of Orlamunde in his castle at Schwerin,
then invaded Holstein. Without significant resistance he liberated Lubeck and
Hamburg, then advanced on Rendsburg. Holstein came into the hands of the
Schauenburg dynasty once again; and as the cities and castles were surrendered
to the victors, the victors came to believe they could safely release Waldemar;
in any case, they could not continue to hold him forever. For the king’s part, his
S1gnature on the treaty was only a temporary recognition of the new situation. By
Christmas Waldemar was back in Denmark.50
Although the fighting was not yet over, an era had come to end. No longer
was Denmark the invincible power, dominating northern Germany and Livonia.
No longer were Danish vassals and allies, men like Albert of Orlamunde and
146
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
Master Volquin, the powerful figures. But the new era promised to be troubled
by new rounds of war and civil conflict. Strong Danish rule in Germany had
been replaced by anarchy, in Livonia the Swordbiothers were obviously plotting
some mischief, and neither the Russians nor the Estonians had fully accepted
their defeats.
ENDNOTES
1.	Rebane, "The Papacy and the Christianization of Estonia," 193.
2.	Henry of Livonia, 159-160; Benninghoven, Schwertbriider, 140-143; Fennell,
Crisis of Medieval Russia, 55-57; Fennell notes, 35, that the chronology of
Mstislav’s Galician adventures is confused.
3.	Selirand and Tonisson, Through Past Millenia, 150-153, with an excursus on
the location of Lembit’s fort, 154-160.
4.	At least one native noble, the ancestor of the Lievens, made the transition
successfully. Lieven, The Baltic Revolution, xvi.
5.	Factional politics in Novgorod became so tense by January of 1218 that riots
were occurring. Mstislav the Old replaced Svjatoslav with another son, Vsevolod,
whose previous experience governing Pskov, it was hoped, would prove useful.
However, the situation was almost out of control. The citizens were fighting over
which of the two archbishops to recognize as legitimate, because that would
determine the stance the Church would take vis-i-vis the foreigners. Fennell,
Crisis of Medieval Russia, 56.
6.	Urkundenbuch, I, no. 41; also, the imperial grant, Ibid,, III, 42a; Leonid
Arbusow, Grundrifl der Geschichte Liv-, Est-, und Kurland (Riga: Jonck und
Poliewsky, 1918), 26-31; Henry of Livonia, 160-65.
7.	Amelung, Baltische Culturstudien, I, 89-92.
8.	Henry of Livonia, 167-68; for Russian military tactics, weapons, and
fortifications, see the three chapters by B. A. Rybakow, A. W. Arzichowski, and
N. N. Woronin, Die materielle Kultur der alten Rus* vol. 1 of Geschichte der
Kultur der alten Rus* (Berlin: Akademie, 1959), 373-441. The "King of
Novgorod" was probably young Vsevolod of Smolensk.
9.	Benninghoven, Schwertbriider, 150-151; Henry of Livonia, 170-171.
10.	Chronicle of Novgorod, 60.
11.	The chronological difficulties of this period are discussed by Enn Tarvel,
"Liviandische Chroniken des 13. Jahrhunderts als Quelle fur die Geschichte des
Schwertbriiderordens und Livlands," 184.
12.	Henry of Livonia, 170-75; Urkundenbuch, III, no. 41a.
13.	Selirand and Tonisson, Through Past Millenia, 119-122, describe Tallinn at
this time; See Benninghoven, Schwertbriider, 156-157, for estimates of the size
of the Danish forces.
14.	Benninghoven, Schwertbriider, 155.
The Conquest of Estonia
147
15.	William Urban, "The Military Occupation of Semgallia in the Thirteenth
Century," Baltic History (Ed. Arvids Ziedonis, jr. et al. Columbus: Ohio State
University, 1974), 21-34.
16.	Henry of Livonia, 178-9; Piotr Gdrecki, Economy, Society, and Lordship in
Medieval Poland, 1100-1250 (New York and London: Holmes & Meier, 1992),
59,65, noted the southward passage of slaves through ecclesiastical lands at this
time, though he had no means of determining whether they originated in Prussia,
Livonia, or Lithuania.
17.	Benninghoven, Schwertbriider, 161.
18.	Henry of Livonia, 180-8 Г, Contamine, War in the Middle Ages, 103, 194.
19.	Benninghoven, Schwertbriider, 162.
20.	Henry of Livonia, 184.
21.	Henry of Livonia, 182-87; Christiansen, The Northern Crusades, 106-7.
22.	Henry of Livonia, 187-92; Urkundenbuch, VI, no. 2715.
23.	Usinger, Deutsch-ddnische Geschichte, 195-208, does not believe that
Waldemar had earlier ambitions upon Livonia. The crusades of Borewin of
Mecklenburg and Albert of Orlamunde were not connected with the sudden
interest that Waldemar showed after Bishop Albert asked for help in 1218. That
may be so, but we need not abandon the thesis that the Danish kingdom was
very interested in dominating all the shores of the Baltic. Certainly in 1220
Waldemar pressed Bishop Albert hard, and Albert had to submit.
24.	Benninghoven, Schwertbriider, 29-36, 172; see also Bippen, Aus Bremens
Vorzeit, 122ff., and Urkundenbuch, I: no. 44.
25.	The most cited history of this eastward movement is Karl Hampe, Der Zug
nach dem Osten (Leipzig: B.G. Teubner, 1921); see also Usinger, Deutsch-
ddnische Geschichte, 253-83, and Thompson, Feudal Germany, II, 501-82.
Hucker, "Der Plan eines christlichen KOnigreiches in Livland," 97-125.
26.	Henry of Livonia, 192.
27.	Eino Jutikkala with Kauko Pirinen. A History of Finland (trans. Paul
SjOblom. New York: Praeger, 1984), 24-25; John Wuorinen, A History of
Finland (New York and London: Columbia, 1965), 34-38; Christiansen, 109-112.
28. Fennell, Crisis of Medieval Russia, 36, 57, 70.
29.	Henry of Livonia, 196-204; Martin Dimnik, "Russian Princes and their
Identities in the first half of the thirteenth century," Pontifical Institute of
Medieval Studies, 179; Fennell, Crisis of Medieval Russia, 38.
30.	Bippen, Aus Bremens Vorzeit, 128ff.
31.	Henry of Livonia, 205-6.
32.	Ibid., 210; Benninghoven, Schwertbriider, 179-82.
33.	Henry of Livonia, 211-12.
34.	Ibid., 215; for the principles of German construction in this era, see Karl
Clasen, Die Burgbauen, vol. 1 of Die mittelalterliche Kunst im Gebiete des
Deutschordensstaates Preussen (KOnigsberg: Grafe und Unzer, 1927).
35.	Chronicle of Novgorod, 64—the language is strikingly like that of Ammianus
Marcellinus’ description of the Huns; we may well sympathize with the
Russians’ confusion; not until this century were western scholars able to
148
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
understand fully the furious expansion of the Mongol empire. Charles Halperin,
Russia and the Golden Horde, The Mongol Impact on Medieval Russian History
(Bloomington: Indiana University, 1987); Michael Prawdin, The Mongol Empire,
its Rise and Legacy (4th edition. New York: Free Press, 1967), 210-17: E.D.
Phillips, The Mongols (New York: Praeger, 1969), 57-65.
36.	Spuler, Die golden Horde, Die Mongolen in Russland 1223-1502,
(Wiesbaden: Hanassowitz, 1956), 13-14; Fennell, Crisis of Medieval Russia, 63-
68.
37.	Fennell, Crisis of Medieval Russia, 68-70.
38.	Benninghoven, Schwertbriider, 186-187.
39.	Usinger, Deutsch-ddnische Geschichte, 222.
40.	The most complete account of the kidnapping and the subsequent
negotiations is found in Usinger, Deutsch-ddnische Geschichte, 287-399; also L.
Fromm, Chronik der Haupt-und Residenzstadt Schwerin (Schwerin: Oertzen,
1862), 28ff., and Witte, Mecklenburgische Geschichte, 149-50.
41.	Annales Danici Medii aevi., ed. Ellen J0rgensen (Copenhagen: G.E.C. Gad,
1920), 107.
42.	Van Cleve, Frederick II, 352-354.
43.	Usinger, Deutsch-ddnische Geschichte, 300-322; Mecklenburgisches
Urkundenbuch, ed. G. Lisch (Schwerin: Verein fur Mecklenburgische Geschichte,
1863), I, 290-93.
44.	Benninghoven, Schwertbriider, 187-188.
45.	Transeke-Roseneck, Livlandfahrer, 48-50. John soon returned to the diocese
of Bremen.
46.	Henry of Livonia, 220-28; GnegeLWaitschies, Bischof Albert von Riga, 149;
Transeke-Roseneck, Livlandfahrer, 38, 41; Benninghoven, Schwertbriider, 254.
47. Fennell, Crisis of Medieval Russia, 71-73.
48.	Evald Blumenfeld, "Uber die Freibauem in Jerwen zur Ordens- und
Swedenzeit," Commentationes Balticae, 3(1957), 3-8.
49.	Gustav Adolf Donner’s Kardinal Wilhelm von Sabina, Bischof von Modena,
1222-1234 (Helsingfors: H. Crohns and C. von Bonsdorff, 1929), is the definitive
work on William of Modena; GnegeLWaitschies, Bischof Albert von Riga, 150-
151.
50.	Usinger, Deutsch-ddnische Geschichte, 333-55; J. H. S. Birch, Denmark in
History (London, 1938), 66; William Urban, "The Wendish princes and the
’Drang nach Osten’," Journal of Baltic Studies, 9(1978), 225-44. Hermann von
Salza, who appears as the imperial representative in these negotiations, is often
considered the true founder of the Teutonic Order. He may well have been
making a personal reconnaissance of the situation in the north, to determine
whether he wanted to commit his order to the crusading movement there. Gdrski,
L’Or dine teutonico, 16-18.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE INTERVENTION OF THE PAPACY
When Bishop Albert wrote to Pope Honorius III late in 1224 to ask that a
papal legate be sent to Livonia, he had no reason to fear new troubles. Several
years earlier, when he faced native rebellion, Russian invasions, Danish
ambitions, and competition from the Lippe family and the Swordbrothers, he
certainly had grounds for despair. Now the native tribes were either allies or had
been crushed through repeated defeats; the Russians were still staggering under
the military disaster inflicted by the Tatars. With several bishops under his
authority, Albert exercised the powers of an archbishop; his internal enemies
were weak and divided—and those who still resisted would be forced to humble
themselves before the papal legate. All in all, the bishop of Riga had every
reason to believe that the papal legate would assist him in consolidating his
empire. Little did he suspect that the papacy might be more dangerous than any
of his previous opponents.
William of Modena Restores Order
It was not that the papacy had any deliberate designs upon Livonia. The
pope had too much to do in Italy to concern himself much with distant
provinces, and William of Modena, the papal vice-chancellor who was sent to
Livonia, was a dedicated and honest cleric. But the men who governed the
Church believed that the strife that disrupted orderly society along with the
miscarriage of justice that characterized it could be cured if secular governments
would but follow the directions of the Church, and if the Church, in turn, would
follow the directions of the papacy. Therefore, in their belief that a strong papacy
could suppress warfare and impose peace and justice upon a divided
Christendom, these churchmen often acted in a way which served to increase
papal authority at the expense of local churchmen and secular rulers. It was just
such a worthy ideal that brought unintended grief to Livonia. Because William
of Modena had a reputation for fairness and honesty, as did most papal legates,
no one spoke openly against inviting him to Livonia. Albert saw the legate’s
mission as a means of eliminating the last of his opposition. His opponents saw
the legate as their last hope to regain equality with the bishop of Riga.
William (Guillilemus) of Modena was probably forty years of age in 1224.
Bom in the Piedmont of Italian parents, educated as a priest and scholar, a monk
(probably Charterhouse) whose primary goal in life was to create peace and
harmony, he had already been active for several years in the papal chancery.
Named vice-chancellor in the winter of 1219-1220, he became a close friend of
Dominic (later St. Dominic), founder of the Dominican Order and an enthusiastic
spokesman for crusades and spiritual renewal. In 1222, when a vacancy appeared
in Modena, Pope Honorius named William bishop of that city (the pope needed
150
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
a dependable man in that strategic place), but he was soon given so many
important duties in northern Italy that William could never have spent much time
in Modena.1
To the extent that William had anticipated a career in the Baltic, it was
probably no greater an ambition than to become a missionary to Prussia. Most
likely, this desire had brought him into contact with the missionaries to Livonia
who visited the curia—where his talents had come to the attention of popes and
cardinals, who were impressed by his competence performance and the pleasant
manner in which he accomplished his tasks—and very likely Bishop Albert had
specifically asked for William as legate. Alternatively, William may have
requested the assignment from the pope. As far as Pope Honorius was concerned,
a short experience as papal legate was probably desirable as a test to the limits,
if any, of William’s suitability for the highest offices in the Church.2
William arrived in Riga with his retinue in the summer of 1225 and
immediately set to work on the various issues affecting the bishops, the
crusading order, the citizens of Riga, the international merchant community, the
corporation of pilgrims (representing the crusaders), and the native tribes. 'He
traveled about the countryside, and even to Estonia, receiving delegations and
conducting interviews tirelessly. The result was a complicated series of
agreements, treaties, and promises that covered practically every aspect of life
and government in Livonia.3
Although the legate negotiated agreements on many issues, two were
paramount in importance: the relationship of the bishops to the crusading order,
and the disposition of Estonia. The first issue was partly a quarrel over the
division of land and partly a basic difference of opinion concerning the means
of converting and governing the natives. William of Modena wished to enforce
the so-called Baltic Manifestos issued by Emperor Frederick II in 1224 and by
Pope Honorius III in 1225, which guaranteed the rights of the new converts. Just
as the bishops and Swordbrothers had duties toward their subjects, in the same
way, he emphasized, they had responsibilities for one another. Nevertheless, the
results were more favorable to the crusading order than to the bishops, as might
be expected from an emperor and pope under the influence of Hermann von
Salza, grandmaster of the Teutonic Order—a man respected by everyone for his
honesty, impartiality, and intelligence, but not without a personal viewpoint. In
this case, Hermann von Salza was well aware of the potential of crusading orders
and the likely shortcomings of episcopal government in frontier situations, where
the majority of subjects were recent converts and powerful enemies waited across
an ill-defined frontier. He certainly understood that native militias could be relied
upon only if their warriors believed that Christian government offered more
protection from traditional enemies and dealt with them more fairly in matters
of law, taxesj and custom than any likely alternative government. As a result of
William of Modena’s aid and encouragement, reinforcements from Germany in
the form of crusaders and new recruits, and more donations from abroad, the
Swordbrothers began to recover from the disasters they had suffered in the
Estonian uprising.
The Intervention of the Papacy	151
Settling the matter of Estonia’s disposition was far more difficult. Shortly
after William’s departure, Johann von Dolen, the old crusader, rebelled. William,
by then already having sailed as far as Gotland, reacted by issuing an
ecclesiastical censure. Knowing that this action would restore order only
temporarily, William sent his Italian chaplain, Master John, back to Estonia as
vice-legate to take over the formal administration of all of Estonia, German and
Danish regions alike. He instructed him to supervise the election of advocates
and to judge any disputes which might arise. These legatine decisions weakened
the position of the Bishop of Riga and prepared the ground for direct papal
control of the region. In doing this, William of Modena brought temporary peace
at the cost of opening the way for renewed conflict.4
It is interesting and informative to investigate the details of many of these
arrangements, for they offer valuable insight into the society and government of
the era. How, for example, were crusaders brought to Livonia? First, they were
recruited by absentee bishops, by specially appointed monks and knights, and by
the corporation (guild) of pilgrims that had been organized by Rigan merchants.
Money was a problem, for many crusaders were poor and could not afford the
ten marks needed for the passage and expenses for a year. This was only half the
cost of crusading in the Holy Land, but without the monetary support from
numerous merchants and other friends of the Church in western Europe, many
crusaders would have been forced to remain at home. Next was the task of
assembling the volunteers and mercenaries in Lubeck for the voyage across the
sea, a task which was probably performed by the shipping interests of Lubeck
and Riga. Finally, it was necessary to divide the crusaders among the bishops,
the Swordbrothers, and the city of Riga, so that each would have garrison troops
for its castles but still leave sufficient numbers for service in the field army. The
main body of crusaders served under its own advocate, who was usually chosen
from among the leading nobles on crusade. When they arrived in Riga, each
crusader did homage to Albert and then attended church services, where the
’’pilgrims" made donations of considerable value. The gifts to the Church of Saint
George went to the Swordbiothers, while Albert shared in the gifts to Saint
Jacob’s and Saint Mary’s. Afterward, Albert had ten days to seek ten volunteers
to garrison his castles, after which the prior of Saint Mary’s, the Swordbrothers,
and the citizens of Riga could recruit crusaders to man their castles without
hindrance.5 The mercenaries, of course, served their employers.
Such arrangements, elaborate though they were, were necessary to avoid
conflict over the limited number of fighting men available. This particular ruling
was a hard blow for Albert, who in the past had relied upon the crusader
contingent in the army to give him a strong voice in debates over military
strategy. Henceforth, Volquin’s was the dominant personality. Many similar
examples of the legate’s rulings could be cited, thanks to the rich fund of
material from this era which has survived in the various document collections,
but many of these are of little interest today. When William had concluded the
three journeys he made through Livonia to look at general conditions and to
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investigate specific problems, he called together all the principal parties to sign
their names as witnesses to the documents he issued:
The legate of the apostolic see returned to Riga and the bishops,
priests, clerics, Brothers of Militia, vassals of the church, and citizens
of Riga came to him. In the presence of all these people he celebrated
a solemn council during Lent, according to the provisions of Innocent,
to refresh their memories and institute certain new measures that
seemed necessary for the newly-planted church. After everything was
done and finished that could be done by him and after indulgences had
been given, the legate said farewell to everyone, blessed them, and
returned to the ships, commending Livonia to Mary, the Blessed
Mother of God, and to Her beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, to
Whom is honor and glory, world without end. Amen.6
William of Modena had by no means resolved all the problems of the
region, a fact that was brought home to him when he sighted Oeselian pirates
returning home from a raid on Sweden. The impassioned speech for a crusade
which he delivered on Gotland impressed few of the Scandinavian merchants,
which was perhaps an indication of the unpopularity of his Estonian program.
Shortly thereafter William thought it wise to strengthen the hand of his vice-
legate vis-i-vis the bishops and the Swordbrothers by sending him a number of
Saxon nobles to serve as landed vassals. This was the first step toward the
settlement of a secular German nobility on the land, something very rare in
Livonia, where a handful of episcopal vassals supported themselves on tax fiefs
as ministeriales, but where the fields and villages themselves still remained
largely in native possession. Thus it came about that during the first legation to
Livonia, in 1225 and 1226, northern Estonia was placed outside the jurisdiction
of those who yearned to incorporate it into their territories, and Pope Honorius
became the ultimate overlord of this distant comer of the Baltic. It was also
during this period that the first step was taken toward the feudalization of Estonia
and the creation of the German Baltic nobility. None of this would have been
necessary had it not been for the kidnapping of Waldemar of Denmark7
Waldemar at Liberty
The kidnapping of King Waldemar had upset the stability of German and
Baltic politics, and his liberation did little to restore it. His subjects had delivered
an initial payment of 18,000 marks and his three younger sons—Eric,
Christopher and Abel—had surrendered themselves as hostages in keeping with
the terms of the ransom agreement. Waldemar knew that Pope Honorius fostered
a strong Denmark, as was evidenced by repeated intervention on his behalf. К
was the pope who had forced the royal uncle, Waldemar of Schleswig, to return
to his monastery and abandon his attempt to foment civil war; and it was also
the pope who absolved King Waldemar from his oaths (to pay ransom, depart
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153
on crusade, and abandon the north of Germany to the emperor) on the grounds
that the promises had been extorted. Released from these obligations, Waldemar
was free to recoup his losses by force of arms.8
Danish victory seemed likely. Only three men—Archbishop Gerhard II of
Bremen and Counts Adolf of Holstein and Heinrich of Schwerin—were willing
to lead troops onto the field against a monarch bearing the nickname "the
Victorious." Others hung back for one reason or another: the dukes of
Mecklenburg had passed away, leaving minors in their place; the duke of
Brandenburg, young and inexperienced, remained neutral out of loyalty to his
Welf brother-in-law, Otto the Child of Liineburg (who was hoping to repossess
portions of the former Welf empire currently held by the archbishop and his
allies); the duke of Saxony (the crusader Albrecht) was quarreling with the
Archbishop of Bremen over the ownership of Stade and Dithmarschen; and the
citizens of Lubeck, who had risked Danish displeasure by their daring expulsion
of Waldemar’s garrison, were sailors, not soldiers.
The Danish king expected to recover all his losses, and to revenge himself
on his enemies as well. Taking to the field in the fall of 1226 and invading
Holstein from the north while Otto the Child attacked from the south, Waldemar
occupied Hamburg and Dithmarschen after a series of sharply contested battles,
and his fleet blockaded Lubeck so as to sever the communications route to
Livonia. By the time winter brought the campaign to a close, the Danish
monarch was well on his way to recovering his former hegemony in northern
Germany, after which he could turn his attention to the Baltic.
In anticipation of a Danish recovery, the Germans in Livonia had taken
steps to secure their position. Bishop Hermann had visited the imperial court in
Nuremberg in December 1225. There young King Heinrich, Frederick’s son,
recognized him and Albert as princes of the Holy Roman Empire, a valuable
status which could assist them in opposing Waldemar’s claims to their loyalty
should he recover from his recent disasters. The Swordbrothers, on the other
hand, went directly to Frederick II himself in Italy for confirmation of their
rights and holdings. Nor was the papacy overlooked—the citizens of Riga and
Lubeck appealed to Honorius III for help against the naval blockade in the
Baltic. In response, the pope asked the Danish monarch to lift the blockade, but
his requests were at best only partially effective. Certainly the pope was well
informed of events in Livonia. He confirmed William of Modena’s actions and
adopted his recommendations, but it also appears that, like everyone else, the
Pope acted to protect himself against unexpected turns of the wheel of fortune
in the northeast.’
Not satisfied with their foreign alliances and guarantees, the bishops, the
crusading order, and the citizens of Riga and Lubeck bound themselves in formal
alliances against the Danish king. Although significant in itself, some historians
have found this to be a true merging of interests between the Swordbrothers and
the city of Riga. The knights became citizens and the citizens became associate
Members of the order; the knights paid taxes and the citizens raised contributions
for the order; and each promised to defend the rights and privileges of the other.
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But if this seems without precedent, it must be remembered that the lives of
medieval merchants had military and monastic aspects: they were well trained
in the use of arms to defend themselves and their goods against pirates and
highwaymen; while abroad they lived a communal, celibate existence in the
various hostels where they stored their goods; they were deeply religious and
civic-minded, often contributing huge sums to the churches and public charities
of their home towns; they served willingly in the crusades—so that perhaps the
majority of the Livonian crusaders were of middle-class origin. Naturally inclined
to religious fraternities, unmarried Rigan merchants already had a guild, the
Blackheads of Saint Mauritius, which gave its members many of the privileges
now offered by the Swordbrothers. Furthermore, the Swordbrothers may have
been thinking of these merchants when they petitioned the papacy for permission
to take crusaders directly into their service, bypassing the rights of the bishop of
Riga, for later on we find brothers of middle-class origin in the crusading order.
In addition, merchants were willing to pay well for the privilege of being buried
in the order’s church (St. George’s in Riga). The minor nobles and ministeriales,
who composed the membership of the Swoidbrothers, probably found these
warriors of merchant stock to be socially acceptable. Or perhaps the supply of
recruits was drying up. Whatever the reason, the Swordbrothers developed a
close relationship with the members of the merchant community.10
This particular era in Livonian and German history is difficult for the
historian because of the nature of the sources. Documentary evidence, as
illustrated above, tells much, and numismatics helps,11 but one still prefers to
have narrative accounts. Unfortunately, the surviving chronicles give but few
details in their description. For example, the account of the battle which liberated
northern Germany from Waldemar is composed of these few words:
In this same year the king of Denmark was freed for 50,000 marks, of
which half was paid, and his nobles renounced the land of Holstein
and all the lands lying around it that he had taken by force, and he
gave as hostages three of his sons and many nobles....Afterwards he
broke his oath and promises and came to Rendsburg. Count Adolf and
Count Heinrich of Schwerin opposed him. Count Adolf and his men
sought to cross over a stream to the king and many of the king’s men
were slain, but the king held the field. Then the king went to
Rendsburg and took it....The King of Denmark went into Dithmarschen
and conquered it and to Itzehoe and subjected it to himself, and led his
people on with all the natives to the castle and then to Segeberg and
built there a castle. Count Adolf recovered the castle at Itzehoe and of
the people who were there many were captured, slain, or drowned.
Then Duke Otto came to help his cousin the king. Then the
Archbishop of Bremen and Duke Albrecht of Saxony and Count Adolf
and Count Heinrich of Schwerin met in Lubeck and went against the
king. They met at Bornhoeved on Mary Magdalen’s day. There was
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155
a great battle. The king lost, and Duke Otto of Liineburg was captured,
and most of the king’s people were slain or captured.12
The battle of Bornhoeved ended a quarter century of Danish hegemony over
northern Germany and the Baltic. It also ended, for the time being, Welf hopes
of again dominating the lands south of the Elbe. Unfortunately, the battle also
temporarily ended the political stability the Danish king had forced upon the
region. Commerce had bloomed under the protection of the royal fleet, and
emigration eastward had become a powerful movement thanks partly to
Waldemar’s encouragement. Such unity as the crusaders in Livonia had
demonstrated was partly out of fear of Waldemar and his bishops, partly then-
realization that in the long run they had no alternative to obeying the royal will.
Now that the king’s firm hand had been removed, anarchy was loose in the
Baltic from Lubeck to Reval. Not was northern Germany, especially
Nordalbigensia, demonstrably better off "free" than it had been when it was
"captive." In some ways the region remained remarkably stable in the years to
follow. It seems that the nobles (whose activities we can follow better than those
of the other classes) became less active, less forceful. This development occurred
because the victors did not cooperate well enough to exploit their success and
because the defeated powers were too busy salvaging what they could from the
wreck of their hopes to challenge the victors again.
Archbishop Gerhard won recognition of his rights in Hamburg, Stade and
Dithmarschen but was soon embroiled in a long dispute with rebellious Frisian
peasants north of Bremen. To help him collect taxes from the fanners at
Stedingen, he called on local nobles to act as "crusaders" in suppressing
"heretics" (about which more later). Count Heinrich died soon after the battle,
and, through inaction, his widow squandered the political advantages her husband
had won by daring and skill. Having missed every opportunity to profit from the
situation, Schwerin was condemned to remain a minor power, even among the
weak states of northern Germany. Duke Albrecht, on the other hand,
strengthened his position in eastern Saxony. Luckiest of the allies, because of his
recovering Holstein, Adolf quickly secured his position there against the rival
claims of Albert of Orlamunde and, thanks to his wife’s being related to
Archbishop Gerhard (Hedwig was the daughter of Hermann of Lippe), he was
assured of nearby political and military aid if such were needed. He could not
recover the allegiance of Liibeck or tax her citizens, and without money he
remained weak; but he had regained possession of Holstein. Lubeck, of course,
became independent and, once the Baltic was reopened, her merchants entered
upon the path to wealth and power. Because the unity that had provided
successful resistance to the Danes lasted but a short time, weakness and lack of
direction were to characterize northern German politics for the remainder of the
century. This weakness was mirrored in the Baltic Crusade: each of the victors
had participated in the crusade or supported it, but after the battle of Bornhoeved,
their contributions were never as great.
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THE BALTIC CRUSADE
The Estonian Rising Ended
In January 1227 the crusaders in Livonia had their last great success for
many years to come—the subjugation of Oesel, where the last independent
Estonians lived. Under the aegis of the vice-legate and Master Volquin, 13,000
crusaders pacified that fertile island from which native pirates had raided the
opposite shores of the Baltic Sea for decades. After describing the huge Christian
army that marched across frozen ice to crush this proud and fiercely independent
people, our chronicler chose these words to close his work:
So the priests, with great joy, baptized all the people of both sexes in
all the forts of Oesel. The priests wept for joy because, by the bath of
regeneration, they were producing so many thousands of spiritual
children for the Lord and a beloved new spouse for God from among
the heathen. They watered the nation by the font, and the faces by
tears. Thus does Riga always water the nations. Thus did she now
water Oesel in the middle of the sea. By washing she purges sin and
grants the kingdom of the skies. She furnishes both the higher and the
lower irrigation. These gifts of God are our delight. The glory of God,
of our Lord Jesus Christ, and of the Blessed Virgin Mary gives such
joy to His Rigan servants on Oesel! To vanquish rebels, to baptize
those who come voluntarily and humbly, to receive hostages and
tribute, to free all the Christian captives, to return with victory—what
kings have hitherto been unable to do, the Blessed Virgin quickly and
easily accomplishes through Her Rigan servants to the honor of Her
name. When this is finished, when it is all done, when all the people
are baptized, when Tharapita is thrown out, when Pharaoh is drowned,
when the captives are freed, return with joy, О Rigans! Brilliantly
triumphal victory always follows you. Glory be to the Lord, praise to
God beyond the stars.13
This passage illustrates perfectly the mentality of the era. Crusaders,
missionaries, merchants all agreed that the Church was properly at the center of
every aspect of life. However, that was about all they agreed upon, and they
were not in complete harmony concerning the manner in which the Church
exercised its authority. Nor was there even full agreement regarding the manner
the Church governed itself—especially in Livonia. This was Master John’s first
task after helping organize the conquest of Oesel.
In 1226 the vice-legate appointed Abbot Gottfried of Diinamiinde as bishop
for the west coast of Estonia, and transferred Bishop Hermann to Ungannia
(Hermann rebuilt the fortress at Tartu and named it Dorpat, which soon became
the name of his diocese as well). Both Gottfried and Hermann, and the Danish
bishop in Reval as well, returned home with the hope of collecting donations
from pious individuals and of recruiting vassals who would administer their
lands. John gave one-third of the lands both on the islands and on the mainland
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157
(hence the name of the diocese, Oesel-Wiek) to the Swordbrothers—the same
arrangement that had prevailed in Livonia.14 Bishop Gottfried inherited the fort
and trading center at Pemau. Now he founded Leal and Hapsal. In appointing
Johann von Lode as his advocate to govern in his name, he established the Lode
family as one of the richest in Livonia, and the subsequent arrival of his German
vassals laid the foundations for one of the strongest organizations of the era, the
Ritterschaft (Knightly corporation) of Oesel-Wiek—a form of hereditary craft
union through which the nobles defended their rights against all challengers.13
In a sense, the island campaign ended the original crusade to Livonia and
Estonia. The tribes in Semgallia and Kurland which had not yet been conquered
were either allies or already disposed to accept the inevitable. Only the
Lithuanians remained firmly committed to paganism. However, the crusaders
were too disturbed by other events to rejoice long over their successes.
Dissensions at home, long festering but now brought to fever pitch by the battle
of Bornhoeved, soon reached a critical temperature. Thus the Danish troubles
produced new and unexpected problems for the Baltic Crusade.
Competing Crusades
Foremost among the new developments affecting the crusade to Livonia was
the failure of a peaceful mission which had been organized in 1206 by Christian,
a Cisterician monk from Lekno. At the Lateran Council Innocent 1П had named
Christian to be the bishop of Prussia and encouraged the dukes of Pomerellia and
Masovia to garrison his first castles; in 1217 Pope Honorius authorized the
archbishop of Gniezno to recruit crusaders to right in Prussia. Two years later
the Slavic bishop, Brunward of Schwerin, brought an army east. But these
incursions, like those of Duke Conrad of Masovia, brought only temporary
victories. As soon as the Christian armies returned home, the Prussians rebelled.
Now, with the Livonian model in mind, Christian and Conrad began to call for
more crusaders.16 The Danes, who had been interested in the coastal region for
years, may have contributed significantly to the crusader successes of 1221-1223,
but after Waldemar’s kidnapping, the Christians in Prussia encountered the same
problems as those in Estonia experienced when they were no longer credible in
threatening that the king would send an army to their aid. Bishop Christian then
founded a military order, the Dobriners, modeled after the Swordbrothers and
perhaps even staffed with volunteers or malcontents from that order. However
that may have been, either the recruiting efforts yielded meager results or the
first contingent of knights was practically wiped out in combat, because the
Dobriner Order never played a significant role in the crusading efforts.
The neighboring duke of Pomerellia then invited in the Templars and the
Spanish Order of Calatrava! But those orders, though willing to accept manors
as defensive bases for protection of the frontier, were unwilling to commit any
financial resources or risk their knights in order to force Christianity on the
Pagans. When these efforts to find knight-brothers who would serve in Prussia
failed, Bishop Christian and Duke Conrad turned to the Teutonic Knights, an
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THE BALTIC CRUSADE
order much wealthier than the Swordbrothers but whose possessions in the Holy
Land and the Holy Roman Empire were not by any means to be compared with
the immense resources of the Hospitallers and Templars. Largely because the
established orders held a virtual monopoly of the few places in the Holy Land
still held by Christians, the Teutonic Knights were willing to consider employing
their men in eastern Europe. In 1211 they had sent a force to Transylvania,
where they fortified the mountain passes against raiders from the steppe who had
been attacking Hungary. Bringing German immigrants to work the land, the
Teutonic Knights grew in power and wealth. At last they began to expand south
and east with the intent of founding a state for themselves, independent of the
Hungarian king, who finally put an end to their hopes by expelling them from
the country in 1224. Knowing their history and that of the Swordbrothers,
Christian and Conrad must have been aware of the dangers involved in extending
to the Teutonic Knights an "invitation" to participate in the Prussian Crusade.
Although Hermann von Salza, the grandmaster of the Teutonic Knights, was
busy collecting knights for the imperial crusade to the Holy Land, he accepted
this invitation, sending only a few knights in 1229, but a larger number after
Frederick H’s return from Palestine. Within a few years the crusade organized
by the Teutonic Knights on this shore of the Baltic Sea was to provide serious
competition for the Livonian Crusade because Prussia was closer to Germany,
thus requiring less travel and expense, and the recruiting system of the Teutonic
Knights, based on their extensive system of churches and hospitals, was
incomparably superior to those of Bishop Albert and Master Volquin.
Furthermore, the possibility of traveling overland was welcomed by the crusaders
from interior Germany, who were conscious of the cost of sea travel as well as
terrified by the thought of crossing a dangerous body of water in small vessels.
The Teutonic Knights also had close friendships with many important nobles,
particularly the rulers of Brandenburg and Bohemia, who provided constant
support and sent a steady stream of crusaders overland to Prussia. Because the
supply of crusaders available in any one year was limited, the Baltic Crusade
suffered from competition with the one in Prussia more than it had been affected
by the crusades to the Holy Land.17
Another "crusade" which occupied many North German nobles in the winter
of 1229-1230 was being mounted against rebellious peasants in the diocese of
Hamburg-Bremen. Archbishop Gerhard, like his predecessors, had longed to
collect tithes and taxes from the peasantry in Stedingen, but these peasants, who
had been attracted to the swamp settlements by generous promises of low taxes,
defended their now traditional rights against the archbishop’s agents. They
expelled Gerhard’s revenue collectors, mocked the archbishop for his efforts, and
indicated their willingness to use their well-trained peasant army if provoked
further. Archbishop Gerhard had been selling Stedingen lands to the Cistercians
on the condition that they subdue the peasants, but after the rebels destroyed the
fortified monastery at Herde, he realized that he would have to use his own
forces. He should have been warned by the fate of his brother, the bishop of
Utrecht, who had perished at the hands of Frisian peasants in 1228, but the Lippe
clan was as resolute and courageous as it was ambitious. Gerhard raised a large
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159
army and entrusted it to the command of his brother Hermann, count of Lippe.
The invasion force entered the reclaimed bottomlands, never to reemerge; on
Christmas Eve it was destroyed by the Stedingen army, and Count Hermann was
among the fallen. This brought a final end to the Lippe ambitions to establish
themselves in Livonia.18
Shaken and angered, Archbishop Gerhard convoked a provincial synod and
formally convicted the rebels of heretical acts. Appeals to Pope Gregory IX—a
much more military and less forgiving pontiff than his predecessor—eventually
produced several crusading bulls, and for the next few years many of the leading
nobles and clerics of Saxony, Westphalia, and the Rhineland participated in this
miniature crusade.19 Gerhard continued to obstruct efforts to raise men and
money for the crusade to Livonia in hope of recovering control over its
bishoprics,20 and when King Waldemar and Count Adolf attacked Lubeck and
severed sea communications, the crusading movement to Livonia was yet further
weakened.21 Already contending with competition from crusades in Prussia,
Hamburg-Bremen, and the Holy Land (Frederick H’s forces were finally ready
to sail from Brindisi), harassed by the archbishop and his friends, and
embarrassed by reports of dissension in Livonia, the recruiting bishops and
priests were unable to convince large numbers of volunteers to take the cross in
defense of the Land of the Virgin Mary. Equally ineffective, we assume, were
those Swordbrother knights in North Germany, whose duties greatly resemble
those of modem recruiting officers.22
Crusader traffic to Livonia never ceased, but because reinforcements became
fewer and fewer, there were grave difficulties in Livonia, especially for the
bishops and the papal legate, who were more dependent on volunteers than were
the Swordbrothers. In the summer of 1227, when the Danish vassals refused to
obey Master John’s orders, the papal vice-legate called upon the Swordbrothers
to assist him and, unable to govern without their protection, probably
relinquished several provinces, including Reval, to their administration.23
Between 1229 and 1232 a number of important Saxon counts came to Riga—one
was an intimate associate of Frederick II. Surely the visits were somehow
connected with Duke Albrecht’s suspected ambitions to become a powerful ruler
in the East. But what the counts did or wanted to do remains a mystery.24 There
is little concrete information of any type about this period, as Henry of Livonia
had set aside his chronicle. Therefore our understanding of events in the ensuing
decade is poor. Modem historians, particularly Donner, Johansen, and
Benninghoven, have written creditable accounts of the complex events that
occurred between the time of the first legation of William of Modena and the
arrival of the Teutonic Knights in Livonia, but, of necessity, their scholarly
arguments rest on careful deductions from a limited number of facts and much
speculation on the interests of the individuals and groups involved.25 Because
motivation is so important in assessing the politics of this era, let us look briefly
at the position of each group in Livonia before continuing the narrative.
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THE BALTIC CRUSADE
Problems Facing the Crusaders
The Swordbrothers had recovered from losses suffered in the Estonian
uprising. According to the estimates of Friedrich Benninghoven, they taxed and
governed about 130,000 natives; nevertheless, their own numbers were amazingly
small: there were, presumably, not many more than 110 knights to garrison the
six castles and numerous smaller outposts defending the settlements from foreign
attack and protecting the advocates from insurrection. These knights, all recruited
from Low German areas (Westphalia, Hesse, Hamburg-Bremen, and Holstein),
were of ministeriale or mercantile origin, except for a very small number of
officers who may have been of truly noble birth. They were supported by a
larger number of sergeants, who had entered the order voluntarily but were
restricted to the rank of serving brothers because of their common origin; perhaps
400 or 500 of them served as mounted warriors. There were also about 700
mercenary troops, and perhaps 400 Germans knights in Estonia (the Sword-
brothers acquired vassals there when the vice-legate entrusted them with the
governance of the region, and in 1230 they invited an additional forty merchants
from Gotland to settle in Estonia). All of these righting men were probably of
German origin. In addition there were large contingents of native militia, about
5,000, which were now an integral part of the Swordbrothers’ army.
As was true for military-religious orders in the Holy Land, too, the
Swordbrothers were surrounded by enemies. Secular nobles, churchmen, and
burghers mistrusted the order’s members. They recounted stories of excessive
feasting and drinking, of knights arriving late for prayers because they were
unwilling to interrupt board games, of cursing, and of refusals to obey their
superiors (Bishop Albert and the other bishops). These rumors eventually became
accusations. In general, the charges do not differ significantly from those hurled
at the Templars and Hospitallers, even at churchmen in general, by secular
enemies, ecclesiastical rivals, and sanctimonious idealists. Moreover, it did not
seem to matter what they did or did not do—they were condemned as roundly
for failure to act as for what they did. Their sin was to seek an independent
existence, while the bishops wanted them to be nothing more than an episcopal
bodyguard. The Swordbrothers were, in effect, newcomers challenging the status
quo.
Money lay at the root of the order’s problems. As a practical measure,
Master Volquin’s men interfered little with the natives’ life and limited their
activity to the supervision of justice, the collection of taxes, and the defense of
the lands. Unhappily, they were not in the practice either of articulating what
their policies were or of writing down their reasons for choosing one option over
another in ways that would please historians. There were good reasons for this.
The crusader^ might have been able to explain in person why it was safer to
allow the elders of the tribes to govern their own people according to traditional
practices than risk another rebellion—at least as a temporary measure. But
committing such ideas to paper would have risked misunderstandings—and we
shall see that this policy of toleration will be attacked later, even misrepresented
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deliberately, by the order’s enemies. A second reason for not interfering with the
natives’ livelihood was that there was so little left to steal. Agricultural efforts
had concentrated on animal husbandry as much as they had on the cultivation of
grain. Now that herd after herd had been driven away by the various invasions
(Germans, Danes, Russians, Lithuanians), the native peoples were reduced to
poverty. Archeological evidence demonstrates that the survivors had to
supplement their traditional diet of pork, beef, and horseflesh with elk and other
forest animals. In short, they had to hunt—a distinct step backward in economic
development. Agriculture would not have been able to recover until the number
of adult males was once again sufficient for the heavy labor of plowing and
harvesting with sickles.26 Between the sandy nature of much of the soil, the
number of forests and swamps, and the northern climate, farmers had found it
difficult enough to feed their families before the crusaders arrived; now they had
to pay taxes in grain; and the tribes which had rebelled, and therefore probably
suffered the greatest losses in manpower, had to pay double.
In an effort to rectify the situation, the order’s leaders turned to methods of
improving agriculture: building mills, introducing the three-field system, and so
forth; but these were not widespread enough to have significant immediate
impact—to raise productivity enough to be able to support the men, castles,
priests, and hospitals in the countryside.27 Volquin and his officers therefore
turned to the German merchants, giving them trading privileges throughout their
territories and enfeoffing some with estates and offices; but even this was
insufficient. Then, when support from abroad began to fall off (and the order had
only a few possessions in Germany to provide them supplies), Volquin’s
financial position became acute. Moreover, he needed mercenaries to replace the
annual outflow of crusaders—and professional soldiers expected a great deal
more money than Volquin normally expended for a friar-brother. In short, the
Swordbrothers were in a dilemma. Because the acquiring of additional lands and
taxes seemed to offer the only long-term solution, Volquin once again began to
see military expansion as a means of financial salvation—perhaps as important
as spiritual salvation. In the short term his hard-pressed treasurer, the
mercenaries, and the native troops alike would welcome the booty that successful
warfare would win.
The merchants, and particularly the merchants of Riga, grew wealthy on
trade with the new converts and the sale of war booty. The population of Riga
approached 3,000, and merchants and artisans began to settle within the walls of
the larger castles or in the less strongly fortified suburbs. They sought to live on
good terms with bishops and Swordbrothers alike, their principal interest being
trading privileges, not only with the natives but with Russians as well, as many
traveled to Russian cities by water in the summer and overland by sled in the
winter.28 The Rigans were now practically independent, being governed by an
advocate of their choice, and they asked that a portion of the newly conquered
lands be set aside for them. The merchants therefore looked forward to the
future, expecting the opening of new lands to bring new opportunities for
acquiring fortunes.
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Novgorod would share this attitude. The years between 1229 and 1232
would be long remembered as a time of terrible trials. An epidemic carried away
huge numbers of citizens, an early frost ruined the harvest, and a fire consumed
much of the city. The chronicler wrote: "Who would not weep at this, seeing the
dead lying in the streets and the little ones devoured by dogs." The burial crews
were unable to dig sufficient pits for the bodies, parents gave their children into
slavery to save them from starvation, and there was no help from anywhere in
Russia, since only distant Kiev had not been affected. Subsequently, Lithuanian
attacks became more destructive even though Novgorod troops annihilated one
raiding party. Only late in 1231 was the situation relieved by the arrival of
German merchants with com and flour.29
The political paralysis in Novgorod continued. Michael Vsevolodovich was
unable to prevent the election of an unfriendly posadnik, who in early 1234
called for Jaroslav to lead Novgorod against the Germans. When Michael
returned suddenly, Jaroslav had to flee for his life, and the next election returned
more cooperative officials. However, when Michael departed in the late summer
of 1236, leaving a five-year-old to "govern” in his place, his enemies called the
Veche into session, frightened Michael’s posadnik and son into flight, and chose
a new government. By the end of the year Jaroslav was duke of Novgorod again,
but he was hardly secure in his possession of power.30
The Germans in Livonia did not exploit this Russian weakness, because they
were experiencing a leadership crisis themselves. In late 1228 Bishop Albert had
become deathly ill, and he died in January of 1229. He and his fellow bishops
had already felt the decline in crusader numbers most keenly. Because they had
modeled the administration of their dioceses after those in the homeland, they did
not command such large military forces as did the crusading order. There were
too many churchmen and too few resources: an area roughly equal to that of the
Swordbrothers had to suppat the bishop of Riga, the bishop of Leal-Dorpat, the
bishop of Oesel, and the bishop of Semgallia. To assist in baptizing the natives
and preaching the gospel, they welcomed Dominicans and Franciscans sent by
William of Modena. These mendicant orders insured they would honor their
vows of poverty by begging for food and housing; and as friars, they were not
confined to convents, but could wander freely among the people.
If Albert’s plans had matured, he would have become archbishop and
exercised increased authority over the entire region; he would also have profited
from the expansion in Estonia and on the frontiers. Although his successor could
count on the military support of a few vassals, ministeriales, and mercenary
troops, their numbers were scarcely adequate to garrison the castles. There were,
of course, the native militias, some of which were organized and led by German
advocates. But, all in all, too much had depended on Albert himself. Now the
position of the bishops was weak—they depended upon an influx of crusaders
and gifts to the Church, none of which was available in adequate amounts
because of the situation in North Germany and Denmark.31
The canons of Saint Mary’s elected Nicholas, a cleric from Magdeburg, as
Albert’s successor; but because this choice indicated a recognition of Riga’s
The Intervention of the Papacy
163
submission to the archbishop of Magdeburg, Archbishop Gerhard of Bremen
objected and—as his predecessors had appointed the three previous bishops of
the Rigan post—he named a candidate from his own chapter, Albert Suerbeer,
resulting in a contested election. Each candidate sent the election results to Rome
for confirmation, but Gregory IX, too deeply involved in his dispute with
Frederick II to look into the controversy, ordered William of Modena to
investigate and settle the matter.
William of Modena was in Silesia, en route to Italy after visiting Denmark,
then spending months preaching to pagans in Prussia, when he received the
message. Had he still been in the north, he would have obeyed the order to hurry
to Livonia. However, now it seemed more important that he report personally to
Pope Gregory about the mission in Prussia. William therefore forwarded the
papal instructions to another legate, Cardinal Otto, who was on business in
Germany; but, as it happened, Otto was also too busy to travel to Livonia.
Because he could not settle the question without a hearing, Otto decided to send
a representative to Riga to act on his behalf. Since he was near Toumai when the
papal messenger reached him in May 1230, he asked the abbot of the nearby
Cistercian monastery at Aina if he had a monk capable of acting as vice-legate.
The abbot apparently recommended a monk named Baldwin, whom Otto then
empowered to investigate the situation in Livonia personally, interview the two
candidates, and recommend one to be the next bishop. Meanwhile, Otto would
hold hearings regarding the more important crisis in Denmark. Because Germany
was not safe for papal legates at that time, Baldwin set out by ship for Denmark,
visited Lund, and then sailed to Riga by way of Gotland.32
Baldwin of Aina
When Baldwin of Aina arrived in Livonia he found a land beset with
dissension. The Swordbrothers, bishops, citizens of Riga, and members of the
other estates were suspicious of one another and quarreling. Unfortunately,
Baldwin was to leave Livonia in even worse condition than he found it. Baldwin,
in attempting to put into effect papal policies which have been so distorted by
contemporary and modem propaganda that we cannot be absolutely certain what
they were, writes a chapter in the history of the Roman Church which is of
importance far beyond Livonia.
What were Baldwin’s goals? How far did the papacy of Gregory IX
encourage him? Why did all parties later consider this episode so unworthy of
themselves that they suppressed it from their histories? It may be that these
questions cannot be answered because the nature of the problem, the necessity
to make subjective judgments concerning papal ambitions, and the limited
information available thrust historians back upon their own prejudices to a
dangerous degree. Simply stated, the basic question is whether the papacy under
Gregory IX—not a pope known for moderation, or blessed with a quiet
reign—attempted to create a subject state in Livonia which would serve as a
model for papal government elsewhere. Apologists for the Church argue that
164
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
Gregory’s representative was attempting to do no more than restore peace and
order, protect the natives, and coordinate the crusading movements; other
historians have been far less charitable—and the line between "coordinating" and
"dominating" is a fine one. It is certain that the pope recognized a need for
intervening in Livonian affairs, but it is even more certain that the interpretations
of papal instructions were not consistent William of Modena and Baldwin of
Aina were very different individuals with disparate backgrounds, dissimilar
personalities, and contrasting personal knowledge of the pope’s wishes—William
had been the intimate acquaintance of several popes, Baldwin had probably never
met even a single one. Also, the situation of the Church had changed since
William’s visit; a few years earlier (and a few years later) the pope’s relations
with the emperor were relatively good; in 1229 the papacy was fighting the
Emperor Frederick. In the end, it may have been the personality of Baldwin,
rather than papal policy, which was the determining factor in the ensuing
difficulties in Livonia.33
In spite of the dearth of narrative sources, we can study Baldwin of Aina
through deduction, by interpolating a handful of documents which he issued and
to which his enemies responded. It becomes clear that he was an unusually
forceful person. A traveling legate who had never met him before—an
assumption we cannot confirm—was willing to entrust him with a difficult
mission in a distant part of Europe; he was capable of formulating daring plans
and persuading powerful men to support them; he intimidated brave warriors,
inspired his subordinates, and defied his opponents; when he antagonized every
estate in Livonia, he dared to appeal to the pope for support against them. He
was, in short, forceful and ambitious but also hasty and intemperate. As we have
seen, those were not unusual characteristics for a Cistercian. As vice-legate,
Baldwin had considerable authority and acted as if he possessed even more.
Although it was certainly unwise for him to have acted as he did, it is difficult
not to admire the courage with which he pushed his unpopular programs forward
in the face of mounting opposition.
Without question, the merchants and churchmen in Riga, and the
Swordbrothers, too, had forewarning of Baldwin’s instructions. Before they
would allow him to board ship in Gotland they required him to swear an oath
that he would not injure their rights and privileges. Surrounded as he was with
crusaders and armed with Cardinal Otto’s instructions, however, Baldwin seems
to have taken the potential resistance of the Rigans too lightly.34
What Baldwin seems to have gained during his earliest days in Livonia is
an awareness that in the borderlands of Livonia (Semgallia, Kurland, Estonia,
and Finland) he could use his powers as legate to establish a short-term
state—one might say, a state of emergency—which he could later convert into
a conventional bishopric for himself.35 The projects of Baldwin of Aina
conflicted with the interests of the Rigans at several points, but most importantly
in Semgallia—that region southwest of the Daugava which had been occupied
only briefly, before a revolt led by Vester of Terweten had driven the crusaders
back to the Daugava—and in Kurland, the next province to the west of
The Intervention of the Papacy	165
Semgallia. The natives of Semgallia, who had been subdued between 1228 and
1230 by dint of hard fighting, struck at the crusader strongholds along the
frontier, sacking and burning Diinamiinde, slaughtering all the monks and many
of the converts. However, Vester’s attack on Ascheraden—presumably the main
base for crusader attacks on Semgallia, which may have appeared vulnerable
after the departure of the 1229 crusader fleet—ended in disaster. In all
subsequent fighting the Christians held the upper hand. Bishop Lambert of
Semgallia—a Praemonstratensian who was attempting to live from the meager
revenues obtainable in Selonia until he could crush his subjects’ resistance—then
lost control of operations because of his lack of revenues to pay mercenaries.
This resulted in the necessity of the Swordbrothers’ bearing the predominant
burden in the campaigns of 1228-1230, for which service Master Volquin
expected rewards commensurate with his men’s sacrifices—one-third of the
conquests. Bishop Lambert was displeased, but there was little he could do
during this period except travel through Germany recruiting crusaders, but with
too little success to bring back an army sufficient for his needs. He seems to
have returned before 1232 to install priests as canons in his cathedral chapter;
somewhat later he founded a short-lived Praemonstratensian monastery in
Mesoten.36
The Swordbrothers, and the other crusader leaders in Riga as well, began
to look upon nearby Kurland as an easy conquest once the Semgallians had
surrendered, but Baldwin of Aina forestalled the attack by calling together a
council of advisors from Rigan citizens, crusaders, and merchants. Then, on their
recommendation, he accepted the Kurs as converts to Christianity and subjects
of the pope. The period of 1230-1231 was a famine year along the entire Baltic,
and the coastal Kurs needed imported grain, which the merchants promised in
return for their conversion. Baldwin offered these Kurs a more favorable treaty
and, in addition, promised them aid against attack by their Samogitian neighbors.
At the same time, exercising the rights of the bishop of Riga until he announced
a decision, Baldwin attached the Semgallian see to Riga, thereby assuming
personal control of that region. Although lacking sufficient priests to baptize the
natives, he forbade the prior of the Rigan chapter or anyone else to baptize them
lest they use this as a precedent to make a claim upon the tribes’ taxes and
services. He removed the merchants’ officials from western Kurland, and even
used the threat of excommunication to recover the hostages that they and the
prior had taken from the inland Kurs. When he negotiated a treaty with these
Kurs in January of 1231, the Livonian estates were furious. If they had been
suspicious of papal motives before (imperial propaganda gave them reason to
be), their suspicions were now multiplied. Undoubtedly, rumors of papal plots
abounded, especially among the Swordbrothers, whose plans had been frustrated
by the vice-legate. Refusing to sign the treaty, his many critics held a mass
meeting in which they reminded him of the oath he had taken on Gotland to
respect their rights. The next day, after he had fled the city with the hostages to
take refuge in the new stone castle at Diinamiinde, they accused him of being a
false legate, a disrupter of the Church, an interloper who had been sent to stir up
166
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
trouble. Baldwin’s only friends were the Cistercians and the corporation of
pilgrims (the elected leaders of the visiting crusaders).37
Baldwin fought back, relying on his wits and the slender authority given by
Cardinal Otto to see him through the crisis; meanwhile, he sent a messenger to
the legate. As it was winter, the messenger probably traveled overland (a trip
which should have produced many tales of adventure and wonder). The
merchants and Master Volquin together searched for allies, rinding them in the
city of Lubeck and Duke Albrecht of Saxony. Attempting to frustrate the
opposition by drawing one of the bishops-elect to his support, Baldwin sent
Cardinal Otto a recommendation that Nicholas be confirmed as the rightfully
elected bishop.
Nicholas had been waiting in Rome when the legate’s report arrived that
spring, so there was no delay in his being installed in office and sent on his way.
When the new bishop arrived in Riga in July, he reversed the actions taken by
the vice-legate, nullified the treaties with the Kurs, and sent an army into
Kurland to force the natives into full submission. Baldwin, now relieved of his
authority to act on behalf of Cardinal Otto, set sail for Germany and Rome,
determined to explain his plans to the Holy Father in person.38
After sailing across the Baltic and traveling through Germany, Baldwin
crossed the Alps in January 1232, met Pope Gregory IX in Rieti, and apparently
found him an eager listener. The vice-legate told Gregory how an armed body
of outlawed knights and merchants was disturbing the crusade and obstructing
the conversion of peaceful natives; how these knights followed the Templar rule
(and were therefore directly responsible to the pope) but were not within the
Templar organization (and therefore escaped papal supervision), and how
necessary it was, and how easy it would be, to impose direct papal rule upon the
entire region. The aged pope was bellicose even in his better moods, and when
aroused could be angry, indeed. Incensed by Baldwin’s reports, he dismissed the
Swordbrothers who had come to plead their case. Then, acting upon Baldwin’s
recommendations, he ordered Baldwin to return to Livonia and finish the work
he had begun. To make this possible, the pope named him legate to the entire
eastern Baltic with extraordinary powers over any and all Christians, clerical and
lay alike.
Pope Gregory did not underestimate the difficulty of the task in Livonia.
Church history and his own long experience had taught him much about the
ability of the laity to resist the authority of the clergy; so he invested his legate
with extensive authority over all the lands and estates in Livonia. He named him
not only papal legate but also bishop of Semgallia and Kurland; he gave him full
disposition of all disputed lands in Livonia and Estonia, as well as all vacant
bishoprics, and the administration of the provinces of Wierland, Jerwen, and
Wiek (which the Swordbrothers held); and he empowered him in all questions
pertaining to war and peace, levies of troops, and ecclesiastical penalties. Finally,
he confirmed all of Baldwin’s previous dispositions. In short, he armed his legate
with every legal weapon known to the Church.39
The delegation of Swordbrothers and citizens of Riga withdrew from the
papal audience in consternation. If Baldwin were allowed to return to Livonia
The Intervention of the Papacy
167
and put his program into effect, they would be undone; therefore, he had to be
delayed and hindered so that they could plan some means of reversing or defying
the papal decision. Their return journey north took them to the court of Duke
Albrecht of Saxony, where they found a sympathetic hearing. Perhaps they did
homage to the duke during their sojourn, after which, as overlord of the
crusaders’ lands, he could defend their cause before the emperor. Evidence points
to such a tactic, as not long afterward the emperor took their lands into his
protection and forbade outside interference in their affairs (meaning Denmark).
Duke Albrecht may have come personally to Riga in 1232 or 1233 for a brief
visit, or at least sent a representative, but nothing is known about what he said
or did.
When Baldwin came north from Italy through France and into Germany by
way of Cologne, he understood that his opposition was desperate enough to do
anything. True, he had papal authority to act as he wished, but so had Conrad of
Marburg, the notorious inquisitor who had recently been murdered on a German
highway. Not desiring martyrdom, Baldwin decided to raise an army to
accompany him and therefore began to preach a crusade to defend the interests
of the papacy in Livonia. He was occupied a full year in recruiting and
organizing this army. He had many difficulties (only his Cistercian brethren gave
him unstinting support), but by the summer of 1233 he was under sail for
Livonia.
Landing in Riga and exhibiting his letters of authority to the people,
Baldwin obtained the anticipated recognition of the Cistercians—the Abbot of the
newly founded monastery at Falkenau was present to welcome him. Bishop
Hermann, who might have been a potential ally, was preaching the crusade in
Germany. Nevertheless, Baldwin’s opponents could not deny the validity of the
papal documents granting him such great authority. Bishop Nicholas, the canons,
and their vassals, then the Swordbrothers and merchants of Riga acknowledged
his jurisdiction. Baldwin was in no mood for compromise, however. Backed by
his crusading force, the legate moved against his opponents step by step to
subject them to his will. He recovered the lands, castles, and hostages he had
previously held. Soon his garrisons occupied the castles in Wierland, Wiek,
Reval (with the exception of one small fortification), and Semgallia. Then he
pressed for more territory, forcing Master Volquin back at every point. His goal
was the submission or destruction of the Swordbrothers—and everyone knew it.
Some may have joined him for this very reason; certainly the relatives of the late
Bishop Albert had no love for this crusading order; nor had they given up all
ambition for wealth and power for themselves.
The Swordbrothers were well aware of Baldwin’s ambitions. They had
heard his accusations to the pope; they had read his letters of authority; they had
known other presumptuous clerics and thus recognized Baldwin as cunning and
resolute; and they hated him for what he was and what he represented. They had
fought for their lands for three decades, and the list of their knights who had
been slain in the enterprise was long indeed. Now an upstart monk, a low-born
rascal, threatened to take away everything from them and appropriate it for
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THE BALTIC CRUSADE
himself. Already in financial trouble, they would be ruined if they lost more
territory. And perhaps Baldwin would not be satisfied with such concessions (the
fate of the Teutonic Knights in Transylvania could not be ignored). One faction
among the knights clamored for immediate action—to fight while they were still
able—but Master Volquin quieted them; he saw that the legate’s strength was
almost equal to theirs and that behind the legate stood the power and prestige of
the pope. Volquin insisted that they rely upon the good faith of the Mother
Church; surely God and the pope would see that right triumphed.
Baldwin was firmly in control. If he had brought in vassals, the mere
passage of time would have given him overlordship in Livonia. His military
forces, estimated at 1,100 men, were very nearly equal to the total number of
Swordbrothers, and though many of the former might leave his service, others
would come as vassals or crusaders. Most important, the lands held by Baldwin
himself and his friends were double the area of the lands held by the
Swordbrothers, and he would profit the most from expansion. In the future,
whether he settled vassals on these lands or paid mercenary soldiers from the
revenues, the balance would swing in his favor. Sensing total victory in the
offing, Baldwin pressed on. Inside the city of Reval was a small castle which had
been built and garrisoned by the Swordbrothers after the region was given to
them in 1227 by the papal administrator to govern in his behalf. No one had ever
questioned their right to maintain a convent of knights in this castle until
Baldwin ordered them to surrender it to him. Master Volquin refused, because
the loss of this castle and the lands that supported it would be a fatal blow to the
order, but he was compromised by his unwillingness to oppose the legate with
force. When Baldwin brought 400 men and their supporting troops into the larger
castle in Reval and demanded that the question be arbitrated by the estates of
Livonia, Volquin was faced with a difficult choice. He rejected war, but in
choosing arbitration he fell into a trap: Baldwin was well within his authority in
demanding the return of territory that was under theoretical papal administration.
Moreover, Baldwin had packed the court, and most of the estates were favorable
to his cause. The decision, of course, favored the legate, and Volquin was ruined.
Cunning and ambition had triumphed over simple honesty. But Baldwin’s victory
was short-lived.
The Swordbrothers Rebel
Many of the Swordbrothers had disagreed with Master Volquin’s policy of
appeasement: they believed in meeting force with force and cunning with
cunning. Until the moment the unfavorable decision was announced, Volquin had
held these knights in check; when his policy collapsed, they seized the reins of
power themsdlves. Still unable to persuade Volquin to make war upon the legate,
they arrested him and chose one of their own number, Johann Selich, to act in
his place. The ensuing battle was fought in Reval in August or September 1233.
The Swordbrothers attacked and captured the large castle in the citadel area,
slew several hundred papal warriors in battle, and then pursued the survivors into
the nearby church and put most of them to the sword, in violation of the right
The Intervention of the Papacy
169
of sanctuary. They stripped the dead of their armor, piled the bodies in a heap,
and brought in the natives to convince them that they reigned supreme. They
extracted oaths of obedience from the prisoners and allowed some of them to
return to their lands in Estonia. The Swordbrothers armies then swept through
Estonia and Livonia, occupying legatine lands and punishing legatine supporters,
including members of the von Buxhoevden family, who were heavily fined.
Baldwin escaped to Diinamunde, where he was besieged by the Swordbrothers
and their allies from Riga. The Swordbrothers released Master Volquin after
three months’ captivity and restored him to office, for he would be needed when
the pope heard the myriad appeals that were being directed to him. Besides that,
the knights respected and loved their commander. Volquin resumed his duties
and directed the operations against legatine supporters in Estonia and Semgallia.
In December he persuaded the somewhat unnerved Bishop Nicholas to ignore the
legate’s instructions and move ahead with dividing the lands conquered in
Estonia. He refused to attack Diinamunde, where the legate had taken refuge.
Baldwin fought back as best he could. Because his former allies were
cowed or out of the fight (Dorpat was under Russian attack), he sought out new
ones. He solicited accusations of Swordbrother misdeeds from the converts,
offered concessions in Kurland and Estonia to Rigan merchants, attempted to
make an alliance with the nobles in Dorpat, and invited new vassals from
Germany. He was making considerable headway in heaping disrepute upon his
enemies when a letter arrived in the spring of 1234 announcing the termination
of his mission.40
Pope Gregory had learned, at last, that he had been deceived. Petitions from
Livonia and information supplied by William of Modena had convinced him that
Baldwin’s ambitions were immoral and impractical, and he granted William’s
request to be sent back to Livonia as papal legate. The papal announcement
dismayed Baldwin, but he did not despair: he hurried to Rome yet again to
explain the situation to the pope, but it was too late. Pope Gregory had already
made up his mind, and although he was angry with the crusading order, he
refrained from reversing his decision. Instead, he ordered Nicholas, Hermann,
Volquin, and representatives of Riga to come to him and personally explain their
conduct. The pope would not be deceived again; he would supervise the hearings
himself, if necessary.41
Delay would prove fatal to Baldwin’s ambitions, and William of Modena’s
depositions would have the same effect. Baldwin was never again to enter
Livonian politics. He charged his many enemies with heresy, impiety, and
disobedience, but the Inquisition, not yet strongly organized, was particularly
weak in Germany and non-existent in Livonia. Unable to destroy his enemies,
he passed from the Baltic scene, and with his passing went the privileged
position of the Cistercians. Because the Cistercians had supported their ambitious
fellow monk, the crusading order and the citizens of Riga turned from them to
the Dominicans, who had first come to Livonia with William of Modena. The
Cistercian influence, dating from the earliest days of the crusade, declined
everywhere except in the diocese of Dorpat.
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THE BALTIC CRUSADE
William of Modena was slightly delayed on his journey to Livonia by the
Danish blockade of Liibeck and by requests that he mediate the dispute between
the archbishop of Bremen and the Stedingen peasants; therefore he did not sail
from Germany before the summer of 1234. Once he arrived in Livonia, he acted
with great swiftness to restore peace and order. He annulled all of Baldwin’s acts
and then redivided the lands, giving the larger share to the crusading order. He
installed a new bishop in Oesel-Wiek (a Dominican named Heinrich in place of
the absent Gottfried), confirmed Bishop Hermann’s transfer to Dorpat, and
established a bishopric in Kurland in addition to the one in Semgallia—in the
former he placed a priest named Engelbert who in 1240 would be murdered in
an uprising, the latter he reserved for Gottfried, who seems to have died about
this time. It should be noted that William did not surrender any of the theoretical
rights of the papacy; he merely acted in the most practical manner to end the
civil dispute.42
This meant that Master Volquin was the dominant figure in central Livonia.
He clearly overawed Bishop Nicholas, whom he must have spoken with regularly
in Riga. Volquin, lackly this same contact with the other bishops and vassals,
was not able dominate them in a similar fashion. Soon enough he was quarreling
with Bishop Hermann, the vassals on Oesel-Wiek led by Theodoric von Ropp
and Johann von Lode, and other former allies of the late Bishop Albeit
Papal involvement in the Livonian crusade had brought the Swordbrothers
to power—an outcome Bishop Albert could not have foreseen when he sent for
a papal legate a decade earlier. Albert had triumphed in 1224 because of
unexpected events in Germany and Livonia, and the Swordbrothers now came
to the fore as a result of equally unexpected developments. Master Volquin faced
the task of consolidating the order’s position. However, by assuming the
leadership of the crusade, he was also assuming new risks which would soon
bring about the Swordbrother’s downfall.
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171
ENDNOTES
1.	Donner, Kardinal Wilhelm von Modena, 4-46.
2.	Ibid., 47-48.
3.	It is at this point that documents become the basic source for the history of
the crusade. Henry’s chronicle, which may have been written to explain the
history of the crusading venture in Livonia to William of Modena, ends as he
appears. Fortunately, at the very moment that this marvelous narrative source
ends, the documentary evidence becomes more extensive and detailed—thanks
to William’s activities. See Urkundenbuch, I, nos. 75f, and III, 73a and
following; James Brundage, "The Thirteenth-Century Livonian Crusade: Henricus
de Lettis and the First Legatine Mission of Bishop William of Modena,"
JahrbUcher fur Geschichte Osteuropas, 20 (1972), 1-9.
4.	Henry of Livonia, 239; Benninghoven, Schwertbriider, 194-206.
5.	Urkundenbuch, I: nos. LXXV-LXXXIX; 3: nos. LXXXII and LXXXIIa.
Lloyd, English Society and the Crusade, 154-97, describes how individual
knights prepared for such a journey.
6.	Henry of Livonia, 236-37.
7.	Ibid., 239; Hellmann, Das Lettenland im Mittelalter, 223.
8.	Usinger, Deutsch-ddnische Geschichte, 347f.
9.	Benninghoven, Schwertbriider, 194-222; Erich Weise, Die Amtsgewalt von
Papst und Kaiser und die Ostmission (Marburg: Herder, 1971), 45 46.
10.	Benninghoven, Schwertbriider, 206-17. "Man muss daher vermuten, dass ein
unwesentlicher Teil der Schwertbriider selbst dem Kaufmannstande entsprossen
war." Paul Johansen, "Die Bedeutung der Hanse fur Livland," Hansische
Geschichtsblatter, 55-56 (1940-1941): 25.
11.	William Urban, "Medieval Livonian Numismatics," Journal of Baltic Studies,
24/l(Spring 1993), 37-52.
12.	Sachsische Weltchronik, 246-47. Also see the Holsteinische Reimchronik, in
Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Deutsche Chronicon, ed. Ludwig Weiland
(Berlin: Weidmann, 1877), 620-24; Egon Boshof, "Die Entstehung des
Herzogtums Braunschweig-Liineburg," Heinrich der Lowe, 264-5.
13.	Henry of Livonia, 245-46.
14.	Urkundenbuch, III, no. 99a; VI, no. 2716, 2718-2719; Benninghoven,
Schwertbriider, 248-249.
15.	Transehe-Roseneck, Livlandfahrer, 63-4; this organization remains in
existence. See Die Baltischen Ritterschaften (ed. Ernst V. Miihhendahl. Limburg:
Starke, 1973); Zur Geschichte der Ritterschaften von Livland und Oesel
(Pfaffenhofen/Ilm, 1974); Axel von Gemet, Die Harrisch-Wirische Ritterschaft
unter der Herrschaft des Deutschen Ordens bis zum Erwerb der Jungingenschen
Gnade (Reval: Kluge, 1893), 4-11, and Die Anfdnge der Livlandischen
Ritterschaften (Reval: Kluge, 1895), 15-20.
16.	Hartmut Boockmann, Der Deutsche Orden (Miinchen: Beck, 1981), 86-93.
172
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
17.	Christian Krollmann, Politische Geschichte des Deutschen Ordens in
Preussen (Konigsberg: Grafe und Unzer, 1932). As early as 1230, Pope Gregory
warned the Teutonic Knights not to interfere in lands occupied by the Livonian
crusaders (Urkundenbuch, 3: no.CXLIVb). William Urban, The Prussian Crusade
(Washington: University Press of America, 1980), 79-129; Christiansen, Northern
Crusades, 100-1; Stems, "The Teutonic Knights in the Holy Land," 360-362.
18.	Hucker, "Der Plan eines christlichen KOnigreiches," 108-125; Schmidt, "Zur
Geschichte der Stedinger," 46-58; Albrecht Eckhardt and Heinrich Schmidt,
Geschichte des Landes Oldenburg (Oldenburg: Heinzholzberg, 1988), 115-123.
19. Bippen, Aus Bremens Vorzeit, 132-33; King, Chronicles of Three Free Cities,
51-53; the Count of Amstein was in Livonia despite this distraction
(Reimchronik, 1. 1647); Riley-Smith, The Crusades, 166.
20.	The Archbishop made it difficult for crusaders to embark from Lubeck, as
they first had to cross his territories. Complaints were to go all the way to Rome
for years to come, but the Archbishops maintained their pretensions to the
patriarchate of the North just as they had in the past. Hamburgisches
Urkundenbuch, 1:422.
21.	Riga was bound to Lubeck by treaty in opposition to the Danes.
Urkundenbuch, I: no. 98.
22.	Such as Friedrich Tumme, stationed in Lauenburg in 1232. Ritterbriider, 658.
23.	Johansen, Estlandliste, 707-10.
24.	Transehe-Roseneck, Livlandfahrer, (A-Tl.
25.	Hausmann commented: "Was uns hier fur Geschichte iiberliefert wird, ist fast
nur ein Gebilde der Phantasie, bei welchem wir nur mitunter im Stande sind, den
Wegweiser zu ahnen, der die einzelne Richtung bestimmt hat, bei dem es aber
unmOglich is, jeden einzelnen Schritt zu егкйгеп." Das Ringen der Deutschen
und Ddnen um den Besitz Estland, 106.
26.	MugureviCs, "Aspekte der Kulturkommunikation anhand archSologischer
Funde im baltischen Raum," 448-449.
27.	Ibid., 441-458, demonstrates the many areas where the tools and items used
in daily life were to have been modified by contact with the crusaders. However,
the farther native settlements were from the cities and castles, the less influence
there was (and this was apparent only a relatively short distance from the foreign
settlements. Consequently, western historians have exaggerated the influence of
Germany and Scandinavia and ignored the culture continuity with developments
to the east. It might be noted that Russian historians have compensated by
leaning in the opposite direction.
28.	Urkundenbuch, III, no. 100a, Pope Gregory ordered the bishop to halt all
trade with the Russians who were attacking the Finnish church.
29.	John Alexander, Bubonic Plague in Early Modern Russia (Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins, 198Й), 12; Chronicle of Novgorod, 72-77.
30.	Fennell, Crisis of Medieval Russia, 71-73.
31.	The sudden decline in Bishop Albert’s status is striking, in spite of the lands
and position he and family members held. He was bishop of Riga, Hermann was
bishop of Dorpat, Rothmar was prior in Dorpat, his brother-in-law Engelbert of
The Intervention of the Papacy
173
Thisenhusen was in Dorpat, and Theodoric had lands around Riga. Furthermore,
Johann von Apeldom, a half-brother, had been to Livonia on crusade, and several
cousins held lands in the countryside. See Gnegel-Waitschies’ Bischof Albert, and
Benninghoven’s Schwertbriider, 223-53, 380-412.
32.	Benninghoven, Schwertbriider, 269-70; Donner, Kardinal Wilhelm von
Sabina, 112-59; Johansen, Estlandliste, 717.
33.	Johansen (Estlandliste, p. 717) suggests that Cardinal Otto may have
instructed Baldwin to injure Emperor Frederick П in every way possible. Since
the Swordbrothers were closely connected with him, he may have seen an attack
upon them as a means of assisting the pope in Italy. Donner (Kardinal Wilhelm
von Sabina, p. 112) suggests that he was continuing William of Modena’s policy
in separating Estonia from Livonia for the protection of the natives.
34.	Benninghoven, Schwertbriider, 276.
35.	Benninghoven, "Zur Rolle des Schwertbriiderordens,” 174-175.
36.	Benninghoven, Schwertbriider, 257.
37.	Hermanni de Wartberge, "Chronicon Livonia,” in Scriptores rerum
Prussicarum, ed. Theodore Hirsch, Max Toppen, Ernst Strehlke (Leipzig: S.
Hirzel, 1863), 2: 32 (hereafter cited as Herman de Wartberge); Albert von Stade,
p. 360; "Auszug aus der Chronik des Ordens vom deutschen Hause," in
Scriptores Rerum Livonicarum, ed. A. Hansen (Riga and Leipzig: E. Franzen,
1853), II: 848. Baldwin accused two knights of heresy, but the charges were so
outrageous that the Swordbrothers refused to hand them over for trial.
Ritterbriider, 308, 595-596.
38.	In a long series of documents in the collection Liv-, Est-, und Kurldndisches
Urkundenbuch are treaties, letters, and occasional lengthy complaints. These
documents, which need not be cited here, are the basis of the reconstructions
made by twentieth-century historians. Above all, see Benninghoven, Schwert-
briider, 272-279.
39.	Urkundenbuch, I: nos. CXV-CXXIV. Christiansen, Northern Crusades, 97-
98.
40.	Johansen,Estlandliste,! 17-28; Benninghoven,Schwertbriider, 279-301; Peter
von Goetze, Albert Suerbeer, Erzbischof von Preussen, Livland und Ehstland (St.
Petersburg: W. Graff, 1854), 123-27; Donner, Kardinal Wilhelm von Sabina,
166-67; Paul Johansen, "Eine Riga-Wisby Urkunde des. 13. Jahrhunderts,
"Zeitschrift des Vereins fur liibeckische Geschichte, 38 (1958): 43; for Johann
Selich, see Ritterbriider, 595-6.
41.	February 21, 1234. Urkundenbuch, I, no. 132.
42.	Donner, Kardinal Wilhelm von Sabina, 169-78; Johansen, Estlandiste, 111,
730-32; Benninghoven, Schwertbriider, 302-304.
*
174
Plates
Plate I: Christ Leading His Crusaders.
Bildarchiv Foto Marburg (Phillipps Universitat, Marburg/Lahn, Germany).
Plate II: Medieval walls and towers of Reval (modern Tallinn).
Johann-Gottfried-Herder-Institut Bildarchiv (Marburg/Lahn).
Plate III: The Danish castle in Reval (Tallinn).
Johann-Gottfried-Herder-Institut Bildarchiv (Marburg/Lahn).
Plate IV: View of Reval, Published by Merian, 1652.
Johann-Gottfried-Herder-Institut Bildarchiv (Marburg/Lahn).
Plate V:
The Church of St. George in Riga, 1226.
Bildarchiv Foto Marburg (Marburg/Lahn).
Plate VI: Tomb of Bishop Meinhard in Riga Cathedral.
Bildarchiv Foto Marburg (Marburg/Lahn).
Plate VII: Castle at Klaipeda (Memel) in the sixteenth century.
Lithuanian National Museum (Vilnius).
Plate VIII: Cavalry ornaments, ninth-fourteenth centuries.
Lithuanian National Museum (Vilnius).
r.i'O naii rz?i’4 L!
(G WilRiiska)
Plate IX: The Castle at Lyda.
Lithuanian National Museum (Vilnius).
И. Л A

Plate X: The Castle at Gardinas.
Lithuanian National Museum (Vilnius).
А- -Л.
iIE : nai? jsz::tet! Тпел,!-.'’;
(G WileiiskaJ
• i **<'. uki! I ‘ .!!- .. . . .im . Г- —
"ip . :a.
Plate XI: Ruins of Trakai Castle (nineteenth century).
Lithuanian National Museum (Vilnius).

G.Wileiiska

Plate XII: Ruins of Kreva Castle.
Lithuanian National Museum (Vilnius).
CnWileiiska
Plate Х1П: Ruins of Medininkai Castle.
Lithuanian National Museum (Vilnius).
Plate XIV: Ruins of Naugardukas Castle.
Lithuanian National Museum (Vilnius).
W	2ГЛ. fljUUL ' X '1'ь'к £BIECY>1 М.• Т1У г
Plate XV: View of Vilnius with the Bernardin Church (De Fratribus Minoribus).
Lithuanian National Museum (Vilnius).
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE TEUTONIC KNIGHTS TAKE CHARGE
The civil war begun by Baldwin of Aina had sapped the strength of the
crusader states in Livonia and had discouraged armed pilgrims from traveling
there, but it would be an error to attribute the decline in the number of crusaders
solely to that dispute, shocking as it must have been to pious contemporaries.
The political situations in Germany and Denmark were more responsible for the
problems faced by the rulers of the Livonian crusader states in the fourth decade
of the thirteenth century, because they made it difficult to recruit a sufficient
large number of volunteers to conquer the remaining pagan peoples along the
coastline; and unless those pagans, especially the Lithuanians, were neutralized—
either by overrunning them, converting them, си* making them into allies—the
cost of defending the frontiers against their attacks could become too great for
the slender resources of the crusaders to sustain.
War in North Germany
The foremost political problem of the time concerned leadership in the Holy
Roman Empire. At last, the German princes had begun to understand that
Frederick II had little interest in German problems, that he saw the Empire
largely as a reservoir of men and money to be used for his Italian ventures, and
that he would modify royal prerogatives only if he were pressed to do so. Once
they understood the implications of his position, they extorted concessions from
him, especially in new definitions of territorial lordship, so that eventually the
only real authority from above was to be drawn from a weak feudal oath of
loyalty given to his person. The potential for the reassertion of imperial authority
remained, as the balance of power among nobles, clerics, and burghers could be
tipped by the ruler’s personal intervention, and he did dispose of considerable
income obtained from taxes, payments, fines and fees. The magnificence of the
imperial court and the exotic personality of Frederick II dazzled the relatively
uncouth German nobility, but, in fact, those nobles were learning to rule their
lands without royal direction. The princes maintained relative peace and security
because Frederick П had so neglected German affairs that they had learned to
manage without his aid or intervention, relying on the Landfriede to establish
peace locally and upon regional associations to respond to international problems.
As early as 1227, northern princes had defeated the Danes without imperial help;
now they were seeking a new equilibrium, and the process tended to hurt the
crusade to Livonia.'
The Danes, expelled from nexthem Germany after the battle of Bornhoeved,
made no effort to recover their losses but sought a position of influence within
the new system instead. King Waldemar gave up his control of Mecklenburg and
Holstein, retaining only his claims to Lubeck. This city was important not simply
176
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
because of its wealth but because it was the key to the Baltic trade. If Waldemar
could reestablish his authority there, he could also force his enemies in the east
to submit. In light of this, the marriage of his son, Abel of Schleswig, to the
daughter of Adolf IV had great significance because both were interested in
dominating Lubeck and taxing its wealth. United through marriage and common
interests, the rulers of Denmark and Holstein blockaded Lubeck by land and by
sea, thus threatening to sever Livonia’s communication line to Germany.2
The city fathers of Lubeck complained to the pope that their enemies were
hindering the crusade, and the pope asked his legate, William of Modena, to see
that the sea lanes were reopened to crusaders; but the papal action was too slow.
When the merchants expressed their unwillingness to sit idly by while their
commerce was ruined, the Lubeck council hired Duke Albrecht of Saxony as the
city advocate. Albrecht then forced Adolf to cease his interference with road
traffic. Waldemar’s blockade on the Trave River was more serious, however, and
Albrecht was not powerful enough to overawe the king. The merchants, looking
downriver to the Danes’ two castles and the heavy chain attached to sunken
hulks, must have realized that their independence was contingent upon capturing
the castles and removing the chain. Detmar's account of the Liibeckers’ victory
is probably distorted, but somehow the citizens forced the Danish monarch to lift
his blockade or perhaps the current simply washed the hulks away, so that the
barrier was useless. Once the merchant captains could enter the Baltic Sea, they
routed the Danish fleet and liberated a number of Wendish cities (which became
the nucleus of the Hanseatic League). Soon aware of their newly found power,
the citizens began to sign treaties, coin money, hold tournaments, and make war
and peace—like any other sovereign state. A new era and a new power were
bom.3
Count Adolf ceased to strive for worldly glory and turned increasingly to
things spiritual, building and endowing churches and cloisters throughout
Holstein. In fact, he became so preoccupied by these works that he did not
participate in the great disturbances in the diocese of Hamburg-Bremen.4
Even if the blockade of Lubeck had been lifted before 1234 there would have
been few crusaders to Livonia because of the crusade against the peasants north
of Bremen. This crusade had come about because Archbishop Gerhard II, after
failing to raise money from the citizens of Bremen, had tried to impose
additional taxes upon the peasants of Stedingen. In the ensuing strife, the
peasants had slain Gerhard’s brother in a pitched battle on Christmas Day in
1229. Thus, in addition to Gerhard’s belief that only by collecting such taxes
could he rebuild his war-shattered fortune and achieve his political ambitions, he
now had revenge as a motive for war as well. Determined to crush all resistance,
whatever the cost, he unleashed one of the cruelest crusades ever recorded.
In 1230, Archbishop Gerhard, knowing that he could not suppress the
peasantry without outside aid, used the papal call for crusaders to Prussia to
assemble a council of provincial churchmen who formally condemned the
peasants as rebels and heretics. He then asked his neighbors and the pope for
assistance against them. The Albigensian crusade provided a model for his
The Teutonic Knights Take Charge	177
action, and there were grounds for his accusations of heresy: superstition was rife
throughout medieval Europe, especially in rural areas; moreover, plays and
buffoonery were common on holidays, on which occasions the Stedingers
apparently mocked churchmen and their tax-collectors. Every community was
probably guilty of similar "heresies,” but the others paid their tithes, and the
Stedingers refused to do so. The pope cooperated with the archbishop by issuing
crusading bulls in 1231,1232,1233, and 1234 against the peasants of Stedingen.
The counts of Oldenburg struck immediately. Gerhard, however, was unable to
attack before 1233, because he needed the naval support provided by the
merchants of Bremen. He won their help by promising them permanent remission
of taxes and tolls, good coinage, proper justice, relief from military service, and
one-third of all the booty won in the campaign. Thus Bremen won her civic
liberties by helping to enserf her neighbors. This was not an unusual occurrence,
however, as the cities and the countryside had never worked together.5 A local
chronicler described the confused struggle in these terms:
Just before Pentecost of 1233 Duke Otto [the Child of Braunschweig]
sent his men and ravaged around Bremen, because he wanted to help the
Stedingers. He wanted the lands back that his cousin, Duke Heinrich, had
given to Bremen. So he went to Stade and ravaged the land. Meanwhile
the crusaders came to Bremen and went out in a great army, both in
ships and over land, and captured the eastern part in mid-summer on
Saint John and Paul’s Days and ravaged and burned all the land, and
slew everyone they found, men, women, and children, more than four
hundred of them, and the men they captured, they burned alive.
Meanwhile the Stedingers killed Count Burchard of Oldenburg and two
hundred of his men.6
The peasants thus beat back the main threat. And Count Burchard of
Oldenburg-Wildeshausen, crusader to Livonia in 1215 and 1224, was dead.
Because the Lippe and Oldenburg families competed for possession of the
bishoprics of Utrecht, Paderborn, Osnabriick, Munster, and the archbishopric of
Hamburg-Bremen, Gerhard was probably not unhappy that a hereditary enemy
of his family had suffered such disaster, but he needed all the help he could get
against the peasants and requested the support of Burchard’s brother, Heinrich.
Although the Stedingers suffered terrible losses on the right bank of the
Weser, their position was still strong on the left bank. Cut off and thus protected
on the north by the Weser, on the west by a number of smaller rivers, and on the
south by drainage canals, they had only one land route to defend—to the east,
where the canals failed, but just barely, actually to connect with another small
over. They built a wall and dike there but actually relied more on the forest in
the area. The canals made it difficult for cavalry to penetrate their lands,
although now that Bremen had joined their enemies, the merchants’ navy could
carry hostile forces to any frontier. Even so, the archbishop and the count had
no convenient place from which to begin an attack—all the castles in the vicinity
178
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
had been destroyed by the Stedingers and tent camps were vulnerable to surprise
attacks. The peasants could raise perhaps 6,000 men for their phalanx, and that
many men, in a mass bristling with spears and axes, could repel even mailed
knights; and so the Stedingers fought with a confidence bom of experience and
proven courage.7
The archbishop had sought, and obtained, additional papal support. Papal
letters urged the Bishops of Lubeck, Ratzeburg, Minden, Paderborn, Hildesheim,
Verden, Munster, and Osnabriick to send men and money. Dominicans,
Cistercians, Franciscans, Praemonstratensians, and Benedictines preached the
crusade. And nobles urged their friends and relatives to defend their class
interests. Thousands took the cross and came to the aid of the archbishop,
including Count Heinrich of Oldenburg-Wildeshausen. Even the Welf chieftain,
Otto the Child, gave lip service to the enterprise. However, Otto’s knights did not
participate in the crusade; instead, they continued their attacks on the
archbishop’s lands. Interestingly, Pope Gregory’s fiery denunciations of
1233—which had been effective in forcing recalcitrant nobles to participate in
the "Stedingen Crusade” that year—were completely absent now. Apparently his
advisor, Hermann von Salza, had spoken on behalf of the peasants and had
furthermore been in contact with William of Modena, the papal legate to the
Baltic. As a result, Gerhard carefully avoided meeting William of Modena, who
might have ended the dispute peacefully, and launched his attack on Stedingen.
A chronicler summarized this complicated campaign in these words:
The duke of Brabant took the cross, as did the count of Holland, the
count of Cleves, and many other noble men, against the Stedingers, and
led the great force overland. The count of Holland went with many ships
on the Weser. In all one estimated forty thousand crusaders who went
into the land on Saint Urban’s Day. The Stedingers came out to meet
them and there was a great battle.8
Apparently the Stedingers chose a battlefield at Aldenesch, a field lying
behind the dikes and only barely above the water, so that ditches and the high
water table turned the meadow into a bog. The battlefield was to be a muddy
trap in which they might ensnare and massacre the crusaders. In any case, the
mud would so impede their cavalry that it would be a close fight. The armies
were probably of equal size, with perhaps 4,000 or 5,000 men on each side, and
the battle was hotly contested. After arranging their lines, the knights charged
into the peasant formation, and then, after desperate fighting, they retreated and
regrouped. We are told that "the priests, who stood in the distance and awaited
the outcome of the affair, sang ‘media in vita in morte sumus,’ and other
sorrowful^tunes sadly and prayed for the victory of the cross."9
A second charge also failed to break the peasants’ lines, and Count Heinrich
of Oldenburg fell in the melee. The knights reformed and attacked a third time,
and again the peasants held their ground. Bodies covered the field, and horses
and broken and discarded weapons were piled into heaps or mired in the mud.
At that point the count of Cleves succeeded in flanking the Stedingers and
fhe Teutonic Knights Take Charge	179
charged into their rear. The crusaders offered no terms and took no prisoners, as
the peasants died where they stood, resisting to the last.
The following day the victors gave up the attempt to separate the dead on
either side, dug a great pit which, when filled with the bodies of the slain,
resulted in a mound which stands to this day above the level field of Aldenesch,
and buried crusader and heretic alike. After receiving the submission of those
Stedingers who survived, the crusaders returned to Bremen for a festival (which
became an annual event down to the nineteenth century, when more liberal minds
saw to its abolishment). Gerhard had his victory, but it was a hollow one. The
area, ravaged and depopulated, produced few taxes for many years. In the end,
all he had was revenge for his brother who had fallen in combat against the
peasants five years earlier.10
This cnisade undoubtedly diverted crusaders from Livonia, as Bremen and
the Rhineland had been prime recruiting grounds. Saxony was also distracted by
the quarrel between the Welf duke, Otto the Child of Liineburg, and the
Hohenstaufen adherent, Gerhard П of Bremen. This altercation was ended only
in 1234 after negotiations created a duchy of Braunschweig-Limeburg for the
Welf and Otto swore an oath of fealty to Frederick during the imperial visit to
Germany the next year. Only afterward, when peace was restored in northern
Germany, were significant numbers of cnisaders again able to sail to Livonia.11
The German princes changed somewhat as a result of their experiences
during these years. They were not particularly active in the years to follow, being
more concerned with establishing permanent territorial lordships in order to
inhibit the process of change through the same use of threats and violence which
had marked the rise of Henry the Lion and his rivals in the previous century.
Already such crude methods had been falling into disrepute, to a certain extent
even into disuse. In 1235 Frederick П crossed the Alps long enough to establish
a new constitutional order, the Constitutio Pads, which granted secular princes
sovereign rights similar to those the ecclesiastical princes had received in 1220.
After having made a great impression at gigantic assemblies of nobles and at the
dedication of St. Elizabeth’s shrine in Marburg/Lahn, Frederick rode back over
the mountains, never to return. In the following years he would ignore those
remaining problems of his vassals which he considered minor in order to
concentrate on his own efforts to subdue the communes in Italy. Since no single
princely family in north Germany was strong enough to overawe or frighten its
neighbors, the political equilibrium Frederick created was not in the least
threatened. Even Otto the Child was content to live in peace now that his rights
were guaranteed. There were feuds and even wars, of course—death-cries from
the struggle of Empire and Church in Italy echoed throughout Germany from
Austria to Holland—but in a war-ridden era like the German Middle Ages, peace
was a relative term, not an absolute. Without the constant threat of force,
reinforced as it had been by factional strife, the local rulers made slow headway
ln organizing the confusion of political entities, economic alliances, and
°verlapping claims to jurisdiction, taxes, and immunities in their regions; they
discovered that all the lesser powers—the burghers, abbots, peasant communes,
180
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
and even their own vassals—assisted one another openly and covertly to maintain
the status quo, at least to hinder any prince in so strengthening himself by
denying one individual’s dubious claims that he could potentially deprive others
of their traditional rights. In years to come, when marriage would become a
principal means of family advancement, uxorious nobles looked on helplessly as
cities and mercantile associations took advantage of imperial charters to grow
and flourish, ignoring both his vassals’ shrill demands for the payment of taxes
and tolls and Frederick Il’s feeble efforts to limit their autonomy. The benefits
of peace were obvious. But the decline in the princes’ self-aggrandizement, their
joy in waging war, and their lust for fame and money was accompanied by a
weakening of the very civilizing and christianizing impulse that had spread
western culture to the east The crusade to the Holy Land lost popularity, as well
as the crusade to Livonia.
The Swordbrothers Seek New Conquests
The only Germans who retained an interest in Baltic affairs were the
merchants, who began to organize and advance their special interests there. And
since the merchants’ personal service as warriors was less important than their
economic assistance, the changing attitude toward the crusade in Livonia meant
fewer contributions of hard cash and less willingness to transport men and
material cheaply. Although there was no sudden and drastic decline in the
number of volunteers sailing east, they became steadily less important for
military operations. Nevertheless, because the enemy was more formidable than
before, even larger crusading armies were needed.
The pope continued to encourage nobles to sail across the Baltic to the aid
of the Rigans, and in 1235 the count of Haseldorf (from Holstein) and the count
of Dannenberg took the cross to Livonia, where the Swordbrothers, who
exercised hegemony in Livonia, had faced serious difficulties since the time of
their quarrel with Baldwin of Aina. Although William of Modena had restored
peace and stability, he had not been able to restore the brothers’ respectability.
Nor had he been able to reconcile them with the powerful families, particularly
the Buxhoevdens, the kin of the late Bishop Albert. Nor had King Waldemar
given up his claims to Estonia—a particularly troublesome quarrel. The
Swordbrothers regarded their income from Estonia as absolutely vital, and its
uninhabited areas could be exploited in the future. For these reasons they kept
a firm grip on the land and refused to return it to the Danish monarch.12
Money was at the heart of the problem, as the Swordbrothers needed a large
army and numerous castles to defend their lands. Natives made up the bulk of
the infantry, but westerners were needed as officers for native units and as
garrison commanders, public officials, and trained knights. The Swordbrothers,
unable to recruit enough brothers and desperate for enlistments, admitted the sons
of burghers. Still, the number of brothers was not adequate. Nor were there
sufficient crusaders. They found it necessary to hire mercenaries to fill the ranks.
Since they could not tax the natives more heavily without provoking a rebellion,
fhe Teutonic Knights Take Charge	181
they had to increase the number of natives who could be taxed; expansion
through aggression would also increase the number of native warriors in their
armies.13 By this line of reasoning, the Swordbrothers had only one alternative
to a policy of expansion southward, and that was to attack Russia—a task too
difficult to attempt alone. Prospects to the south were better Semgallia and
Kurland had been occupied earlier, and the Swordbrothers had from time to time
defeated Lithuanian armies. They may have been lured by promises of
international cooperation: Russian and Polish dukes were being attacked by the
Lithuanian ruler Dausprungas and his younger brother, Mindaugas; and the
Teutonic Knights in Prussia were becoming increasingly aware of the existence
of the Lithuanians to the east of their battle zone in pagan Prussia. An attack on
Lithuania seemed desirable, practical, and necessary.
There were undoubtedly Christians who disagreed with this policy. The
Swordbrother offensive seemed to be unnecessarily aggressive even at this time.
To this the crusader leaders could point out that the Lithuanian rulers were
enriching their warriors and increasing their own power and reputation by
sponsoring plundering raids into Russia and Poland, just as they had been
stealing people and livestock from Livonia. Therefore, this was a "just war" in
defense of Christendom. Certainly it was more just than many other wars
Christians were fighting among themselves. In response, opponents could
concede that while war in Christian Europe was common, there, as in the Islamic
world, China, and India, everyone agreed that peace was the proper and just goal
of society, and that war was an aberration. To make converts, crusaders and
missionaries had to live up to their ideals better than they did in daily life at
home. The crusaders could then respond that pagans saw the world in a different
light, that the evil of war was less clear—steppe peoples, as well as the
Lithuanians of this era, thought of raids and plunder as a normal route to wealth
and prestige. In a very real sense, this attitude toward war was a major difference
between the civilized and uncivilized worlds. (Further elaboration of this point
is probably either unnecessary or unfruitful, since even today the dividing line
between those who agree instinctively or disagree on this point is firmly drawn.
It is, however, a question worth contemplating and debating, since the
ramifications of the potential answers go far beyond the bounds of medieval
history.)
While learned contemporaries debated the exact conditions of the "just war,"
the crusading orders acted on the assumption that non-Christians could not be
trusted to follow the difficult logical arguments by which Christians
demonstrated" that one conflict was necessary and proper, and another illegal
and immoral, much less accept unquestioningly the awkward fact that Christians
made war on one another. For the crusading orders, whose members were proud
to confess that they were simple, humble men, a supreme earthly judge existed
whose jurisdiction in such matters was final—the pope. As we shall see, they
were not always certain that the popes were well-advised, but they were
confident that the popes’ endorsement of holy war as a pious knight’s Christian
duty and a most worthy cause for every believer’s monetary contributions would
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THE BALTIC CRUSADE
serve to silence most potential critics. The popes’ repeated confirmation of the
necessary privileges by which the orders prepared themselves for war against the
enemies of Christendom and a general ignorance of the cultural and political
complexities were sufficient to justify "defending the converts" by repeated
armed attack on the neighboring pagans. When they heard of instances of pagan
attacks on Christian rulers—during which incursions verifiable atrocities and
insults to Christianity were in fact committed—they felt themselves doubly
assured of having right on their side.14
In 1235, the Swordbrothers, seeing no middle ground between expansion and
extinction, chose the former. Master Volquin began his attack on settlements
around Nalsen, perhaps using as a base the castle at Wolkenburg (named in his
honor) near Lake Rasno.15 A chronicler described the campaign:
The Master’s mind was on Lithuania and he was soon seen there. So he
rode to Nalsen and found a powerful army of heathens from
everywhere.They came toward him to their doom in uncounted numbers,
boasting and shouting. The Master addressed his men, "Mighty heroes,
think about why we have come here and give evidence of that now. If
you want to return home honorably, remain steadfast and undaunted.
With God’s help and with arms we should be able to cut our way
through." Then the entire army cried, "Let the speeches end, and let’s get
on with the exchange of spears and swords." And they all went into the
fight like a hungry falcon. Many pagans were slain by the Estonians. The
Letts were willing to suffer because they fought for glory, and the Livs
were good heroes who knew how to fight. Two thousand Lithuanians
were cut to pieces, and fell on the battlefield. The rest tired of the fight
and fled in all directions.16
No people had yet been conquered in a single campaign, nor were the
Lithuanians expected to capitulate. Master Volquin had only attacked a northern
district of the central highlands; he knew that Grand Duke Dausprungas and his
brother Mindaugas had plenty of men in reserve. Despite the signal victory,
therefore, Volquin’s Swordbrothers understood that they would not be able to
conquer, occupy, and then raise revenue from these Lithuanians in time to stave
off financial disaster. The Danish monarch, meanwhile, would have recovered
his strength, and Baldwin of Aina might be able to induce the pope to attack
them again. Also, a new crusade in Prussia was drawing potential crusaders away
from Livonia. Volquin, nevertheless, saw hope and opportunity: if he could
amalgamate his order into the Teutonic Knights, he would be able to resolve the
problems of money, recruitment, and papal authority.17
The Teutonic Knights
Founded in the Holy Land in 1190 as a medical order by crusaders from
Bremen and converted to a military order in 1197, the Teutonic Knights
(technically the Hospital of the Germans of St. Mary) had experienced
The Teutonic Knights Take Charge	183
spectacular growth in recent years. Patronage from both the emperor and the
nope, together with skilled leadership, had made the order wealthy and
influential. This also provoked the jealousy of the rival crusading orders,
especially the Templars, who took advantage of Frederick H’s grant of the
possessions belonging to a long-vanished Hospital of the Germans of St. Mary
in Jerusalem to claim lordship over them.” This jealousy persisted into the
coming years so that the Teutonic Knights never received (nor, probably,
solicited) assistance from other crusading orders—so much for the unity of the
medieval Church! Hermann von Salza, the grandmaster of the Teutonic Order for
many years, had been asked to take up many duties, including the arbitration
following the kidnapping of Waldemar of Denmark. He had sent his knights into
Hungary in 1211, at which time he practically established his order as an
independent state within the kingdom. Thirteen years later, King Bela came to
consider the Teutonic Knights as a menace and expelled them from his country.
As early as 1226 Duke Conrad of Masovia had invited Hermann to assist in a
crusade against the pagan Prussians. Hermann was not ready to dispatch knights
at that time, but he laid the groundwork for the future by obtaining from
Frederick II a grant of all the lands he could conquer. The principle of this
Golden Bull of Rimini, a rather vague permission to found an independent state
for the Teutonic Order, seems to have been Hermann’s interpretation of Conrad’s
subsequent invitations in 1228 and 1230 to come to Prussia. (This point, which
can never be fully verified because there is no record of the discussions between
the Polish duke and Hermann’s representatives, remains even today in dispute
between Polish and German historians—though the peace settlement of World
War Two, having eliminated all practical significance to the argument, has
resulted in a considerable lessening of rhetorical posturing on both sides.)19
Hermann sent a few knights who established themselves in a castle at Thom
(Тогой), and after the other German and Polish crusaders had returned home,
they continued to attack the pagans. Under the leadership of Hermann Balke,
they advanced down the Vistula, building new castles among the tribes they
conquered and employing the "converts" in battle against the tribes which still
remained pagan—the same strategy that had been followed in Livonia. By 1236
fortuitous circumstances left the Teutonic Knights the only force actively
pursuing the holy war against the Prussian pagans; within a few years they would
eliminate their remaining competition—an ambitious Cistercian bishop (who had
been taken prisoner by pagans and held for several years), the Polish and
Pomeranian dukes, and a minor crusading order. They were already bringing in
Germans, Poles, and Pomeranians to settle the woods and swamps; already they
were seeking to persuade or coerce the native Prussians into practicing communal
agricultural policies as were common in Germany and Poland. In short, they had
created a state for themselves in Prussia just as the older crusading orders had
done in the Holy Land and they themselves had sought to do in Hungary—and
as were the Swordbrothers hoping to establish for themselves in Livonia.20
Unlike the Swordbrothers in Livonia, the Teutonic Knights did not depend
upon their conquests for income. Their estates in Germany and Italy supplied
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THE BALTIC CRUSADE
them with men and money for the wars in the Holy Land and the Baltic, but,
unfortunately for the Swordbrothers, the Teutonic Knights were not willing to
share their fortune. Perhaps they would have been willing to absorb a minor
order, but they were not disposed to grant the kinds of concessions that would
involve great financial outlays or involve them in a distant war. Louis von
Naumburg, a recent recruit of the Teutonic Knights but a young man of obvious
talent and personal charm (who ultimately became grandmaster), probably spoke
on behalf of the Swordbrothers at the grand chapter. Louis may have been
Master Volquin’s son, bom before his father entered the Swordbrothers.21 In
any case, the attempt to unify the orders was not successful. Two knights22 had
been sent to Livonia to investigate the Swordbrothers, and when they returned
after a year of observing convent life, religious practices, and estimating their
assets, their report to the annual assembly at Marburg had not been favorable.
This report, combined with the Swordbrothers’ demand for autonomy within the
order, doomed the discussions.
These tidings were followed by worse news from Rome. Acting on a list of
charges prepared by Baldwin of Aina, the pope ordered the Swordbrothers to
appear before him and answer charges of disobedience, rebellion, and heresy.
The hearings took place in the winter of 1235-1236 at Viterbo. William of
Modena defended the order so forcefully that Baldwin of Aina retired in disgrace
to the Latin Empire of Constantinople, where he died a minor bishop. But the
Swordbrothers’ enemies were too numerous even for William. Perhaps inspired
by the Danes, the pope dispatched William as legate to preach the crusade to
Livonia and to resolve numerous quarrels in the Scandinavian kingdoms. Then
the aged pope rebuked the order for its misdeeds. Gregory’s verdict was the
order’s death blow: he decreed the return of Estonia to the Danish king and the
archbishop of Lund; compensation to its enemies for their losses in battle,
ransom, and incomes; and that all future disputes be appealed to the papal
curia.23
The Battle at Saule
No one can say how the Swordbrothers would have reacted to the papal
decision—whether they would have resisted to the last or bowed to the
inevitable—because the order did not survive long enough to face this dire
predicament. In 1236 an army of about 2,000 crusaders, led by the counts of
Haseldorf and Dannenberg,24 arrived in Riga and demanded to do battle against
the Lithuanians. This was a fearsome challenge, because the new ruler of central
Lithuania, Mindaugas, seems to have persuaded all the Lithuanians, including
even the Samogitians, to recognize his leadership in this struggle. (Dausprungas
would be gtend duke until 1238, but he does not seem to have been involved in
this campaign). Master Volquin’s resources were totally inadequate for a major
offensive. However, he could neither send the crusaders home nor waste their
time in garrison duty. He had to find a Lithuanian region which could be raided
safely. He wanted to strike a hard blow, but he had no illusions that it would be
decisive. Surprise was no longer possible. Surely Mindaugas had heard of the
The Teutonic Knights Take Charge	185
an-ival of the crusaders and would be waiting around Nalsen. Volquin’s
resolution of his problem was to summon 100 knights and 1,200 infantry, call
0 1,500 natives and 200 Russians from Pskov, and secretly march the entire
crusader force through Semgallia to attack a Samogitian settlement south of the
Saule River. Assuming that he had masked the movement successfully, the main
Lithuanian force would be too far to the east to intercept them. At first,
Volquin’s plan seemed to have worked; emerging from the wooded wilderness,
the crusaders fell upon the Lithuanians without warning.
They robbed and burned wonderfully in many bands, and ravaged up and
down the land freely. Then they returned by way of Saule through the
swamps and heath. Alas, it was a great misfortune that this campaign had
ever been conceived. As they came to a stream, they saw the enemy.
Few of those who had been so bold in Riga now rushed into battle. The
Master said to the best of them, "Fight now, it is the time. Your honor
is at stake! If we attack them at once, then we can proceed freely home."
But the worthy heroes said, "We don’t want to fight here. If we lose our
horses we will have to stand on foot." The Master answered, "So you
prefer to lose your heads here as well as your horses?" It happened as he
said. Many more heathens arrived. The next day the Christians decided
to ride away, but they had to fight the pagans. Their arms were weak in
the swamp, and they were cut down like women.25
It was a total disaster. The delay had been just long enough for Mindaugas’
main force to arrive. Faced by such formidable odds, the foot soldiers panicked
and dispersed in the woods. Those who escaped were able to do so only because
the master and some of his men sacrificed themselves to slow down the pursuit.
Forty-eight Swordbrothers perished, as well as Master Volquin and 2,000
crusaders and native allies. Lithuania was saved from further incursions for
several years, and Semgallia and Kurland reverted temporarily to paganism. It
was the end for the Swordbrothers’ hopes to rule over Livonia. It was as if
God’s judgment had confirmed the papal condemnation. The survivors—perhaps
fifty or sixty knights and 600 troops on garrison duty—appealed again to the
Teutonic Knights.
What happened in Lithuania in the ensuing years is a mystery. Grand Duke
Mindaugas, who may have been present at the battle, does not seem to have been
able to use the victory to consolidate his authority immediately—and he was
certainly not welcomed in Semgallia and Kurland. Nor did he attack Livonia,
where defenses were weak. Perhaps he sensed the lack of support he would find
arnong the native peoples, but more likely he judged Russia to be even more
vulnerable than Livonia and much more worth conquering. Russian sources
grudgingly yield us meager glimpses of the struggle of power between
Mindaugas and his rivals in these years, until, at last, seizing their "countless
fortune," he persuaded his brother-in-law, Vykintas, and nephews, Tovtivil
(Tertwil, Tautvilas) and Edyvidas (Erdvilas)—sons of the grand duke,
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THE BALTIC CRUSADE
Dausprungas and Vykintas’ sister—to move east. Their efforts to hold Smolensk
failed, but Tovtivil succeeded in becoming duke of Polozk, whose citizens were
now accustomed to being governed by Lithuanian nobles.26 Meanwhile,
Mindaugas extended his nile more completely over Samogitia and moved into
Jatwigia (Yatvigia), just to the south. Jatwigia was a small nation of fierce
pagans related to the Prussians who had been driven eastward in the twelfth
century by the Russian dukes of Galicia-Volhynia and the Polish dukes of
Masovia. Despite their dense forests and bottomless bogs, despite their reputation
as completely uncivilized beasts, they were briefly conquered in 1192 by King
Casimir of Poland. Thereafter the aggression came again from Volhynia, whose
armies were led by Duke Roman until his untimely death in 1205. The almost
total collapse of ducal authority in the decades to follow had given the
Lithuanians opportunities to ravage the border districts, weakening resistance so
that later attacks would be even more devastating. Although the strategic fort at
Gardinas (Grodno) was held by the Volhynian-Galician duke, Daniel
Romanovich, as late as 1240, during the previous decade he had given his
principal attention to Kiev—and, in fact, in the four years after 1234, first the
Hungarian king, then the Polish monarch, and finally Michael Vsevolodovich
(whom we had met earlier in Novgorod) had occupied Galicia. Daniel managed
to recover his duchy only in 1238 by appearing suddenly with his army while
Michael was in the north fighting Lithuanians.27 It was probably after the Tatars
invaded Galicia in 1241, driving Daniel in flight westward, that Gardinas came
into Mindaugas’ possession. Even so, the Jatwigians refused to recognize him as
lord, perhaps anticipating (correctly) that the Russian dukes would be back soon.
Novogrodek was the grand duke’s next most important acquisition, providing
access to the riches of Kiev. Mindaugas’ entrusting Novogrodek to his eldest son
suggests that he planned to expand southeast as soon as circumstances permitted.
In short, even before the Tatar attack Mindaugas sensed that Russia was weak.
He was interested in making himself master of the populous and wealthy cities
to the east and south, not in conquering impoverished Livonian tribes or
expelling a handful of foreign merchants and adventurers from their tiny
settlements along the coastline.28
The Swordbrothers, spared the trial of invasion and not forced to experience
the agony of insurrection, nevertheless recognized their desperate need for
replacements and reinforcements. Up to this point, the negotiations for the union
with the Teutonic Knights had continued at the papal court without making much
progress. The Swordbrothers would not give up their demand for autonomy or
surrender Estonia to the Danes, and the Teutonic Knights would not concede
these vital points. However, when news of the disaster at Saule arrived, the
Swordbrothers could hardly delay the union in hope of better terms. Apparently
Hermann Ion Salza, who was acting as mediator at Viterbo in the dispute
between the pope and the emperor, arranged an interview between the pope and
the Swordbiothers’ emissaries—a carefully staged ceremony the intent of which
was not imparted to the Swordbrothers. One of the eyewitnesses later wrote a
memoir about the ceremony of 14 May 1237:
ffie Teutonic Knights Take Charge	187
The Grandmaster summoned us to the Pope, and asked, "Are the mantles
here?” I said. "Yes." Then he told us to come quickly and said, "The
pope will do as we wish." Then the brothers from Livonia came and
kneeled before him. Then the Pope forgave them all their sins, both those
before entering the order and those after, and admonished them to honor
the order, and gave them the white mantle with the black cross. When
he gave them the mantles, I seized the old mantles; the chamberlain
grabbed also, and I pulled against him. Then our brother spoke, "Let it
be! They are his, and belong to him." When he returned to our convent
the Master asked, "Now tell me, brothers, what we have in castles and
lands?" I wanted to say then, but the others spoke, how rich the lands
were. The Master said that the Pope would not have allowed [the union],
except that the King would be returned his lands. Then brother Gerlach
spoke to me, "Brother Hartman! If it had not already taken place, then
it would not ever take place."29
It was the formal end of the Swordbrothers, now absorbed completely into
the Order of the Teutonic Knights. One might say that bankruptcy proceedings
had been concluded, and all that remained was the final disposition of the
remaining assets among the creditors—in spite of the shareholders’ demands that
the principal asset, Estonia, be retained. On the orders of the grand chapter which
met in Marburg, the master of Prussia, Hermann Balke, rode into Riga with
reinforcements in the summer of 1237 and installed his men as castellans and
advocates in some key positions, thereby alienating the Swordbrothers who had
held those offices.30 However, Master Balke was not a man to tolerate
insubordination. And insubordination is exactly what he encountered when he
informed the Swordbrothers of the papal orders to return Estonia to Waldemar.
Hermann Balke was a grizzled veteran of eight years of warfare against the
pagans in Prussia. He had led the first small contingent of five knights into battle
there, had founded cities, dealt with powerful dukes and counts, and quarreled
with William of Modena. The sixty knights he brought from Prussia were the
crusade’s salvation, he believed, and the former Swordbrothers had better
appreciate it!31
Possession of Estonia Disputed
The question of Estonia loomed over all the parties, threatening civil and
even international war. The question had arisen even before the Swordbrothers’
emissaries left the palace of Viterbo, and they pressed the new master to retain
all the disputed lands. Master Balke was in a difficult position, on one hand
wanting to satisfy the new members of his order and, on the other, forced to
°bey the papal instruction to return the lands to Waldemar. In an attempt to bring
about a solution, William of Modena returned to the Baltic to negotiate with the
contending parties. He had visited Denmark in 1236; he went to Estonia in 1237,
and after a visit to Prussia, was back in Denmark again in 1238. The careful
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THE BALTIC CRUSADE
investigations of several eminent historians reveal how very difficult these
negotiations were and how the conflicting claims and political relationships
boded ill for the crusade to Livonia.32
The Teutonic Knights wanted to end the dispute. It was too dangerous to
have a discontented and powerful monarch such as King Waldemar at then-
rear—a warlike neighbor who might fall upon them when they were deeply
committed elsewhere. It seemed particularly foolish, moreover, to postpone a
settlement if this same monarch might be converted into a firm ally. Then-
interests lay to the south, in Prussia, where they faced dangerous competition
from Svantopulk of Pomerania and Bishop Christian of Prussia, each of whom
wanted to evict the Teutonic Order from their valuable territory. The
international situation would continue to remain bleak, unless a settlement with
Denmark was forthcoming.
Fortunately for the Teutonic Knights, Waldemar II was embarrassed by
unrest in his own lands. Ever since his eldest son had died in a hunting accident,
the king had been plagued by jealousies among his other children. Abel, in
particular, was an obstinate and headstrong prince. Duke of Schleswig and regent
of Holstein for his nephews, he had considerable autonomy and authority, but he
desired more. Waldemar therefore sought to bring his sons together, fearing his
death would doom his kingdom to another era of civil war such as had beset
Denmark in past generations.
The secular knights in Estonia were unruly and thus were another potential
difficulty for the Teutonic Knights. The Swordbrothers had enfeoffed numerous
vassals with lands in Estonia, but after the battle of the Saule they could no
longer control them. The Teutonic Knights preferred to surrender Estonia to the
Danes rather than become involved in the endemic civil conflict between the
great lords and the newer arrivals. However, these German nobles did not want
the Danes to return and vowed to fight for their independence and lands if
necessary.
The pope, viewing all this dissension with distaste, concluded that Baldwin
of Aina may have been right after all. The crusade was stagnating and threatened
to become a disaster. Was there an alternative to papal leadership? Pope Gregory
wrote angry letters to William of Modena, urging him to bring the controversies
to a quick and decisive end, and he did so. Through his ceaseless travels and
negotiations, William brought the parties to a compromise after convincing them
they should look beyond the comparatively small territories of Estonia to the vast
stretches of Russia that lay east of them. He urged them to settle their grievances
and join in a vast crusade against Novgorod.
William, Hermann Balke, and Waldemar met at Stensby on the island of
Seeland, and after long negotiations the latter two signed a treaty, June 7,1238,
thereby ending all disagreements between them. The Teutonic Knights returned
Reval, Harrien, and Wierland to the king, and Hermann Balke retained Jerwen
for his order, which should have mollified the former Swordbrothers and their
friends but probably failed to do so. They agreed that, pending the arrival of
Danish officials, the Teutonic Knights would continue to supervise the
government of Estonia; but the order governed Estonia in a very unsatisfactory
The
Teutonic Knights Take Charge
189
anner, so that the more powerful vassals subjected the lesser ones or expelled
hem fr°m re8*on- Afterward the surviving nobles organized knightly
corporations to secure the rights and privileges they had won.
It is not easy to determine who was leading the Teutonic Knights in the years
to follow. Hermann Balke returned to Livonia only briefly to participate in some
of the military engagements around Pskov in 1238, then he returned to his home
jn Wurzburg, where he died in 1239.33 The Teutonic Order replaced him with
its most promising young officer, Dietrich von Griiningen, who had entered the
order at the time Count Conrad of Thuringia had taken his vows. Dietrich had
been Hermann von Salza’s first choice to lead the reinforcements from Prussia,
but the grand chapter had overruled the grandmaster on account of Dietrich’s
youth—he would have been about twenty-six. From 1238 to 1244 he was master
of the Livonian Order (as we often refer to this semi-autonomous branch of the
Teutonic Knights), though it should be noted that he was often absent—a man
of his talents was in constant demand—on business in Prussia and Germany.
Indeed, in 1239-40 he left his affairs in the hands of an assistant and from 1241
to 1243 in care of Andreas von Felben.34
The Invasion of Russia
That the Estonian knights hesitated to offer fealty to an unfriendly monarch
or to obey the bishop of Reval, a powerless royal appointee, is understandable.
Only by the promise of rewards in Russia and, later, by a guarantee of their
rights in Estonia could they be won over to support the treaty.35 Thus, the
crusade against the Russians in Novgorod was essential to the maintenance of
peace among the crusading states, for it united the Danes and their erstwhile
vassals in Estonia, as well as the Swedes, the von Buxhoevden supporters in
Livonia, the bishop and merchants in Riga, and the Teutonic Knights. William
of Modena lost little time in publicizing the new venture. The first to take the
cross was the count of Holstein:
In 1239 God’s Word came to him as I shall describe. The honorable
count decided upon a great venture. He wanted to do it for his soul’s
sake. He had to sail. Therefore he called on his son-in-law, Abel, to rule
Holstein and all its people...His countess went with him to that pious
land. Her name was Hedwig. They went to Livonia for the first time,
where they suffered much, just as they would have in the Holy Land.
When their sins were absolved...he decided to dedicate himself to Mary
and Saint Francis. He wanted to enter into the order of Saint Francis.36
Doubtless many others sought salvation through pious deeds on the
crusades—there were too many crusaders, and too many deeds requiring fortitude
and courage, for chroniclers to write about more than the most prominent
handful—but we know only that William and his contemporaries counted on
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THE BALTIC CRUSADE
such men as the count of Holstein to achieve the goals of the Church and bring
about peace on earth.
Unfortunately, because few men are visionary idealists like William of
Modena, historians see the motivation for the crusade against Novgorod
differently. Donner, who wrote the biography of William of Modena, saw his
hero as the faithful churchman who united the Christians against an external foe,
thus carrying forward the program of the Church Universal. Johansen, who
worked with Estonian documents, saw the ambitions of the Danish king and his
troublesome vassals as important motives. Benninghoven, who investigated the
Order of the Swordbrothers, saw the survivors of that organization as the
instigators of the push eastward. After all, over half the knights had
survived—either by escaping the battlefield or by having been on garrison
duty—and these refused to accept the incorporation into the Teutonic Order
unless all their preconditions were met, foremost of which was retention of
Estonia. Others, finally, tended to see either imperialist aggression or defensive
precaution in the attack on Novgorod. And certainly the allied crusaders
themselves saw numerous reasons for the advance eastward: it would relieve
domestic pressures; it would give credence to their professed raison d’etre, the
protection of the Church. Furthermore, they could christianize the remaining
pagans and force the Russians to recognize the supremacy of the Roman Church,
thus repeating the success of the Fourth Crusade against Byzantium in 1204.
Once they had brought the desultory warfare on the Russian frontier to an end,
they could turn with all their resources against the Lithuanians.
There was considerable hope that pro-western Russians would make the
campaign short and easy. Pskov, in particular, had been ruled alternately by pro-
and anti-western dukes. Many years before, Bishop Albert’s brother, Theodoric,
now Baron von Ropp in Wiek, had married into the ducal family; thereafter, in
periodic exile, his relatives had taken refuge in Livonia and had even held
important offices in Livonia while awaiting recall to their homeland. At this time,
1238, Jaroslav (son of the now deceased Vladimir of Pskov) was in Dorpat,
asking for help against his domestic enemies. German garrisons had been in
Pskov before, and now they could be reestablished, perhaps permanently.37
The crusaders could count on Swedish cooperation as well. For many years
the Swedes had maintained a hold on the Finnish coast and had expanded toward
the Novgorodian frontiers from time to time, only to be thrust back. The Swedish
force in the north and the German force in the south would make a two-prong
assault against a weakened Russian state.
The Tatar Impact
It is important to remember that the Novgorodians were particularly
vulnerable to attack at this moment. After the battle of the Saule, the Lithuanians
had granted a truce to the crusaders. This freed the crusaders to turn against
Pskov and Novgorod. The Russians were undoubtedly concerned when their local
forces were unable to prevent the Germans and their native allies from
plundering the lands along the border. But a greater danger, in their mind, even
The Teutonic Knights Take Charge
191
greater than the danger of Lithuanian attack, existed in the approach of the
Golden Horde, a nomadic army composed largely of Turks but led by Mongols.
A Russian chronicler bewailed their presence:
That same year foreigners called Tartars came in countless numbers, like
locusts...And who, brothers, fathers, and children, seeing this, God’s
infliction on the whole Russian land, does not lament? God let the
pagans on us for our sins. God brings foreigners on to the land in his
wrath, and thus crushed by them they will be reminded of God.38
The Russians, who had lived with the memory of the Mongol invasion of
1223, feared the return of the fierce steppe warriors of Genghis Khan, but they
were unprepared for the sudden assault that overran the eastern Russian states in
late 1237 under the leadership of the new khan, Batu; and this time the Mongols
did not depart. The failure to anticipate the attack has to be blamed on Grand
Duke Yuri. It is inconceivable that he had not heard of the Mongol successes
against the Bulgars and other steppe peoples east of the Volga in 1236, but he
took no steps to fortify cities, train soldiers, or organize the country for war.
When the invasion came in the early winter of 1237, the Golden Horde besieged
and captured one Russian city after another, penetrating as far as Gardinas.
Perhaps Yuri had not believed that a mounted force could operate through a
Russian winter without fodder, but whatever difficulty the Mongols and then-
allies had in feeding the ponies was clearly offset by greater mobility they had
over frozen swamps and rivers. In fact, Novgorod’s survival in March of 1238,
when the Mongol horsemen were only a few days’ ride away, may be credited
to the fear of a sudden thaw rather than to the city’s distant location on the
northwestern frontier. In the spring of 1239 the Mongols overran southern
Russia, in late 1240 stormed Kiev, and in the spring of 1241 invaded Poland.
After Grand Duke Yuri’s death, Jaroslav left Novgorod for Vladimir (now
indisputably a more important center than Kiev). The citizens of Lord Novgorod
the Great suddenly felt themselves vulnerable to attack from all directions—
Mongols, Lithuanians, Germans, and Swedes.
The Tatars chose Sarai as a suitable site for collecting taxes and tribute and
Karakorum in Mongolia for receiving the homage of now subordinate Russian
dukes. Jaroslav remained an effective grand duke, partly on the basis of his
subjects’ taxes and military service, partly because he was a favorite of the Tatar
khan and, like his sons, Constantine and Alexander (Nevsky), served in the Great
Khan’s armies, but most of all because he was the senior member of the dynasty
The Mongols were not yet ready to interfere in internal Russian affairs, but they
niade it clear that loyal service would not go unrewarded and treachery would
be punished. Jaroslav was twice required to travel to the khan, in 1243 and 1245-
6. He died on the last visit, probably poisoned as part of an inter-Mongol
struggle for supremacy. Succeeding Jaroslav was not his eldest son, Alexander,
but the second, Andrej. However, history is far more interested in the son passed
over, Alexander, who had been ruling Novgorod for six years.39
192
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
The sudden appearance of the steppe horsemen on the frontiers of the
European world and their unexpected successes against the Russians surprised
western Europeans. Stories circulated, reporting that hundreds of thousands of
savage riders—the vanguard of the anti-Christ—were whipping their shaggy
ponies westward to overrun all Europe. In fact, so little was known about this
new enemy that crusaders in the Holy Land welcomed their attacks on the
Moslem states and identified them with the forces of Prester John, the mythical
Christian king in the heart of Asia who, it was hoped, would join the crusaders
in recovering Jerusalem. Most of the stories of Mongol prowess were dismissed
by the proud nobility and clergy of the west, who remained confident of the
ability of their superior civilization to defend itself. Soon enough, however, those
same skeptics were to wonder if the stories had not been prophetic.40
The ferocity and skill of the Mongol warriors gave them a reputation that
magnified their number into a "horde," but their organization and tactics were
much more important than their numbers. Their discipline and mobility were
unequaled by any of their opponents; they seemed to be nowhere and yet
everywhere at once. Their scouts kept commanders informed of all enemy
movements, so that they themselves were rarely taken by surprise but could
always seize upon an opponent’s temporary disadvantage. They also kept a force
in reserve, which was considered impractical and unchivalrous in western
Europe; and their light, swift ponies were perfectly adapted to the hit-and-run
tactics their warlords preferred. Every battle was marked by a rain of arrows
released on their enemy’s troops and by a series of feints and stratagems
designed to confuse or entrap them. When their opponents retreated into fortified
places, the Mongols collected local manpower for use as storm troops, forcefully
drove them forward through fear, and used skilled engineers to direct the
assaults. Efficient though these tactics were, the consistent use of terror gave
them an even greater advantage, because the enemy population would either
surrender quickly or flee in wild panic. A contemporary chronicler, in describing
the siege of Kiev, emphasized the long line of catapults firing missiles day and
night, the clash of sword against sword, shield against shield, the arrows
eclipsing the light of day, and the desperate fighting on an ever-tighter defensive
perimeter until finally the last refuge, the cathedral, collapsed from the weight
on the fugitives on the roof.41
The Tatar policy of cruelty was intended to paralyze potential resistance by
overwhelming opponents with a sense of impotence and fated destruction.
Murder, rape and pillage were followed by humiliating ceremonies of
submission. But they did not destroy every city or depopulate every settlement—
they wanted somebody left alive to bear the "Tatar Yoke" by performing military
service and paying taxes.42
Well ledi well armed, and well disciplined, the Mongol forces had several
major advantages over the foot soldiers of Russia, the light cavalry of Poland and
Hungary, and the mailed knights of Germany. It is small wonder that Alexander
of Novgorod found little time to prepare the defense of his western frontier. It
was not until the summer of 1241 that the Mongols decided against an attack on
Novgorod to destroy this last remaining independent Russian state and instead
fhe Teutonic Knights Take Charge
193
tumed west. Only then was Alexander free to deal with the crusaders’ threat, and
. then they had made great advances into his western territories.
y The subsequent movement of the Mongol army affected the Baltic Crusade
greatly» though in an indirect manner. Batu had decided to punish King Bela of
Hungary for giving refuge to the Cuman tribe, a hereditary rival for domination
of the steppe. Therefore, one Tatar force under Batu’s personal command crossed
Galicia and made for the Carpathian passes leading into eastern Hungary while
another swung across Volhynia central Poland, through Silesia and Moravia, then
into Hungary from the northwest. Daniel of Galicia prudently withdrew to
Hungary ahead of the first horde. An army from central Poland tried to stop the
second horde near Sandomir, but when the Mongols cut down the Polish light
cavalry with a hail of arrows, the remaining knights fled north and west,
abandoning their towns and countryside to Mongol destruction. Fortunately for
the peasantry and the refugees, the Mongols lacked the time for a thorough
massacre and pressed into Silesia. The duke of Silesia, a partially Germanized
ruler who was famous for his chivalry, led out a large army of knights without
waiting for reinforcements from the King of Bohemia. His forces were quickly
overwhelmed at Liegnitz. Some later chroniclers wrote that Teutonic Knights
perished in the combat, but the story is not true: the attack came with too little
warning for them to move hurriedly to Silesia.43 The Mongols then tumed
south, rode across Bohemia into Hungary, where their comrades had already
routed the royal army. While a flying squad pursued King Bela, who finally
found refuge on an island in the Adriatic, the rest of the Mongol forces rode
around the Hungarian plain, seemingly attempting to depopulate it. Then, when
news arrived that the Great Khan had died, Batu hurried east to participate in the
election of his successor. He left behind vast, desolate regions and terrified
Russian dukes into collecting tribute from the survivors on his behalf.44
The effect of this Mongol invasion has lasted to the present day. Eastern
Europe was politically disorganized, so that the great states of Russia, Poland,
and Hungary recovered only slowly and in a power vacuum that could be
exploited by the Lithuanians and the Teutonic Knights. The success of the
Teutonic Order in Prussia and the Lithuanians in Russia was due in large part to
the fact that they escaped the Mongol attacks that set their competitors back. The
alarm, meanwhile, had spread to northern Germany:
In this time the Tartars came with a powerful army into Poland, having
already conquered the Russians and many other lands. Henrik of Poland
fought with them and was slain, and more than thirty thousand men with
him, not counting the women and children slain in the land. They
ravaged the land and overran cathedrals, cloisters and churches. When
the news came to Germany, many princes and lords gathered at
Magdeburg and counseled that because of the great danger they give the
cross to all the people, women, and children along the way. It was
decided that all who were there should go, all those who had life and
goods; and those who had goods but lacked strength should help those
194
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
who had the strength but not the money, and of five, four should help the
one so that he would be useful to the expedition....King Conrad, the
emperor’s son, took the cross, and princes and lords, knights, men,
women, and children, just about everyone in Germany.45
But this enthusiasm did not last. The army did not march; the Hungarians
were left to suffer their fate alone; and imperial power and authority were shown
to be hollow. Frederick II did nothing, nor did the aged pope; each concentrated
on his own private duel to the death in Italy. The German princes realized that
they were truly on their own.
Fortunately for Central Europe, the Golden Horde did not return. The new
khan settled down in Karakorum: a later khan made his seat in Sarai, a central
location in the midst of the steppe which was suitable for keeping a close watch
over his Turkish and Russian subjects. When the Germans saw that the Mongol
threat could be contained by Daniel of Galicia, they reverted to their normal
habits.
The Swedish Invasion of Russia
Those who were interested in the Livonian crusade saw the Mongol invasions
not as a danger to themselves but as an opportunity to force the northernmost
adherents of the Russian Church to submit and to gain new lands for themselves.
Orthodox Novgorod was isolated; the crusaders were prepared; and the attack
was launched without further consideration, the first stroke being delivered by
the Swedes under the leadership of Karl Birger and Bishop Thomas. A small
number of Teutonic Knights may have joined them, thereby delaying the second
stroke further south until those knights could return.46
The danger to the Russians was that the Swedish king would seize and
blockade the great rivers leading from Novgorod to the Baltic, preventing the
Russians from purchasing western grain, for Novgorod was dependent on food
supplies from the west as long as southern Russia was in Mongol hands. Since
the merchants from Lubeck and Visby would not voluntarily sacrifice then-
commerce for royal benefit, and Novgorod merchants were willing to risk attack
by privateers based in Finland, the only way a Swedish blockade could be
imposed was by controlling the river mouths. The Novgorod merchants,
understanding the seriousness of the threat, called back their young duke,
Alexander, who had just left the quarrelsome city, to drive the Swedes away
from their lifeline to the west.47 A Russian chronicler recounted the ensuing
events thus:
The [Swedes] came with their [ruler] and with their bishops, and halted
on the Neva at the mouth of the Izhera, wishing to take possession of
Ladoga, or in one word, of Novgorod, and the whole Novgorod province.
But again the most kind and merciful God, lover of men, preserved and
protected us from the foreigners since they laboured in vain without the
command of God. For the news came to Novgorod that the [Swedes]
The Teutonic Knights Take Charge	195
were going toward Ladoga, and [Prince Alexander] with the men of
Novgorod and of Ladoga did not delay at all; he went against them and
defeated them by the power of Saint Sophia and the prayers of our
Sovereign Lady the Holy Mother of God and eternally Virgin Mary on
the 15th day of July [1240]....And there was a great slaughter of
[Swedes].4*
Novgorod was saved from Swedish economic blackmail by this battle on the
Neva, and Novgorod’s duke, Alexander, was thereafter known by the sobriquet
derived from his victory: Alexander Nevsky.
Bishop Thomas resigned in 1245, certain that he had failed in his life’s
mission of converting the Finns and Karelians. But he was too pessimistic. Four
years later Karl Birger led what Swedes called "the Second Crusade" to the
region around modem Helsinki. In subsequent years Swedish immigration to this
"New Land" reached mass proportions and permanently changed the ethnic
composition of the region.49 In coming years, some Swedish fishermen would
find their way across the gulf to Estonia, where they established themselves in
small villages along the coast.
The Battle on the Ice
The next threat to Russia was more dangerous than the Swedish one had
been. A combined force of Teutonic knights led by the master, Danes under
princes Canute and Abel, Germans under Bishop Hermann of Dorpat, and
Russians under Jaroslav (then in exile from Pskov) pushed into Novgorodian
territory from the west. In September of 1240 this army captured Isborg
(Izborsk), smashed a rescue force from Pskov, and then marched upon Pskov.
After a week’s siege, they obtained its surrender on terms. Apparently relying
upon allies inside Pskov, probably friends of Jaroslav Vladimirovich—who gave
their children as hostages—the crusaders placed only a very small garrison in the
citadel—only two knights and their retinue.50 They must have spent the winter
dreaming about the likelihood of closing Novgorod’s trade routes in the next
campaign, especially after hearing the news that Alexander Nevsky had quarreled
with the burghers of Novgorod who favored peace with the Germans—who
probably consider trade with the West essential for survival at this moment—and
withdrawn to Perejaslavl, where his father Jaroslav ruled. Also, when Waldemar
of Denmark died in March, requiring his sons to remain home in expectation of
imminent civil war, the former Swordbrothers saw in the Danish succession crisis
not a lost ally but rather an opportunity to reclaim Estonia for themselves. They
had already been conspiring with Danish vassals in Wierland, determined to
violate the Treaty of Stensby and simultaneously attempt the conquest of
Novgorod. Before April of 1241 an army of Teutonic Knights, Danish vassals,
and native Estonians had occupied the Karelian lands east of Narva. From the
castle they constructed at Kopore, they made daring raids to the southeast, at one
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THE BALTIC CRUSADE
time approaching within twenty miles of Novgorod, and they drove away so
many horses that farmers were unable to plow the fields for the coming year.51
These successes made the knights so confident that victory was in the offing
that they sent Bishop Heinrich of Oesel hurrying to Rome with a request that
Pope Gregory name him bishop of the regions to be conquered.52 Clearly what
they had in mind was to offer western military aid against the Mongols in return
for Orthodox acceptance of church union under Roman leadership. Certainly,
there were Russians in Pskov and other cities who had indicated their willingness
to agree to these terms, just as the Russian dukes in Galicia were doing at this
very moment (while the Mongol "hordes" were storming through their lands).
And clearly, it was the military support from Pskov which made the attacks on
Novgorod so devastating, since the westerners could not have mustered
sufficiently numerous warriors on their own to overawe Novgorodian
resistance.53 The pope, too, signaled his approval by ordering the archbishop of
Lund and his suffragan bishops to call upon their people "like Moses to buckle
a sword upon his thigh...and put on the armor of the Lord"54 and defend the
converts in Estonia. The presence of the papal legate, William of Modena, cannot
be determined for the period between February of 1241 and February 1242. In
the years 1239 and 1240 he had been in Prussia, Lubeck and Denmark,
attempting to reconcile every dispute which might interfere with the prosecution
of the crusade. Knowing his itinerary for the missing year would answer the
question: was William in Estonia organizing the offensive against Novgorod or
was he in Germany, Bohemia and Poland attempting to coordinate a common
defensive strategy against the oncoming Mongols?55
Andreas von Felben may have had similar thoughts. Certainly, the Teutonic
Knights in Prussia were concerned about the Mongol threat. Even though the
legend concerning the Prussian master, Poppo, has been repeatedly demonstrated
to be false, popular historians continue to revive the story that he met his death
at the battle of Liegnitz under a hail of Tatar arrows. The kernel of truth to this
myth is based on the order’s responsibility to defend Christendom against all its
armed foes. Possibly the grand chapter, the grandmaster, or Master Dietrich
suggested that the current moment was not a good one for Andreas to risk troops
which might have been needed elsewhere. Equally possible, Andreas realized that
the knights most eager to attack Novgorod were also determined to annul the
Treaty of Stensby. Perhaps the temporary nature of his authority, that of acting-
master, limited his confidence to offer bold leadership. Whatever his reasons, he
does not seem to have been fully committed to the venture after the spring of
1241.
In any case, Andreas von Felben had other problems to deal with personally.
While a large percentage of his knights were in Russia, he was on the island of
Oesel, suppressing a rebellion. The peace treaty he made with the natives at this
time survives, providing us with valuable insight into the crusaders* demands on
their subjects. First of all, anyone performing pagan ceremonies was to be fined
and whipped. Second, farmers were to convey their taxes by ship either to Riga
or the bishop. Third, anyone who was guilty of infanticide was to be fined, and
the mother was to be taken to the cemetery nine successive Sundays, stripped,
fhe Teutonic Knights Take Charge	197
j whipped. Fourth, once a year, at the time the taxes were paid, the advocate
wOuld hold court, rendering justice as advised by the elders of the land. Lastly,
murderers were to pay a wergild of ten marks for homicides committed on
strangers or among themselves—a heavy penalty which could be paid only with
the help of one’s clansmen. In short, the treaty dealt with a variety of
concerns—religious, financial and social—which presumably were not covered
by existing agreements. The treaty also demonstrates that the Oeselian Estonians
were by no means powerless serfs. A master does not sign a formal treaty
requiring the presence of priests, friars, vassals, his marshal and numerous
knights and multorum aliorum fidelium, Theutonicorum et Estonum, unless the
seniores de Estonibus Maritimae et alii quam plures were men of power and
substance.56
Perhaps Master Dietrich’s absence from the field of battle indicated his silent
disapproval of the enterprise, bound up as it was in the expansionist policies of
the Swordbrothers, which had led to war with Denmark and military disaster in
Lithuania. It may well have been former Swordbrothers who provided the
leadership and men for the attack on Russia, acting without Dietrich’s permission
and without the money and reinforcements he could have provided. The records
are too sparse to give us a definitive answer, but Rudolf von Kassel, who was
one of the ringleaders of the coup against Master Volquin, seems to have been
prominent among the rebel leadership now as well.57
Meanwhile, Alexander Nevsky had returned to Novgorod. The abased
citizens, now persuaded that they could not fight the German-Pskov forces alone,
apparently conceded all the points over which they had quarreled. Late in 1241
Alexander Nevsky overwhelmed the German-Danish garrisons east of Narva.
Significantly, he spared the westerners for ransom but hanged the Estonians as
rebels and traitors.58 Thus he demonstrated his limited aim: to retain control of
the vital border territories. He had no intention of driving the crusaders into the
sea; his attention was directed more to the south—where the Mongols held
sway—than to the west. His intent was merely to guarantee that he would not be
attacked from the rear while he was engaged with the Tatars. His move against
the western garrison in Pskov on March 5, 1242 was described by the German
chronicler in these terms:
He marched toward Pskov with many troops. He arrived there with a
mighty force of many Russians to free the Pskovians and these latter
heartily rejoiced. When he saw the Germans he did not hesitate long.
They drove away the two Brothers, removed them from their advocacy
and routed their servants. The Germans fled.... If Pskov had been
defended, Christianity would be benefitted until the end of the world. It
is a mistake to conquer a fair land and fail to occupy it well... The king
of Novgorod then returned home.59
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THE BALTIC CRUSADE
The corresponding Russian account is very short: "Prince Alexander occupied
all the roads right up to [Pskov], seized the Germans and the Chud men, and
having bound them in chains, sent them to be imprisoned in Novgorod."60
The duke led a relatively small force into the diocese of Dorpat but turned
back after Bishop Hermann’s men routed his advance force at a bridge. Only a
small number of Teutonic Knights joined the von Buxhoevden prelate
(significantly, Andreas von Felben and most of his knights remained in Riga)
which set out in pursuit of Alexander’s retreating forces. The Orthodox and
Catholic army met on the banks of Lake Peipus on 5 April 1242—the famous
Battle on the Ice. Neither army was large. The westerners had perhaps 2,000
men, the Russians perhaps 6,000, but these numbers were, in effect, balanced by
the superior armament of the crusader knights.61
The battle has become undeservedly famous, having been endowed—for
twentieth-century political considerations—with much more significance than it
merited in itself through Sergei Eisenstein’s film, Alexander Nevsky, and the
music of Sergei Prokoviev. Indeed, although this movie is a reasonably accurate
portrayal of some aspects of the battle, especially the costumes and tactics, and
gives us an impressive sense of the drama of medieval combat, other aspects are
pure propaganda. Certainly the ancestors of today’s Estonians and Latvians were
not dwarfs, as the movie suggests, nor were they serfs. Master Dietrich was not
even present at the battle, much less taken prisoner by Alexander himself.
(Rudolf von Kassel may have perished in the fighting.) The Russian forces were
mainly professionals, not pre-Lenin Communists facing the equivalent of German
armored columns; the Germans were not proto-Nazis, blond giants who burned
babies alive. In short, many scenes in Alexander Nevsky tell us much more about
the Soviet Union just before Hitler’s invasion than about medieval history. On
the other hand, it is just possible that the crusaders did possess a portable
organ—the chronicler mentions an incident in which the playing of a musical
instrument caused the two armies to stop the combat momentarily to listen in
wonder, and records from the end of the century list organs among the religious
objects destroyed by Lithuanian pagans. And certainly Lake Peipus is far enough
inland that the last days of cold weather might have preserved sufficient ice
along the shores to support the weight of men in combat.
Spring had not yet come on April 5 as the crusader army proceeded across
the lake or, more likely, along the shore to meet the Russian forces that were
massed in a solid body. Although some of the fighting probably took place on
the ice, it is unlikely that the cavalry forces ventured onto it in significant
numbers. The heavily armed western knights formed the spearhead of a column
followed by light cavalry and foot soldiers, which charged into the Russian
infantry.62
The [Russians] had many archers, and the battle began with their bold
assault on the king’s men [Danes]. The brothers’ banners were soon
flying in the midst of the archers, and swords were heard cutting helmets
apart. Many from both sides fell dead on the grass. Then the Brothers’
fhe Teutonic Knights Take Charge	199
щтпу was completely surrounded, for the Russians had so many troops
that there were easily sixty men for every one German knight. The
Brothers fought well enough, but they were nonetheless cut down. Some
of those from Dorpat escaped from the battle, and it was their salvation
that they fled. Twenty brothers lay dead and six were captured.63
The battle, of course, had repercussions beyond the Livonian-Russian border
region: revolts broke out in Kurland and Prussia which threatened to involve the
Teutonic Knights on so many fronts that they could not cope with their enemies.
Alexander Nevsky, however, had no interest in destroying the crusader states.
First of all, the former Swordbrothers who were represented at the battle lost
only half as many as had perished at Saule. Therefore, they still remained a
formidable foe when fighting on the defensive; and they would be more
formidable if reinforced by those Teutonic Knights who were stationed in the
castles closer to the coast. Moreover, the Mongol threat was so immediate that
Alexander Nevsky could not afford to postpone attending to it. Consequently, he
offered generous terms to the Roman Christians, which the crusaders
immediately accepted: Novgorod withdrew from Pskov and other border
territories, Alexander freed his prisoners, and the Germans released their
hostages.64 Three years later Alexander defeated a Lithuanian effort to exploit
Novgorod’s weakened condition. In the end, however, like the other Russian
dukes, he acknowledged the authority of the Golden Horde and performed
military service for the Mongol khan.65 For the next twenty years there was no
war between Russians and Germans.
It had been a dangerous moment for Novgorod, but perhaps less dangerous
than is sometimes thought. If Novgorod had been occupied by the westerners, the
Russian state might indeed have shared the fate of Byzantium after the Fourth
Crusade, to be dominated temporarily by foreigners, perhaps so permanently
lamed in political and economic terms that they would be unable to ward off the
more dangerous enemy advancing from the east. Nevertheless, it is difficult to
imagine the crusaders permanently suppressing Russian culture, the Russian
Church, and the Russian nobility. If the Golden Horde could not do this, was it
possible for the westerners, whose capacity vis-i-vis the Mongols’ pales into
insignificance? The "Battle on the Ice" was, therefore, a more important event
for the crusaders than for the Russians.66
Victory, if the outcome had been reversed, would have given new life to the
tensions in Livonia and Estonia. Those Teutonic Knights who had been former
Swordbrothers and wholeheartedly supported the attack might have incurred new
obligations that the Teutonic Knights as a whole would have to meet. Although
the survivors of the former Swordbrother Order would continue to complain that
they had not been properly supported ("The bishop...had brought along too few
People, and the Brothers’ army was also too small."67), they had no choice other
than to submit to Master Dietrich. Only one knight appears later in Livonian
records, and he only after the lapse of many years. At least one of their surviving
leaders was sent to the Holy Land. Were other former Swordbrothers among
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THE BALTIC CRUSADE
those Teutonic Knights there who left the order in 1245 to join the Templars?
Even Andreas von Felben left the country temporarily, being stationed in his
native Netherlands in 1243.68 Defeat seems to have provided Master Dietrich
with the opportunity for a thorough housecleaning, a task he performed with such
efficiency that in 1246 he was elected Prussian master, then eight years later
German master.
The next Livonian master was Heinrich von Heimburg, then about forty-five
years of age. Offspring of an ancient and respected ministeriale family of Lower
Saxony, he was a "dearest friend" of Otto the Child and had served in the court
of Grandmaster Conrad of Thuringia.69 He had the talent, experience, and will
to carry the massive reorganization forward. He was assisted in this when,
sometime between 1244 and 1250, the Teutonic Order drew up its Statutes in
such a way as to prevent disorderly individuals who were likely to prove
troublesome from entering its ranks. Henceforth, in Livonia as in the convents
in Prussia and in the Holy Roman Empire, greater emphasis was placed on
accepting only individuals of noble birth, and the admission of knights who
belonged to other orders was absolutely prohibited.70 So much for ever
incorporating another Swordbrother Order!
In Estonia, too, defeat allowed the restoration of orderly government. The
pope confirmed again the Treaty of Stensby. The Danish vassals in Estonia, who
could have acquired great estates and might have become even more rebellious,
were not required to trade their estates in central Estonia for lands on the Russian
frontier. King Eric endowed Bishop Torkill of Reval with revenues and
encouraged him to cooperate with the Livonian bishops.71 Nevertheless, real
power devolved into the hands of the "headman" chosen from among the vassals
in the knightly corporations. Bishop Hermann of Dorpat, who might have
become as powerful as the Bishop of Riga, had to abandon the dream of
recovering for his von Buxhoevden family the power it had held during the
lifetime of Bishop Albert. When Hermann died in 1245, his diocese, too, passed
out of the family’s hands.
Bishop Nicholas of Riga, who had practically abdicated all responsibility for
territorial defense to the master, continued to reign without ruling. Even the
routine issuance of documents became rare, and his most daring act was to forbid
citizens to give or bequeath any additional properties inside the walls of Rigan
to religious orders. Apparently, popular piety was undermining his tax base.72
Ambitions on Samogitia
The north now being at peace, the Teutonic Knights turned their attention to
the south, with a plan to link Prussia and Livonia across Samogitia, a lowland
forest region inhabited by pagan Lithuanians. The citizens of Riga founded a
permanent trading station in Novgorod, and thereafter peace with Novgorod was
their principal interest. The other Germans—advocates, canons, vassals, priests,
friars, monks, the merchants and artisans—concentrated on improving their own
position and making it superior to that of the natives.
201
The Teutonic Knights Take Charge
In this era, then, the Swordbrotheis passed from the scene and were absorbed
a wealthier and more disciplined crusading order which could afford to
nce the goals that had brought the Swordbrothers into conflict with the
Ic hops, the Danes, and the Russians. As a result, the Teutonic Knights could
yjn to a new, uncontested field of conquest, Samogitia, a small but resolutely
an country peopled by excellent warriors. The future would bring a new type
of crusade to Livonia—less international and less concerned with the spiritual
salvation of the enemy, militarily more difficult and dangerous, but with an
enemy less ambiguously considered the declared enemy of Christ and His
servants. Despite declarations of support from Frederick II and Pope Innocent IV,
and from the legate, William of Modena, crusading volunteers were no longer
available in numbers sufficient to the tasks at hand. The Teutonic Knights,
backed by their resources in the Holy Roman Empire—churches, monasteries,
manors, and wealthy friends—instituted a more professional crusade and directed
it at the weakest (or so it may have appeared) of their neighbors, the pagan
Samogitians, who lived southeast of Kurland in the wilderness separating Livonia
from Prussia. By occupying Samogitia, the Prussian master would be able to
send reinforcements overland to Livonia at any season—an important strategic
consideration—and by surrounding Semgallia and depriving those pagans of all
potential support, the Livonian master could more easily require them to accept
the "benefits" of baptism and taxation.73
ENDNOTES
1.	Arnold, Princes and Territories, 38-9, 65, 194-5, 204-210.
2.	Although there were other ports available along the Mecklenburg coast, the
documents make clear that the Rigans did not consider those towns to be
adequate substitutes for Lubeck.
3.	Paul Hasse, "Der Kampf zwischen Lubeck und Dftnemark vom Jahre 1234 in
Sage und Geschichte," Hansische Geschichtsblatter 20 (1874), 118-48.
4.	Holsteinische Reimchronik, 625.
5.	Henry Charles Lea, A History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages (New
York: Harper Brothers, 1888), 3:182ff; Schmidt, "Zur Geschichte der Stedinger,"
60f.
6.	Sachsische Weltchronik, 249; Otto the Child was not an ally of the peasants,
merely an enemy of the archbishop. When he raided the Bremen diocese during
the 1234 invasion of Stedingen, he was punished by excommunication. Egon
Boshof, "Die Entstehung des Herzogtums Braunschweig-Liineburg," 268-69.
"i- King, Chronicles of Three Free Cities, 56-57.
8.	Sachsische Weltchronik, 250; the political isolation of the peasants is
confirmed in Schmidt, "Zur Geschichte der Stedinger," 86-94.
9-	Albert of Stade, 362.
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THE BALTIC CRUSADE
10.	Albert of Stade, 362; Sachsische Weltchronik, 250; even Roger of Wendover,
the English chronicler, noted this great battle.
11.	The Welf claims were settled by making Otto duke of Braunschweig. This
restored the family status from its demotion at Henry the Lion’s defeat. Egon
Boshof, "Die Entstehung des Herzogtums Braunschweig-Liineburg," 269-274.
12.	For the economic resources of the Swordbrothers, see Benninghoven,
Schwertbriider, 388-412; also Johansen, Estlandliste, 730ff.
13.	Benninghoven, Schwertbriider, 215-16.
14.	See discussion in Contamine, War in the Middle Ages, 292-302.
15.	Hellmann, Das Lettenland im Mittelalter, 191; Giedroyd, "Arrival of
Christianity in Lithuania," 10.
16.	Reimchronik,!!. 1802-1837.
17.	He sent the castellan of Wenden, Reimund (Rembold?) and Johann Selich.
Ritterbriider, 533, 535, 595.
18.	Urkundenbuch, VI, nos 3113-3114; Marie-Luise Favreau, Studien zur
Friihgeschichte des Deutschen Ordens (Stuttgart: Klatt, 1974) [Kieler Historische
Studien, 21]; Udo Arnold, "Entstehung und Friihzeit des Deutschen Ordens," "Die
geistlichen Ritterorden Europas (ed. Josef Fleckenstein and Manfred Hellmann.
Sigmaringen: Thorbecke, 1980), 81-107.
19.	See Gerard Labuda, "Uber die Urkunden zur Grundung des Deutschen
Ordens in Kulmerlande und in Preussen in den Jahren 1226-1234," Die
Ritterorden zwischen geistlicher und weltlicher Macht, 21-44.
20.	William Urban, The Prussian Crusade, 105-129; Boockmann, Der Deutsche
Orden, 66-92; for the order’s rules, see Stems, "The Teutonic Knights in the
Crusader States," 325-354.
21.	Benninghoven, Schwertbriider, 424-28.
22.	Ritterbriider, 463, 466-467.
23.	Benninghoven, Schwertbriider, 321-27; Urkundenbuch, I, no. 145.
24.	Transehe-Roseneck, Livlandfahrer, 77-80.
25.	Reimchronik, 1902-1933.
26.	Paszkiewicz, The Origin of Russia, 198-199,203-204; Giedroyd, "The Arrival
of Christianity," 11-12; Juozas JakStas, "Russian Historiography on the Origin of
the Lithuanian State. Some Critical Remarks on V. T. Pashuto’s Study,"
Lituanus, ll/4(Winter 1965), 25-46; Manfred Hellmann, "Das GroBfiirstentum
Litauen bis 1434," Handbuch der europaischen Geschichte (1987), II, 1085.
27.	Fennell, Crisis of Medieval Poland, 73.
28.	Zigmas Raulinaitis, "The Slavic Struggles with the Yatvygians during the
Twelfth Century," Eastern Lithuania, 65-67, 217-228; Paszkiewicz, The Origin
of Russia, 204-205; and Jonas Puzinas, "The Origins of the Lithuanian Nation,
in Selected Vforks (Chicago: Institute of Lithuanian Studies, 1983), I, 718-720.
29.	Hartmann von Heldrungen, "Bericht uber die Vereinigung des Schwertordens
mit dem deutschen Orden und uber die Erwerbung Livlands durch den
letzteren," Mitteilungen aus dem Gebiet der livldndischen Geschichte, II (1868):
89; short biography of Hartmann in Ritterbriider, 802-803; the two knights are
Gerlach Rote and Johann von Madgeburg. Ibid., 432-433, 551-552.
fhe Teutonic Knights Take Charge	203
30 Militzer, Die Entstehung der Deutschordens Balleien, 44-45.
31 E- Carstens, "Balk, Hermann," Altpreussische Biographie (KOnigsberg, 1941),
I 28; Ritterbriider, 97-98, casts doubt on the traditional belief that Balke was of
Westphalian origin. Instead, he is more likely from the Harz or a nearby Low
German speaking land. In any case, he was next to Hermann von Salza in
importance in his order.
32.	Benninghoven, Schwertbriider, 362-69; Donner, Kardinal Wilhelm, 199-211;
Johansen, Estlandliste, 699-700.
33.	Ritterbriider, 78.
34.	H. Lampe, "von Griiningen," Altpreussische Biographie, I, 237-8;
Ritterbriider, 277-279, 308-310; von Felben (Velven) came from a ministeriale
family living half-way between Salzburg and Innsbruck. Ibid., 221-222.
35.	Johansen, Estlandliste, 694-700,730ff; Donner, Kardinal Wilhelm, 199-211;
Urkundenbuch, I: no. 160.
36.	Holsteinische Reimchronik, 625.
37.	Goetze, Albert Suerbeer, 24-25, 137-42.
38.	Chronicle of Novgorod, 81-84; there was also an outbreak of plague (which
the chroniclers did not connect with the Tatar attack). Alexander, Bubonic Plague
in Early Modern Russia, 12.
39.	Ekkehard Klug, "Das Fiirstentum Tvef (1247-1485), Aufstieg,
Selbstbehauptung und Niedergang," Forschung zur osteuropaische Geschichte,
37 (1985), 39f; Fennell, Crisis of Medieval Russia, 98-100, 127.
40.	See George Vernadsky, The Mongols and Russia, vol. 3 of A History of
Russia (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1953); Michael Prawdin, The
Mongol Empire: Its Rise and Legacy (Toronto: Allen and Unwin, 1952);
Aleksander E. Presniakov, The Formation of the Great Russian State (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1970). Bertold Spuler, Die goldene Horde. Die
Mongolen in Russland 1223-1502 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1965), 10-19; Gian
Andrei Bezzola, Die Mongolen in abendlandischer Sicht [1220-1270] (Munchen:
Francke Bernard, 1975); and Gregory G. Guzman, "Reports of Mongol
Cannibalism in the Thirteenth-Century Latin Sources: Oriental Fact or Western
Fiction?" in Discovering New Worlds. Essay on Medieval Exploration and
Imagination (ed. Scott Westrem. New York: Garland, 1991), 31-67.
41.	The Hypatian Codex, Part Two: The Galician-Volhynian Chronicle (trans.
George A. Perfecky. Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 1973) [Harvard Series in Ukrainian
Studies], 49. (Hereafter, Galician-Volynian Chronicle.) For Tatar military tactics,
note Fennell, Crisis of Medieval Russia, 84-85.
42.	Paszkiewicz, The Origin of Russia, 300-310; Fennell, Crisis of Medieval
Russia, 86-89.
43.	The persistence of this story is remaikable. James Michener repeats it in
Poland (New York; Random House, 1983), 44-45, with the added embellishment
°f Mongols using poison gas. The novel catches the spirit of the region in this
era; Urban, The Prussian Crusade, 177-182.
44.	Spuler, Die goldene Horde, 20-27; Ren6 Grousset, L’Empire des Steppes
(Paris: Payot, 1939), 330-333.
204
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
45.	Sachsische Weltchronik, 254-55.
46.	Benninghoven, Schwertbriider, 376; Ritterbriider, 372-373.
47.	Fennell, Crisis of Medieval Russia, 102.
48.	Chronicle of Novgorod, 84-85.
49.	Jutikkala, A History of Finland, 27-29.
50.	Reimchronik, 11. 2099-2173; Chronicle of Novgorod reports, 85, that some
citizens of Pskov fled to Novgorod; Fennell, Crisis of Medieval Russia, 104.
51.	Benninghoven, Schwertbriider, 378; Chronicle of Novgorod, 86; Fennell,
Crisis of Medieval Russia, 104-105.
52.	Urkundenbuch, III, no. 169a.
53.	Benninghoven, Schwertbriider, 378-379.
54.	Urkundenbuch, I, no. 167; Donner, Kardinal Wilhelm, 228-9, suggests this
came from a Danish request to reinforce royal forces which were insufficient for
the task of conquering Russia.
55.	Donner, Kardinal Wilhelm, 234-238.
56.	Urkundenbuch, I, no. 169, and III, no. 169; see also Enn Tarvel, "Zur
Problematik der BauemaufstMnde in Estland im Kontexte der Christianisierung
und Kolonisation des Landes," Die Rolle der Ritterorden, 116-118.
57.	Benninghoven, Schwertbriider, 369-82. Pages 415-468 he lists every
identifiable friar-knight who served in Livonia during this area, dividing them
into known Swordbrothers, possible Swordbrothers, and Teutonic Knights. Note
the comments in Ritterbriider concerning these identifications; for Rudolf von
Kassel, Ibid., 372-373,
58.	Chronicle of Novgorod, 86.
59.	Reimchronik, 11. 2181-2192.
60.	Chronicle of Novgorod, 86.
61.	Paul von Osten-Sacken, "Der erste Kampf der Deutschen gegen die Russen,"
Mitteilungen aus dem Gebiet der livldndischen Geschichte, 20 (1910): 87-124.
62.	Chronicle of Novgorod, 87.
63.	Reimchronik, 11. 2240-2261.
64.	Chronicle of Novgorod, 87.
65.	Chronicle of Novgorod, 86-87.
66.	Fennell, Crisis of Medieval Russia, 89, 105-106.
67.	Reimchronik, 11. 2235-2236.
68.	Benninghoven, Schwertbriider, 381-382.
69.	Ritterbriider, 308-310.
70.	Klaus Militzer, "Die Aufhahme von Ritterbriidem in den Deutschen Orden.
Ausbildungsstand und Aufnahmevoraussetzungen," Das Kriegswesen der
Ritterorden, 7-8, 12-13; Urkundenbuch, I, no. 309.
71.	Urkundenbuch, I, nos. 172, 173, 175.
72.	Urkundenbuch, I, nos. 183, 200, 222.
73.	Urkundenbuch, I, nos. 179-185.
CHAPTER NINE
THE CONVERSION OF LITHUANIA
In the decade following the disaster at Lake Peipus the Livonian crusading
effort turned again to the south. The intent was to reconquer the native tribes of
Semgallia and Kurland, and then overwhelm the warlike Samogitians who would
surely assist the Semgalls and Kurs in defending their political and religious
traditions.* This plan met with considerable initial success. Subsequently, the
most dangerous pagan enemy, the Lithuanian grand duke, responded to the
crusaders’ advance toward his frontiers by requiring the dukes who governed the
outlying autonomous territories (appanages) to accept his leadership in
coordinating resistance, and later by accepting the Christian religion, a step
which deflected the threat of attack altogether. This process, through which
Lithuania became a Roman Catholic kingdom, was the most important
development of the decade, but we have only meager information concerning it;
and the kingdom did not last.
Civil War in Denmark
Significant changes were taking place in Germany and Denmark at this time,
too, changes which directly affected the crusaders’ ability to conduct their holy
war. The deadly duel between pope and emperor could no longer be confined to
Italy, and Innocent IV, having witnessed the lengths to which Frederick would
go to dominate a papal election, determined to remove the imperial threat to the
Church once for all. Unable to remain safely in Italy, he fled to France and
called on his supporters in Germany to overthrow the emperor. Frederick, for his
part, concluded that peace was impossible with any pope, even if he had once
been friends with the man, because anyone who took up the responsibilities of
that office would perforce become a defender of papal claims to supremacy over
all secular rulers. For both Innocent IV and Frederick II the issue was
fundamental, unavoidable, and one to be fought to the death. Consequently, the
efforts at reconciliation by the grandmasters of the Teutonic Knights, who were
trusted by each party for their impartiality and honesty, were completely in vain.
This conflict, in fact, was so basic to medieval society that it could not be
confined to the Holy Roman Empire or to the persons of Frederick II and
Innocent IV. In Denmark it became part of an already serious dispute between
*cing and archbishop which had emerged from the murderous wars of succession
that were destroying the cohesiveness of the kingdom. Jealousy between the
Princely brothers (Eric, the heir to the throne, and Abel, duke of Schleswig) lay
at the root of the conflict. Eric, who believed in a strong monarchy, dreamed of
rebuilding the empire his father had lost at the battle of Bornhoeved. This vision
‘ay behind his crusading ambitions in Estonia and his desire to obtain the royal
appanages assigned to his brothers. He was specifically interested in Holstein,
206
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
which was governed by Abel on behalf of his wife’s nephews, who were
studying in Paris. He saw this administrative union of Schleswig and Holstein as
a danger to the kingdom (as indeed it was, being the beginning of an association
which lasted until Bismarck’s time).
When Eric came to the throne in 1241, he began to press this matter with
his brother. Abel, who refused to surrender any of his prerogatives, began to look
for allies to help him if he should have to fight against royal encroachment_
efforts that soon met with resounding success, perhaps due partly to the efforts
of Duke Adolf IV, whose retirement into the Franciscan friary in Hamburg did
nothing to harm his political acumen. Supported by Albrecht of Saxony, the
archbishop of Bremen, the counts of Mecklenburg and Schwerin, and by the
burghers of Lubeck, Abel felt safe in defying his royal brother.2
If King Eric had been satisfied to deal only with this problem, he might
have had more success, formidable though the coalition was. Related to Albrecht
of Saxony by marriage, he should have been able to remove him from the hostile
alliance at least; and he could rely on Otto the Child of Braunschweig to assist
him. But he impetuously overreached himself, and his folly soon brought him
into great danger. Several years earlier, when he was studying at the University
of Paris, he had struck up a friendship with the churchman who had become
Innocent IV. He now used the friendship to obtain papal favors, particularly
those favors concerning money, and although Eric received papal permission to
levy special taxes, his attempt to collect them from church lands provoked the
usually compliant Danish clergy to protest loudly. Needing the money badly and
seeing this issue as part of a wide range of church-state relationships, Eric
refused to back down. He decided to fight the churchmen but in a clever manner
that allowed him to avoid an open break with his friend, the pope. He negotiated
with Frederick II for the empire’s cession of the lands north of the Elbe—Abel’s
Holstein. Frederick probably granted him the lands in hope of winning an ally,
but Eric was not willing to make as drastic a political realignment as the
Hohenstaufen ruler had expected. The common interests of the two monarchs
were nevertheless sufficiently obvious to frighten the pope into conciliatory
gestures.
Although the Church in Rome responded to Eric’s tactics, the Church in
Denmaik did not. Some prelates fled the country. Others, more willing to resist
secular authority, assembled at Odense in February 1245 and threatened Eric
with excommunication and the interdict unless he relented in his plans for new
taxes. They were joined by two of the king’s brothers, Christopher and Canute,
by the petty nobility, and by much of the peasantry. A formidable coalition stood
arrayed in opposition to the king.3
Although faced by enemies everywhere, Eric commanded sufficient
resources to defeat them in the initial clashes. Then new foes appeared.
In this time there was a quarrel between King Eric and his brother
Duke Abel. The duke was aided by Count Johann of Holstein, the
Archbishop of Bremen and their vassals and also those from Lubeck.
Duke Abel took the town of Ripon from the king and ravaged around
207
^Conversion of Lithuania
Я captured his people. The king took it again and defended it in a
manly fashion. Duke Abel and Archbishop Gerhard of Bremen, Count
Johann and other lords came with a great army into Denmark to win
Ripon back. The king defended it manfully. They besieged it so long
that they had to leave for hunger. The king and the duke were
reconciled, and the other lords witnessed their pact. Those from Lubeck
fought with the ships of the king and ravaged from the sea and killed
many innocent men.4
This meager passage tells us what was at stake: assuring that a resurgent
Denmark could not dominate northern Germany and keeping the sea lanes open
for German merchants. But the Germans were not unified, and political decisions
reflected personal ambitions more than national interests. Consequently, when
Eric and Abel took an oath of friendship toward one another, the war ended.
This peace proved to be no more than a truce. The day of reckoning was
swiftly arriving. The struggle between secular and ecclesiastical authority was
being fought too hotly in Italy for anyone to engage in it with safety elsewhere,
and Eric was no exception. Although he had extorted concessions from both the
emperor and the pope, the time was coming when militant churchmen would turn
their attention to the situation in Denmark. As early as 1245, in fact, Innocent IV
had decided upon a program that would eventually make governance more
difficult for rulers like Eric, although Eric’s personal relationship with the pontiff
obscured this for the time being. Having called together a general council in
Lyon, ostensibly to discuss a new crusade, the pope obtained a formal deposition
of Frederick П as emperor from the assembled churchmen and then arranged for
the election of an anti-king in Germany.5 Once this had been done, the pope
struck at any German princes and prelates who demonstrated that their
sympathies were pro-Hohenstaufen or neutral. Because Gerhard II of Bremen had
not shown sufficient enthusiasm for the papal cause, the pope listened
sympathetically to the complaints of unhappy canons from Hamburg and
disgruntled citizens of Bremen. This was sufficient—fearful of unfavorable papal
decisions, the archbishop abandoned Frederick’s cause and his resistance to King
Eric. The citizens of Lubeck were more stubborn, however, and refused to give
UP their traditional Hohenstaufen allegiance. Upon hearing this, Innocent IV
ordered Eric to reprove them.6 Thus the pope succeeded in harassing the
imperial party in northern Germany—to the delight of the Danish monarch, who
ound himself still a favorite of the papacy despite complaints laid against him
ЬУ the Danish Church.
While papal policies were producing revolts in Germany and military
victories in Italy, Eric resumed his offensive against the Danish churchmen in
°Pes of humbling them. Although the hostile prelates hurried to the pope, they
*ere unable to obtain a sympathetic hearing from him. Toward the end of 1248
Уа1 forces overran Schleswig and reached Segeberg in Holstein, advancing so
swiftly that Abel’s two daughters had to flee in disguise, slipping away barefoot
ough the snow in peasant clothing. There were other successes as well, but the
208
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
indications of future troubles multiplied: Mecklenburg had come over to Eric,
and Otto of Braunschweig had occupied Schwerin; but Archbishop Gerhard was
again giving aid to Holstein, and the king of Norway was preparing to enter the
war. In addition, although Eric had captured Christopher, Canute escaped to rally
around him all those opposed to the king. In short, despite Eric’s promises that
the war would be short and victorious, Denmark was sliding into chaos. It was
time for Innocent IV to reassess the situation.
The pope had already sent William of Modena on a mission to Norway and
Sweden to restore peace to those strife-tom states. Now he offered to send him
to Denmark. Late in 1248, Archbishop Gerhard mediated a cessation of
hostilities. An important clause in the truce required everyone to cooperate in the
crusade to Livonia.7
By this time King Eric was quite willing to sail to the east on crusade. His
neighbor, King Eric III of Sweden, was already in Finland, fulfilling his promise
to William of Modena. The Danish monarch took the cross, lifted the blockade
of Lubeck which had hindered crusaders from travelling either to Livonia or
Prussia, and began to collect a crusading army. Because he lacked money to. pay
these troops, he ordered another special tax of one penny on every plow in the
kingdom, an unpopular tax which applied to ecclesiastical and secular lands
alike. Free peasants saw in this a crafty ploy—the tax he had failed to impose
by royal fiat and war was now being collected on the pretext of supporting a
crusade! Derisively, the petty nobles and peasants nicknamed him Eric
Plowpenny, shouted down his proposal at the assembly in Schonen, and attacked
his guard so violently that the king had to flee for his life. Nevertheless, Eric
sent his troops to collect the new tax. In May of 1249 he fulfilled his crusading
obligation by sailing east, but he returned before the end of July, having
accomplished nothing.8
Eric’s expedition demonstrated that the crusades had not been forgotten. Just
as Louis IX of France raised a large army and sailed to Egypt during the great
struggle between the pope and the emperor, the Liibeckers (and others) continued
their support of the Livonian crusade. In 1246 a large fleet had sailed to
Samland, established a foothold on that strategic peninsula, and returned with
many hostages for a great baptismal service in Saint Mary’s Church in Lubeck.9
Nor had the papacy forgotten the Baltic mission. Because he believed he was
fighting for the very survival of papal authority, Innocent IV tended to view
every action as intended either to help or hurt his cause, and because the
Teutonic Knights were reluctant to abandon Frederick П completely and serve
the papacy unconditionally, the pope named a new archbishop in Prussia who
would force them into line.
Albert Suerbeer, Archbishop of Prussia
The Teutonic Knights had been quite satisfied with the past services of their
friend, William of Modena. In Prussia they had defeated S vantopulk (S vantopelk)
of Pomerania militarily, but it was William who had brought about the favorable
peace treaty; in Livonia they had beaten the Lithuanians in battle, but it was
The Conversion of Lithuania	209
William who had confirmed them in their possession of Kurland. They could
always rely on this papal legate to understand their difficulties and defend then-
interests. His knowledge of politics, his skill in negotiation, and his vast
experience marked him as a man with a great future in the Church, and they
were not surprised when Innocent named him Cardinal Bishop of Sabina in 1244.
Because his next assignment was to prepare for the Council of Lyon in 1245, his
regular duties as legate were assigned to his chaplain, which opened the way for
a shift in papal policy—from one of conciliation to that of intimidation, from
cooperation to domination. Unfortunately for the next legate, the Teutonic
Knights did not submit to such rough tactics any more readily than had the
Swordbrothers before them.
The Council of Lyon had been called so that the Church could act decisively
against Frederick II, striking at his government and his supporters in every
manner possible. Although the churchmen took no action against the crusading
order, neither did they overlook the close connection between the emperor and
the Teutonic Knights, and although the crusading order made every effort to
avoid being involved in the controversy, it could not avoid the suspicion that it
was pro-Hohenstaufen. The pope did not want to attack the order, but he hoped
to subordinate it. Since William of Modena was too friendly toward the order,
Innocent looked for a man who would be willing to use harsh measures if
necessary, and at the council he found a prelate from Ireland, Albert Suerbeer,
who seemed perfectly qualified to cany out his plans.
Albert Suerbeer was no stranger to Baltic politics, having been nominated
in 1229 as bishop of Riga by Archbishop Gerhard of Bremen. He lost that post
to Nicholas, but his brief apprenticeship in Baltic affairs had not been wasted—it
had acquainted him with the problems of the region and alerted him to its
possibilities. A few years later, Cardinal Otto appointed him archbishop of
Armagh over the objections of the English king. Once installed as archbishop in
Ireland, Albert ruled his subjects in a despotic manner, but his success in taxing
his poverty-stricken people was heartily welcomed by a papacy hard pressed for
funds. Coming to France in 1245, he performed such valuable service at the
council that many observers recommended him for promotion; not only was
Albert Suerbeer a German and a strong supporter of papal pretensions, but he
could not safely return to Ireland. It was quite logical that Innocent IV saw in
him a man who could deal with the Teutonic Knights; early in 1246 the pope
named him archbishop of Prussia and papal legate.
The Teutonic Knights realized that this new archbishop was dangerous. Not
only could he revive the claims of the late Bishop Christian of Prussia against
their lands but he could revise the legate’s settlement of the dispute between the
Teutonic Knights and Svantopulk of Pomerania. Rightfully fearing his presence
tn Prussia, the Teutonic Knights informed him that the country was still too
unsafe for a prelate to reside there. They were not lying about this—indeed,
Pagans had kidnapped Bishop Christian and held him incommunicado for
years—but there was more to their message than a friendly word of caution.
Albert Suerbeer, heeding this warning to beware the crusading order, took up
210
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
residence in Lflbeck. This city was the seaport where most travelers to Riga took
ship, because it controlled the sea lanes, but it had almost no influence on
overland travel along the Baltic coast, Albert Suerbeer’s ability to affect events
was thus limited to applying pressure on the Livonian Order; consequently, his
attention gradually shifted from Prussia to Livonia.10
The Conquest of Kurland
Under the leadership of Dietrich von Griiningen, the Teutonic Knights had
made considerable progress in Livonia after the 1242 disaster at Lake Peipus.
Dietrich, an unusually capable knight, had come to Livonia with Hermann Balke
as the latter’s second-in-command and become his successor in 1238-1239.
Summoned abroad in 1241, he had left Andreas von Felben as acting-master in
Livonia during the tumultuous events which culminated in the Battle on the Ice.
When Dietrich returned to Riga, he was enthusiastically welcomed by the
knights.11 Dietrich reorganized the convents, appointed new castellans and
advocates, won over the bishops of Riga, Oesel-Wiek, and Dorpat to an alliance,
and then advanced into Kurland.
A day was set when everyone was to be ready, and messengers were
sent to the Letts and the Livonians. The Christians came gladly, as was
the established custom. The bishops and the king’s men were informed
of the expedition, and they came willingly in several stately
detachments. The assembly was in Riga. And many glass-bright helmets
were seen in the midst of the army. Guides were chosen who knew
Kurland well. On the beach by the sea, the army was divided among
the various banners for the journey. The army that rode in such good
order into Kurland was long and wide, and everything was well under
control. Many large detachments were sent out here and there and
brought in large amounts of booty, but I will condense my account.
They distressed many, and whoever did not escape died. The Kurs
groaned, and they-understood that if they wished to live peacefully, they
would have to surrender to the Master. Their elders took counsel, came
to agreement on that, and sent messengers to the army.12
Dietrich did not burden the natives with extraordinary taxes, but before 1245
he built a great fortress at Goldingen to assure their loyalty. This castle, built on
a high hill overlooking the Windau River, controlled the entire region and was
sheltered from direct attack by smaller forts to the east and south. Its large
garrison provided cavalry that protected the outlying settlements from the
Semgallianiand Samogitians. Although this was a gross example of conquest by
terror, the crusaders did not deplore the fact—the peaceful conquest of the
previous decade had not proven lasting. The chronicler remarked that "one has
to show them both mildness and sternness before they will make the decision to
accept baptism, which they will make only under duress."13
The Conversion of Lithuania	211
Not all the Kurs submitted; some appealed to their Samogitian neighbors for
help- These pagans, though eager to send assistance, doubted their ability to harm
the Germans without the help of Grand Duke Mindaugas, who in recent years
had been extending his authority westward from the central highlands. The
Samogitians had always acknowledged that they were part of the Lithuanian
kingdom, but they had also upheld their right to govern themselves as they
wished. Consequently, the closeness of their relationship with the grand duke
tended to vary according to the situation. When threatened by outside attack, the
elders were more willing to acknowledge Mindaugas’ claims to national
leadership than during times of peace. Now, seeing the crusaders advancing from
the north and west, from both Livonia and Prussia, the elders sent their foremost
warrior, Lengewin (it is assumed that every noble of importance was related to
Mindaugas in some way, either by blood or by marriage), to request the grand
duke to lead them in the war against the Germans. They did this only because
they understood that their forces were too weak to capture the Christian castles
and, since castles were fundamental to control of the land, they had no hope of
achieving success on their own. They would not submit for any other reason to
Mindaugas, whom they did not trust
Mindaugas of Lithuania
In the opening campaign of the war, to which only the approximate date
1244 can be assigned, Mindaugas led a large army to Amboten, the southernmost
castle in Kurland, and began siege operations against it. Perhaps unknown to
him, an enemy watchman had seen his approach and had hurried to Goldingen,
so that very soon a relief column of thirty knights, accompanied by a Kurish
force of 500 warriors, was hurrying south. Their arrival at Amboten was not
noted by Mindaugas, who was busy assaulting the castle.
The Lithuanians came out proudly and in great force. The shouts of
their army rang out and many bold pagans advanced.... Mindaugas had
ordered his men to build siege machines with which he could threaten
those in the castle. Those there knew how to deport themselves in war,
and had prepared a stubborn defense. Mindaugas ordered an attack, and
many a pagan fell from his horse onto the grass. The brothers rejoiced.
For the first time they had a true estimate of their power. It was a huge
band of pagans, thirty thousand men. Mindaugas began to storm the
castle in a frenzied attack. The brothers said: "Let us not rush out too
soon [from their hiding place in the woods]. It is to our advantage to
let them go so near the castle that they will notice nothing behind them.
Great glory shall be rendered unto God here before this very castle.”
They rode out of the woods a little way so that the horses could make
a better charge. "Now you heroes fight!" cried brother Bemec. "This is
the way it should be. Whether things go for good or ill, stay by the flag
and have the courage of lions."14
Leaving 500 dead warriors behind, Mindaugas fled into the woods. He had
lost the battle because he had been caught by surprise in the open. He had
inflicted such heavy casualties on his opponents that they did not pursue him. He
would be back. And next time he would be less reckless.
The ensuing border war was extremely bloody. The Lithuanians raided
Kurland and Livonia, and the Christians responded in kind. Many lives were lost
in the reciprocal massacres, especially in the small forest settlements which were
most exposed to sudden, overwhelming attacks.
Since God had given honor to them, they praised his mercy which is
ever present for the down-trodden. The Kurs also rejoiced and remained
loyal. But the brothers had great travail, of which, however, they
complained little, for they labored in God’s name. They steadfastly
propagated the True Faith. Often they suffered. Whenever they were
near a castle, each one had to do everything just right or he died
because of his negligence. They suffered many hardships: they kept
watch, fasted, and seldom rested. Their misery was great.15
At last the fighting diminished. But this was due more to developments in
Lithuania and Semgallia rather than to the prowess of the Livonian crusaders.
Lithuanian Unification
Lithuania was slowly coalescing as a state, as the dukes and boyars accepted
Mindaugas’ leadership in order for everyone to profit from the opportunities for
expansion south and.west into Black Russia,16 then controlled by the two
brothers, Daniel of Galicia and Vasilko of Volhynia. Black Russia was a thinly
populated region even by medieval standards and vulnerable to attack. As a
result, the economy, government, and culture were all organized for war.
In general, the forests and steppes of the entire borderland region between
East and West presented formidable challenges for peasant communities and
towns. Since the dukes of Galicia-Volhynia could hardly watch the northern
borders carefully—their seats in Kholm and Vladimir were distant from the
threatened frontier to begin with, and each duke had many problems to deal
with—local Polish knights and Russian boyars had to defend a far-flung
wilderness frontier with the help of footsoldiers drawn from the scattered
villages. Slavery was a dying institution, thanks to the opposition of the Church,
so the best means of increasing the population of the borderlands quickly was to
encourage immigration from the west. There were dangers in that policy, but it
did attract Polish peasants and German and Jewish tradesmen and artisans.17
This produced situation where the Polish language slowly merged into Russian
(in Galicia more so than in Volhynia) and the dual ethnic identification of the
rulers and their strong support of the Uniate Church (Russian rites, combined
with recognition of the pope as the head of the Church) reflect their dilemma in
trying to appease both their Orthodox and Roman Catholic subjects—under the
circumstances, vagueness was a virtue.18 Duke Daniel of Galicia had married
fhe Conversion of Lithuania	213
Mindaugas’ niece in hope of reducing the pressure on Black Russia and
obtaining help in fighting the fierce pagans of Jatwigia.
Daniel and Vasilko, attacked during these years by Poles from the west and
Mongols from the east, faced difficult choices. In 1246, while Daniel was
visiting Perejaslavl, he was summoned to Khan Batu’s presence, where he spent
twenty-five days witnessing acts of open fornication, bloodsucking, and "endless
sorcery." He drank fermented mare’s milk to demonstrate that he was willing to
try anything they suggested, then was humiliated when Batu sent him a keg of
wine (an insult implying that he could not handle strong alcohol). He escaped
only by groveling before the grand khan and promising him payments of tribute.
A Russian chronicler bewailed the incident over the mare’s milk more than the
money, "Oh, the greatest disgrace is to be so honored by the Tatars."19
In these years Mindaugas extended his influence more widely over the states
immediately to his east. In 1236-38 he assigned three relatives to neighboring
Russian cities, Vykintas (Vykond) to Vitebsk, and Vykintas’ sons, Tovtivil and
Edivydas, to Polozk and into the territory of Smolensk. Lithuanian control over
lands associated with Smolensk was short-lived, though Edivydas probably
became a convert to Orthodoxy and led Russians valiantly against the Tatars. In
pursuing a policy of making alliances with the Russians, Mindaugas was
exploiting their desire to escape Tatar domination and to avoid his subjects’ own
invasions. He also removing potentially dangerous rivals from their ancestral
bases. Mindaugas was not a man of delicate subtlety. No one who wants to turn
barbarian tribes into a united people can be anything less than a combination
political genius, military hero, and gangster boss, and as such he had to win the
public’s approval through occasional gestures of magnanimity, and by rewarding
his followers generously with presents of women and silver.20 Prominent nobles
who refused to submit had to flee for their lives or accept a governorship in
Russia. The Jatwigians and Samogitians, while serving as allies, declined to
acknowledge him as their sovereign, partly because the leading Samogitian noble,
Lengewin, perceived himself as having the qualifications to become the supreme
ruler of all the region’s pagans. Lengewin, like most Lithuanian nobles, clearly
admired the manner in which Mindaugas would offer his services to the Russians
as an ally, mercenary, governor, ruler, or as whatever he judged was likely to be
accepted, threatening to turn his troops loose on any principality refusing this act
of friendship, and using that wedge to make himself dominant in the region.
Consequently, Lengewin was ready to take a middle position, working with
Mindaugas but not committing himself unconditionally to his service; and he
clearly did not want to be transferred to some distant frontier far from friends
nnd retainers, where the chances of violent death were much greater than at
home. Foreign contemporaries had little information about Lengewin’ relationship
to Mindaugas, and modem scholars still disagree. The importance of Edivylas,
Mindaugas’ nephew and son of the previous grand duke, can hardly be doubted,
but almost nothing is known about him other than that he was ruling Gardinas
at this time.21 Today, foreign scholars see Lithuanians of this era as either an
^completely unified people (though not as divided as Germans before 1990,
214
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
separated into East and West Germany, Austria, and Switzerland) or as a
typically medieval national identity (like Germans of the Middle Ages, subjects
of the emperor, but in practice ruled by local dukes, counts, bishops, and abbots
whose subjects included many non-Germans). Lithuanian scholars, in contrast,
see Mindaugas’ state as the precursor of the modem nation encompassing
everyone who spoke Lithuanian. Mindaugas’ contemporaries would not have
understood why modem scholars stress language more than religion and family
relationships. As far as they were concerned, Samogitia was a part of Lithuania,
but it possessed traditions of its own—like Henry the Lion’s Saxony. Samogitia
was sometimes autonomous, even detachable, and at other times it was very
close to the grand duke’s heart. Whatever differences may have existed between
Lithuanians and Samogitians, all contemporaries agreed upon this: Mindaugas’
subjects were feared and respected for their military prowess; Lengewin’s were
perceived as wild men, magicians, and beasts.22
As Mindaugas sent his forces south, the dukes of Galicia-Volhynia attempted
to retaliate, concentrating on Lengewin’s tribesmen, but even when fighting
alongside Polish allies from Masovia, they were no better equipped to deaf with
this enemy than the Teutonic Knights in Prussia and Livonia were. When Duke
Daniel’s men suggested camping in a Jatwigian forest, he asked them if they did
not realize that Christians fought best on an open field, while heathens were
accustomed to fighting in woods. Daniel and Vasilko were successful in killing
large numbers of Jatwigian and Samogitian raiders, largely because the lowland
Lithuanians still preferred to operate alone rather than under Mindaugas’
direction, but the joint Polish-Volhynian effort to invade Black Russia, Jatwigia,
and Samogitia ended in failure. Their proud boyars, skilled archers, and infantry
with shields as ’’bright as the dawn and their helmets—like the rising sun’’ were
too dangerous for the pagans to attack except at night But the dukes became lost
in the unexplored forests and were happy to escape with their lives.23
Alexander Nevsky hardly did better in his efforts to limit Lithuanian
expansion. He tried to secure Polozk in 1239 by marrying the daughter of the
local ruler, Bryacheslav, but by 1243 he had to order his son’s guardians to bring
him to safety in Novgorod. Soon thereafter he defeated two Lithuanian armies,
one after chasing it across southern Novgorod to a place north of Smolensk, the
other to the east of that city—killing more than eight Lithuanian ’’princelings.”
Although these battles secured Smolensk, in 1248 the dukes of Suzdal had to
come to the aid of the beleaguered city again, this time defeating a pagan army
on the frontier (whether this was as they were entering the country or on their
retreat is not clear). Polozk fell completely under Lithuanian sway.24
The Second Conquest of Semgallia
The Semgallian tribes, like the Jatwigians and Samogitians, saw little
advantage in making Mindaugas their ruler. In some respects their situation
resembled that of the Prussians and Kurs: some had already surrendered to the
Christians, and those which remained independent were temporarily at peace. The
leading Semgallians, three brothers named Tusche, Milgerin, and Gingeike, had
The
Conversion of Lithuania
215
ded with the Samogitians’ Lengewin long before Mindaugas had come west
1 ith his army and announced his hostility to any enemy of the Samogitians—
nciuding them as well as the Germans. About the year 1245-1246, realizing that
^еу cOuld not resist this attack by themselves, the three brothers decided to ask
the Christians for aid. Then, after they had approached Master Dietrich and made
certain of his good will, they set out for Samogitia, determined to strike such a
blow that the Lithuanians would be unable to recover for many months. They
entered Samogitia undetected, captured Lengewin, and brought him to Semgallia;
then they gathered their families and possessions, marched to a wood just outside
the Christian frontier fort at Ascheraden, and informed Dietrich that Lengewin
was their prisoner. The master, greatly pleased, offered the Semgallians lands for
a new settlement and protection in exchange for Lengewin. After these
Semgallians became Christians, the intensity of the Lithuanian attacks on Kurland
and Livonia diminished.
With the famous war chief of the Samogitians in their hands and the fierce
Semgallians by their side, the crusaders from Livonia and Estonia fell upon the
Samogitian settlements and burned and plundered wide areas. On their return, the
Christians defeated a Samogitian force and killed Lengewin’s brother, a deed
Lengewin had foreseen in his examination of the shoulder-blade of a roasted
animal. This bone had been offered to him during a feast with his knightly
captors (a fact which suggests that his imprisonment was not arduous).
Superstition was already strong among the knights, who were well aware of this
oracular tradition among the Moors, Celts, Russians, and Tatars. Lengewin’s
ability to read signs raised his formidable reputation even higher.25 The war was
not at an end, however, for the Teutonic Knights’ hope for peace through
ransoming their captive for 500 silver coins did not come about: Lengewin
resumed his attacks.
There was not much choice as to whether or not to ransom Lengewin. If the
crusaders wished to obtain the return of their own knights when captured, rather
than have them roasted on a grate in a pagan ceremony, they had to ransom the
prisoners they took when offered a fair price. In this practice as in many others,
the medieval frame of reference has to be accepted for what it was. Ransom, like
taxes and booty, was a perfectly honorable form of income. Certainly, in the eyes
of warriors it was more honorable than trade or industry.
Penetrating deep into Livonia, Lengewin defeated the castellan of Wenden26
nnd his 500 men, killing nine knights and forcing another to carry the head of
his commander back to Lithuania, where it was sacrificed in pagan ceremonies
ln memory of Lengewin’s brother. The courage and ability of these warriors rose
ln the estimation of the crusaders with each exploit Although the crusaders
remained pious enemies of strange rites and unfamiliar superstitions, their class
las in favor of valor and military skill had an effect on their attitudes. Once the
achievement of easy victories over large numbers of pagan foes was no longer
Possible, the Christians slowly began to acknowledge their worthiness. Whenever
Possible, they recruited them into their service.27
216
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
The Ambitions of Albert Suerbeer
It was at this time, 1245-1247, that Dietrich left Livonia to accept new
duties in Germany and Prussia and was replaced briefly by Heinrich von
Heimburg, then by Andreas von Felben.28 Dietrich stopped in Lubeck to confer
with Albert Sueibeer, but because his duties as vice-grandmaster (also Prussian
master and later German master, as well as vice-master in Livonia) were to keep
him fully occupied during the following decade, the responsibility for dealing
with this prelate fell to Master Andreas, who, before assuming his duties in
Livonia, had spoken to the pope about his legate. This individual, Albert
Suerbeer, unable to establish himself in Prussia, was then residing in Lubeck,
where he could keep himself informed about events in the eastern Baltic and
from time to time cause difficulty for the Teutonic Knights.
Because the order could transport its men and supplies overland into Prussia,
Albert Suerbeer concerned himself more with the Livonian crusade, which was
dependent upon Lubeck as its base in the west, than with Prussia. In 1247, when
the bishopric of Lubeck became vacant, Albert Suerbeer then assumed the office.
Not longer afterward, he confiscated the donations intended to assist poor
crusaders in meeting the heavy costs of equipment and transportation to Riga. He
also used his position to interfere in the Danish civil war and in German politics.
As papal legate, he raised a crusading army against the imperial city of Aachen
for refusing to allow Frederick H’s rival to enter the cathedral for his coronation.
Similarly, he used every available means to embarrass the Teutonic Knights. It
was not papal directives alone that drove him forward, for he possessed
considerable personal ambition; he saw unlimited possibilities for himself, and
perhaps even the papacy. No wonder, then, that he felt frustrated by his inability
to strike more effectively at the Teutonic Knights. Even though his plans were
unsuccessful in the end (including his attempt to make Lubeck a great Baltic
archbishopric, in anticipation of which he had made arrangements for submitting
to the archbishop of Bremen), he still continued to ignore officials of the
Teutonic Knights who sought to confer with him. He wanted submission, not
negotiation.29
Time was running out for Albert Suerbeer, however. As the imperial
position collapsed, strong action against imperial supporters became increasingly
less necessary, and when the great emperor died, it was no longer justified at all.
By September of 1250 Innocent IV was seeking a reconciliation with the
Teutonic Knights—a change of policy maiked by the sending of a new papal
legate to Prussia.30 Bishop Albert viewed the new legate as a grave danger to
his plans because he might settle the dispute between the order and Svantopulk
of Pomerania, which was the only issue Albert could use against the order at that
moment. He threatened in vain to excommunicate anyone who dealt with the new
legate. The bishop had also proposed a new Russian policy, one that would bring
Duke Daniel of Galicia into the Roman orbit, but at the same time the Teutonic
Knights were suggesting that the conversion of the Lithuanians would be a much
easier way of accomplishing the same outcome.
217
fhe Conversion of Lithuania
The Russian dukes were again under Tatar pressure—now on all fronts, from
v Ihynia *n tlie 8011111 t0 Novgorod, Suzdal and Vladimir in the north. Duke
naniel submitted to the great khan, as did Alexander Nevsky—the one agreeing
u attack Mindaugas and those Russian cities which had placed themselves under
Lithuanian protection, the other seeking to reclaim his birthright, the title of
rand duke, which was his by virtue of being the genealogically eldest member
of the dynasty. Andrej and Jaroslav, in contrast, saw in a long-lasting Mongol
succession crisis the opportunity to recover Russian independence. During then-
visit to Sarai in 1249 they had observed the court intrigues and concluded that
supporting the weaker claimant to power would be to their advantage. The next
year Andrej married Daniel’s daughter, presumably bringing him into the plot.
Alexander, however, not only refused to be lured into the conspiracy, but in 1252
went personally to the Tatar khan and apparently asked to be named grand duke.
The khan sent armies against Vladimir and Galicia, smashing the ducal armies
and driving both dukes into flight Andrej tarried only briefly in Novgorod and
Reval before sailing overseas where he at last felt safe—in Sweden.31 When the
Tatars captured Perejaslavl, they killed Jaroslav’s wife and took his children
prisoner. Somehow in the next year Jaroslav arranged for their liberation, perhaps
paying ransom, then moved farther west, establishing himself in Tver and
endowing his son, Svjatoslav, with the title of duke of Pskov.32 The khan
named Alexander grand duke. The Tatar Yoke had at last been firmly placed on
Russian shoulders—and with Russian help.
One can easily see how, with the situation in Russia so unstable, that Albert
Suerbeer might imagine getting some advantage from it—if not an outright
conversion by at least one duke, then at least an alliance.33
The Conversion of Lithuania
Mindaugas was hard pressed in these years: the Teutonic Knights burned and
plundered in Nalsen, Samogitia, and the pagan areas of Semgallia. To his rear
he experienced the defection of his brother-in-law, Vykintas, who was ruling in
the lands taken from Smolensk. His nephews34 had fled earlier to Daniel of
Galicia-Volhynia out of fear of having their names added to the list of boyars
who had paid with their lives for refusing to obey the grand duke. The first to
arrive in Riga, probably in 1248, was Vykintas, who apparently spoke on behalf
°f Tovtivil’s rights in Polozk and the Germans’ interest in maintaining the
favorable commercial treaty of 1229. Tovtivil, encouraged by the response, came
north and perhaps underwent baptism at the hands of Bishop Nicholas. He then
received military aid in returning to Polozk. Out of thankfulness, he gave the
>shop permission to build a Roman Catholic church in the city.35
By 1249 Vykintas and Edivydas were in Samogitia and Jatwigia, distributing
ver and gifts provided by the Rigans and Duke Daniel.36 What happened to
engewin in this period is unclear—the chronicles never mention him again—but
e was obviously deceased. Tovtivil made devastating attacks on central
tthuania, while Duke Daniel’s forces ravaged the lands south of Vilnius. These
218
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
raids, though devastating, were insufficient to topple Mindaugas from power, so
Tovtivil approached Albert Suerbeer for help. The price was baptism, which (if
not already undergone) was certainly paid by early 1250.37
By the time the Semgallians bought peace with the crusaders by promising
to pay taxes, and Kurland was sufficiently pacified for the pope to name a
Franciscan friar as bishop over a combined diocese,38 Mindaugas’ position was
becoming untenable. His narrow escape from capture while defending an
unidentified fortress against the assembled forces of his enemies was apparently
the final proof that the balance of power had changed. Desperate to break out of
the ring of enemies surrounding him, he asked Andreas for an interview to
discuss conversion. This placed the crusader commander in an awkward position:
his Christian duty required him to make conversions peacefully when possible,
and Innocent IV had been urging him to hurry the process in Lithuania. On the
other hand, if he welcomed Mindaugas into the Christian fellowship, he could
not continue to be an ally of Vykintas and Duke Daniel—that is, he would risk
giving up what seemed certain victory, and by making an alliance with
Mindaugas he would have to fight the Samogitians, the Galician-Volhynian
dukes, and their powerful supporter, Albert Suerbeer. There were probably those
who argued that this was not a bad choice at all, that someday they were going
to have to confront the bishop. Better now than later. At the present they had a
strong moral position and the good will of the pope. Moreover, a bird in the
hand was worth more than two in the thick bushes of the interior. This was
probably the decisive argument. With a large retinue Andreas rode across the
wide heaths and deep into Lithuania to the royal hall of Mindaugas.
He was received by him as one should a lord. The queen also came and
received the master and all the brothers who had come with him
politely. Afterward, when the time came that they should eat, I have
heard that nothing was forgotten that one should have to honor them.
They treated their guests well. When the meal was eaten and they had
not sat there long, the king thanked the master of Livonia for coming
to him. Then the master listened to the king till that point where he
could say a good word, when he spoke to Mindaugas, the king of
Lithuania, "If you were a Christian, I could give you great honor, and
I could win a crown for you, unless I died first." The king was pleased
by that statement. He promised the master part of his land and had
good will toward him. When all this had happened, the master and the
king immediately swore oaths on it, which pleased the Christians.39
No one knows where this great hall (at "Voruta") stood. While most scholars
suggest Vilnius, it could just as well have been in Naugardukas (Novogorodek)
or Kemavfc, or elsewhere.40 Mindaugas, like his wealthy contemporaries in the
west, had numerous residences which he used in turn for the sake of
variety—especially when hunting—and to distribute the costs of feeding the court
more equitably among his subjects.41
The
Conversion of Lithuania
219
Andreas returned to Riga with Lithuanian representatives and dispatched a
sage to the pope requesting papal instructions concerning the process by
^h'ch the Lithuanian conversion was to be accomplished. In doing this Andreas
Massed Albert Suerbeer. Although the only conditions the Lithuanians had
reed upon during their visit in Riga were the acceptance of Christianity and the
a?ening of the country to Christian merchants, Mindaugas later granted
Samogitia to the Teutonic Knights. This represented no loss to him, since it was
for all practical puiposes in Vykintas’ possession. Mindaugas simply asked
Master Andreas to punish certain "rebels."42 This was an arrangement which
wOuld be repeated in the next century—grand dukes and their relatives would
cede Samogitia to the Teutonic Knights in order to have a free hand in the east
(and sometimes for military aid against the Tatars as well). As it happened, two
years later Pope Innocent IV granted Mindaugas all the lands which had once
belonged to Kiev. In short, the bargain by which the Lithuanian grand duke
surrendered his rights in Samogitia was neither one-sided nor short-sighted.43
Albert Suerbeer fought a desperate rearguard action on behalf of his Russian
friends and Lithuanian allies, making and repudiating agreements, scattering
excommunications, and interfering with the master’s every plan. When the pope
ordered the parties to appear at the papal court and submit their quarrel to
arbitration, the hearings accomplished little. Finally, when Innocent’s patience
was exhausted, he stripped Albert Suerbeer of his legation. Unable to hear the
case personally because of his preoccupation with Frederick II, he impaneled a
special court in Lyon whose members included Cardinal William, the former
bishop of Modena and longtime papal legate to the Baltic region. William
dominated the hearings that winter, asking questions that penetrated to the heart
of the controversies and destroying the subterfuges that had so long delayed a
settlement. He was working against time, hurrying to finish the hearings while
his strength lasted, and he succeeded: the court’s report was approved by the
pope only shortly before William died, late in March of 1251.44 This faithful
servant of the Church had completed his work in the Baltic; the pope’s decision
was acceptable, if not pleasing, to all; and the crusading order preserved the
lands and rights necessary to continue its role as the dominant crusading power
m the northeast. This decision guaranteed the Teutonic Knights supremacy in
Prussia and Kurland, where they received two-thirds of the land, with the
remainder divided among small and powerless bishops, and it ordered Albert
Suerbeer to return all confiscated funds. In turn, the master of the order was to
proclaim his loyal support for Albert Suerbeer as archbishop and allow him to
settle in Prussia. Finally, each party was to forgive and forget the wrongs of the
Past. The decision was final. The Teutonic Knights in Prussia rejoiced; but those
In Livonia, along with Albert Suerbeer, had other problems.
Pope Innocent listened to further requests sympathetically. He gave Master
^ndreas permission to crown Mindaugas king of Lithuania, accepting Lithuania
the ranks of Christian nations under the protection and domination of the
eutonic Knights. On the other hand, the pope removed Albert Suerbeer from his
Perfunctory post in Prussia and gave him the expectancy of Riga. He had already
220
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
promised that Riga would be raised to an archbishopric, and moved the Selonian
lands from the Semgallian diocese (now absorbed into the bishopric of Kurland)
to that of Riga. At last Albert Suerbeer took possession of the title and lands that
Albert I had so desired. Bishop Nicholas was still alive, but he was not expected
to live much longer. Anticipating that this last potential rival would soon be out
of the way, Albert Suerbeer traveled north to close his affairs as bishop of
Lubeck and make preparations for assuming his duties in Riga. He hoped for a
magnificent coronation.45
Master Andreas, however, overshadowed Albert Suerbeer’s celebration with
his preparations for the coronation of the Lithuanian king. This ceremony was
intended to be the most memorable moment in the history of the Baltic, a
moment that would wed Lithuania firmly to the Christian world and to the
Teutonic Knights. Ignoring Bishop Nicholas and Albert Suerbeer, Andreas
brought Bishop Heidenreich46 from Culm in Prussia to crown Mindaugas with
all the pomp and formality for which the Teutonic Order was famous.
There were several unusual aspects to these arrangements. First of all,
Andreas apparently took personal charge of negotiations with both the king and
the pope. The reason for this seems clear. First, he wanted to avoid working
through any prelate who would use the occasion to extend his authority over
Lithuania-especially not Albert Suerbeer in Prussia or the archbishop of Gniezno.
Second, the grandmaster was in the Holy Land. Third, the German master was
waiting in the political limbo created by the death of Frederick II, wanting to
support Frederick’s son, Conrad, yet fearful of appearing to defy Pope Innocent
in case he should continue the feud with the Hohenstaufens. The messenger
system of the Teutonic Order was one of the best in Europe, but it could not
deliver messages instantaneously. All in all, it was easy for Andreas to act on his
own, even to the point of ordering two costly crowns for the royal couple.47
Somehow, the other prelates ordered by the pope to attend, the bishops of
Kurland and Oesel-Wiek, did not appear.
The best description of the ceremony was lost for centuries, reappearing only
recently in an Irish library. Apparently Albert Suerbeer had been visited by Irish
Franciscans from his former see in Armagh who went on to Lithuania to assist
at the coronation, then took a written description of the event to Innocent IV.
Afterwards they had travelled through France, perhaps met Roger Bacon, and
returned to their monastery, depositing a copy of their (or, more likely, Bishop
Heidenreich’s) report in the library.48
Priests and monks were left behind in Lithuania—probably Dominicans and
some Franciscans49—and the Queen and eldest son were converted whole-
heartedly to Christianity. Mindaugas may have tom down a pagan shrine in
Vilnius and built a stone cathedral on its ruins. However, beyond that, he did
little to spread the new religion among his people. Mindaugas was apparently
more interested in politics than in religion. He was equally willing to worship the
Christian deity or the pagan gods, depending on which aided him most in his
political ambitions. At this moment, Christianity was opening up new political
alliances and trade agreements—which were literally ’’sealed” by priests assigned
to help him comply with western forms. This was the first step away from the
The
Conversion of Lithuania
221
ent pagan reliance on oaths followed by the ceremonial sacrifice of some
^hnal to establish personal and governmental relationships. Even so, it was a
& all step. Written records remained rare even when western priests were later
S nlanted by Orthodox monks, who replaced the mysterious Latin with the more
^iliar Church Slavonic. Mindaugas’ personal religious beliefs were minimally
affected (he did respect the Christian god’s military prowess, but was little
interested in the intellectual subtleties of Christianity). He did allow the priests
to indoctrinate his heir, Vojsek (Vaisvikas, VaiSelga), who subsequently became
so enthusiastic about Christianity that he dreamt of becoming a monk.50
How did it happen that Vojsek was so quickly and thoroughly converted
while the father remained essentially pagan, neglecting to adopt a Christian name
and continuing to attend pagan ceremonies? Probably the experiences of early
childhood were decisive. Mindaugas was reared a pagan. Consequently, his
system of values was that of Lithuanian tradition: respect for the gods of nature
and their omens, pragmatism, toleration, and a dislike of being told what to do
or to believe. Vojsek was probably reared among Christian captives taken in
successful raids in Poland and Russia.51 If this speculation is correct, the
conversion model was that of Scandinavia, where three centuries earlier Christian
captives prepared the way for Vicelin’s courageous missions to the Vikings.
Vojsek was apparently a young man of extremes—at first a fanatic pagan
(his name meant ’’hospitable wolf’) known as an excellent warrior but who was
unhappy unless—according to hostile Russian chroniclers—he murdered three or
four people each day, then extraordinarily devout (a rarity among Lithuanians,
who, however superstitious they were, nevertheless tended to be extremely
practical).52 The eldest son of an early marriage, he was duke of Novogorodek,
a strategic fortress just south of the Nemunas. This made him responsible for
conducting operations into Black Russia, a lightly populated region between
Lithuania and Duke Daniel’s Volhynia where large forests gave refuge to the
European bison and the auroch.
Mindaugas also sent armies into Smolensk and, later, Novgorod. These raids
were not intended to occupy territory permanently, but to take prisoners and
booty. Alexander Nevsky, backed by the Tatar khan, was too strong an opponent
for the Lithuanian ruler at this moment, but every raid weakened resistance and
rewarded the king’s followers.53
Not everyone was pleased by Mindaugas’ conversion. The bishops of
Livonia were jealous that the Lithuanian kingdom was exempt from their
authority and yet still under the influence of the Teutonic Knights. Daniel,
Vykintas’s principal backer, was especially displeased. These individuals spread
stories about Mindaugas’ continuing to offer sacrifices to his native gods, his
superstitious reverence of the rabbit god, and his respect for the sacred groves.
The archbishop and the Russians continued to support Vykintas and Tovtivil
diplomatically, but lacking the means to supply them military aid consistently
they could do little about the situation other than complain that Master Andreas
Was impeding the conversion of the Samogitians.54 Andreas was in no position
to respond to these attacks. After suffering several bouts of illness, he wrote to
222
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
the grandmaster to ask for a replacement. The master in Germany, Eberhard von
Seine, came to Livonia in 1252, which allowed Andreas to make a last visit to
Mindaugas in the company of Dietrich von Haseldorp. Dietrich, the son of the
count who had fallen in the Battle of the Saule and now a member of the
Teutonic Order, could look upon the conversion of the Lithuanians as a
vindication of his father’s sacrifice.55 Andreas then resigned his office and
traveled to Germany, where he hoped to recover his health.
Andreas left a small unit of crossbowmen with Mindaugas, hoping that their
additional firepower and knowledge of siege techniques would tip the balance of
power in the Lithuanian lowlands, but the king was still unable to defeat his
opponents, reinforced as they were by Daniel’s troops. In a major engagement
Mindaugas was wounded in the thigh by an arrow and the German troops were
chased from the field "as if in a tournament."56 His attack on Vykintas’ fortress
at Tverai in western Samogitia was apparently successful. Although we are not
informed that Vykintas was killed, from that time on the Samogitians were led
by Treniota, who was presumably another of Vykintas’ sons.57
Civil War in Denmark
Albert Suerbeer remained in Lubeck, where he could deal with the problems
arising from the Danish civil war and also make arrangements for assuming
office as archbishop of Riga. He understood how important Lubeck’s good will
would be in the future and therefore sought to please the city fathers in every
way. This was difficult, however, because of the war in Denmark, which had
flared up again in the summer of 1250, when the Lippe family came to the aid
of their relatives in Holstein and Schleswig. (Gerhard II of Hamburg-Bremen and
Bishop Simon of Paderborn were blood relatives of the counts of Holstein, who
desired the return of Rendsburg, and all were related by marriage to Duke Abel
of Schleswig.)
When Eric heard that the German army was moving north, he hurried to
Schleswig and sought a reconciliation with his brother, Duke Abel. The brothers
had reluctantly taken the initial steps toward mutual forgiveness when an
untoward incident renewed all the old hatreds and upset the stability of the
kingdom. The king had retired to a comer of the great hall of the ducal castle for
a game of chess and was deeply engrossed in the game when Abel approached
and asked him if he remembered how Abel’s daughters had been forced to flee
through the snow barefoot and in disguise. Abel must have been angry already,
but when the king continued to study the board and said, "Don’t worry, I’ll buy
them each a new pair of shoes," he could no longer contain himself. He called
the guards and threw the king and his party into chains. Later that evening he
ordered the kinfe removed to a dungeon which could be reached only by boat, at
the same time making secret arrangements for assassins to intercept the boat and
dispose of the king. In November of 1250 Abel swore that he had been innocent
of involvement in any conspiracy against the life of the late monarch. The oath
was compurgated by twenty-four knights, an act which cleansed Abel of the
charge of fratricide and made him eligible to succeed to the throne.58
The
Conversion of Lithuania
223
There was popular suspicion that Abel was in fact "Cain”—ъ notion which
ягпе even more widespread after the mutilated body of the king was
& vered by fishermen—but nobody dared accuse the new monarch of the deed,
ithough Abel had once denounced the unpopular policies pursued by his late
ther, he now made them his own by collecting heavy and illegal taxes and
rsecuting anyone who opposed him in any way. Almost everywhere the Church
^d the peasantry submitted to the royal tyrant, but not in North Frisia, where
swamps promised rebels security against invasion—except in 1252, when a
freeze allowed Abel to cross the swamps, enter the country and ravage the land.
When a sudden thaw came, the royal forces became impossibly mired in the
mud. As bands of farmers began to gather, the king attempted to flee, but his
escape was thwarted when a wheelwright felled him with an ax. The canons at
Schleswig thereupon recovered their courage, refused his corpse burial, and sank
the fratricide in a swamp.59
Circumstances prevented Abel’s son, Waldemar, from assuming power. En
route home from his studies in Paris, he was kidnapped in Cologne and was held
for ransom. By the time his Holstein relatives could free him, his uncle
Christopher had seized the crown. All that Holstein could do was declare a feud,
in alliance with the Danish Church and rebellious peasants. After royal forces
had suffered a few defeats, Lubeck declared its hostility to the king as well and
began to harry the Danish shores.60
Because Albert Suerbeer was acting-bishop of Lubeck, this conflict occupied
his attention during many months when he would have preferred to be in Riga.
He was also involved in warding off a potentially more dangerous attack upon
the Liibeckers by Wilhelm of Holland, the pope’s candidate to succeed Frederick
II. The burghers had not seen him as likely to succeed in his quest for the crown
and, consequently, had refused to pay taxes to him. But when William married
a daughter of Otto of Braunschweig in 1251, sold his tax rights to the duke of
Brandenburg, and gave the bishoprics of Schwerin and Ratzeburg to the duke of
Saxony, he acquired powerful allies against his recalcitrant taxpayers. It was
Albert Suerbeer who assisted the citizens in defending themselves by hiring the
counts of Holstein as advocates of the city. He also sought to abolish the practice
of salvage by which all shipwrecked goods (and sometimes the mariners
themselves) became the property of the lord who owned the coast; by 1253 he
had persuaded a number of lords to renounce their right to salvage, and he
himself promised to abolish it in Livonia. By thus assisting Lubeck in
maintaining its economic and political independence Albert Suerbeer helped shift
P°wer in the Baltic away from monarchs and nobles toward mayors and
burghers. By encouraging cooperation between Lubeck, Hamburg, and Riga in
Amoving tolls and taxes, in policing the highways and seas, and in fighting
mutual enemies, he encouraged the growth of city leagues. In due time this
w°uld lead to the formation of the Hanseatic League, the organization which
would later dominate the north of Europe. Meanwhile, Albert Suerbeer assured
mercantile support for himself, in case it would be needed in a struggle against
be Teutonic Knights in Livonia.61
224
THE BALTIC CRUSADg
The Crusaders Establish a Base at Memel
The Teutonic Knights, also, were working closely with the Liibeckers. They
realized that naval power was necessary if they were to conquer and hold areas
along the coast and then develop the regions commercially. The occupation of
Memel, which occurred at this time, shows how well the Teutonic Knights
understood the vital role of sea power in the Baltic Crusade. Winter weather
isolated Livonia half of each year by making the sea unsafe, and although
Prussia was but a comparatively short distance overland, a traveler or messenger
had to pass through hostile Samogitia to reach Riga. There were ports in Prussia
and Kurland, but they were too far apart for safe sailing in winter. Disliking
these long periods of isolation, Master Eberhard decided to establish a base
halfway between Prussia and Livonia, a base that would be safe for ships and
would also serve as a resting place for parties traveling overland. He decided
upon a site where the Kurland lagoon meets the Baltic Sea—the site of present-
day Klaipeda (Memel). From that point, a one-day ride up the coast or along the
Dange River would bring mounted forces to the southernmost castles in Kurland.
Toward the south, it was no farther to the mouth of the Nemunas River and
Samland, areas that already were under attack by the Teutonic Knights. After
obtaining the cooperation of Lubeck and the bishop of Kurland, Eberhard built
a castle at Memel in 1252, which became a very important base in the war
against the Samogitians.62
Quite likely, the depopulation of the region north of the mouths of the
Nemunas began soon thereafter, raiders sallying into the countryside from the
castle to steal cattle, bum villages, and carry away prisoners. Certainly, within
a few years small fortresses in existence before 1252 are no longer mentioned,
and a wilderness grew where it is believed the natives’ villages once stood.63
In late 1252 Eberhard pleaded illness and the temporary status of his
appointment in asking for a replacement, and Anno von Sangerhausen became
master in 1254. Unfortunately, once again almost nothing is known of the earlier
career or of his links to Thuringian ministeriale families.64 However, his talents
were undeniably extraordinary. Master Anno concentrated on linking Livonia and
Prussia by land so that the northern province would no longer be isolated by
contrary winds and weather for half of each year.
The Samogitians did not appreciate the threat of a castle at Memel to the
same extent as the Samlanders—a surprising development if the local inhabitants
were indeed their fellow countrymen and not an ethnic mix somewhere between
Kurs, Samogitians, and Prussians. Perhaps, of course, it was simply a reflection
of the fact that Samlanders, who lived on the peninsula between Memel and
Prussia, were already under attack and thus had a better understanding of the
danger than tlteir relatives to the east (and the Samogitians in any case had other
distractions to keep them busy at this time; for example, Edivylas was
campaigning with Duke Daniel against the Bohemian king). Certainly the
Samlanders understood the importance of sea power better than their landlocked
neighbors. Sparing no effort, they gathered all their men and ships and proceeded
to the Dange River to besiege the new castle.
The
Conversion of Lithuania
225
part of their force traveled by ship around that land called the Frische.
phen they turned into the Memel and rejoiced. As they came in from
the sea in ships, the frothers recognized the [Samlanders’] intentions
and their morale sank. The time had come for both storm and battle.
One could see so many Samites that they could not be counted. They
filled the Memel with ships so that one could cross it on them. That
never happened again. The Memel is a great river, but the ships were
drawn together so that it was covered just as if a bridge went all the
way across the river. That discouraged the brothers, who were preparing
their defenses. Meanwhile the heathen army from Samland arrived.
They all assembled and took up spear and shield, and stood anxiously
ready to attack. They pressed against and onto the castle. But some had
gotten up too early that morning, and those had to pay for it with the
lives they brought there. None had expected that, but it happened to
many, and thereafter they did not come so near. After they had lost
those people, they were angry that they had ever considered the attack,
because that had happened to their people and they now lay dead.
Immediately the elders ordered them to bum the dead and send them
hence with all their weapons so that they could make expeditions and
attacks in the hereafter also.65
Master Anno was eager to follow up the victory and encompass the
subjugation of Samland. Summoning a vast army from Livonia to join the many
crusaders who had crossed the sea that year, he led his army across the Memel
River and into the great wilderness.
The land is almost surrounded, being on a peninsula, by the wild sea,
which had been a protection for it. No army had ever invaded there,
and on the other sides no one can fight against it because a wild stream,
wild and deep, flows along it...A narrow peninsula extends toward the
Memel, and there the Christians came with their stately army. The
Christians rejoiced. They found the great forest of the Samites there. It
was wide and thick, not of puny saplings, but trees so large that they
were heavy to move. And they had been felled and so placed that they
served as a bulwark...The Christians came upon it and vowed not to
rest till it had been cut in two...Then, when they had cut and slashed
through the forest, the army advanced directly into the land. The
Samites learned that they were visited by guests who wished to do them
harm.66
Thus far the raid was a great success. But, as they had learned on previous
expeditions, getting into a country may be much easier than getting out. As the
crusaders passed deeper into the forest, they were ambushed and all but
annihilated. However, the crusaders were not deterred. New attacks were
aunched against the Samlanders, but from Prussia instead of Livonia. Assisted
226
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
by great armies from Brandenburg and Bohemia, the Teutonic Knights conquered
the region and advanced their frontiers from Prussia to the south bank of the
Memel River. The great city they founded in Samland in 1256 was named
Konigsberg [the king’s mountain] in honor of King Ottokar of Bohemia, who
had brought large armies on crusade to Prussia. The next step was obvious: the
occupation of the territories between Memel and Kurland, which would open the
land route to Livonia. The Livonian branch of the Teutonic Knights was assigned
the difficult task of clearing this narrow strip of land.
The conquest of Samland again demonstrated the advantage of launching
attacks from Prussian rather than Livonian bases. Prussia was more accessible
to crusaders from central Germany, the home of the most powerful lords of the
Holy Roman Empire—both then and in the future. Nor was Livonia, isolated by
the sea, a particularly appealing goal of pilgrimage for crusaders. Therefore, as
a practical measure, most future operations on the Livonian border were
relatively minor, designed to harass the Samogitian flank, while the main attack
came from Prussia.
War in Jatwigia
The other party to Albert Suerbeer’s grand coalition was Duke Daniel, who
in 1253 at last decided to emulate Mindaugas by accepting the crown offered by
the papacy in return for his conversion, thus committing his land to the Uniate
Church. This signaled a major change in political alliances, making Daniel the
leader of a coalition of Polish and Russian rulers who had been attacked by
Samogitians and Jatwigians, and he dutifully led a huge army into Jatwigia. This
seemed to be the moment for the peaceful conversion Albert Suerbeer had been
arguing for, the logical next step after the conversion of the last major non-
Catholic ruler of the region, but the conversion did not occur. Nor was Daniel’s
army able to achieve more than require that the Jatwigians pay tribute—and that
only after heavy fighting.
Daniel did have more success with Mindaugas, though he fought fiercely
with him for possession of the Russian lands between Pinsk, Novogorodek, and
Minsk. Mindaugas’ son, Vojsek, duke of Novogorodek, was a passionate convert
to Orthodoxy who yearned to become a monk at Mount Athos. Unfortunately,
every monk wending his way to Greece had to choose between risking capture
by the Mongols or traveling through Galicia and Hungary. A man of Vojsek’s
rank could not risk the Mongol route, hence he had to gain Daniel’s friendship
in order make the journey. He did this by promising a marriage between his
young sister and Daniel’s equally young son, Svamo—the treaty of Kholm. The
religious issue was not a problem. Until only recently Daniel himself had
wavered between the two confessions, then he had become a Uniate Christian;
moreover, although Mount Athos was an Orthodox center, it was ruled from
Constantinople, where a French Roman Catholic monarch still believed himself
safely in control. However, the journey did not materialize. Turmoil in Bulgaria
made the route so unsafe that Vojsek returned home to enter the monastery in
Polonin, where he remained for three years.
The Conversion of Lithuania	227
This episode, seemingly unimportant at the time, was actually a fateful
moment. The promises made at Kholm would not be forgotten, however tortuous
the paths of politics and intrigue became. In addition, there was an immediate
reward to Daniel from the cessation of hostilities with Mindaugas and being
allowed to install his son, Roman, in Novogorodek: freed from fear of attack, he
could employ all his troops against the Jatwigians. Consequently, Daniel was
successful in collecting tribute from the Jatwigians by force of arms.67 This
must have emboldened Daniel to risk a new confrontation with the Tatars, who
in 1254 had decreed a hearth tax on all Russians. Daniel and his son Lev (Leo)
drove the tax-collecting force away. Although a swift Tatar force made a reprisal
raid, the death of Batu in 1255 saved him from the massive attack he had warned
the pope was coming.68
In early 1254 Albert Suerbeer returned to Riga, as soon as he heard the
news that Bishop Nicholas had died. He sailed for his new see without even
waiting for "congratulations" from the aged archbishop of Bremen, Gerhard II
(who probably still desired to reimpose his authority over Albert’s bishopric). He
visited the bishops of Oesel and Kurland, inspected his own dioceses, and was
dismayed by what he found. The bishops were weak and listened to the counsel
of the Teutonic Knights; his lands around Riga were defended by only a handful
of landed vassals and mercenary troops; and Nicholas had allowed many of his
resources to slip away over the years. Albert had considerable ability to act,
because he again had legatine powers, but he decided not to take immediate
action. Instead, he announced that he would return to Germany, settle his affairs
in Lubeck, and then speak to the pope.
Knowing the pugnacious nature of their old opponent, the Teutonic Knights
were reluctant to enter into a legal controversy with him, especially if they could
settle their differences through diplomacy. Grandmaster Dietrich, who was then
residing in Germany, met the archbishop in Sens, France in December 1254.
Their compromise provided that the order would honor its obligations to the
Livonian prelates, so long as this did not injure the vital interests of the
crusading order. It also arranged satisfaction for many minor complaints. It was
well that Albert signed the agreement, because Innocent IV died at that very
moment and was succeeded by a pope, Alexander FV, who was friendly to the
crusading orders.69
The Era of Expansion Conies to an End
The era ended as it had begun, with civil war in Denmark. The strong-
minded archbishop of Lund, striving for greater autonomy under royal control,
provoked the king to exclaim that he was acting like a German. Each
antagonized the other. The archbishop appointed his subordinates without royal
permission, and the king collected all the taxes instituted by his predecessors,
including those repugnant to the Church. No compromise being possible, civil
war resumed in 1256. The king vigorously sought to crush the rebellion, razing
illegal castles recently erected by the churchmen and throwing into prison the
228
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
archbishop and those bishops who took his side. Fear of excommunication
eventually caused the king to release the archbishop, but he sent that prelate into
exile. The war continued until 1259, when Christopher died suddenly (poison in
a communion chalice was suspected). The new king, ten-year-old Eric, was no
match for his opponents; the power of the monarch continued to decline.70
One effect of this was to strip the crown of the right to appoint the bishops
of Reval. Pope Urban IV forced Queen Margaret (sometimes called the "dominia
Estonia”) to create a chapter that could conduct services properly and elect a
bishop. Since the kings preferred to supervise affairs personally, however, no
matter that the distance made business expensive, time-consuming, and
inconvenient, the bishops never became more that minor figures in local
politics.71 The Holy Roman Empire suffered a similar setback. The titular ruler,
William of Holland, had been a weak monarch, but at least he had understood
German problems and had tried to deal with them. If he could have built a base
in the northwest, perhaps he could have acted effectively, at least in Northern
Germany; but all his plans came to naught when he was killed by Frisian rebels
in the winter of 1255-1256. Germany was leaderless thereafter.72
Other lords, long associated with the Livonian Crusade, also passed from the
scene. Gerhard of Bremen, whose career had stretched over many decades,
having been overwhelmed by age, gave authority to manage his affairs to a
nephew, the bishop of Paderborn. When Gerhard died in the summer of 1258,
his nephew made an effort to succeed him, but the Lippe family was beaten in
battle by a candidate from Oldenburg. The archbishopric thereafter tended to
reflect the Frisian interests of that noble house. The heritage of Bernard of Lippe
lapsed and support of the crusade to the Baltic waned.73
Mindaugas was hard pressed in these years. In 1256-1257 the Mongols
responded to his drive southward by sending a more energetic leader, Burondaj,
with reinforcements to oppose him. This Tatar leader was so powerful that even
Daniel of Galicia reluctantly sent troops to participate in the expedition to
Lithuania. In retaliation Vojsek emerged from his monastery and, allied with
Tovtivil, captured Daniel’s son, Roman, in Novogorodek. This led to a
resumption of bitter warfare in Volhynia.74 In Novgorod, the citizens drove out
Alexander Nevsky’s son, Vasily, who had assisted the Tatars in numbering the
citizens for taxation, and summoned Jaroslav to rule them, only to have
Alexander march on the city and send Jaroslav into flight. Henceforth, Jaroslav
served his brother and the khan and obeyed their instructions until the deaths of
Alexander and Andrej left him the genealogically eldest survivor of the grand
ducal family. At that time, in 1264 he returned to Novgorod.75
The Teutonic Knights could look back on the era with satisfaction. They had
made themselves supreme in Livonia; had conquered Kurland, Semgallia, and
Samland; and had converted a major portion of the Lithuanians to their faith.
They looked to the future confidently, expecting eventual victory over the
Samogitians, the last major pagan group in the Baltic region. Little did they
know that the Samogitians and Albert Suerbeer, acting separately, would undo
much of their work, so that three decades of bitter war would be necessary to
regain the positions they had held in 1254.
The Conversion of Lithuania
229
ENDNOTES
excellent description of these lands is available in Polish: Henryk
* • jpjadski, "Geografia polityczna Baltdw w dobie plemiennej," Lituano-Slavica
U^naniensia. Studia Historica, I (Poznari: Adam Mickiewicz University Press,
1985)» 7*105.
‘ jQ[in Birch, Denmark in History (London: John Murray, 1938), 76-78.
3	Miinter, Kirchengeschichte, П2-14; Dahlmann, Geschichte von Dannemark,
I 399ff; King, Chronicles of Three Free Cities, 176ff.
4	Sachsische Weltchronik, 257.
5	First comes the election of an imperial candidate as German king, then the
consecration as emperor by the pope.
6	Barraclough, Origins of Modern Germany, 232; Van Cleve, Frederick II, 484-
489; Hamburgisches Urkundenbuch, I, 451; Liibeckisches Urkundenbuch
(Liibeck: Asschenfeldt, 1843), I, nos. 110-116.
7.	Dahlmann, Geschichte von Dannemark, 1,400-401; papal crusading policy is
described well by Gotthold Rhode, Die Ostgrenze Polens (K61n-Graz: Bdhlau,
1955), I, 146-151; James Muldoon, Popes, Lawyers, and Infidels, 29-48, has a
chapter on the policies of Innocent IV.
8.	Urkundenbuch, III, no. 194a; Dahlmann, Geschichte von Dannemark, 1,402-3.
9.	Urkundenbuch, I: no. 194; Krollmann, Politische Geschichte des Deutschen
Ordens, 22.
10.	Goetze, Albert Suerbeer, 1-14; SchOnebolm, "Besetzung der livlSndischen
Bistiimer bis zum Anfang des 14. Jahrhunderts," in Mitteilungen aus dem Gebiet
der livlandischen Geschichte, (1910), 32Iff; Donner, Kardinal Wilhelm, 293-94;
Krollmann, Deutschen Orden, 19-20; Urban, Prussian Crusade, 202-5.
11.	Reimchronik, 11. 2332-2346.
12.	Reimchronik, П.2363-2397.
13.	Reimchronik, 11. 2444-2448; the question of "freedom" is difficult to discuss
in this connection because the medieval concept differs from ours. Personal
freedom did not mean exemption from duties appropriate to one’s class; it
certainly did not mean the right to hold individual opinions about religion. See
Boockmann, Der Deutsche Orden, 99-100.
14.	Reimchronik, 11. 2498-2535. Christiansen, Northern Crusades, 134-5; this
knight could be Bernard von Haren (Ritterbriider, 290) and possibly this war cry
could be confused with that uttered in 1259; Evalds Mugerevifis, "Zur
Archaologie mittelalterlicher Burgen in Lettland," Liibecker Schriften zur
^rchaologie und Kulturgeschichte, 12 (1986), 241-262, indicates that most castles
were built of earth and wood until the next century.
15.	Reimchronik, 11.2589-2603. The castellan of Mesoten fell in battle April 16,
1246. Ritterbriider, 93.
Ю. The term White Russia first appears in 1675. Therefore, it is more accurate
to use the medieval terminology for this area than the name for the modem state
°f Belarus which encompasses a much larger territory. Jan Zaprudnik,
230
THE BALTIC CRUSADg
"Interpretation of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in Recent Works of Soviet
Belorussian Historians," Baltic History, 62.
17.	Davies, God’s Playground, 1,48,69,75-81; Gdrecki, Economy, Society ana
Lordship, 262f.
18.	This effort to unify the churches has been roundly condemned by prominent
Russian historians, especially Vernadsky, who saw Roman Catholicism as a
deadly threat to the purity of Orthodoxy and believed that papal ambitions to
dominate the world were at the root of all misunderstandings. Even rule by the
Tatars was to be preferred, because they were, at least, tolerant. Charles
Halperin, "Russia and the Steppe: George Vernadsky and Eurasianism,"
Forschung zur Osteuropdischen Geschichte, 36(1985), 74, 94, 129.
19.	The Volhynian-Galician Chronicle, 58-59.
20.	Paszkiewicz, The Origin of Russia, 199; Fennell, Crisis of Medieval Russia,
101-102; Marija Krasauskaite, Die litauischen Adelsprivilegien (Boma-Leipzig;
Noske, 1927), 2-4; Avizonis, "Die Entstehung und Entwicklung des litauischen
Adels," 40-41,77; Lomwiaiiski, Studja nad poczptkami spoioezehstwa i pahstwa
litewskiego, II, 330-334.
21.	Marijus Blynas, "Eastern Lithuania's Historical Monuments," Eastern
Lithuania, 67.
22.	The Volhynian-Galician Chronicle, 54-55, describes the first Lithuanian
attacks on Pinsk.
23.	The Volhynian-Galician Chronicle, 60-61.
24.	Fennell, Crisis of Medieval Russia, 102-103.
25.	William Sayers, "Scapulimancy in the Medieval Baltic," Journal of Baltic
Studies, 23/1(1992), 57-62.
26.	Heinrich von Sassendorf. Ritterbriider, 560.
27.	Reimchronik, 11. 2705-3120.
28.	Also named von Velven and von Steierland. Ritterbriider, 221, 308-310.
29.	Goetze, Albert Suerbeer, 15ff; Urkundenbuch, I, no. 205.
30.	Urkundenbuch, I, no. 214.
31.	Fennell, Crisis of Medieval Russia, 107-109, 111.
32.	He took the place of the son of Vladimir, Jaroslav, who seems to have died
about this time. Jaroslav had married the daughter of Vasilko of Polozk. She was
murdered in May of 1243.
33.	Klug, "Das Fiirstentum Tver," 45-48; Spuler, Die goldene Horde, 28-31.
34.	Paulius Rabikauskas, "La Cristianizzazione della Samogizia," La Cristianiz-
zazione della Lituania, 220-226, identifies them as his nephews, the sons of
Vykintas’ and Mindaugas’ sister.
35.	Hellmann, "Die Phpste und Litauen," 38.
36.	The Volhynian-Galician Chronicle, 62-63; Giedroyd, "Arrival of Christ-
ianity," 20-22?
37.	The Volhynian-Galician Chronicle, 62.
38.	Henry of Liltzelburg, 1247 in Semgallia, 1251 to Kurland. In 1263 he would
return to Bavaria to become bishop of Chiemsee. His successor, Edmund, would
govern from Pilten until the end of the century.
fhe Conversion of Lithuania
231
.Q Reimchronik, 11. 3471-3504.
Tonas Puzinas, "650th Anniversary of Vilnius," Eastern Lithuania, 3-24.
Puzinas, "650th Anniversary of Vilnius," 3-24; Avizonis, "Die Entstehung
41' cntwicklung des litauischen Adels," 60-63; the Baltvyiis Forest (Bialowieza)
° as part	domains. Encyclopedia Lituanica, I, 277.
^Urkundenbuch, I: nos. 243, 252. The authenticity of these charters remains
fatter of scholarly dispute. Scholars out of the Polish tradition (such as
Halecki, Borderlands, 81) are skeptical (as they are of almost every early land
-ant to the Teutonic Order). Those out of the German tradition are equally
certain they are genuine. See Der Deutschordensstaat Preussen in der polnischen
Geschichtsschreibung der Gegenwart (ed. Udo Arnold and Marian Biskup.
Marburg: Elwert, 1982 [Quellen und Studien zur Geschichte des Deutschen
Ordens, 30]. Resolving this may be impossible: both arguments fit the few facts
known from this era, both are hampered by a lack of confirming evidence, and
both are perfectly plausible. See Kurt Forstreuter, Die Berichte der
Generalprokuratoren des Deutschen Ordens an der Kurie, I (Gottingen:
Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1961) [VerOffentlichungen der Niedersachsichen
Archivverwaltung, 12], 168-169; S.C. Rowell has done considerable work on
these documents in recent years. Publication is pending.
43.	Hellmann, "Die Papste und Litauen," 45; for a dissenting opinion, see
Lomwiariski, Studja nad poczgtkami spoioezenstwa i pahstwa litewskiego, II,
334-370.
44.	Urkundenbuch, I, nos. 218-222, III, nos. 217a-218.
45.	Goetze, Albert Suerbeer, 30-37; Krollmann, Deutschen Orden, 19-20;
Donner, Kardinal Wilhelm von Sabina, 401-6.
46.	Bishop Heidenreich had been a Dominican scholar before assuming his duties
at Culm. In the very year of the coronation he formed a cathedral chapter in
which the canons lived under the Augustine rule, as Bishop Albert had done.
Shortly before his death in 1263 he would change this rule again, giving his
canons the regulations of the Teutonic Order, thus bringing their key territory
under the authority of the Prussian master. This was a model for later plans by
the order in Livonia. Hans Schmauch, "Heidenreich," Altpreussische Biographie,
I. 258.
47.	Hellmann, "Die Papste und Litauen," 41.
48.	There are two short contemporary reports: the first is in The Galician-
Volynian Chronicle, 62-63, 65, the second in Martin Coker, "America
Rediscovered in the Thirteenth Century," Speculum, 45 (1979), 722-26. For Karol
orski’s interpretation of the latter, "Probleme der Christianisierung in Preussen,
•viand und Litauen," Rolle der Ritterorden, 10-13, and Gdrski, L’Ordine
‘eutonico, 58-9.
49.	Kaspar Elm, "Der Anted der geistlichen Orden an der Christianisierung
•tauens," La Cristianizzazione della Lituania, 190-192.
• Reimchronik, 11. 3497-3575; Goetze, Albert Suerbeer, 56-58. Manfred
ellmann, "Das Grossfiirstum Litauen bis 1434, "Handbuch der europaischen
eschichte (ed. Theodor Schieder, 1986), 1084-86; Halecki, Borderlands, 79-80;
232
THE BALTIC CRUSAUg
Joseph KonceviCius, Russia's Attitude towards Union with Rome (Washington
1927), 130-31; S.C. Rowell, "A pagan’s word; Lithuanian diplomatic procedure
1200-1385," Journal of Medieval History, 18(1992), 150-151.
51.	Giedroyd, "The Arrival of Christianity in Lithuania," 11, 16.
52.	The Galician-Volhynian Chronicle, 82; David Goldfrank, The Lithuanian
Prince-Monk VojSelk: A Study of Competing Legends," Harvard Ukrainian
Studies, ll/l-2(June 1987), 48.
53.	Fennell, Crisis of Medieval Russia, 113-114, 120.
54.	The Volhynian-Galician Chronicle, 63.
55.	Ritterbriider, 294.
56.	The Volhynian-Galician Chronicle, 63.
57.	Saulius Suiiedfelis, "Vykintas," Encylopedia Lituanica, IV, 206.
58.	Dahlmann, Geschichte von Dannemark, 1,402-5.
59.	Dahlmann, Geschichte von Dannemark, 405-8; Annales Danici, 112-13,158.
60.	Dahlmann, Geschichte von Dannemark, 1,408-10; Sachsische Weltchronik,
257; Annales Danici, 114-15.
61.	Goetze, Albert Suerbeer, 47-49; SchOnebolm, "Besetzung der livlSndisclien
Bistiimer," 321-24.
62.	Urkundenbuch, I: no. 241; all relevant records are in Johannes Sembritzki,
Geschichte der Koniglich Preussische See- und Handelstadt Memel (Memel,
1926), 3-25.
63.	Franz-Constantin von Karp, "Die Mortensen’sche Wildnis," Beitrage zur
altesten Geschichte des Memellandes und Preussisch-Litauens (Memel: Ostsee,
1934), 18-111, describes the problems associated with the study of this region.
The question of the number and ethnic identity of the local population is more
heavily loaded with nationalist overtones than we would wish: Germans tend to
see the area as lightly populated by Kurs, Lithuanians as relatively heavily
populated by Samogitians. Jounas JakStas has argued that there was no mass
extermination, that this region was settled by Prussians. "Were the Ancient
Prussians Ugro-Finns or Balts," Second Conference on Baltic Studies. Summary
of Proceedings (Norman, OK: AABS, 1971), 79-80; PCteraitis, Lithuania Minor,
368-372.
64.	Ritterbriider, 559-560.
65.	Reimchronik, 11. 3830-3877. Arthur Hermann, "Die Besiedlung PreuBisch-
Litauens im 15-16. Jahrhundert in der deutschen und litauischen Historiographic,"
Zeitschrift fur Ostforschung, 39/3 (1990), 321-341.
66.	Ibid., 11.3955-3996. The confusion which historians have experienced in their
attempts to understand this poorly-documented era stands out most clearly in the
"creation" of an additional military campaign in Samland. William Urban,
"Redating the expedition of Anno of Sangerhausen to Sambia," Journal of Baltic
Studies, 7 (1У76), 320-29.
67.	The Volhynian-Galician Chronicle, 69-70; Goldfrank, "The Lithuanian
Prince-Monk VojSelk," 44-52; Giedroy6, "The Arrival of Christianity in
Lithuania," 15-18.
68.	Spuler, Die goldene Horde, 31-35.
fhe Conversion of Lithuania	233
69	Goetze, Albert Suerbeer, 51-67; Urkundenbuch, I, no. 278; Christiansen
northern Crusades, 130-1; Urban, Prussian Crusade, 215-28; the situation is’
misunderstood in Muldoon, Popes, Lawyers, and Infidels, 56-57, where Polish
cjaims to possession of Culm (see chapter 8) was at issue, not Lithuania
70.	Dahlmann, Geschichte von Dannemark, 410ff; Urkundenbuch, I, no. 337, the
lights asked for royal confirmation of new arrangements.
71.	Peter Rebane, "The Danish Bishops of Tallinn, 1260-1346," Journal of Baltic
Studies, 5/4 (1974), 315-328; Urkundenbuch, I, 379.
72.	Barraclough, Origins of Modern Germany, 244.
73.	Bippen, Aus Bremens Vorzeit, 150; King, Chronicles of Three Free Cities
63ff.
74.	The Volhynian-Galician Chronicle, 76; Chronicle of Novgorod, 96; Giedroyd
"The Arrival of Christianity in Lithuania," 18.	3 '
75.	Klug, "Das Fiirstentum Tver," 48; Chronicle of Novgorod, 96-97- Fennell
Crisis of Medieval Russia, 117-119.
THE BALTIC
1250-1260
Baltic Sea
Gulf of Finland I
Revajj^^*^—
^^^Нийеп Wiertmd
. Estonia
Kanlia
flarva
River
Novgorod
Bishop о^таЛ
Oesel-WiekJ?Zt>
Leal <
iPertiau ' (
ABoL
Riga r
Peipus

Pskov
Visby
Baltic Sea
Lithuania
Vistula
Riga
Bishop of-
.Dorpat
a River • <
Aa River
Nalsen
Gotland
Gaidjnat
Pomerelha
sia
'Black Russia'
Great Poland
Sandomir
Лхег К
* AB of Riga
Samogitia (
Wolkenburg
Polozk
Castles:
Ambotens A
Ascheraden = As
Doblen = Do
Durben= D
Karshowen = K
Mesoten = M
Terweten = T
-----------Г-
Masovia I Jug River
Cracow
Galicia
Smolensk—>
ilnius
ogrodek
River
Volhynia
. Kholm
234
CHAPTER TEN
PRESSURE ON SAMOGITIA
The settlement at Sens did not end the jealousy and suspicion that separated
Albert Suerbeer and the Teutonic Knights, for, as we shall see, the ensuing era
marked by recurring quarrels and, eventually, a final confrontation between
them. But the difficulties caused by the prelate, now archbishop of Riga, were
merely bothersome at first, and became dangerous only later, when the Teutonic
Knights were preoccupied with bitter wars against the Lithuanians and their
rebellious subjects in Livonia and Prussia. It was then that the fortunes of war
finally turned against the crusaders from the west. Afterward they must often
have doubted whether they could defend their extensive possessions against their
numerous enemies.
Samogitian Operations
The Samogitians were now led by Vykintas’ successor, Treniota (who may
have been his son, though the evidence does not prove it conclusively).1 Out of
force of habit, perhaps, he had looked to the crusading order’s most immediate
enemy as an ally; but it was not yet clear that his alliance with Albert Suerbeer
would bear any fruit. His comparatively gigantic Samogitians, though shaken by
defeats in battle, persisted both in their resistance to Christianity and to
Mindaugas’ autocratic ways. While continuing their war against the Lithuanian
monarch, they harassed his ally, the Teutonic Order, with raids against Kurland
and Memel. The Livonian master was unable to stop these attacks. Although he
built castles and outposts and stationed watchmen along the borders, the frontier
was too long and too thinly garrisoned to be properly defended. Parties of
guerrillas, and occasionally a large army, slipped through to bum villages and
fields, carry off men and women as slaves, and massacre those who resisted or
were economically useless. Soon the land route from Prussia to Livonia became
too dangerous to use. The Kurs complained bitterly to their advocates, observing
that orphans could not defend the frontier and demanding revenge against the
Samogitians. The officials, understanding that they could maintain their authority
only if they protected their subjects and assisted them in wars against their
traditional enemies, promised action. They did not want to evacuate the
Population, believing as they did that Treniota looked upon Kurland as the first
stage in a conflict that would end only when all the subjected peoples had been
liberated from western domination; in any case, the Kurs loved their homeland
and could have been moved only by force. Most Livonians, including the Kurs,
hated Lithuanians as arrogant and oppressive foreigners—in that there was little
to chose between Germans and Lithuanians—and they were principally interested
ln getting through life proudly with as little trouble as possible. Moreover, while
the Kurish nobles knew first-hand what German rule meant—nothing they would
tntroduce by choice, but endurable—they were uncertain and concerned about
236
THE BALTIC CRUSAbfc
Lithuanian domination. For the Teutonic Knights, who could no longer trav
safely overland from KOnigsberg to Memel and on to Goldingen and Mitau, the
Samogitian war was much more than a mere action against banditry in
backwoods—it was a war of survival against a gifted and powerful foe?
Master Anno had been committed to the conquest of Samogitia in any case
but the situation in Kurland gave special urgency to his proposed attacks on the
Lithuanian lowlands. In 1255 he summoned his men and the visitors frOm
Germany (among whom was the future grandmaster, Hartmann von Held.
rungen).3 The description of the raid is well worth reading, as it is typical of the
many campaigns that follow in later years:
The expedition was very large, which pleased the Christians. The
assembly was at Riga, and Master Anno summoned all the noble
crusaders to him from Riga and said, "Now, show that you have taken
the cross for the sake of Christianity and give proof that you will be
joyful to the end." No one had to invite the Estonians, Livs and Letts,
for they were all ready for the journey and without fear. Soon •
afterward the well-ordered army moved off toward Semgallia. When
the Master came to that land, he made it known that they should come
along, and that he would not leave anyone behind. Whether they liked
it or not, they had to join him. The Kurs, I have heard, showed their
trustworthiness: they joined the expedition manfully and with wrath.
Then the army went toward Samogitia in high spirits, hoping for
booty. After the militias of both regions had joined them, the Master
and his advocates and the crusaders deemed it time to group the people
under the various banners, as is the custom in war. That was done
straight away. Now they arrived at the borders of that land, and the
advocates grouped their forces better and drew them up for combat.
The banners were assigned to those who were anxious for battle and
who knew how to conduct themselves in such affairs. There were
many peoples there in formations which no foe could ever break.
Although there were many banners, the natives were so well trained
that they would not stray; their leaders kept them under constant care.
The army arrayed itself in many proud formations as should be done
in a battle. Guides were assigned to the leaders, and that benefitted the
entire expedition. Those were the proper sort of Lithuanians, and good
heroes. They protected the army well...Then the army rushed into
Samogitia and did tremendous damage. At that time the Samogitians
were fully overmatched and the Kurs did not mind that at all. Friars
and priests were in this same army. The first burning was set by a
priest’s band, and the next by a friar’s. As I have heard, everyone who
had come on the expedition was eager to bum. The army was well-
protected, and well-ordered at all points. Meanwhile one group rode
here and there plundering, and another group did the same. The third
group did not neglect that, but devastated even more. When evening
came, the great army of the Christians took up camp. In the night
237
presSure on Sanwgitia
some heroes continued the attacks. Much booty was brought in: men,
women, and children, and all kinds of cattle. Whatever one did not
wish to drive or carry away was slain.4
Anno’s army remained in the land nine days, and the troops amassed
„h wealth to enrich many of their number. Master Anno had tried to end the
e with this one bold stroke, and had almost succeeded. But Treniota’s
qainogitians rallied from the blow and continued the war so aggressively that
ддпо was forced to remain in the field at a time when he should have been
responding to the problems created by Albert Suerbeer.
The Archbishop Plots
Albert Suerbeer, determined to resurrect the rights and privileges of his
office, was maneuvering to align and subordinate the other estates in Livonia to
archiepiscopal authority. In his visits to Lubeck he had assured himself of the
good will of the merchant communities, and through legislation at home he was
reorganizing his dioceses so as to enlarge his authority. An unscrupulous and
ambitious man, his plans are revealed in the various transactions that ultimately
led to his plot against the Livonian Order. He was not completely at fault for the
quarrels, because the master and his officers had provoked trouble more than
once, but his bellicose attitude won him few friends or supporters in his contest
with the richer and more influential crusading organization.
The ecclesiastical institutions in Riga, having by now become wealthy and
independent, were in need of reform—a typical medieval problem. As he looked
about the city, Albert saw that many churches and convents had so benefitted
from gifts and bequests that they had been able to acquire quantities of property
which had formerly yielded tax revenues. To prevent further loss of income, he
issued edicts forbidding his subjects to will urban property into mortmain. This
bolstered his authority over various institutions because they could not expand
or function smoothly without his cooperation. Of these institutions, the most
dangerous to his authority were the canons of Saint Mary’s, his own cathedral
chapter. During his travels Albert Suerbeer had heard how canons throughout
Germany were usurping the prerogatives of their prelates, so that he was now
ready to deal with this danger before it became a serious problem in Riga. In
ordering his canons to adopt the more restrictive Cistercian rule, he reestablished
his control over them.
Through a series of such edicts, Albert Suerbeer so strengthened his position
hat he soon felt ready to confront Master Anno by demanding the special
services that he and his predecessors had never performed but which were
lmPlied in the relationship between a lord and vassal. Despite his lack of written
authority, the archbishop tried to collect tithes and taxes from the order’s lands,
hreatening ecclesiastical censure if its officials refused. He ordered the officers
render personal fealty and present him with gifts of food, clothing, and cattle
as tokens of their submission. When they refused, he interfered with the
238
THE BALTIC CRUSAbg
crusaders, levied taxes on the order’s property in the city, and—to add insult
injury—asked the Teutonic Knights to pay his expenses when, as papal leg^
he had attacked their interests. If he had succeeded in making the order submjt
he would have become the leading figure in the Baltic region and one of thj
most important prelates in the Church. Failure, on the other hand, would cost
him little.
Albert Suerbeer experienced a temporary triumph in 1255-6, when he sign^
a treaty with the acting master, Ludwig (possibly an aged hold-over from the
Swordbrother era), persuading him to divide the lands around Gerzike in a
manner advantageous to the archbishop, in return for which he surrendered his
claims to certain illegal tithes and taxes.3 Albert Suerbeer apparently had a gift
for persuading men to do his bidding. Ludwig seems to have signed the treaty
without consulting his brother officers, an action which brought their wrath upon
him. Although the treaty may have brought temporary harmony, the fundamental
disagreements were so deep that the settlement could not endure, and thus their
quarrel persisted. The archbishop also quarreled with the independent-minded
burghers in Riga, but he met with no more success in cowing them than he bad
with the crusading order’s knights and officers.
No one expected the Teutonic Knights to comply immediately with Albert’s
demands, if they complied at all. In fact, one could predict the counterclaims that
their spokesmen eventually presented to the pope in an appeal. They objected to
the archbishop’s new taxes on the grounds that a division of incomes had been
made in the past, and these divisions had been approved time and again by papal
legates, and even by the popes. In refusing to perform a public act of homage,
they argued that although the master was required to render a pledge of loyalty
at the archbishop’s investiture or when assuming office, no other knight had ever
gone through that pro-forma ritual. Certainly they were not required to offer
fealty or make gifts or payments or furnish any other kind of service to the
archbishop. Furthermore, they said that the archbishop’s allegations were aiding
the pagans by distracting the crusaders from their tasks. They concluded by
asking the papacy to intervene and to order the archbishop to cease and desist.
Albert Suerbeer may have expected the Teutonic Knights to have a measure
of success in their appeals to the papacy, but he could hardly have anticipated
the far-reaching decisions that were handed down in favor of the Teutonic Order.
As the years passed, his complaints against his enemies were turned back one by
one. Pope Alexander IV granted extensive immunities that put the order almost
beyond archiepiscopal control: the right to settle all disputes within the order; the
right to accept into membership former adherents of Frederick II and nobles who
had been accused of robbery, simony, and assaults on clerics; the right to defend
themselves against all attacks; freedom from all taxes, tolls, and payments ш
support of g>apal legates; and, most important of all, immunity from
excommunication without express papal permission. Thus armed, and having
been granted many special privileges, the order ignored Albert Suerbeer s
complaints; and when he brought economic pressure to bear upon them, Master
Anno either procured or falsified a document that would give them permission
to engage in commerce.7
239
„re on Samogitia
pressur
-fhe archbishop continued his ineffectual attacks, impugning the integrity
orality of his opponents rather than arguing on legal grounds. It is by
ne on this material that some historians have penned such a frightening
<*r^ajt of the Teutonic Order in this period, but it is not a completely accurate
ие The Teutonic Knights were neither as moral as they should have been
P1Clas bad as they have been described by their enemies. Drawn to a military
П°я r rather than to another religious vocation because of their desire for glory,
°f iiy honor, and adventure, the knights were not always capable of living up
* their professed ideals, but they did not lose sight of their ideals or their duties.
J^eir rules were strict and were usually enforced, and their courage never
faltered. In short, they lived up to their code rather well, and this should be
distinguished from standards set by outsiders. They were judged—and should be
judged, at least to some extent—neither by the standards of the twentieth century
nor by those of their more scrupulous contemporaries but by the standards of
politically minded churchmen of their own era. Their spokesmen successfully
defended them against repeated charges of falsifying bulls, of incest and adultery,
and of interfering with the administration of the sacraments. Eventually, the
papacy refused to listen to such accusations. History would be well served if
historians were to be equally skeptical concerning the supposedly unbiased nature
of these charges.8
Albert Suerbeer’s charges were intended to undermine the order’s position
in Lithuania. In 1253, about the time Bishop Nicholas died but before he had
been installed in Riga, Albert Sueibeer had consecrated Christian, a priest of the
Dominican Order, as bishop in Lithuania, intending to make Christian and all
future bishops of Lithuania directly subject to his jurisdiction—a situation the
pope did not seem to have intended and which was obviously unacceptable to the
Teutonic Knights. Once Mindaugas understood what was at stake, he told his
clerical staff to write an appeal to the pope for an independent bishop,
responsible only to the holy father in Rome. This request was granted, the pope
instructing the Bishop of Naumburg to release Christian from his vows and for
the Polish Archbishop of Gniezno to consecrate a Dominican priest, Wit (Vitus),
as bishop. However, this was more help than either Mindaugas or the Teutonic
Knights wanted—they did not want a Polish churchman to have the final say in
Lithuanian ecclesiastical affairs—and therefore they chose to keep the cleric they
had, Bishop Christian.9
In 1254 Mindaugas endowed Christian’s church with lands in the middle of
amogitia—perhaps a ploy to lure more crusaders into the fray. A year later
. °P Wit resigned his post, never having reached Lithuania. Christian endured
“nol 1259, when be became discouraged by his lack of success and resigned.10
°ugh he made few converts, Bishop Christian did succeed in constructing an
^Pressive cathedral in Vilnius. Built of field stone, it had a glazed brick floor
a lead roof. The central area was square, with an entrance into a tower on
h^]WeSt a roun^e<^ nave on the Pillars divided the interior into three
th S Three large windows pierced the fresco-covered side walls. It is unlikely
a pagan shrine stood on the site—the archeological evidence does not
240	THE BALTIC CRUS^
support it and, in any case, it would have been politically unwise for Mindauo
to have tom down a temple."
Burckhardt von Hornhusen and the Samogitian Truce
Master Anno had served his order in Livonia well. He had supported the
new king of Lithuania in expanding his lands south and west into Black Russia
and Jatwigia, and also in drawing a firm line limiting the influence of the Tatars
Anno had inflicted great defeats on the pagans in Samogitia, and after winning
the trust and friendship of the pope, he had been able to thwart Albert Suerbeer
diplomatically. By helping the bishops of Oesel-Wiek and Dorpat subdue rebels
and by securing for them peace with the Russians, he had won the friendship of
those prelates, who were the archbishop’s natural allies. Such achievements did
not go unnoticed or unrewarded. In 1256, when the grandmaster decided to
retire, he called all the officers of the Teutonic Order together in Germany to
elect his successor. Their choice was Master Anno. The assembled knights were
then asked to choose Anno’s successor from among his worthiest subordinates.
After debate they finally chose Burckhardt von Hornhusen, the castellan of
KOnigsbcrg in Prussia. Since Konigsberg was the administrative and military
center of Samland, Burckhardt had plenty of experience with Jatwigians,
Samogitians and Kurs—he knew the customs and the methods of warfare
employed by the Baltic pagans; moreover, by pointing to Samland’s having
surrendered rather than having been conquered, he had demonstrated that it was
possible to integrate native nobility into a feudal state. Such experience was of
great potential value for his administration of Livonia.
Anno hurried to Germany, leaving authority in the hands of the castellan of
St. George, Ludwig. Master Burckhardt, unwilling to wait until the seas were
free from ice and safe for travel, set out overland for Livonia in the spring of
1257. With a large escort he traveled from Samland to Memel, then on to
Kurland, and finally took the direct route across hostile Samogitia and Semgallia
to Riga. He was welcomed outside Riga by an armed host who presented him
with wine and mead and, after proper ceremony and celebration, accompanied
him festively into the city. His journey signified that taking the land route from
Prussia to Livonia was feasible and that during his term of office he would
pursue further efforts to make it safe for all travelers.
His first duties were ceremonial: he met all the important men in the
crusader states, sent gifts to all friends and allies, and swore loyalty to Albert
Suerbeer. He renewed the friendship with King Mindaugas, and the two men
exchanged mutual promises of aid. Then, later in 1257, he prepared for war in
Samogitia.
Hearing) that the pagans had besieged Memel, Master Burckhardt marched
south with forty knights and 500 Kurs to relieve the castle. He and Treniota
alike, understanding how vital the castle on the Dange was to the future of the
region, were determined to fight to the end, but the more numerous Samogitians
were better acquainted with the area and were therefore able to set a trap f°r
their Christian opponents. Master Burckhardt and his men fought valiantly
241
rres^eon SатО8Ша
 st great numt)ers—according to their account of the event—but they were
ag3* iv outfought. After twelve knights were killed and Burckhardt himself was
C erely wounded, the survivors made their way to Memel. They counted
Smselves lucky to be alive.
ц When Burckhardt had recovered sufficiently to travel, he rode back to Riga.
ц,е meantime, a large crusading force from Holstein had come to Riga under
command of the count of Buxtehude. This gave Burckhardt a numerous force
his disposal to serve as reinforcements for his brother knights who were
^lirsting for revenge. But before he had the opportunity to order the attack, a
Samogitian embassy arrived in Riga to discuss peace. The chronicler’s
description of the negotiations merits quotation:
The Master spoke to the envoys, "Stay a little while and I will send a
messenger swiftly and answer the request you have made." The envoys
thought that counsel good. So the guests were cared for like envoys
should be, and the Master sent messengers summoning the
commanders. In a few days’ time the Master’s people all came
willingly to Riga. Why should I make a long speech? The archbishop
also came to the brothers’ court in Riga, to the good of Christianity,
and a large number of citizens were accepted into the council. When
they had come together, they prayed to our Lord God that He through
His noble death convert the Samogitians and show them the way that
Mindaugas had taken, for he was a Christian man converted in a very
few days....Those same persons thought that the Samogitians might be
brought to Christianity if approached cautiously. But the situation was
not yet ready for that, so for the time being they decided to improve
relations by giving them peace and a quiet life to last for two
years...When they concluded this, they sent for the envoys. They
explained the conditions on which they would make peace, and the
others rejoiced. They made a peace treaty with the Samogitians which
was to last two years, that’s true. The treaty was confirmed in the
proper manner. Those who had come with the bishop departed with
him and many a man rejoiced as he returned to his city. The heathens
were also eager to return to their own country, as are most people who
find themselves far from home. They gave their hand to the Master
and were satisfied, according to the custom of the land, for whoever
gives his hand to another, even if in a third land, has made an
honorable peace.12
We understand this episode as little as any in this era. One could hardly
e*Pect Treniota to suddenly abandon his apparently successful military strategy
Wlth°ut good cause, but no source tells us which of several reasons might be the
Correct one: 1) Mindaugas may have been gaining the upper hand in combats
1 Ue known to us, perhaps in Black Russia over Duke Daniel of Galicia, who
Wo years hence was to become so weak that he acknowledged the authority of
242	THE BALTIC CRUS^
the Tatar khan. At that time Daniel’s brother Vasilko would participate in
attack on Poland which resulted in the sacking of Lublin, Sandomir, .
Cracow;13 2) Treniota may have married the daughter of Duke Conrad Of
Masovia—a step which (if such a marriage ever took place) may have require
him to end temporarily his wars against his Christian neighbors. Certainly, a
Masovian alliance would have opened new political horizons for Treniota
particularly in the potential of obtaining booty for himself and his warriors frot^
Prussia, Poland, and Volhynia; 3) Tovtivil joined the court of Mindaugas, where
he was an apparent resident guest in 1261. Tovtivil had been, off and on, ruler
of Polozk for many years, but his roots were still in Samogitia. In fact, his
family’s solid base in that country was probably the reason that Mindaugas had
required Tovtivil and his family (Vykintas and Edivydas) to move to the eastern
frontier and busy themselves with expansion into Russia.14 If Tovtivil had been
a significant political figure in Samogitia in these years, his name would surely
have appeared more prominently. If, on the other hand, he still had supporters
there encouraging him to return home, Treniota could easily have been seen
Tovtivil as a dangerous threat to his authority. Once the truce was signed,
Treniota’s name vanished from the pages of the chronicles. Though he was
undoubtedly present in Samogitia and presumably present at all major assemblies
of the boyars and participated in all significant military campaigns, we cannot
say with assurance whether or not he had any important role and what it might
have been.
It is very difficult to assess Mindaugas’ position at this time. On the one
hand, he seemed to be holding the kingdom together effectively and even making
minor gains. Certainly, he had no major foreign crises to overcome. On the other
hand, he was not finding it easy to control his boyars—many of whom were his
relatives (the birthrate among the leading families seems to have been
phenomenal)—because Lithuania had neither a western feudal tradition nor
sufficiently lengthy stability for a noble "pecking order" to become established.
However, the process of evolution from the traditional Baltic clan structure, with
its elders and betters, had already produced family hierarchies which foreign
chroniclers felt most comfortable describing as kings, dukes, and princes. What
was still missing was a true minor nobility, with lands and peasants to work their
fields. What existed was a class of freemen who had inherited their farms from
their fathers. The "nobles" were merely the most outstanding representatives of
this class, certainly somewhat richer than average, who inherited their fathers’
prestige on the condition that they demonstrate their individual worth in council
and combat. The nobles who attached themselves to the various dukes, serving
in person at court with their wives and families, were rising swiftly toward the
status of a true aristocracy. They were the "friends" (drushina) of the grand duke.
However, at Uhis moment it would be just as accurate to consider them an
emerging class of professional or semi-professional warriors who lived from their
earnings and from booty. Those who acquired lands may be called boyars, since
they became essentially indistinguishable from their Russian counterparts with
whom they made alliances by marriage. Those connected with the ruling family
243
pressure on Samogitia
ired great estates worked by serfs and slaves. Those assigned to govern
aC^u. n cities were called dukes. Most nobles, though they aspired to the wealth
^uSSojfice provided, never attained it.15 Nevertheless, such was the lure of
ttllS cement and fame that Mindaugas could placate his warrior class only by
adva^ing a significant number of them with incomes for serving as garrison
P/v>ns in Russian cities or leading them on successive incursions into
ff<^boring lands. This policy was not compatible with that of living peaceably
П ith the crusader states in Prussia and Livonia. By renouncing attacks on those
relatively rich lands, he was able to offer his warriors no more than warfare
„ainst impoverished Samogitians and very dangerous Tatars. That was not the
route to wealth and honor. To make matters worse, Mindaugas unnecessarily
offended several close relatives, such as Vykintas, whom he drove out of
Vitebsk. Lastly, with his talented elder son cloistered in a monastery, Mindaugas
had to train a younger son, probably the eldest child of Martha, Ruklys, in the
complex arts of war and politics. In any case, Mindaugas seems to have
acquiesced to the crusaders’ wishes and refrained from attacking Samogitia
during the two-year truce which began in 1257.
During the period of peace merchants were able to travel into and through
Samogitia, and the pagans visited the Christian domains without escort. It seemed
that Burckhardt had achieved his objective without incurring losses and expenses.
In 1258 a town was attached to Memel and mills were built nearby. Prosperity,
or its promise, seemed to be shared sufficiently widely that the Christians
expected the truce to be extended past 1259, perhaps to last indefinitely.
The Government and Economy in Livonia
The Livonians welcomed the arrival of peace. The bishops, in particular,
were faced with grave financial difficulties; their territories were all too often
impoverished or still in the hands of the pagans. No matter how the various
bishops and legates moved the prelates about or juggled their lands, their
financial problems remained. Sometimes the bishops were unable to support a
body of canons, so they tended to spend much of their time in Germany, moving
from place to place and traveling vast distances every year, everywhere assisting
ln ceremonial functions, collecting money, and presumably preaching the
crusade. Those few who were able to remain in Livonia often went abroad as
wcU, with the result that absentee government was widespread. Some bishops,
especially the bishops of Oesel-Wiek, also had difficulties with their vassals, so
that from time to time they had to call upon the Teutonic Knights for aid.
In Estonia the secular vassals began to dominate local government, ignoring
the rights of the bishop of Reval even to the extent of taking his tithe for their
°wn exclusive use. The knights had formed two distinct corporations of German-
speaking nobles, one in Harrien and the other in Wierland. Each group was led
m war by an elected "headman.” The vassals on the eastern frontier were very
aggressive. By 1249 they had occupied all the lands west of the Narva River, and
ЬУ 1255 they had crossed the river into Karelia, challenging Novgorodian
244
THE BALTIC CRUSau^
authority in a region vital to Russian trading interests. When the vassal
requested the pope to name a new bishop for this area, Alexander IV order
Albert Suerbeer to make a nomination (the archbishop of Lund, the logj?
prelate to do this, was at war with the king and, consequently, not in nJ/!
favor).16 In short, the German-speaking nobles had created for themselves
feudal state which had some characteristics reminiscent of the kingdom Of
Jerusalem.”
Government in these areas was similar to that described earlier and in Use
throughout Europe. Advocates, ministeriales, and vassals supervised some minor
courts, collected tithes and taxes, and performed military service when
summoned by their lord, be he bishop, governor, castellan, or nobleman
However, as far as behavior toward social inferiors went, legal restrictions were
few, social conventions were lax, and religious strictures often unheeded. Petty
tyranny was universal, whether in Livonia, Estonia, Germany, Poland, or
Lithuania; men who are reared to rule, who are accustomed to being served by
the masses, who generally hold money in contempt, and who are rewarded
handsomely for decisive and violent acts do not always restrain themselves in the
exercise of power. In Livonia such excesses were theoretically limited by treaties,
by appeals to the archbishop of Riga, and by declarations of liberty by the pope
and his legates. But fear of armed natives, who were far more numerous than the
German administrators, was probably more effective in restraining misbehavior.
Subordinate to the castellans and advocates who governed districts were knights,
sergeants, priests, and native elders, each of whom was responsible for various
aspects of local affairs. The natives, led by their elders and councils, still retained
a significant role in their own governance. The native nobility, in particular,
retained high status, and sometimes intermarried with the families of the
immigrant knighthood. Cathedral chapters were important, too. The canons
visited the parishes to oversee spiritual affairs and to collect fees and taxes.
Although feudal government appears to have been simple in theory, in practice
it was a complicated system constructed from countless compromises and
traditions which resulted in overlapping and conflicting responsibilities which led
to many petty disputes. Nevertheless, whatever its drawbacks, feudalism provided
effective and respected government.
Most important for the crusading endeavor, feudalism provided a class of
professional warriors with an independent income and who would be able to
appear, ready for battle, when summoned; feudalism also provided a bureaucratic
apparatus for collecting money and supplies to provide for frontier defense—
something the Russian dukes and Lithuanian grand duke also found possible to
a limited extent but which the Samogitians found difficult. Lastly, feudalism
provided a judicial system which gave people some hope for obtaining justice-
in Livonia cfan ties and family prestige were undoubtedly influential, but,
increasingly, western practices based on orderly processes and written records
were being introduced.18
The administration of the lands of the Teutonic Knights differed little from
that of the episcopal districts, except that authority was more centralized in the
hands of the castellans and the advocates, who were professionals at the height
245
careers. Consequently, the administration of their lands was more
of ^61Г probably more rigorous, too.
unifo"” ‘ Teutonic Knights had numerous difficulties with other branches of the
In particularly, they believed that they were not receiving sufficient
Curation in preaching the crusade. Apparently, too many bishops and abbots
C0°^ded such appeals as unwanted competition for their congregations’ limited
Unable to achieve his desires by requests and persuasion, the grandmaster
j’pone Alexander to authorize the creation of a regular mission for recruiting
lunteers and raising money. Not long afterward, a friar formed just such a
vlaching organization, but when these friars demanded financial support from
P order, the grandmaster found it necessary to call upon the pope to stop their
harassment. Competition for pilgrims was keen because many clerics were
reaching the crusade to the Holy Land, and even against the Tatars. Sometimes
the competition even helped, because vows to fight the Tatars or to assist in
recovering Jerusalem could be redeemed in the crusade to Prussia or Livonia. On
balance, however, the Teutonic Knights discovered that it was better to attend to
recruiting for themselves personally than to rely on others to do it for them.”
In Livonia, no Church-related difficulties were equal to those presented by
Albert Suerbeer. Although his various schemes went awry, he continued to invent
new methods of harassing the order until a papal order put a stop to each
scheme. He was also resourceful. Forbidden to excommunicate individual knights
or place the order under the interdict, he excommunicated its lay brothers and
servants, thereby preventing the milling of grain and baking of bread; he
interfered with the collection of money for the crusade; and he even made life
miserable for those among his canons who leaned toward the crusading order.
Time and time again it was necessary for Master Burckhardt to appeal to the
pope for assistance in individual cases and for reaffirmation of the rights and
privileges of the crusading order. If Albert failed to humble the order, he at least
continued to make life difficult for its members, and when war in Samogitia was
resumed, he had an even greater opportunity to bring pressure upon them.20
Burckhardt von Hornhusen and the Samogitian War
No one knew if the Samogitians would allow the truce to expire in 1259;
and although many hoped that an extension would be arranged, it was not to be.
ccording to the Rhymed Chronicle, the Samogitian elders who longed for war
*nvited their leading men to a carouse21 and when they were sufficiently drunk,
gave them patriotic speeches, urging them to uphold their honor by righting the
to h *eS	their religion. They promised that proper sacrifices
e ancient gods would restore the warriors to divine favor and bring victory,
enri^	booty—slaves, young maidens, horses, and cattle—that would
°” every warrior and revenge all past losses. Inflamed with desire for battle,
warriors immediately vowed to attack Kurland as soon as the truce
exPired.22
246
THE BALTIC CRUSAbg
When the news arrived in Goldingen and Memel that a Samogitian raidin
party had struck into Kurland, the order’s castellans called their men and
advocates gathered the native militia. As soon as a large force had gathered
the assembly point, it set out in pursuit of the raiders. When the Christians
intercepted the pagans near Schoden, their commander, a famous hero, Bernard
von Haren, called on his men, both German and Kurish, to fight for everything
they held dear, and he then led a charge toward the enemy ranks [see his rallying
cry at Amboten in 1244]. The Samogitians charged in turn, so that the two
cavalry forces clashed and then broke up into scattered melees. As the fight
progressed, many Kurs, exhausted from the long march on foot, retired from the
battlefield:
The loyal ones remained there in the disaster and died with the
brothers. Some brave heroes, even after the hardest fighting, manage
to live through a battle, while others, as is well-known, are destined to
die...The cowards fled and left the brave outnumbered so that they had
to bathe in blood. Some were capable of fighting their way out and •
returned home with honor though alone....The commander spoke,
’’Brothers, be of good cheer. All will turn out as it should. We will
find help in our distress. Everything follows the will of God.”23
Thirty-three knights had perished. It was as great a disaster as the debacle
at Saule twenty-three years earlier. Moreover, the ranks of the victors were soon
swelled by recruits, so that in the next few months there were more victories
over small bodies of Christian troops. When the news arrived that another
Samogitian army was about to attack Kurland, Burckhardt sent summons to his
castellans and advocates, who in turn called up their men and native followers.
After gathering in Riga, the army hurried to Goldingen and camped on the field
outside the castle. Soon the raid was reported, and this time they were ready.
Although Albert Suerbeer had prevented his men from joining the expedition, the
master had collected a great army numerous enough to fight any enemy force.
Furthermore, the Christian warriors were well armed and well trained. Learning
that the raiders were near Memel, Burckhardt ordered his army to march south
and cut off their retreat.
Pushing inland and southward, the army pushed through a pathless
wilderness for an entire day, finally making camp in an open meadow many
miles to the south, while the scouts went on ahead. The next morning»
Burckhardt learned from the scouts that the Samogitians were numerous and well
armed. Calling his officers and allies to council, he informed them of the report,
asked their advice, and, acting on their counsel, ordered the army to move farther
south to a shall castle, where they pitched camp and resumed the councU,
together with the knights of the garrison. Because the master wanted to fight in
the morning, they agreed to divide the cavalry into two bodies and send one of
them out immediately to locate the enemy. As it happened, however, some
Samogitians came across the tracks left by this force and reported this discovery
to their elders. That night the Samogitians met in council and decided to return
pressure
on Samogitia
247
as quickly as possible, not stopping to make camp until they were far
b0 „„ The Christian pursuit was not swift enough, and the expedition came to
naught-
The Christians’ reverses did have an impact on the Semgallian tribes in that
he elders who had long opposed the Germans now became dominant in the
cOuncils- If the master imposed a heavy emergency tax, as seems likely, that
w0Uld have added to the anti-German sentiment. Meeting in formal session, the
elders voted to abandon the Christian alliance and return to paganism, as well as
to adopt a position of neutrality in the Samogitian war. They ordered the
advocates to leave the country and take their possessions with them, never to
return. The Semgallians escorted them to the frontier in a chivalrous manner,
which the knights appreciated and respected, but once the advocates had crossed
the Daugava, they hurried to Riga to report the uprising to their master.
Master Burckhardt summoned his convent to council and asked its advice.
When the reports had been thoroughly discussed, the convent voted for war
against the apostates, advising the master to call up a general levy of the troops
in Kurland, Livonia, and Estonia, to subjugate the Semgallians, and then to build
castles in Semgallia to prevent future risings. Master Burckhardt followed their
counsel and raised a great army that very winter. The first attack, at Terwerten,
was not a success, however; so he was compelled to proceed with the
construction of the castles at Doblen and Karshowen while the land was still in
rebellion. This was to lead to further complications with the Samogitians, who
came to the aid of the Semgallian rebels.
In spring of 1260 the Samogitians attacked the two new castles, hoping to
destroy them and thereby further erode the Christians’ position. But their first
effort, a direct assault on Doblen, was a failure, and after suffering great losses
without causing a single fatality among the garrison, the Samogitians tried
another expedient They had found crusader tactics difficult to defeat—German
garrisons were firmly planted in the countryside, and raiding parties from the
Daugava basin were ravaging the lands of the apostate Semgallians. These roving
bands of horsemen, operating as they were from the safe havens provided by the
castles, were almost impossible to cut off and destroy. The Samogitians could see
that the crusader tactics were so deadly that unless something was done,
Semgallia would again be lost to the Christians. Direct assault had proven
useless, and any delay was expected to be fatal to their efforts. This compelled
the Samogitian leadership to attempt an experiment—to imitate the crusader
Practice of building a castle in the heart of enemy territory, in this case directly
opposite the castle at Karshowen. By establishing a garrison in this hastily
constructed fortification, the Samogitians were able to harass their Christian
opponents daily and to neutralize Karshowen as a base for raiding the
countryside. How the Samogitians financed the operations and who the
commander was is not known.
Master Burckhardt was greatly distressed by the reports of the situation at
1'^rshowen, for it appeared that his resources were not adequate to his needs. He
c°uld neither protect every castle adequately nor deal a death blow to the
248
THE BALTIC CRUSAbg
Samogitians. However, he may have been waiting for an opportunity to test
new strategy based on his experience in Samland. Having been an officer щ
Prussia before he became master in Livonia, he had seen that the attack щ
Samland had been easier to direct from the south than from the north. Were the
two situations not similar? Could an attack be launched from Memel directly into
Samogitia and in such strength as to overwhelm the pagans? Resolved to test his
theory, he set out to win the consent and cooperation of his brothers in Prussia
The knights of the Teutonic Order in Prussia were pleased to receive a visit
from their old comrade and heartily agreed to a joint expedition from Memel to
Karshowen through Samogitia. A number of knights from Prussia were assigned
to the force which rode to Memel, and thirty knights who had recently arrived
from Germany, as well as the natives in Samland. The Teutonic Knights in
Livonia, with large numbers of native troops, and two counts from Germany and
their followers assembled in Riga. Proceeding to Kurland, where they were
joined by the local militia, the army then followed the coastline south to Memel.
The armies, when united, constituted a quite large force: there were more than
150 Teutonic Knights and thousands of secular knights, crusaders, and natives.
The army was at Memel when word came that a large Samogitian force was
raiding southern Kurland, whereupon Master Burckhardt called a council of his
brothers, knights, and natives to decide whether they should follow these
Samogitians and fight them. With the council’s consent, he ordered the march
north. The Christian army was very large and well equipped, but so was the
Samogitian army it met near Durben, in the hilly region southwest of Goldingen.
After hearing the scouts’ reports, the master called the council together again and
asked for advice. The participants decided upon battle but disagreed on the
proposed distribution of the booty. Because large numbers of Kurs were held
captive by the Samogitian raiders, the Kurish elders asked that these captives be
released and not be considered part of the booty. The other natives—Estonians
and Letts—rejected the request; they were allies rather than subjects and
therefore had rights to share in the gains of battle, rights which they refused to
surrender.
The Kurs were angry, and repaid the bad faith on the battlefield. When the
two armies began to move toward each other, the Kurs pulled out of the line of
battle. When the Estonians saw this, they realized that the day was lost and fled
for their lives. Soon the whole formation was broken, as most of the Christian
warriors fled for the woods in a mad rout, even as the knights and their loyal
native allies (including many Kurs) fought to buy time for those who chose to
retreat. Honor, of course, kept many on the field. As the Samogitians surrounded
and at last overwhelmed the knights, a few broke out and escaped, but 150
Teutonic Knights were killed, together with Master Burckhardt and the marshal
of Prussia. It^vas a total disaster for them. On that July day in 1260, thousands
perished on the battlefield and in the rout that followed.25
This defeat nullified the gains of twenty years of warfare on the part of the
crusaders. Large parts of Semgallia and Kurland went over to the pagans, and
fierce revolts broke out in Prussia and Livonia. It was to take the Teutonic
Knights fifteen years to recover the territories in Prussia, and thirty years in Livonia.
pressure on Samogitia
249
-The temporary commander of the Teutonic Order, an officer named
2« faced mounting difficulties with the natives, because each defeat
^e°irt>’d further rebellions. His foremost problem was Kurland, where the natives
*П de a desperate effort to free themselves from foreign control, but on Oesel,
1,13 talk of rebellion spread quickly. Past loyalty was no longer a guarantee of
tOnduct, as the castellan of Goldingen and a small party of knights learned, to
c° ir horror. Taken through treachery, they were martyred by brutal means, some
hling roasted alive and the others slaughtered outright The reprisals were
nually horrible. A knight who had survived several days of torture returned to
a post of command and afterward became renowned for his cruelty to his
captives. Nevertheless, several castles were lost to the insurgents’ attacks, and
others, such as Karshowen and Doblen, were abandoned as untenable.
Undoubtedly, the crusader weakness in the south was partly due to Georg’s
having sent every available knight and man-at-arms to the north. He must have
realized how urgent it was to put down the rebellion on the islands before the
Semgallians and Samogitians could send aid and encourage even further
defections from the Christian ranks. Calling up the Danish vassals, the episcopal
troops, and the Liv, Lett, and Estonian militias sometime during the winter of
1260-61, he led the army across the ice to the islands and wrested more booty
from the wealthy rebels than had been acquired in many a year. Some Oeselians
retreated into the wood at Carmel, where a great battle was fought, first the
rebels and then the Christians in turn having the upper hand. The field before the
wood was covered with bodies, but the warlike natives showed a vigor worthy
of their ancestry. Although no longer able to offer effective resistance, they
continued to defy the crusaders, and the next morning the acting master ordered
his archers to advance into the woods. Soon there were loud cries as these
crossbowmen began a massacre of young and old alike, as the few warriors who
were still alive were unable to defend the numerous noncombatants. On the
morning of the third day, the Oeselians asked for a truce to discuss peace. When
the treaty had been arranged and hostages had been delivered, the army returned
to the mainland across the ice, each man enriched by a share of the loot.27
Occupied personally in the north, Georg sent a second army into Kurland
under a subordinate. From Goldingen, this force moved to a nearby rebel
stronghold that was garrisoned by Samogitians, and mounted a full-scale attack.
The chronicler tells how desperate the fighting was:
They all hurried to the attack, and filled the ditches with wood and set
it ablaze. Many Lithuanians garrisoned the castle ... and would gladly
have given gold and silver to be able to escape from the brothers
without fighting. When the wood was ignited, the fire spread to the
castle with a great blaze. The fire caught on more and more, and the
Lithuanians stood in the middle of the flames fighting against the
brothers’ army. Their hearts were grim, for they were suffering greatly
and faced certain death, and could not escape it. They had to lose their
lives, and they were slain amidst the flames. The army also took great
250
THE BALTIC CRUSAbg
booty from the fire, that is true. The Kurs over eleven years of age
were killed and thrown back into the fire.28
The lesson was clear, and many of the neighboring tribes hurried to
Goldingen to renew their ties with the Teutonic Knights. Through collecting
hostages, the knights were resorting to the best precaution known to that age; by
ruthless extirpation of rebel families, they let it be known that they were not
collecting hostages merely for the pleasure of educating them in Christian values
Meanwhile, the news of the disaster at Durben had alarmed the grandmaster
of the Teutonic Knights, Anno von Sangerhausen, who recruited reinforcements
and forwarded them to Prussia and Livonia. A new commander usually increases
morale, but when Master Werner arrived in the fall of 1261, he must have been
severely shaken.29 The bishop of Dorpat was reporting difficulties with his
Russian neighbors of great seriousness (probably concerning German efforts to
establish a bishopric east of the Narva River and disputes over trade) that the
following year a Novgorodian army would invade his diocese. The news from
Kurland was better, but although the war there was proceeding
satisfactorily—thanks to help from Prussia—the reports from Semgallia were not
optimistic: Samogitians and Semgallians were crossing the Daugava to raid deep
into southern Livonia. Werner assigned Georg to supervise the Daugava front,
ordering him to send his men in pursuit of raiding parties as soon as his scouts
detected their presence:
The brothers’ army set out, taking supplies with them, according to the
custom of the land. Of those who were mounted, they chose the best
and sent them to the routes the heathens would need to use for their
return home. They were to guard the roads. The brothers’ army
marched after them, hurrying in pursuit of the heathens. The scouts
observed carefully and came running. They informed the brothers,
saying, "Quick, an immediate decision must be made! The heathen
army is nearby. Whatever the circumstances, let no courageous man
lose heart."30
In a battle near Lennewarden on February 3, 1262, the pagans repulsed the
Christian attack and escaped with a great amount of booty. Georg was among the
fallen. That summer Pope Urban IV issued a new crusading bull, urging
volunteers to take the cross for "Livonia, Prussia, and Kurland" for a full year,
but permitting those whose circumstances did not permit such a lengthy stay to
earn the spiritual benefits of crusading for serving a shorter period.31
As if Werner did not have enough troubles at this moment, the archbishop
of Riga was providing him new ones. Albert Suerbeer, instead of cooperating 01
regional defense at this critical moment, saw in the master’s difficulties an
opportunity to increase his own power. When he installed a descendant ot
Theodoric von Buxhoevden (von Ropp) as bishop of Oesel-Wiek, his actio0
struck Werner as a crass effort to curry favor among the most important family
of secular nobles in Livonia. Furthermore, the archbishop took crusaders for hi$
pressure on Samogitia
251
ice and withheld money from the order—actions that may have been justified
86 the need to protect his lands but, nevertheless, interfered with Werner’s plans.
У In addition, the master faced an even graver danger—losing his influence
over Mindaugas of Lithuania, who was not pleased that Werner was losing the
war against their common enemy, the Samogitians. One sign that the balance of
jeligious prestige had shifted was Tovtivil’s participating in a Novgorodian attack
on Doipat in 1262. Another was the fate of a Lithuanian force led by a Russian
orince, one of several parties which had been ravaging Black Russia. Overhauled
at a lake near Pinsk, the outnumbered Lithuanians lined up in their traditional
three-deep wall of shields and awaited Duke Vasilko’s attack. After personally
leading his men to victory, Vasilko celebrated by inviting his vassals to a
drinking party and sending captured horses to his brother, Duke Daniel.
The final sign of the changing times came shortly after the death of Queen
Martha of Lithuania. Mindaugas sent a message to her sister, requesting her to
come to the funeral, then at the conclusion of the funeral banquet informed her
that Martha had wanted her to marry him because she feared that anyone else
who became queen would mistreat her children. The fact that the king ignored
his Christian responsibility to apply for a papal dispensation was unimportant—
that could be forgiven if pleas of necessity were combined with a properly
repentant attitude—but the episode seemed to demonstrate that Mindaugas wore
his conversion lightly, and Christians who had never trusted the king were now
ready to accuse him of apostasy. The scandal lay in the fact that the queen’s
sister was already married to Daumantas of Nalsen. In taking this new wife,
Mindaugas displayed indecent haste and, at the same time, insulted one of his
chief vassals.32 Mindaugas must have understood that the pope would not tolerate
a monarch’s theft of his wife’s sister from her husband,33 but he was ready to
break with the Roman Church and its closest representative, the Teutonic Order.
ENDNOTES
1.	Rabikauskas, "La cristianizzazione della Samogizia," 223; Giedroyd, "The
Rulers of thirteenth-century Lithuania," 8.
2-	"Treniota," Encylopedia Lituanica, Ш; Giedroyd, "The Rulers of thirteenth-
century Lithuania," 10.
3-	Ritterbriider, 802.
4-	Reimchronik, 11. 4159-4260.
Urkundenbuch, I, no. 288; for Ludwig, see Ritterbriider, 347-348.
6-	Goetze, Albert Suerbeer, 67ff; Urkundenbuch, I, nos. 277, 341.
•	Urkundenbuch, I, nos. 295, 303, 306 and following.
•	The most radical attacks are found in Peter Olins, The Teutonic Knights in
-^via (Riga: Laney, 1925). For a dissenting view see William Urban, "Baltic
9 "ivalry," The Historian, (in press, April 1994).
’ Tadeusz Krahel, "Die Organisation der Kirche in Litauen," La cristianizzazione
aella Lituania, 160-162; Urkundenbuch, I, nos. 254, 272, III, no. 279a.
0. Giedroyd, "The Arrival of Christianity," 23.
252	THE BALTIC CRUSADg
11.	Aligmantas Kajackas, "History and Recent Archeological Investigations of
Vilnius Cathedral," La cristianizzazione della Lituania, 268-212, 281-284.
12.	Reimchronik, 11. 4552-4619.
13.	Spuler, Die goldene Horde, 34-35; Galician-Volhynian Chronicle, 78-80.
14.	Giedroyd, "Arrival of Christianity," 25.
15.	What little we know is described in a few pages by Zenonas Ivinskis
Geschichte des Bauernstandes in Litauen (Berlin: Ebering, 1933), 23-30, and
Konstantinas Avizonis, Die Entstehung und Entwicklung des litauischen Adels
bis zur litauisch-polnischen Union 1385 (Berlin, 1933).
16.	Thomas Riis, "Die Administration Estlands zur Ddnenzeit," Die Rolle der
Ritterorden in der mittelalterlichen Kultur (Toruri, 1985) [Colloquia Torunensia
Historica III], 117-127; Johansen, Estlandliste, 168ff, 739-47.
17.	Riley-Smith, The Crusades, 68, 73, 78-79.
18.	See Ulrich Muller, Das Geleit im Deutschordensland РгецВеп (KOln,
Weimar, Wien: BOhlau, 1991), 16-17, 24.
19.	Urkundenbuch, I, nos. 293, 310-312, 314.
20.	Goetze, Albert Suerbeer, 56-81; Urkundenbuch, I, nos. 319, 324-328, 333.
21.	Roger Noel, my coeditor at the Journal of Baltic Studies, reminds me that
this word comes from the German "gar aus trinken."
22.	Reimchronik, 11.4653-4728. In pagan society, as we have seen before, wealth
and prestige were won by war, not by trade. And warriors demonstrated then-
social standing by having numerous wives and concubines, sacrificing animals
to the ancient gods, and killing personal, clan, and tribal foes. Young warriors
were unlikely to be impressed by the advantages of peace and free trade.
23.	Ibid., 11. 4915-4934.
24.	Ibid., 11. 4935-5238.
25.	Ibid., 11. 5541-5734; Herman de Wartberge, 41-42.
26.	The commander of Segewold. Ritterbriider, 255.
27.	Ibid., 11. 6041-6314; shortly after this Pope Urban IV complained to Danish
bishop of Lincoping that merchants were selling weapons to the pagans.
Urkundenbuch, I, no. 371, and following; Tarvel, "Zur Problematik der
Bauemaufstdnde," 118.
28.	Reimchronik, 11. 5941-5968.
29.	Almost nothing is known about Werner. Ritterbriider, 710.
30.	Ibid., 11. 6006-6026.
31.	Urkundenbuch, I, no. 366.
32.	Nalsen lies along the eastern frontier of Lithuania. Lowmiariski, Studja nad
poczgtkami spoleczenstwa i pafistwa litewskiego, I (Wilno, 1931), map II, locates
it more to the southeast and includes in it the wilderness west of the Nemunas
and north of Gardinas. Benninghoven, Schwertbriider, map 16, places it more to
east and nortffeast of Lithuania. The difference is not significant.
33.	Rowell, "Dovmont-Timofey," 4; "Daumantas," Encyclopedia Lituanica, П»
39-40; Galician-Volhynian Chronicle, 80-83; Muldoon, Popes, Lawyers, and
Infidels, 58.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
PAGAN REACTION IN LITHUANIA
The conversion of Mindaugas had been a triumph for every faction of the
goinan Church. Those who believed in armed attack against the enemies of
Christendom could point to the doctrine of compellere intrare, a precept based
on the parable of the host who sent his servant into the street to invite guests into
the banquet; if the guests refuse, saying that they have other business to attend
to, the servant is to force them to come in.1 Would Mindaugas have responded
so readily to the invitation to accept Christ, they asked, if western Christians had
not been there to defend the converts on the frontier and to threaten to overthrow
with armed might his evil reign of terror? This had been true for the Wends, and
it would be the case with others, too. The end of slavery and human sacrifice
demanded it; the encouragement of trade required it. Those who believed in
conversion through preaching, sacrifice, and example could argue with equal
fervor that this form of expanding Christendom, by converting native rulers, was
far preferable to conquest by foreign armies. Since crusaders were human beings,
liable to sin and error, and moreover, mightily tempted by opportunities opened
by war, they were likely to cause converts to associate Christianity with brutal
foreign assaults on their liberties and customs. Since efforts to expel the
conquerors would likely drive away all foreign priests and missionaries as well,
the chance of apostasy was all the greater.
Roger Bacon is often cited as a spokesman for the party advocating peaceful
conversion of the pagans. It is true that, as a Franciscan, Bacon was generally
more inclined to think the best of all beasts and humans than Dominicans were;
and he was predisposed to think that whoever the Dominicans supported were
probably in the wrong. As we have seen, the Dominicans and the Teutonic Order
worked closely together, while the Franciscans were to be associated with the
Lithuanian monarchy. This divergence of views was to grow ever greater in the
decades to come. While both orders of friars wanted Church reform, the
Dominicans wanted these reforms to occur in the context of tradition and
hierarchy, while the Franciscans permitted discussion of ideas so radical as to
v^rge on the heretical. Roger Bacon’s observations are to be understood in this
context. His comments about the crusade in the Baltic were not based as much
°n Biblical precepts or even the example of St. Francis as upon astrological
theory. He asserted that there were only six possible religious sects: Saracens,
Tatars, pagans, idolaters, Jews, and Christians. Since each religion corresponded
to one of the planets in the zodiac, scientific analysis of the heavens would
reveal which policies offered the greatest likelihood of success at any given
foment. It was not easy, he said, to convert Moslems and Jews because of their
hlgh cultures and sophisticated theologies. Pagans, on the other hand, were
c°nditioned to believe in multiple gods and should therefore be willing to listen
to skilled missionaries who could offer them eternal salvation in the place of
everlasting damnation. Once the Church stopped making war, allowed the Baltic
254
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
peoples to retain their liberties and enjoy their possessions in peace, the pagans
would permit missionaries to enter their lands, and the rest was writ in the stars
Because of his controversial ideas, especially his seeming endorsement of
Joachim of Fiori’s predictions that the end of the world was nigh, Roger Bacon
spent much of his career defending himself against accusations of heresy. He had
little influence on the practical men responsible for wielding the two swords of
secular and ecclesiastical authority. Nevertheless, modem historians have made
him into a spokesman for a presumed anti-war party. There were, of course,
committed individual pacifists, largely monks and priests, who preferred death
to shedding blood, and there were the order’s political enemies, who coveted
their lands and wealth. But the existence of a wide-spread anti-war movement
outside the ranks of the radical Franciscans has yet to be demonstrated.2
Mindaugas Joins the Crusaders’ Enemies
Mindaugas had observed the Christian defeats with concern and feared that
his fate might be linked to the fortunes of the Teutonic Knights. The embassies
of the crusading order could not convince him that loyalty to Christianity would
serve him well if his subjects should demand that he lead them against the
Germans. Nor had the Samogitians forgotten the king and his numerous warlike
subjects; indeed, they sought his support, as well as that of other Lithuanian
dukes and boyars, in the war against the crusaders. The elders and Treniota sent
messengers to King Mindaugas and Duke Tovtivil of Polozk, who was apparently
living as a guest at the court of Mindaugas, to denounce Christianity for its false
promises of victory over the pagan gods and to make a proposal of an alliance
against the foreigners. In their offers of great rewards there was a scarcely veiled
threat that they would overthrow Mindaugas if he refused the offer. Menaced
also by Tatars and Russians, the king was not eager to move against yet another
enemy, much less one so admired by many of his retainers. Moreover,
Mindaugas wore his Christianity lightly, never using a Christian name (he should
have been named Andreas after his sponsor), and his marriage in 1261, to the
wife of Daumantas of Nalsen (Dovmont in the Russian records), flouted every
Christian convention. Moreover, according to his enemies, he continued to attend
traditional pagan rites. A very superstitious man, Mindaugas could be impressed
by Christian victories but would not likely see defeats as pious examples of
martyrdom and self-sacrifice. He investigated the possibility of Russian
cooperation against the Teutonic Knights, a possibility enhanced by his son’s
enthusiastic embrace of Orthodoxy—a religion which, furthermore, lacked the
proselytizing zeal of the Roman church and was more likely to avoid offending
his pagan subjects. When he was certain that he could lead a Lithuanian-
Samogitian-Rufcsian attack into Livonia and that he would be able to retain most
of the conquests, he agreed to join Teutonic Order’s pagan and Orthodox
enemies. In the fall of 1262 he expelled the western priests and advisors and
began to campaign across the Daugava.3
Because of these escalating dangers, the Teutonic Knights made every effort
to recruit more aid from the west. In 1261 vice-master Georg offered land to
255
pagan React‘on ‘n ^‘t^luania
ty knight or citizen of Lubeck who would settle in Livonia.4 This was an
6 nortunity for wealth such as had rarely been offered, but few Germans
gponded. It was not because of the hopelessness of the situation in Livonia that
few crusaders sailed east in these years; in fact, the stream of crusaders was
^ver interrupted. However, many potential crusaders were tied down in
Germany and Denmark with local troubles, so that the number of pilgrims failed
to increase sufficiently to rescue the Teutonic Knights from their plight. When,
at last, in 1268, a large army came from the west, the greatest danger had
passed.
Civil Conflict in Scandinavia and Germany
In Denmark, the civil war was still unresolved, despite the death of King
Christopher in 1259. His widow, Margaret, acting on behalf of her ten-year-old
son, Eric, continued the quarrel with the Church and the House of Holstein.
"Black Greta," as she was called, was a stubborn and domineering woman. She
attempted to recover Schleswig for the royal line when the young heir to that
appanage died without issue. She was then opposed by another widow, the
duchess Matilda, who had been bom a countess of Holstein and had married
Duke Abel of Schleswig, who had been king of Denmark from 1250 to 1252.
Matilda fought for the right of her young children to inherit their brother
Waldemar’s estate, which Christopher had claimed by right of escheat The
events of 1259 occasioned intervention by the kings of Norway and Sweden, but
the truce they arranged was short-lived. Matilda later broadened the feud by
marrying her eldest son, Eric, to a daughter of Jaroslav of Rugen and by
marrying Earl Karl Birger of Sweden (a frequent "crusader" to Finland) herself.
The kingdom was in constant turmoil from assassinations, excommunications,
and peasant unrest. No help was available in Scandinavia for the hard-pressed
crusaders in Livonia.5
The prelates of the region could not act effectively because of their
involvement in numerous feuds and their heavy taxation by the papacy (there
was scarcely a bishop who was not in arrears in his payments). Many were in
Papal disfavor because of the Church’s situation in Denmark, and all were
dominated by the papal legates who visited the region periodically, ostensibly to
settle local problems but actually to increase papal control over Church affairs.6
Lay princes were hardly better than their ecclesiastical colleagues. Otto of
Braunschweig, the Welf who exercised great power because of the clever
marriages and ecclesiastical appointments he arranged for his children, was
feuding with Brandenburg, Thuringia, and Holstein. Holstein was in turmoil
following the departure of Dietrich, the heir to the Haseldorf estates, on crusade
to Livonia. At first it seemed that he was only following the example of his
father, who had fallen in 1236 at the battle of Saule, but when he entered the
Church (eventually becoming a bishop, first of Karelia, then Dorpat), it ignited
a feud between the claimants to his estates. Such a dispute might have been of
tttle import, but, linked to other crises, it was one of many complex, interrelated
256	THE BALTIC CRUSADE
problems that plagued the society of that time—a picture that undoubtedly seems
more chaotic to us than it was to contemporaries.
An excellent example of this political complexity is an incident that
occurred in Lubeck in 1261. The city, a great mercantile center, offered
numerous attractions to every variety of visitor. There were markets, festivals
religious holidays; entertainers and hustlers of all kinds; hostlers, innkeepers
bartenders; pastors, friars, holy men, and beggars; urchins, dogs, horses, cattle
and stalls loaded with loaves and fishes. Wherever one turned, one saw bakers,
bankers, gamblers, clerics, prostitutes, and the like servicing their clienteles.
Legal protection under the market peace was vital to such enterprise, and the
man who used arms inside the city was liable to severe punishment. But when
this peace was broken by the count of Holstein, a feud involving several great
regional powers was kindled.
It happened while the citizens were holding their annual tournament (which
was probably a good time for recruiting volunteers for the crusade), in which
Count Johann of Holstein planned to participate. As he walked through the
streets he met an old enemy with whom he first exchanged words, then blows,
and he finally killed him. The Liibeckers, horrified by this breach of the peace,
rang the alarm and hurried to arms. Count Johann, meanwhile, swinging his
sword, fought his way through the streets to his family church, where the city
constables arrested him in violation of the right of sanctuary. As the crowd was
dispersing, a number of Johann’s retainers swept into the church courtyard and
released him, and together they fled the city. Count Johann declared a feud
against the citizens for entering his church, and the city called upon Albrecht of
Braunschweig to perform his services as advocate. In this manner the princes
found themselves at war. Then, as now, rather trivial events could have far-
reaching consequences, and because they were related to the opposing parties in
Denmark, this quarrel became part and parcel of the Danish problem. The
example is especially apt because personalities played such a great role in
politics, and because the counts of Holstein participated in most of the disputes
that plagued the north in this period.
The Holstein counts were active and warlike; they welcomed conflict and
feared no opponent. Their interference in Schleswig provoked a Danish invasion
in the summer of 1261, and after winning a great battle against the Danes and
capturing the young king and his mother, they were faced with a great
temptation: should they put their nephew on the Danish throne? The matter was
swiftly decided when Albrecht of Braunschweig, the Welf relative of the king,
invaded Holstein and captured strategic castles in the eastern portion of the
country, thereby depriving the anti-Danish forces of valuable territories as well
as the base most strategically placed for any attack on Denmark. Only then did
the counts understand the need for compromise. In return for releasing the queen
mother and the king they obtained the return of their lands and castles. The
queen returned to Denmark to supervise the royal government, but the king was
sent to Brandenburg, whose duke had ties to both Denmark and Holstein and
was, therefore, an acceptable mediator. Neither lord wanted to fight the feud to
a finish. (A family feud to the finish would have been considered in bad taste,
pagan Reaction in Lithuania
257
aCCording to the standards of the age. Chivalry demanded much more
gentlemanly solutions, such as the arrangement that ended the feud between
Albrecht of Braunschweig and Hermann of Hesse in 1263, who met at Liineburg
with all their vassals and allies and fought it out in the form of a tournament,
winner take all. The defeated Welf forces lost all their armor and horses, and the
dispute as well, but retained their honor and suffered very few casualties.)
Negotiations regarding the future of the Danish monarchy were slow.
Meanwhile, the counts obstinately continued their feud with Lubeck, but
unsuccessfully, because the citizens hired Albrecht of Braunschweig and the
dukes of Mecklenburg to destroy the lairs of the robber barons and to police the
roads. Thus the feud continued, fired by old and new fuel.7
As the lords quarreled and thereby reduced their power to act effectively,
the cities, led by Lubeck, waxed ever stronger. Not only do myriad treaties and
agreements for expanding and protecting trade testify to the vitality of the
merchant communities in this era, they also prove that the cities knew how to
defend their common interests. Their associations for the purpose of trade and
defense later developed into the Hanseatic League. Now it is in the cities that the
main crusading impulse can be found, and Lubeck was the greatest of these
cities, inspiring the Teutonic Knights to write: "It is through the blood of your
fathers and brothers, your sons and friends, that the field of believers in these
lands has been watered like a marvelous garden." The citizens of Reval, in
asking Lubeck for help, wrote: "We must hang together like the arms of a cross."
Indeed, the influence on politics of citizen-raised money and arms could be
decisive, and lords courted the favor of the wealthy townsmen.8 Significantly,
it was in Lubeck, where a relatively impartial hearing could be held, that
Cardinal Guido, the papal legate, called together the disputants in the various
regional conflicts in 1265. His choice reflected political realities.
The pope and his legates had not ignored the Danish problem, but neither
had they been able to resolve it. Pope Urban IV had ordered the archbishop of
Lund to appear before him in Rome to explain his hostile attitude toward the
Crown, but the archbishop delayed his trip until a new and more friendly pope
had come to office. Nevertheless, papal favor could not restore Lund to his
diocese. Cardinal Guido later placed the kingdom of Denmark under the interdict
and excommunicated the king, but the archbishop never returned to Lund. The
Danish Church was in woeful condition, indeed, its finances ruined and its
Bishops in exile.
The Church in northern Germany was not in much better condition than the
Church in Denmark. Everywhere the prelates were feuding like secular princes,
often using ecclesiastical censure to obtain advantages over their opponents.
When Cardinal Guido visited Bremen, he called a special council and denounced
the widespread vices of the area: marriage of the clergy and the keeping of
concubines; attacks upon the clergy by the laity; violence in churches, including
violation of the right of sanctuary; entering churches under arms; laymen holding
church offices; and simony. One must conclude that the Church was suffering
lor its involvement in secular affairs.’
258
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
Preoccupied with their problems, the nobility of the northern regions were
unable to participate in the crusade for almost a decade. Only after 1266 was
sufficient order restored to allow large numbers of pilgrims to sail from the
Baltic ports to Riga to assist the Teutonic Knights against their enemies.
Civil War in Lithuania
The failure of western crusaders to sail to Livonia in large numbers was
unfortunate for the Teutonic Knights, who were in grave danger in the years
following 1262, when Mindaugas changed sides and enemies fell on them from
all points of the compass. They survived only because the king’s great invasion
across the Daugava had miscarried, his Russian allies failing to help him attack
the great castle at Wenden at the appointed time and the natives ignoring his call
for an uprising. However, while the Teutonic Knights were guarding the Daugava
frontier against his attacks, Russians and Lithuanians stormed into Estonia and
burned Dorpat. The Novgorod chronicler described the attack by forces led by
Alexander Nevsky’s brother, Jaroslav of Tver, by his brother-in-law, Constantine,
as well as 500 Lithuanians led by Tovtivil of Polozk, and a "countless number"
from Novgorod itself:
The town of Yurev was strong, of three walls, and a quantity of people in
it of all kinds; and they had constructed strong defenses, but the power of
the Holy Cross and of St. Sophia always overthrows those who are wrong.
And so this town, its strength was for nothing, but by the aid of God it was
taken by single assault, and many of the people of that town were killed,
others were taken alive, and many others were burnt by fire, and their wives
and children.10
The chronicler of the order’s exploits was hardly more charitable; he
described with malicious joy the terror-stricken monks fleeing into the citadel for
safety; his contrasting treatment of the courageous knights illustrates the jealousy
which existed between the religious orders even in distant Livonia.” Alexander
Nevsky himself had missed the war because he been summoned to the Tatar
court. Not allowed to return, his health had deteriorated swiftly. At last, in late
1263, the khan permitted him to return to Vladimir, where he died. His son,
Dmitri, took office as duke of Novgorod in 1260, but his youth and inexperience
soon cost him the confidence of the citizens. Novgorod then called on Jaroslav,
the khan’s choice to be grand duke.12
The Teutonic Knights were able to resume their offensive soon after the
Russian and Lithuanian attacks ceased. However, because Master Werner was too
ill to lead his ^armies in person, he named Helmerich von Wiirzburg13 to be
vice-master and ordered him to destroy the rebel strongholds in Kurland. The
expedition of 1262 met with notable success, and by punishing some rebels,
Helmerich induced others to return to the Christian fold. In the south, a large
garrison at Memel mounted attacks against the Samogitian castles blocking the
road to Goldingen, particularly the castle at Kreitingen, north of Memel on the
pagan Reaction in Lithuania	259
pange River. The knights were at first repulsed at Kreitingen, where they lost
tw0 knights and numerous sergeants (their captured commander was roasted
alive), but finally they defeated the pagans outside the castle, forced their way
inside with the last of the fugitives from the surrounding village, and captured
the place. After massacring the garrison and enslaving the women and children,
фе crusaders secured the region and built new castles to protect it The
significance of such efforts in Kurland—when the line of the Daugava could
hardly be defended—is that highest priority had been given to the conquest of
Samogitia.
Mindaugas did not oppose the crusaders in Kurland and the Samogitians
were too weak to do more than harrass them. Even so, under Treniota’s
leadership, the Samogitians could create problems for their enemy. In February
of 1263, Treniota, hearing that the bishop of Oesel-Wiek’s knights and
militiamen were in Kurland, led a raiding party through Semgallia, then across
the ice-covered Gulf of Riga to Wiek.
While [the Christians] were in Kurland...an army came into Livonia
from Lithuania, led by Traniate [Treniota]. He came with many bands
along back roads and narrow passages till he arrived at Wiek. He
ravaged that land with fire and sword, and he was able to ravage freely
because those who were to defend against his attack had been sent to
Kurland with the brothers’ army. The Master, who was ill in
Riga...sent his messengers after help. They were’sent to Segewold and
the brothers came to him willingly with their force. Meanwhile
Traniate was returning from Wiek. When the Master heard that, he
sent the army against them. The citizens came with many brave men
to the brothers’ army for the benefit of their souls, it is true. The
brothers were happy about that. Then they left Riga. When the army
reached Diinamiinde, it took up camp nearby. A cloister by that name
lies there on the coast. Before it was midnight, Traniate came riding
with his force toward the brothers’ camp. They sprang up in arms
against him and organized a defense. Though one could not see well
to fight, each had to do as best he could in the fighting by the moon
light. Some of the heathens were slain but who can tell the truth,
whether friend had not slain friend. The battle took place in the night.
The battlefield was red with blood, and nine brothers were killed, and
some of the burghers were slain. One could hear the heroes mourning
greatly, and the dead lay all around.14
Treniota held the field, and the next day crossed the ice toward home.
Nevertheless, he did not raid Livonia in such a bold fashion again.
The Lithuanians might have been much more dangerous if Mindaugas had
teen able to lead all his people against their enemies, but he was surrounded by
jealous nobles and personal enemies who prevented such a great undertaking, and
his role in Lithuanian history came to a sudden end during a campaign against
260
THE BALTIC CRUSADB
Duke Roman Danielovich in Volhynia in the fall of 1263, when he was murdered
by supporters of Treniota. The leader of the plot was probably the man who did
the deed, Daumantas of Nalsen. Daumantas slipped away from the invasion
force, appeared unexpectedly at court, overwhelmed the royal bodyguards, then
slew Mindaugas and two of his sons. Most likely Mindaugas’ fundamental failure
was not so much that his military or religious policies were lacking, but that his
treatment of his principal subordinates, many of whom were relatives by blood
or marriage, had been carried out in such an arrogant and unfair manner. All had
suffered under his policy of shifting them from place to place in order to prevent
their establishing rival bases of power; and Daumantas had lost his wife to
Mindaugas. Perhaps Mindaugas had little choice—to reward one nobleman was
to offend another—but the entire situation reads like a novel about mafia lords,
and our lack of information makes the analogy even more compelling; we often
do not see that a problem exists until somebody is assassinated.13 The assassins
also attempted to destroy Mindaugas’ entire family, but the eldest son, Vojsek,
fled from his monastic retreat and made his way to the Teutonic Knights. The
master had no difficulty in recognizing Vojsek’s potential usefulness in the war
against the Samogitians—whose ruler, Treniota, had become the new grand duke.
Consequently, although Mindaugas’ son gained importance primarily through his
role in the disintegration of his kingdom amid the blood feuds of the Lithuanian
nobility, he was also significant for granting title to Samogitia to the crusaders
in return for their aid in this civil war.
At first, everything went badly for Vojsek. His secret ally, Tovtivil, was
betrayed by a Polozk boyar and fell victim to Treniota’s assassins in 1263 before
he could wield his own knife against his rival. When Daumantas of Nalsen
marched on Polozk, Tovtivil’s son, Constantine (?), and his retinue were barely
able to escape to Novgorod, where he allied himself with Duke Jaroslav.16
Vojsek could have used Polozk as a base for a counter-offensive, but Novgorod
was too far away—and in any case Jaroslav and the Germans were not the best
of friends. As a result, the Teutonic Knights sent Vojsek safely through Prussia
to Galicia, where he was able to renew the alliance with the now aged Duke
Vasilko of Volhynia, who was—according to legend—like an uncle to Vojsek
and a friend of western crusaders. Fortunately for Vojsek, Duke Daniel
(Vasilko’s brother) died about this time, in 1264. Otherwise, Daniel would have
been reluctant to render assistance, apparently believing that his own son Roman
had died at Vojsek’s hands. Daniel’s successor was Svamo, Vojsek’s brother-in-
law. Nevertheless, according to legend Vojsek had to promise that Svamo would
become со-ruler of Lithuania as soon as the civil war was concluded and he
himself had returned to the monastic life. This new alliance—the Teutonic
Knights, the dukes of Galicia-Volhynia, and loyalists to Mindaugas’ family—was
a formidable threat to the pagans in Lithuania and Polozk.
Treniota was not there to meet this circle of enemies; he perished in 1263
or 1264 (perhaps even 1265), murdered by Mindaugas’ former grooms as he
emerged from a steam bath. Vojsek, reinforced by Vasilko and Svamo, invaded
Lithuania in the following year, defeated Daumantas and then put every enemy
he could find to the sword. He placed his cousin, Edivydas (Erdvilas, Erdanas
Reaction in Lithuania
261
ра%аП
(jerden—who was probably closely related to Daumantas) as ruler in Polozk
°r, Vitebsk. This unwittingly presented new complications for the Livonians in
и future (since Edivydas may have been replaced in 1267 by Tovtivil’s son,
Constantine, the question arose as to who had signed the treaty giving Lettgallia
Albert Sueibeer, and when this might have occurred). However, Vojsek
щ-vived but little longer himself—according to legend, he was murdered by
gvarno’s brother, Lev, after a drinking bout during which the subject arose as to
who should rule in Galicia, Svamo or Lev—and after Svamo’s death in 1268
uncertainty again reigned in Lithuania. Polozk fell under the influence of the
Germans—a reflection of the growing importance of trade—and remained so
until 1307.17
Daumantas and 300 retainers made their way to Pskov im 1265 with their
wives and children, where Jaroslav’s son, Svjatoslav, ruled. At his suggestion
they made a hurried conversion to Orthodoxy. Although Novgorod burghers,
perhaps encouraged by Tovtivil’s son, readied a force in 1266 to march on Pskov
in order to capture and execute the Lithuanian exiles, Daumantas struck first,
driving Svjatoslav into flight. This time it was Jaroslav who wanted to attack
Pskov, in 1267, and the burghers who prevented from doing so; soon the citizens
called Andrej’s son, Yuri, to govern them. Meanwhile, the citizens of
Pskov—who may have felt particularly vulnerable to attack after having been
ravaged by plague—had made Daumantas their duke.
Meanwhile, in 1266 Daumantas (Dovmont) led the armies of Pskov south
against Edivydas in hope of recovering Polozk, his ancestral lands around
Nalsen, and perhaps even the crown. The monk who wrote the Chronicle of
Novgorod described it in this way:
God laid his grace into the heart of Dovmont to fight for St. Sophia
and the Holy Trinity, to avenge the Christian blood, and he went with
the men of Pleskov [Pskov] against the pagan Lithuanians, and they
ravaged much....18
Edivydas pursued the Russians to an island in the Daugava, where he seems
to have perished anonymously in combat. The Orthodox chronicler accused him
of being a pagan (he was a Roman Catholic, which was hardly better in the eyes
of the chronicler, though he was ruling Polozk, undeniably an Orthodox city) and
presumably fighting for a pagan lord, Vojsek, who was in reality an Orthodox
fanatic. Perhaps partly because Daumantas’ supporters were unable to decide
who was what in this complex mess—and surely they still had many doubts
about "Dovmont’s" loyalties—he was unable to recover his lands or offices in
Lithuania and Polozk.
What the role of religious identification was in all these struggles is not
clear. Presumably, no party was clearly in the majority. Edivydas had been a
Homan Catholic, Vojsek and Daumantas Orthodox, Svamo Uniate, and Treniota
Pagan. Although each had many followers, their retainers probably gave their
°yalty on the basis of family ties and the assurance of offices and rewards rather
262	THE BALTIC CRUSADg
than on the basis of religion. Certainly there were many Lithuanian nobles who
had undergone Orthodox baptism in order to placate the Russians in the towns
where they had been stationed as rulers and garrison commanders. Equally
certain was that many had married Christian women, Orthodox and Catholic
alike. But without any doubt, paganism had its attractions, not the least of which
would be in the assurance that Lithuania would be ruled by a Lithuanian. Also
the adherence to paganism was the only way to guarantee that the independent-
minded Samogitian nobles would recognize a ruler from the central hill country
of Lithuania—they would reject a weak Christian ruler (and anyone assuming
power at this moment had to be considered weak) as assuredly as they had
rejected the powerful Mindaugas. As it happened, a pagan family hitherto
unknown to us made itself supreme: Traidenis (Trojden), son of Kentauras,
whose base was in Kemavfe, half-way between Vilnius and Samogitia, seized
power in 1268. Western chroniclers, unwilling to call any pagan king, referred
to him as the grand duke.™
The pagans burned the cathedral in Vilnius, covered its ruins with sand, and
erected a shrine to Perkunas over it. This shrine had the same dramatic impact
on the pagans as the Christian cathedral it replaced had had earlier. Traditionally,
pagans conducted their ceremonies in the sacred forests, which perhaps explains
why this masonry structure was left open to the sky (Perkunas was the Thunder
god) with twelve steps leading up to a huge altar. There the priests placed a
wooden statue of the god and maintained an eternal flame.20
Conflict and Conspiracy in Livonia
Master Werner was no longer in Livonia. Ill and disabled after an insane
brother had dealt him a severe wound, he traveled to Germany in early 1263 to
ask Grandmaster Anno to relieve him of his duties and appoint a successor, and
soon afterwards Conrad von Mandem was sent to Riga to take command of the
Teutonic Knights in Livonia.21 It was Master Conrad who had extorted great
concessions from Vojsek in return for assistance against their common enemies,
and it was Master Conrad who now tried to make good the renewed claims to
Samogitia. Now father and son, each in turn, had given Samogitia to the
Teutonic Order. It was a better claim to the land than the crusaders usually
needed.
Having collected a large body of knights for the ceremony ratifying the
treaty with Vojsek, Conrad decided to strike a strong blow against the enemy
before allowing such an assemblage to disperse—he undoubtedly presumed that
the bulk of the Samogitian forces would be fighting at Treniota’s side in central
Lithuania. At first he met with success. The raiding party sent out from
Goldingen surprised and sacked the castle at Gresen, and the raiders from Riga
captured a considerable amount of booty as well as prisoners in Semgallia. But
then misfortune struck. His force from Riga, greatly harassed by the natives, who
had cut down so many trees that the forest roads became impassable, fell into an
ambush and lost 600 troops and twenty knights. Some escaped through the
pagan Reaction in Lithuania	263
w00ds with the master, and some were later ransomed, but it was a great
disaster, mitigated only by the booty that had been won at Gresen and
^sported to Riga?2
The difficulties encountered in Samogitia and Semgallia made it necessary
to reduce the burdens and commitments elsewhere. In December of 1264 Conrad
had signed a treaty with Edivydas in Polozk, who had so wanted his hands free
to fight Daumantas that he conceded possession of eastern Lettgallia to the
Livonian Order. This wild and sparsely populated region was of little immediate
economic value, but its strategic importance was immense. Its lakes promised
profitable fishing and the fertile lands along the Daugava could be colonized
easily once peace was established. It was a great step inland beyond the
swampland lying between Diinaburg—the castle at the southern bend of the
Daugava—and Pskov and into the rolling hills of the interior.23
This critical episode is, unfortunately, still shrouded in darkness and
mystery. Some of the critical documents concerning the so-called "Donation of
Constantine"—a grant which was confirmed by the pope in August of 1264 and
therefore must predate the treaty with Edivydas—are available only in the form
of copies made in 1366, a time when all witnesses to the event had long been
dead. The document itself is very clear—a Russian duke named Constantine
grants the land unconditionally to the master and his brethren. What remains
obscure is who issued it and when. The fact that an unexpected name,
Constantine, appears in the document is no surprise. As we have seen repeatedly,
Lithuanian nomenclature is not an exact science in this era—every foreigner
wrote names in a form appropriate to his own language, and every time a
Lithuanian underwent baptism, he took a new "Christian" name. Hence,
Constantine could be Edivydas’ baptismal name, Tovtivil’s baptismal name, the
name of Tovtivil’s son, the duke who ruled in Polozk from 1271 to 1289 (in
which case he must have held power briefly around 1264), or Alexander
Nevsky’s son-in-law, Constantine Rostislavich.24 Lastly, the document might be
a forgery; most historians, however, believe that the "Donation of Constantine"
does represent a genuine agreement, most likely with some fugitive or exile who
was in Riga to seek help.
A strong argument for the genuineness of the Donation is found in the
documents concerning a quarrel that the December 1264 treaty with Edivydas
touched off between the master and the archbishop. Conrad was naturally proud
of having extended his order’s domains so far upriver. Albert Suerbeer had
anticipated adding these strategic lands to his own holdings. Indeed, the nub of
the quarrel seemed to be whether or not the archbishop had a prior claim on
Lettgallia dating from Tovtivil’s days in Polozk, followed by the archbishop’s
contention that Lettgallia had once been held by Rudolf von Ungem and, hence,
his rights had since reverted to his lord’s successor (i.e., from Bishop Albert to
Archbishop Albert Sueibeer).25
Conrad deflected the archbishop’s anger at the time by agreeing to several
the prelate’s other demands. Although he essentially recognized the
archbishop’s authority over the order, Conrad was doing no more than buying
264	THE BALTIC CRUSADg
time: he continued to resist archiepiscopal taxation for the building of bulwarks
churches, and bridges; he founded a strategic port at Pemau; and he complained
whenever the archbishop interfered in his order’s internal affairs. As Conrad
demonstrated that the archbishop’s contracts and treaties were valueless in
asserting episcopal authority, he reconfirmed Albert Suerbeer’s paranoia about
the crusading order within a short period and persuaded him to contemplate
drastic steps. As a result, the respite Conrad had gained in 1264-65 brought him
greater problems than he had faced before, because now the archbishop
mistrusted him completely. But, as is often the case in human affairs, Conrad
could not look past his immediate needs and take the steps needed for long-term
security; and the most immediate need was for victory on the battlefield.26
It was obvious that if Semgallia was to be occupied permanently, the
Christians had to build more bases in that country. They had constructed such
fortifications before, but every time they had established a foothold in the
interior, a military defeat had forced them to abandon bases as untenable. The
basic strategy was sound, however, and they continued their efforts. In 1265
Conrad built a new castle, one that could be supplied by ship, on an island in the
Semgallian Aa at Mitau, just below the confluence of its northernmost tributary.
With their base of operations in this strong castle, the knights raided pagan
settlements to the south, inflicting great damage. This could bring eventual
military victory, but a great drawback to their strategy was that the territory
belonged to Albert Suerbeer, who feared that his rights over this land, too, would
be ignored if it were garrisoned by the order. Therefore, Conrad had found it
necessary to appeal to the pope for permission to build a castle at Mitau; and the
pope, who was thoroughly familiar with the archbishop (and apparently disliked
him) granted it readily. By now Conrad believed he could safely ignore the Riga
prelate in every respect. Not only was the pope approving every action of the
order, but the archbishop also lacked the military resources to threaten the order
in any significant manner.27
The importance of sea transportation became more obvious as the
Semgallian wars progressed because it was the only reliable means of supplying
Mitau, deep in pagan territory. The pagans, as Master Conrad learned to his
sorrow, still controlled the land route. The war had not yet been won, and raids,
the principal technique used in medieval warfare, remained exceedingly risky,
especially so deep in enemy territory. At the end of one of these raids, when his
army had reassembled and was returning to Mitau, its transport loaded down
with booty, Master Conrad went in advance with a small force to repair the road
and bridges so as to expedite the journey. He had left orders that the army was
to sound the war horns if it was attacked, whereupon he would return, but when
he heard the horns and tumed back, he discovered that the Semgallians had
interposed theinselves between the two Christian forces. There was nothing he
could do except listen to the sound of distant battle as the main body of troops
was overwhelmed. The men who were with him, and those who fled the battle
and into the forest, returned to Mitau safely, but the land route across Semgallia
remained uncertain thereafter. Water was the safest and most efficient
transportation route to the isolated outpost at Mitau.28
pagan Кеас1'оп 1Л Lithuania	265
By this time Master Conrad had served three years in Livonia and had tired
f the criticisms of his failures in the recent campaign. With the consent of his
pothers, he wrote to Grandmaster Anno asking to be replaced, and Anno,
consenting to his resignation, ordered the Livonian general council to elect a
successor. Otto von Lutterburg,29 who took office in 1267, was a capable
warrior, well acquainted with the country and popular with his brethren, but he
was Ю face grave threats from the archbishop of Riga and the Russians. It had
been obvious for several years that war was brewing on the Russian front, since
Lithuanian rulers and Lithuanian garrisons were present in many of the Russian
cities. Seeing the opportunities presented by civil conflicts in Lithuania, which
certainly distracted commanders of the Russian forces and may have disrupted
trade to such an extent that the Russian cities were financially unable to support
the forces along the Livonian border—the Danish vassals and the bishop of
Dorpat had pushed their frontiers eastward as far as possible; the merchants
complained about bandits along the eastern trade routes; and relations in general
were tense.
War with Novgorod
As we have seen, in 1261-63 Russian forces had invaded Estonia as part of
Mindaugas’ grand strategy. In 1262 Tovtivil of Polozk had penetrated as far as
Dorpat, and his successor, Daumantas of Nalsen, had continued the offensive
against Livonia.30 When Vojsek returned to Lithuania and recovered the royal
authority, he drove Daumantas into exile in Pskov. Daumantas, a man of
immense talent and energy, was baptized and agreed to defend Pskov’s interests;
in return, the citizens declared him duke and supported his efforts to take the
Lithuanian throne. Twice in 1266-67 he invaded Polozk, each time with
sufficient success that the crusaders began to fear for Vojsek’s survival.
Accordingly, Master Conrad had constructed a great castle at Weissenstein in
Estonia to anchor the defense of Jerwen and sent out calls for the crusaders who
would be needed. Consequently, Master Otto was ready for the invasion by Yuri
of Novgorod and Daumantas of Pskov which occurred in 1267, and although the
enemy commanders quarreled so heatedly that their forces wandered around
almost aimlessly before attempting a brief and pointless siege of Wesenburg
(Rakvere, the Danish stronghold built in 1252 to control strategic road junctions),
4 was clear that the Russians would be back. What Otto did not anticipate was
that Albert Suerbeer would plot to seize power while the crusading order was
Preoccupied with the defense of the frontiers.
Among the crusaders who sailed to Livonia in 1267 was Count Gunzelin of
chwerin, a descendant of Heinrich the Black, a resourceful and dangerous man,
hough not a powerful lord. He had been active, but unsuccessful, in the
numerous feuds in his region. For two decades he had quarreled with his
neighbors, and each time emerged weaker than before. However, his defeats were
n°t necessarily due to lack of courage or ability but probably more to financial
military weakness. He had fought in the Danish wars in the 1250’s, joined
266
THE BALTIC CRUSAUg
in a feud concerning the Mecklenburg inheritance, and served as a Welf partis^
in the feuds of the early 1260’s—all the while gaining but little for his efforts
Married to a member of the house of Mecklenburg, he stood to profit from the
chaotic situation that followed the death of Duke Johann of Parchim, but he wa$
eventually defeated by his opponent, young Duke Heinrich. It was at this time
that he took the cross for Livonia, perhaps due to the lure of adventure and
religion, perhaps in keeping with family tradition. Or perhaps it was demanded
by Heinrich, whose family traditions included crusading (one brother, Poppo, had
joined the Teutonic Knights) and who did not want to leave on crusade himself
as long as his potential enemies remained home.31 Or perhaps he planned to
resettle in the east. After all, Schwerin was not an old state—a little more than
a century before, it had lain on the other side of a long-disputed frontier between
Christendom and paganism—and, just as a mixed population of Germans and
Slavs now lived there peacefully, Gunzelin’s family was now thoroughly
intermingled with the Slavic dynasties which had once dominated the region.
Consequently, he was not likely to fear living among strange peoples от
encountering new challenges. For many years Count Gunzelin had been gathering
estates in Livonia by occasionally exchanging properties with the monastic
orders—a medieval form of crop insurance—and he was undoubtedly well
informed on conditions in the east.32
The crusaders must have landed in Livonia in the summer or fall of 1267
in the expectation of waging a winter campaign near Novgorod, for Master Otto,
although occupied with Daumantas’ attacks along the Daugava, had ordered
thirty-four knights from Weissenstein, Leal, and Fellin to reinforce the bishop’s
troops in Dorpat. Large numbers of native militia were available, too, and the
Danish vassals were willing to fight here rather than attempt to defend their own
lands later without help. Among the numerous crusaders was Count Heinrich of
Mecklenburg with his German and Slavic troops. But Gunzelin apparently spent
little time in Estonia.
His ship would have brought him directly to Riga, where he met Albert
Suerbeer, whom, it can be presumed, he had met previously during the
archbishop’s long stay in northern Germany. But only now did the two men
discover that they could be of service to one another. Albert resented the
autonomy of the Teutonic Knights and the fact that they had confiscated his
lands and stirred up trouble even among his canons. Gunzelin was poor, but
ambitious and warlike. Because his lands were held by the duke of Brandenburg
and he had several children for whom to provide an inheritance, he had seen
little future in Schwerin. It is not clear who made the proposal to attack the
Teutonic Knights and divide their territories, but, on 21 December 1267-
Gunzelin and Albert signed a pact to work to this end. The archbishop appoint60
the count advocate of all his lands, with the duty of reorganizing his holding®
and protecting them against all enemies, and he gave him all authority,
incomes, and all responsibilities associated with his holdings. It was understood
that the count would be rewarded with generous grants of land in the capture0
territories if he succeeded in taking any from the Teutonic Knights or pag^*1
tribes, but if he failed, the archbishop would not even pay his ransom, implied У
ра%аП
Reaction in Lithuania
267
ying all responsibility for h
more risky than Heinrich th
КРАП. Counts of Schwerin
is actions. It was a risky venture for the count, but
e Black’s kidnapping of Waldemar the Victorious
were not fazed by heavy odds.
Gunzelin hoped to become a great landowner in Semgallia, Selonia, and
nOrthern Nalsen, the latter a territory once held by Daumantas, currently duke of
Pskov, and most recently belonging to Edivydas, who had been killed by
paumantas in combat. He may have thought these lands south of the Daugava
would be an easy prize, since they were not heavily populated to begin with and
currently had no experienced lord with a large retinue to defend them. Gunzelin
prepared the archiepiscopal territories for war. Presumably he visited the vassals,
inspected the castles, and estimated how many native troops he could summon
to join his attack. Then, after ascertaining how many additional troops he would
need to accomplish his mission, he set out for Gotland to recruit soldiers.
Meanwhile, Albert Suerbeer made contact with all the order’s potential enemies.
If he could find sufficient support abroad, his conspiracy might stand a good
chance of overthrowing the Teutonic Knights in Livonia.33
While all these plans were being set in motion, a large Russian army, this
time commanded by Duke Dmitri of Perejaslavl, the son of Alexander Nevsky,
Yuri, Svjatoslav Jaroslavich, Daumantas of Pskov, and many warriors from
Novgorod had invaded Estonia. The Russians had not been sure what they would
do at first—invade Lithuania, Polozk, cross the Narva into Wierland, or go
through the swamps toward Dorpat. At last they decided to put down a rising in
Karelia, then march west along the coast toward Reval. The western army, also
very large (estimated by the chronicler at 30,000 men), gathered at Dorpat. The
two forces collided in a pitched battle on January 23, 1268 near Maholm, then
again on February 28, further east on the banks of the Kegola River.34
When the people who were supposed to be with the brothers had
arrived, orders were given to place the natives on the left flank. That
was to be held by them in the battle. A larger army of royal vassals of
German birth was brought there, and they held the right flank. Then
they changed honorably. The brothers and their men struck together.
Bishop Alexander was killed. Two formations of Russians advanced
upon him, but they were forced into a rout. Up and down the field the
Russian army had to retreat.... The brothers revenged the injuries they
had suffered from the Russians over a long period. The field was wide
and deep, and the Russian defeat a great one.... Each German had to
fight sixty Russians.... Prince Dmitri was a hero, and with five
thousand chosen Russians he entered into battle. The other army had
fled. Now hear what happened. The brothers’ flagbearers were opposed
to him on a very bad stream. He saw the brothers’ army there, and the
brothers had many men there, as I now tell you. There were one
hundred and sixty there and that had to suffice. There were also
footsoldiers, who, standing before the bridge, conducted themselves
like heroes. They had done very well, and there were about eighty of
268
THE BALTIC CRUSAbg
them. They did their duty by the brothers and thrust back the Russians
so that they were dismayed.... Many Russian wives mourned over their
husbands’ bodies when the battle was over. The Russians still hold that
against the brothers, it is true. The feeling has lasted many years.35
The Russian account of the battle is more coherent:
When they reached the Kegola river they found a force of [Germans]
in position, and it was like a forest to look at; for the whole land of
the [Germans] had come together. But the men of Novgorod without
any delay crossed the river to them, and began to range their forces;
and the men of [Pskov] took stand on the right hand, and Dmitri, and
Svjatoslav took stand also on the right higher up; and on the left stood
Mikhail, and the men of Novgorod stood facing the iron troops
opposite to the great wedge; and so they went against each other. And
as they came together there was a terrible battle such as neither fathers
nor grandfathers had seen.... Now that the great encounter [had] taken *
place, and the laying down of the heads of good men for Saint Sophia,
the merciful Lord speedily sent his mercy, not wishing utter death to
the sinner; punishing us and again pardoning. He, turning away his
wrath from us, and regarding us with his merciful eye; by the power
of the Honourable Cross and through the prayers of the Holy Mother
of God our Sovereign Lady, the Immaculate Mary, and those of all the
Saints, God helped [Prince] Dmitri and the men of Novgorod.... They
pursued them fighting, as far as the town, for seven verses along the
three roads, so that not even a horse could make its way for the
corpses. And so they turned back from the town, and perceived
another large force in the shape of a great wedge which had struck
into the Novgorod transport; and the men of Novgorod wished to strike
them, but others said, "It is already too near night; how if we fall into
confusion and get beaten ourselves." And so they stood together
opposite each other waiting daylight. And they, accursed transgressors
of the Cross, fled, not waiting for the light.36
It had been a confused combat between two huge armies. Apparently each
had been victorious on different parts of the battlefield, and afterward the
Germans withdrew to defend another river crossing. Each side was exhausted,
and the Russians soon withdrew to their own country. As he left the battlefield»
Heinrich of Mecklenburg came upon an orphan girl and adopted her.37 Neither
mercy nor chivalry was dead. Daumantas of Pskov enhanced his reputation for
valor through deeds which were elevated by later generations to the equal ot
those performed by Alexander Nevsky in 1242. His marriage around 1282 to
Maria Dmitrova, a granddaughter of the great hero, secured his position guarding
the southern and western approaches to the northernmost Russian states.38
In 1269 Jaroslav appeared in Novgorod, offering to assist in the confit
with the Germans on the condition that his power to govern was strengthened-
Reaction in Lithuania
269
pagan
4i/hen the citizens hesitated, he left in anger, followed by the pleading archbishop
d senators. He relented when they agreed to allow him to appoint his own man
s posadnik. He had Svjatoslav raise troops from Suzdal, then lead the large
force including some Tatars, toward Reval.39 The citizens of Novgorod had
counted upon Jaroslav’s influence to help in their trials with the Golden Horde,
but this had not worked out. When the burghers tired of his autocratic
ways—-probably including attempting to remove Daumantas from Pskov and
feplace him with a (possibly Lithuanian?) "Prince Augustus"—they drove him
from the city. The Tatar khan had sent Jaroslav’s younger brother, Vasily, in the
company of Mongol officials to defend Novgorod’s interests—a clever policy of
divide and rule—thus creating the potential for a disastrous civil war. At this
point the archbishop stepped in to mediate a compromise whereby Jaroslav was
brought back as duke of Novgorod as soon as he swore to respect the city’s
rights and traditions. Shortly afterward he was summoned to the great khan. He
died on the homeward journey in 1272—the third such suspicious demise in only
a few years—after which Daumantas felt safe in returning to Pskov.40
Russia suffered from the contest between Alexander Nevsky’s sons, who
became the dominant lords after the death of Jaroslav. While Dmitri and Andrej
fought for power amid interventions by the khan and Svjatoslav of Tver, Daniel
quietly worked to make Moscow into the center "of all the Russias."41
The victors were the Mongols, who in 1275 collected a second hearth tax
from all the Russian lands—this time without resistance. It was this Mongol
Empire, stretching from Russia to Baghdad to Peking and Hanoi that Marco Polo
described in his long visit which began in 1268.
Albert Suerbeer’s Conspiracy Collapses
The Teutonic Knights knew that the war with Novgorod would continue; so
the master and the city of Riga asked the merchant communities to place an
embargo on Russian goods until peace was made—which would adversely affect
a mercantile center such as Novgorod. The master, no longer fearful of a great
defeat in Estonia, was at last able to turn to Albert Suerbeer. He acted
vigorously. Realizing that Gunzelin represented the greatest threat to his order,
Otto cut the ground from beneath the advocate’s feet by writing to Gotland and
warning its merchants not to have any dealings with Gunzelin on pain of great
Punishment. Gunzelin’s plans to erect a toll station on the Daugava had been
foreseen by the merchants in Riga as early as 1263—and they had taken the
Precaution of securing a promise from the abbot of Diinamunde that no toll
station could be erected on the cloister’s lands on either side of the river’s
mouth. Now the master, citizens and merchants stood together to defend their
^ditional rights to trade. Albert Suerbeer and his creature, Gunzelin of
chwerin, had to give way.42 Gunzelin, who had sailed west to collect
Mercenary troops, took the warning not to return to Livonia to heart. He
gained in Schwerin and abandoned his plans to make a new home in the east.
plot had failed miserably.43
270	THE BALTIC CRUSAbg
But what could the Teutonic Knights do with the archbishop? Albert
Suerbeer’s treasonous acts, dating over a period of three decades, indicated that
he would continue to nurse his grievances and strike again the next time the
order found itself faced by danger. At some point in the summer, Master Otto
perhaps angered by some incident connected with the conflict with Novgorod'
took an action more drastic than any of his predecessors had ever contemplated
Otto sent knights to the archbishop’s residence, who in turn sent their servants
into the chapel to kidnap him and his prior, Johann von Fechten, in the midst of
a religious service.
The knights held him briefly at their residence in Riga. Then after eating a
meal with him, two knights threw a mantel around the archbishop’s shoulders
mounted him on a horse and rode out of the city, hastily conveying him to the
order’s stronghold at Segewold, where he could not be rescued easily. Otto’s
men then arrested Albert’s canons. They held all the prisoners in close
confinement on bread and water—a treatment which perhaps contributed to the
death of one canon. Otto then tumed on the episcopal vassals and, on pain of
losing their estates, forced them to take oaths of homage to him.44
At this point, if not earlier, the "Old Master" Conrad von Mandem arrived
on the scene with reinforcements, bearing special instructions from the
grandmaster. What these orders were we can only guess, but since Conrad was
well aware of the crafty archbishop’s ambitions and since the prelate’s
imprisonment continued, there was clearly no plea for leniency or mutual
forgiveness in them.45
By December 1268 Albert Suerbeer saw that his position was hopeless and
made a humiliating surrender to his enemies. He ceased his harassment of the
order, formally dismissed Gunzelin, and promised not to complain to the pope
about his imprisonment or any mistreatment by the Teutonic Knights—a promise
which was easy to keep, since Pope Clement IV had died in November and
circumstances would prevent the election of a successor until 1271.46 Master
Otto stationed garrisons in several archiepiscopal castles and allowed the
archbishop to return to Riga. These events came to light only fifty years later,
when a papal legate conducted an investigation. Aged witnesses came forth at
that time to testify against the Teutonic Order. And, though the information was
largely hearsay and not balanced by testimony from the order’s members and
friends (who boycotted the hearings), a surprising number of eyewitnesses were
still alive and willing to tell their stories.47
The Teutonic Knights controlled the archbishopric of Riga through favoring
the canons, who soon acquired the authority so long denied them by Albert.
Their agreement to prevent foreign nobles from settling in the land should have
precluded the schemes of another count of Schwerin, but the Schwerin claims
were revived^ two decades later. Albert Suerbeer, a broken man, remained an
obedient puppet of the crusading order until his death in 1274. He was succeeded
by Johann von Lune, then in 1285 by Johann von Fechten, the prior who had
been kidnapped and imprisoned in 1268. Neither man gave the Livonian master
occasion for anger, neither complained publicly about the outrage, and no one
271
pagan Reaction in Lithuania
f rmed the pope. Apparently, the story did not circulate widely abroad. No
,n jgn chronicler considered the incident worth mentioning.
perhaps the chroniclers’ failure to note the kidnapping of an archbishop was
ply a reflection of the general lack of interest in Baltic affairs. The end of the
^,ar with Russia went similarly unnoticed. In the summer of 1268 Master Otto
athered a force estimated at 18,000 warriors and 9,000 sailors and invaded
Russia- His men burned Isborg and were in the process of besieging Pskov when
an army fr°m Novgorod approached, causing them to fall back hastily. But the
crusaders had made their point* they could better afford to continue the war than
the Russians. When the master and a Russian delegation signed a peace treaty
on board a ship on Lake Peipus, each army returned home satisfied. But Jaroslav
waS so furious at the terms of the treaty that a permanent peace was delayed
until 1270, by which time the Germans seemed to have made additional
concessions.48
As events transpired, however, it was easier to sign truces and commercial
treaties than it was to change war-hardened attitudes. In March of 1271,
ambassadors from Riga and Dorpat would travel to Novgorod in the company
of diplomats from Visby and Lubeck to protest a recent upsurge in the number
of robberies there. After waiting fourteen days without obtaining an interview
with Jaroslav, they began to press the matter. The posadnik responded to their
queries concerning an appointment by saying that he wished the grand duke had
stayed in the east and that the ambassadors had not chosen this year for a visit;
one of the Novgorod aidermen was more blunt—the city council had discussed
the matter and decided that the westerners’ complaint was worthless. Daumantas
of Pskov explained that political alliances prevented Jaroslav from recovering the
goods and he was, therefore, embarrassed to meet the ambassadors. Another
duke, perhaps Jaroslav’s son, added that the citizens of Novgorod had shared in
the stolen goods and simply did not want to give them up. When the incensed
ambassadors heard this, they sailed back to Doipat and wrote a report
recommending an embargo upon trade with Russia until their complaints were
acted upon.49
The Livonian master’s unwillingness to resume military operations at this
time may reflect the fact that the crusaders he had recruited with such efforts had
already scattered to the winds. Gunzelin, of course, was back in Germany.
Heinrich of Mecklenburg had caught the crusading fever so badly that he had
already traveled to the Holy Land. Unfortunately, when he arrived there in 1270,
a truce was in effect. Attempting to visit Jerusalem in disguise, he was
recognized by the Saracens as a prominent noble and condemned to twenty-five
years of captivity.50 It would not have been easy to persuade large numbers of
crusaders to take the cross to Livonia at this time. Not would it be at any time
*n the future. This had little to do with the appropriateness of the holy war in
Livonia. Rather it was a reflection of the general disinterest in crusading. The
Papacy did not find it easy to recruit men for the Holy Land, where a clear and
P^sent danger existed that the last Christian strongholds would fall to the
Moslems. Although larger and larger armies were needed, they did not appear,
272
THE BALTIC CRUSAbg
and it seemed that fewer and fewer men responded to the call each year. 7^
revival-like atmosphere in which the crusades were preached failed to produce
their customary scenes of mass hysteria and their fervid volunteers, and those
who took the cross could redeem their vow with money.
Prussia remained popular among German nobles because the crusaders could
travel overland through Poland, thus fulfilling their crusading vows relatively
cheaply and without the potential terrors of a sea voyage. But successful
expeditions to Prussia were always dependent on attracting some respected ruler
from Poland (in the early years) or the Holy Roman Empire to provide the
nucleus of an army, and after the death of Ottokar of Bohemia, none was
forthcoming. Consequently, when the Prussian master faced a massive uprising
in 1260, he was unable to repress it with the troops on hand. The terrible war
dragged on year after year until 1275, with atrocity following atrocity on all
sides, until mutual exhaustion finally led to compromises which guaranteed the
Teutonic Order sovereignty in the land and secured for the natives title to their
estates and limited taxes to an amount smaller than immigrant Germans and
Poles were willing to pay. (This was to give the Teutonic Order a strong
motivation to settle immigrants on the vacant lands in Prussia, a motivation
which had little or nothing to do with racial or national identification.) Moreover,
during these years the grandmasters put such emphasis on the order’s obligations
in the Holy Land that they barely supplied Prussia with a sufficient number of
knights to keep rebels in check.51
The Prussian masters did have the assistance of the rulers of Braunschweig,
Thuringia, Brandenburg, and Meissen. The Livonian masters,52 with the
exception of the smaller armies from Holstein and Mecklenburg, had to make do
with middle-class crusaders. This social difference was reflected in the
subsequent history of the crusade: through the fourteenth century Prussia
welcomed large armies led by great lords, while Livonia could boast no more
than a small stream of individual middle-class volunteers.
Although the era of Albert Suerbeer ended with his humiliation and defeat,
the Teutonic Knights still had difficulties which were not yet resolved. The war
with the Samogitians and Semgallians raged on as before, as the crusaders tried
to pacify those areas and complete the land bridge between Prussia and Livonia.
As Albert Suerbeer returned to Riga to direct the affairs of his diocese and
as Grandmaster Anno ordered renewed attacks on the Samogitians, it was clear
that another era in the Baltic Crusade had ended. The reorientation of the
crusade, begun in 1242, was complete. The Danes were secure in Estonia,
although weak and quiet. The bishops were unsatisfied but powerless. The
merchants were growing wealthier but presented no threat. The native nobles,
though reduced in numbers and influence, were still willing to fight against
traditional ekemies. The native peasants grudgingly paid their taxes, labored on
castles, and served in the militia. And Master Otto and his successors, though
momentarily incapable of doing more than seeking to distract the Lithuanians
from continuing their devastating attacks on Prussia, became the dominant
figures in the northeastern Baltic.
Reaction in Lithuania
273
pagan
ENDNOTES
। William Urban, "The Teutonic Order and the Christianization of Lithuania,”
cristianizzazione della Lituania, 105-106.
2	William Urban, "Roger Bacon and the Teutonic Knights," Journal of Baltic
Studies, 19/4(Winter 1988), 363-370; The Opus Majus of Roger Bacon (trans.
Robert Belle Burke. New York: Russell & Russell, 1962) II, 788-797.
3	The chronicler invented an interesting conversation between Mindaugas and
the chief Samogitian leader in which the king is alternately entreated and
threatened. Reimchronik, 11. 6339-6426. The accusation of apostasy was
challenged by Kazimierz Chodynicki, "Pr6by zaprowadzenia chrzeicijartstwa na
Litwie," PrezgladHistoryczny, 18/3(1914), 243-8. Chodynicki bases his argument
against Mindaugas’ apostasy primarily on a bull sent by Pope Alexander IV in
1268 to King Ottokar of Bohemia; he argues that the pope would not have made
Prague archbishop responsible for Lithuania if Mindaugas’ state had relapsed into
paganism. Also, Mindaugas’ son remained a Christian, albeit Orthodox.
4.	Urkundenbuch I: no. 342. A knight or citizen of town would receive sixty
Saxon Hufen, a family forty, a man with a horse ten, and a man with armor ten
Hufen. A farmer would have freedom from taxes for six years and afterward
would pay only the tithe and would retain his personal freedom. All applicants
were directed to Memel.
5.	Nyberg, "Skandinavien," 251.
6.	Dahlmann, Geschichte von Dannemark, 1,415; Bippen, Aus Bremens Vorzeit,
15Iff; Adolf Gottlob, Die Servitientaxe im 13. Jahrhundert (Stuttgart: F.Enke,
1903), 81.
7.	Karl Koppmann, "Chronologische Kleinigkeiten zur Deutsch-Danischen
Geschichte," Mitteilungen des Vereins fur Hamburgische Geschichte (March
1822), 3 If.
8.	Johansen, "Die Bedeutung der Hanse fur Livland," 38, 41.
9.	Miinter, Kirchengeschichte, 512ff.
10.	Chronicle of Novgorod, 97-98.
H. Reimchronik, 11. 6599-6649.
12.	Fennell, Crisis of Medieval Russia, 120, 125, 128, 131-132.
13.	Ritterbriider, 740.
14.	Reimchronik, 11. 6891-6943.
15.	The careful reader will have noted that Germans and Danes, despite the
existence of great institutions to protect justice and stability, are only marginally
better. Organized crime flourishes best where the police, courts, and political
systems are brutal and corrupt. Anarchists had a point when they argued that
established governments were nothing more than the strongest gang of criminals,
but they carried it too far in suggesting that all governments were, therefore,
equally evil.
274	THE BALTIC CRUSADe
16.	Fennell, Crisis of Medieval Russia, 133, follows the traditional interpretation
that Novgorod was concerned that giving them refuge was equivalent to
declaring hostility against Grand Duke Treniota. However, Jaroslav’s son
Svjatoslav, then governor of Pskov, managed to arrange for their baptism—which
was the excuse Jaroslav needed to intervene. Jaroslav remembered that Tovtivil
had fought alongside Novgorod troops at Dorpat the year before, and it was good
policy to be known as one who repays debts. Jaroslav brought Constantine and
his men to Novgorod and rearmed them, then presumably took them east when
he visited the khan; later, he may have sent them to capture Polozk. However,
Rowell—a specialist in this confusing subject—is persuaded that the chroniclers
have confused this group with that arriving a year later under Daumantas.
"Dovmont-Timofey," 7.
17.	Reimchronik, 11. 7121-7208; Thomas Chase, The Story of Lithuania (New
York: Strafford House, 1946), 15-18; Hellmann, Das Lettenland im Mittelalter,
190-94; Constantine Jurgela, History of the Lithuanian Nation (New York:
Lithuanian Cultural Institute, 1948), 74-80. To untangle the genealogies, see
Giedroyd, "The Arrival of Christianity in Lithuania," 26; Goldfrank, "The
Lithuanian Prince-Monk VojSelk," 44-75; Klug, Das Furstentum Tver, 56, 58;
Rowell, "Dovmont-Timofey," 4-5.
18.	Chronicle of Novgorod, 100; Alexander, Bubonic Plague in Early Modern
Russia, 12.
19.	Giedroyd, "Arrival of Christianity," 26-27.
20.	Kajacks, Archeological Investigations, 273-276.
21.	Almost nothing is known of this master, either, other than his Thuringian
ancestry. Ritterbriider, 436-437.
22.	Reimchronik, 11. 7209-7390.
23.	Hellmann, Das Lettenland im Mittelalter, 196-197.
24.	Rowell, "Dovmont-Timofey," 4, 15.
25.	Hellmann, Das Lettenland im Mittelalter, 194-204.
26.	Goetze, Albert Suerbeer, 97-98.
27.	Urkundenbuch, I: no. 396; Herman de Wartberge, 44.
28.	Reimchronik, 11. 7421-7512.
29.	He came from a border area between Thuringia and Saxony. Ritterbriider,
409.
30.	Hellmann, Das Lettenland im Mittelalter, 192-193.
31.	Amelung, Baltische Culturstudien, I, 105-107.
32.	Bouchard, Holy Entrepreneurs, 53, describes the Cistercian practice of
exchanging land.
33.	Goetze, Albert Suerbeer, 100-103; Paul Johansen, "Eine Riga-Wisby
Urkunde," Zeitschrift des Vereins fur liibeckische Geschichte (1958), 93-108;
Witte, Mecklenburgische Geschichte, 170; Urkundenbuch, I, no. 406.
34.	Rowell, "Dovmont-Timofey," 9; Fennell, Crisis of Medieval Russia, 135.
35. Reimchronik, 11. 7604-7676.
36.	Chronicle of Novgorod, 101-3.
37.	Urkundenbuch, III, no. 423a.
pagan Reaction in Lithuania	275
38.	Rowell, "Dovmont-Timofey," 10,16; "Daumantas," Encyclopedia Lituanica,
11,39.
39.	Klug, Das Fiirstentum Tver, 51-53.
40.	Fennell, Crisis of Medieval Russia, 135-8; Rowell, "Dovmont-Timofey," 15-
16.
41.	This is not the easiest period for historians to work in. Even as good a
scholar as Fennell has Dmitri Alexandrovich die in 1273 (p. 134) and alive again
in 1277 (p. 142). Fennell, Crisis of Medieval Russia, 138-141; Paszkiewicz, The
Origin of Moscow, 308-314.
42.	Benninghoven, "Zur Rolle des Schwertbriiderorden," 179-180.
43.	Johansen, "Eine Riga-Wisby Urkunde," 97-100.
44.	Goetze, Albert Suerbeer, 105-113.
45.	Ritterbriider, 436.
46.	Muldoon, Popes, Lawyers, and Infidels, 69, notes that the brief reigns of the
popes of this era (averaging three and a half years) made it impossible for any
one pontiff to put a personal stamp on papal policy. It could be said more
strongly: the only policy there was, was to respond to crisis situations.
47.	Goetze, Albert Suerbeer, 103-7; Zeugenverhbr des Franciscus de Moliano
(1312) (ed. August Seraphim. KOnigsberg: Thomas and Opperman, 1912),
6-7, 27, 29, 45, 62, 77, 128-29, 140.
48.	Reimchronik, 11.-7677-7768; Chronicle of Novgorod, 103-4.
49.	Urkundenbuch, I, no. 546.
50.	Witte, Mecklenburgische Geschichte, 170-71.
51.	Urban, The Prussian Crusade, 243-305; Christiansen, The Northern
Crusades, 103.
52.	Otto died in February of 1271 and was succeeded by Andreas von Westfalen
(as vice-master), Walter von Nordeck (till the end of 1273), and Ernst (till 1279).
Baltic Sea
OeseL
Gulf of Finland
NevaRiver
Karelia
Pskov
Odenptih
Narva
River
Reval
Kegola
Rrver\
Weissenstein
“Fellin
k^zMPemau *
•Maholm
Wesenbeig
ke
Peipus
Gotland
Goldihge
Kurland
R S
Dttnam
Mi
Gulf of Riga \ Wol(m
Treiden
.Wolkenburg
Seloma
Dtinabur
Aa River	Daugava River
Nalsen
enden
Segewold
Gauja River J""'
Riga Kokenhusen
rzike
Lettgallia
Memel X
S™'“a LITHUANIA
Nemunas River	,
I Prussia
LIVONIA 1260-1290
Castles:
Ascheraden = A
Doblen = D
Lennewarden = L
Racketen = R
Sidobren = S
Terwerten = T
Uexkiill = U
276
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE CONQUEST OF SEMGALLIA
As the thirteenth century moved into its eighth decade, the relative isolation
of Scandinavia and Livonia from the affairs of Europe continued; neither the
failure of recent campaigns in the Holy Land nor the death of Ottokar of
Bohemia made a great impression. Perhaps some persons were moved by hearing
how the aged king of France, Louis IX, had died while on crusade in Tunisia,
but it was difficult to turn such sentiment into action. Peace reigned in the North,
so that crusaders could sail easily to Livonia, but this generation of Germans and
Danes was neither as forceful nor idealistic as its forefathers. The strong wave
of eastern migration and colonization that had characterized the first half of the
century had subsided, and the princes who had sponsored it had so divided their
lands among their numerous progeny that, instead of powerful states, only a
collection of small and ineffective ones remained. North German and Polish
nobles were weak, and Denmark lay exhausted from civil conflict, so that the
rulers in general, satisfied with maintaining the status quo, refused to involve
themselves in ventures across the seas. This presented Master Otto with the
challenge of completing the conquest of the Baltic coastline without much
outside assistance. Of course, this also meant that he had little interference.
Growing Importance of the Cities
The only signs of vitality were to be found in the German cities along the
southern shores of the Baltic Sea. The strongest of these was Lubeck, thanks to
its city fathers, who had procured trading privileges from Novgorod to Flanders
and from Braunschweig to England. As the city on the Trave became a center
of international trade, its citizens assumed responsibility for protecting merchants
sailing across the Baltic Sea from royal interference, piracy, and restrictive
legislation. Wismar, Rostock, Stralsund, Greifswald, Stettin, Kammin, Danzig,
Kulm, and Elbing followed their leadership, and Riga, Dorpat, and Reval
depended heavily upon their assistance. It was not mere chance that caused the
Rigans to give Lubeck responsibility for maintaining a tower on the city wall and
allow her merchants to build their own church. Nor was it because of random
favor that the Teutonic Knights showered privileges upon Lubeck’s merchants.
As the years passed, the city continued to grow in wealth and influence and, in
lune, became the most important market in the region. By overshadowing the
trading center at Visby, Lubeck was preparing for a new era in Baltic history, the
era of the Hanseatic League.
It was the cities which now provided most of the crusaders to Livonia. A
few members of the minor nobility still sailed east, but the important nobles who
had led armies to Riga in earlier decades now remained at home or journeyed to
Prussia. The middle class alone retained its enthusiasm—partly because
merchants could combine crusading and business, bringing western merchandise
278	THE BALTIC CRUSA^g
for sale in the Livonian markets and returning with goods purchased frOrn
Russian merchants.1
The city of Riga emulated Lubeck. The councilmen had quarreled with
Archbishop Albert Suerbeer, and with each triumph they gained more autonomy
from him. Then, after the archbishop’s humiliation at the hands of the Teutonic
Order, he was in no position to resist any demands. His successor, Johann I von
Lune, a Westphalian who took office in 1273, gave way on numerous points, щ
effect granting the citizens self-government. His only interest seems to have been
to enrich his own family, which he accomplished by placing one brother among
his canons and enfeoffing other relatives with numerous villages.2 Furthermore
the Teutonic Knights weakened the authority of that particular prelate by
encouraging a spirit of self-reliance among the burghers of Riga, granting them
immunities and trading privileges throughout their lands and supporting them in
disputes. Only later did the masters sense that the Rigans were becoming too
powerful and wealthy, that the merchants’ independent spirit might constitute a
real danger to their hegemony. The archbishop was no longer a threat, but the
citizens might well be. Riga, like Lubeck, seemed to be riding a rising tide, and
her merchants, indispensable for transportation and supplies, were becoming
aware of their new importance.
The position of Riga was enhanced by the weakness of the estates. The
archbishop had not been able to assume his post without appearing before a
papal commission, and, bullied by the papacy, he contented himself with
enriching his family, allowing the Teutonic Knights to supervise affairs of state
for him. Many of the bishops resided abroad, unwilling or unable to stay in
Livonia, and their administrators observed the wishes of the crusading order. The
cities, other than Riga, were small and poor and attracted few immigrants. A few
Swedes settled in Estonia, and a few nobles took up residence on the lands, but
most new settlements were merely the result of relocating uprooted natives. As
a result, Riga profited most by the influx of new blood and energy, and the other
cities and bishoprics stagnated.3
Aware of potential competition, a later master, Ernst von Ratzeburg, would
in 1274 take a step toward controlling the citizens by obtaining special rights
from the emperor, Rudolf of Hapsburg. However, neither he nor his immediate
predecessors tried to exploit the opportunities which presented themselves,
because they were too hard pressed in Semgallia to antagonize their allies in the
merchant community—Riga contributed money, ships, and many good troops.
Semgallian Operations
Master Otto, having made peace with Novgorod and believing that the
Lithuanian diikes were busy assassinating one another, thought he would be able
to concentrate his efforts on the Semgallian front For almost a year in advance,
he had been recruiting for a winter expedition into Semgallia, and early in 1270
he assembled his force in Riga and advanced into the pagans’ land. He had not
gone far, however, when he received word that a large Samogitian army had
been gathered on the frontier, preparing to attack Livonia. He immediately took
rlte Conquest of Semgallia
279
jmsel with his brethren and, on their advice, hurried back to intercept the
Riders. He was too late. The enemy had penetrated to the sea, and then moved
across the ice to Oesel, where they burned and plundered the rich native
settlements. Even so, Otto could hardly have been in a better situation: he had
a large army, already assembled; more troops were coming in response to his
summons; and he could intercept the pagans’ march homeward wherever he
wished. His reinforcements—Danish vassals from Estonia, Bishop Dietrich of
Dorpat,5 troops from Leal with their bishop, Hermann von Buxhoevden6—and
their native followers joined him as he moved north to the area of Wiek, where
he planned to intercept and smash the raiders. Those who escaped the battlefield
would have to cross Livonia or Kurland to return home—and die or be killed on
the way. Looking forward to a great victory, Otto ignored the suffering of his
men as they marched across the ice of the Gulf of Riga and the straits in the
bitter cold. Finally, on February 16, 1270, the two armies drew within sight of
each other.
While Otto undoubtedly knew the size of the army facing him, he was
probably unaware of its quality. Its leader was the new grand duke of Lithuania,
Traidenis (Troyden), and the troops were seasoned veterans from the wars in
Russia. Traidenis had seized power about 1269 and, though still contending with
a host of rivals for the crown—including Daumantas of Pskov, an increasingly
popular and successful ruler—and hard-pressed on his southern frontier by Daniel
of Galicia-Volhynia, he understood that the only kind of leader the Lithuanians
would respect was one who pointed the way forward with a sword. That very
year Traidenis had sent four of his brothers to fight in the south against Daniel
and Vasilko; though three of them perished in battle, he did not lose heart. In a
real sense, he had no choice beyond victory or death. His origins are obscure,
although his choice of Vilnius as a residence suggests ties to that place (although
the impregnable castle site and the pagan temple at the base of the precipice
would surely be sufficient to qualify it for its subsequent status as the Lithuanian
capital). Besides, a man without prominent ancestors had to be more active and
more successful than one who could count on ancient family ties to maintain
himself in power.7
The Lithuanians dismounted from their sleds, lashed them together, and
took refuge behind this barrier while, opposite them, the Teutonic Knights held
council, moved into attacking position, and charged. The ice must have heaved
and groaned from the weight of the two great armies clashing on the frozen sea,
hut it did not break, and the combat soon dissolved into scattered actions,
because their center formation had attacked too soon, the Teutonic Knights’
niain cavalry force became entangled in the sleds and were surrounded by the
enemy. Their horses were cut down before the bishops’ men from Dorpat and
'Jesel-Wiek on their left, and the Danish vassals on their right were able to close
w*th the enemy and relieve the pressure upon their flanks:
280	THE BALTIC CRUSa^
One could see a disorderly tumult of the two armies, Christian and
heathen. The battle was hard fought, and the blood flowed onto the ice
from either side. It was a fight in which many noble men were struck
down. Slain in defeat was good master Otto, and fifty-two good
brothers. They spilled their blood for God. Also many outstandingly
chivalrous warriors on both sides fell. Part of the natives fell. May
God save their souls!8
The bishops’ knights and the Danish vassals scattered the enemy units
opposite them, then unwisely rode off in pursuit of the fugitives, leaving the
native militiamen and the Livonian Knights in dire straits. They reappeared late
regrouped as one unit, and through repeated charges saved the remaining
infantry. By nightfall the pagans had lost 1,600 men and the Christians 600.
However, the Lithuanians held the field when the wounded Bishop Hermann
ordered the retreat. After the Christians withdrew, the pagans stripped the dead
and safely returned home with their booty.
Master Otto’s authority passed to Vice-Master Andreas von Westfalen
(Westphalia)’ until the election of a successor could be held. Andreas, who
considered the psychological effects of the defeat as significant as the losses in
manpower, decided to restore morale by winning a quick victory. Just a few
months later, close to the middle of 1270, he saw an opportunity for such a
triumph. Upon receiving a report of a Lithuanian raid against the order’s
territories, he hurriedly gathered together a small force and set off in ill-
considered haste to seek out the enemy. As he approached the site where the
raiders had last been seen, he found it necessary to halt and rest his men and
horses. He had almost certainly pushed both men and beasts hard, until they were
in no condition for immediate combat. While his soldiers lay at ease in the
summer heat, probably with their armor laid aside, the pagans burst upon them
from the forest. In the ensuing battle Andreas and twenty knights fell.10
At the election the participating knights probably recommended that the
new master be much more cautious than his two predecessors had been. Walter
of Nortecken,” realizing that raids from the castles along the Daugava were
insufficiently destructive to be able to compel the Semgallians to seek terms,
prepared expeditions against their major strongholds, planning to besiege, take,
and garrison them; then, using these fortresses as bases for raiding parties, he
would launch attacks upon the villages in the surrounding countryside.
Early in 1271 Walter brought a great army composed of units from all the
nearby regions to Terwerten, the castle southwest of Mitau, and after a short
siege stormed the citadel.12 Then, returning to Riga, he began preparations fof
an expedition to Mesoten, the former seat of the bishops of Semgallia. By Easter
he had sent Kn army there by ship up the Aa River. (This was yet another
indication of the importance of sea power to the crusaders.) Instead of resisting-
the inhabitants of Mesoten surrendered and threw themselves on the master s
mercy. Walter then moved against another castle just upstream, where the natives
surrendered as well. In each case he imposed tithes and taxes on the "converts
281
fhe Congest of Semgallia
. ^ote out the terms in formal treaties. Even so, many of the rebel tribes had
subdued, and the struggle continued.13
n° in 1273, racked by illness, Master Walter returned to Germany where he
relieved of his duties. (Climate and privation took a heavy toll in lives and
* in the northeast, though we hear of this only in the case of high officers.)
grand chapter in Marburg heard his report, accepted his resignation, assigned
him to the important convent in Marburg, and elected Ernst von Ratzeburg14 as
his successor. Grandmaster Anno congratulated Ernst but did not live to see the
outcome of the struggle he had once led. Anno died that same summer and was
succeeded as grandmaster by Hartmann von Heldrungen, who had been present
at the union of the Swordbrothers and the Teutonic Knights and had once been
on campaign in Livonia. Meanwhile, the fighting had continued in Semgallia,
with more Christian disasters, such as the one which befell a band of knights and
their followers while camped in the woods after returning from a raid into
Lithuania. Attacked by surprise, they were massacred.15 (This story sounds
suspiciously familiar—perhaps an unintentional repetition of Andreas’ fate).
An interesting sidelight is the fact that the chronicler mourned a fallen
Christian Lithuanian, a chivalrous warrior who had often accompanied the
knights on raids against his homeland. This demonstrates that race and
nationality, though important, were not the only factors which determined one’s
status in this era. Indeed, native Christians had always been considered as equals
by western Christians of equivalent social rank; and wherever the native knightly
class possessed private lands with a small number of workers and retainers, they
were essentially equal to the ministeriale class, which provided most of the
German knights. This was especially true at this time in Prussia, where the
Teutonic Knights were in the process of pursuing the last guerrilla forces which
had survived the Second Prussian Insurrection (1260-1274). The native knights
who remained loyal were highly prized, and a number were half-brothers,
holding responsible positions on die estates. Interestingly, several leaders of the
rebel forces came from that group of hostages who had been taken to Germany
by the crusaders to be trained in the techniques of war and government so that
they could serve as knights, perhaps eventually as advocates. While they were
mastering German, they were indoctrinated in the Christian religion and in the
social and military values of feudalism. If the Battle of Durben (1260) had not
seemingly broken the military power of the Teutonic Knights and seen the
slaughter of so many of the native knights who had benefitted from the Christian
^distribution of power and wealth, these western-trained nobles might never
have perceived an opportunity to exploit the resentment of foreign rulers, the
hopes of reviving paganism, and the peasants’ hatred of the onerous demands of
me new economic system. By 1274, however, the surviving knights were those
who had chosen to side with the Teutonic Order, to accept Christianity, and to
emulate western knighthood as best they could. In the course of time, many
^ould arrange marriages for their sons and daughters with the children of
^migrant knights who were attracted to Prussia from Pomerellia, Poland, and
Germany.16
282
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
In Livonia, even more so than in Prussia, the Christian armies were largei
composed of native troops. Most of the militiamen were commoners serving
foot soldiers, but there was a significant number of native cavalry who were the
equivalent of poor knights. At least one became a knight in the Livonian
Order.17 Although the Livonian masters had not attempted the swift
Germanization of the native nobility or introduced new agricultural practices as
the Teutonic Knights had done in Prussia, they had also experienced revolts in
the wake of the defeat at Durben. These revolts were most desperate in precisely
those areas most recently conquered and, hence, where the natives had the least
understanding of the new political, social, and religious order and where there
was the greatest resentment of taxes and tithes. In Livonia, as in Prussia, the
native nobles who survived and prospered were those who sided unequivocally
with the Christian forces. Unlike the case in Prussia, however, Livonia did not
become a unified state. The Livonian Knights, the bishops, and the German
Baltic nobles had differing policies for dealing with the native peoples. In
general, the Livonian Knights disturbed traditional patterns of life as little as
possible—they tended to respect the military virtues of the native warriors 'and
to ignore those surviving characteristics of pagan times which did not directly
threaten the preaching of the Gospels, the collection of tithes and taxes, or the
judicial system. In the future this hands-off policy would leave the Livonian
Order open to accusations by aggressive churchmen that they had intentionally
interfered with the conversion of the Baltic peoples by a combination of
oppression and toleration—oppressive taxes and services, toleration of pagan
practices and beliefs.
The Livonian Knights were generous in their assessment of the courage and
daring of their pagan opponents, characterizing their deeds as "chivalrous."
Clearly, they believed that they could persuade the Lithuanians and rebellious
tribes in Livonia to make the transition to Christianity not through examples of
humility and suffering, but by demonstrating that Christianity could make them
into more effective and valiant warriors. They based this belief on the knowledge
that all nobles, whether Christian or pagan, shared a common set of military and
social values apart from their religious beliefs, and they further believed that this
shared class interest weighed more in the end than language, ancient rituals, or
folkways. The Livonian Knights did not insist on abject subjection—their
assistance in Mindaugas’ establishment of an independent Lithuanian kingdom
is proof of that—but they expected an unequivocal acceptance of western values,
social and economic as well as religious, by the upper classes. They assumed that
the new ruling class would then impose these values on the lower classes, whose
reaction to any new idea would be, at best, sullen acceptance, and, at worst, open
resistance.18 The Livonian Knights were less generous regarding the Russians,
who were al&ady Orthodox Christians, but who had, in their western eyes, gone
down the false road into heresy, thereby dividing Christendom and earning the
shameful label of "schismatics."
The strategy adopted by the Livonian Knights reflects these beliefs about
their opponents: if they could inflict a military defeat on the pagan leadership’
they could appeal to the instinct of self-preservation on the part of some nobleS’
283
Conquest of Semgallia
фе ambitions of others, and, after proper instruction in Christian doctrine to
1 very°ne’ bUelligence moral instincts of still others. They would not
necessarily have to extirpate the enemy but they would not hesitate to do so to
achieve their goals. They well understood that a swift, decisive victory would
result in a swift, decisive conversion; a long, inconclusive war would result in
increasingly bitter hatred and such massive death and destruction that few of the
enemy would survive. Therefore, it was important that they achieve military
success as quickly as possible. The first step toward this victory would be to
force Grand Duke Traidenis to conclude peace, after which the Livonian Knights
could reimpose their rule over the rebels in Semgallia and Kurland.
Attacks on Lithuania
In the summer of 1274, before Master Ernst arrived in Riga, the Teutonic
Knights had overtaken a Lithuanian raiding party, killed 600, and recovered the
booty it had taken. This notable victory provided Ernst with the opportunity to
rebuild the castle at Diinaburg (Daugavpils) at the southernmost bend of the
Daugava to be used as a base for raids into central Lithuania; this castle would
also complete the chain of fortresses that sheltered the friendly Lettgallians from
attack and secured the trade route to Polozk. Perhaps it would even provide
cover for Selonia, the wild forest region between Diinaburg and Semgallia. In
1275, when the Lithuanian grand duke saw this castle restored on the bluff over
the river, he understood its significance and knew that he must destroy it or face
certain defeat. By rebuilding the castle, Master Emst hoped to threaten important
settlements around Nalsen to such an extent that Traidenis would abandon the
wars in Semgallia and Samogitia. Diinaburg was, as the grand duke supposedly
expressed it, ’’built in the middle of his heart,” presumably like a stake.19
The crusaders’ object was to distract Traidenis from Samogitia and Prussia.
By attacking Nalsen, they could tie down a monarch who had been sending
regular aid to the handful of rebels in far eastern Prussia and who had often
appeared in central Prussia at the head of his army to assist the apostates during
the Second Insurrection. But by threatening the royal homeland at this time,
Ernst now hoped to force him to remain home, and could perhaps induce him to
conclude a peace. The Prussian Knights could then attack Samogitia at leisure.
The grand duke could not afford to ignore the mountain base; he had to
destroy it because the devastating raids from the castle there were depopulating
the entire region—a later visitor, Guillebert de Lannoy, called it a desert.20
Although it would be a difficult task for the Lithuanian ruler to take the fortress
storm, the technology of native warfare had advanced far beyond that of his
Predecessors many years earlier, so that the Christians no longer had a monopoly
On modem siegecraft. Moreover, the fortress was far in advance of the Christian
^es, so that relief armies would not find it easy to hurry to the rescue.
[Traidenis the Grand Duke] came to Diinaburg with many heathens,
planning to bum it. When he found the castle so strong, he ordered
284
THE BALTIC CRUSAbg
four large catapults built. Those in the castle were dismayed. Russian
archers had come to serve King [Traidenis]. They wounded many with
their bows, but that was deceiving. Whoever was wounded in the
castle was soon well again. Those in the castle fired back, felling
many heathens below them in a short period, few of whom recovered.
All four of the catapults began to operate, and they threw great stones
day and night with all their might. The heathens brought up stones
around the clock. I tell you that they knocked down many planks
around the castle. The assault lasted four full weeks, day and night21
Eventually, the Lithuanians and Russians began to drift away, their terms
of commitment apparently having expired. Traidenis reluctantly gave up the
attack, the defeat being a hard blow to his prestige. The Lithuanians had been
expanding in those areas of Russia devastated by the Tatars, and not all the
devastation was inflicted during war—the Mongol force crossing Russia in 1275
to attack Lithuania did much more damage en route than they ever did among
Traidenis’ subjects.22 Of course, the Lithuanian grand duke experienced
difficulties with the nobles he assigned to govern the newly subjected Russian
cities. Nevertheless, after he triumphed over the Galician-Volhynian duke in
1275, signing a peace treaty which guaranteed him control of the Black Russian
borderlands and Jatwigia, Traidenis was free to join in the attack on the Roman
Christians impinging on his northern border.23
The castellan sent a full report to the master, who rejoiced at the victory.
Flushed with hope of being able to force the grand duke out of war, he began
plans for a great expedition against the Lithuanian homeland, assembling supplies
at Diinaburg and collecting promises of participation from all parts of Estonia
and Livonia. The expedition was delayed, however, by the situation in the east,
for in 1277 it appeared that war with Novgorod was imminent. The international
merchant community was very unhappy, complaining about the injustices they
suffered at Russian hands—and everyone sought to please these merchants. The
archbishop and bishops, the master, and the headman of Reval all wrote the
trading centers and asked the merchants to abandon the mercantile post in
Novgorod and replace it with a depot in Riga. This remarkable suggestion was
not followed, but it may have been as instrumental in bringing the Russians to
terms as was the plague which struck in 1278-79, or the Swedish advances on
Kopore. Whatever the reason, the embargo on Russian goods was soon lifted and
the crisis passed, so that in February of 1279 Master Ernst was again able to turn
his attention to the Lithuanian problem, this time with the aid of the Russians in
Galicia-Volhynia.24
As we have seen, in the past the crusaders had been able to coordinate
attacks on Lithuania with the Volhynian dukes. Whether at this time Master Ernst
persuaded Duke Lev to strike at Traidenis along the Bug River or whether his
offensive was inspired by the Tatars is not clear, but a Russian-Tatar army did
invade Lithuania from the south at the moment he summoned the Livonian forces
to Riga.25 Ernst led the Danish vassals under Eilard von Hoberg, the
archiepiscopal vassals Johann von Thisenhusen and Heinrich von Franken 26 and
ffie Conquest of Semgallia	285
the Kurs and Semgallian on a daring raid on the castle of the Lithuanian
monarch at Kemavfc, about twenty miles west of Vilnius and deep inside the
enemy homeland. In spite of the Christians’ numbers and the Lithuanians’
distraction with the Russians and Mongols, this was a risky venture, similar to
the campaign that had ended in disaster in Saule in 1236. However, because
^faster Ernst caught the Lithuanians unprepared, he met no open resistance; his
crusaders plundered and burned many villages and settlements, then returned
safely through the forest barrier almost to the Daugava River.
Success and victory seemed to have gone to the daring master, but Duke
Traidenis had gathered together a small force and followed him at a safe
distance, thereby preventing the Christians from dispersing and looting on a
wider scale (undoubtedly saving many of the inhabitants who had taken refuge
in the forests). The Teutonic Knights apparently did not fear the shadow force,
and when the master approached Ascheraden, he sent most of the native militia
home with their share of the loot. After these native troops had dispersed, the
Lithuanians rushed forward and challenged the smaller army of knights and
militia that remained with the master in order to keep the Lithuanians from
falling on Livonia in revenge. Master Ernst could perhaps not have avoided
combat, but he failed to take steps to reinforce his army or to retreat when he
saw that the Lithuanians had not given up and returned home. His delay allowed
numerous reinforcements to join the enemy while he failed to gain any advantage
for himself. He was soon outnumbered. Not wishing to retreat into castles
friendly to him and unable to summon the departed militias in time to help, he
decided to fight with the troops on hand. Arranging his army in the traditional
manner, he led the charge into the pagans’ ranks.
One saw on either side, both Christian and heathen, that many
dauntless warriors, daring and outstanding men, fell in grim death. The
snow turned red from blood. But the brothers’ army drove the
heathens completely out of their formation. Eilard, a good warrior who
was hostile to all heathens, pursued them with his force and struck
many dead. The heathens were hard pressed. Now the brothers had
fought bravely in the battle, but they were outmatched. The huge army
rallied, and there ensued a melee of Christians and Lithuanians. There
was hacking and stabbing and rivers of blood spurted through the steel
rings of armor. The brothers were defeated. The flag of Our Lady was
cut down without mercy, and the knight who held it, whose name was
Johann, was killed. God save him from distresses. Thisenhusen was
a warrior, and may the angels in heaven comfort his soul, for he was
courageous. Even when all these men had been slain, one could still
see the Master and his brothers undaunted, though they had suffered
a terrible defeat. Meanwhile the Semgallians began to retreat. They
did not leave one of their men there. This greatly dismayed the
Christian army, .and when the heathens became aware of it, they
advanced with their force. The brothers’ flag was down, and that was
286	THE BALTIC CRUSAbE
a blow to the Christians. Master Ernst fell, and with him seventy-one
good brothers. They shed their blood for God. When Eilard had slain
the heathens of whom you heard me speak, those he had pursued, he
hurried back to his brothers. When he approached the battlefield he
heard that the battle was lost He was pained and angered, and he
sorrowed greatly that the Master was slain. There was a large
squadron of pagans to either side of the place through which he had
to ride. That was the undoing of the hero. He spoke immediately to
his knights: "It is my will that you remain by me faithfully, to triumph
or die. I am completely exhausted." Some of the brothers had dashed
off with him earlier and with these he now charged upon the heathen
army. The heathens grasped up their arms. Lord Eilard’s horse was
shot from under him during the escape, and he was mortally wounded.
The others barely cut their way through the heathens. Lord Eilard was
dead, and we may mourn that. He had done his duty well. May his
soul be comforted in eternal joy above....The winter was so very cold
that many men, Christian and heathen alike, suffered. Let this book
proclaim to friends and foes that this battle was fought earnestly and
unstintedly in the year one thousand two-hundred and seventy-eight
after God’s birth, in mid-Lent, and not early, but very late in the
day.27
The Christians had gambled by raiding so deeply into Lithuania, and the
result was a great pagan victory. On that March 5th of 1279 the Teutonic
Knights lost all the gains they had achieved during the preceding six years: the
Semgallians, who had escaped the battlefield with few casualties, rebelled again
and called on Traidenis to protect them. Grandmaster Hartmann called together
his men at Marburg to hear the report from Livonia and to choose a new master.
Then, after deciding to combine Prussia and Livonia into one administrative unit
so that one master could coordinate the war against Lithuania—attacking
simultaneously from the west and north—they elected Conrad von Feuchtwangen
master and sent him to Prussia with numerous reinforcements.28
The secular nobility failed to respond to the new call for crusaders.
Brandenburg and Bohemia had not recovered from the defeat administered by
Rudolf of Hapsburg during his contest with King Ottokar. Mecklenburg, Saxony
and Holstein were involved in feuds, as was Lubeck, which had just suffered a
terrible fire. Denmark was in disorder again. Except for a Baltic island prince,
Wizlaw of Rugen, who sailed east with many warriors, the Teutonic Knights had
to fight on alone, with only the help of individual middle-class volunteers.
Semgallian Uprising
Master Conrad traveled to Elbing in Prussia and summoned all the
commanders to a great council. The representative from Livonia reported that the
Semgallians had recaptured Terwerten by overrunning the outworks and
capturing the arsenal. When a German archer saved his life by agreeing to train
The
Conquest of Semgallia
287
he pag3118 in the use of the crossbow, he provided them with the means of
driving Ле defenders from the main wall of the castle. The garrison had not
constructed sheltered battlements because the crossbow was thought to be a
weStem monopoly. The knights withdrew into the inner tower, but that, too, was
joon untenable. Setting fire to the tower (a nun inadvertently perished in the
flames), fifteen knights and their followers sallied out to attack the Semgallians
nitayed before the gate. The attack failed. The knights were captured to the last
man, after which the pagans formed a circle and thrust the knights, one by one,
into its center to be accused or defended. Judged by their former subjects, the
knights were either cut down immediately or sent to Lithuania to be held for
ransom; many paid for their misdeeds, but most were spared. The castle at
Terwerten now became a major bastion of the pagan defense system.
The council was moved by this report to provide the reinforcements
requested by the Livonian marshal, Gerhard von Katzenellenbogen.29 Conrad
himself, however, remained in Prussia through the winter of 1279-1280. The
main Christian base in the Semgallian operations was the castle at Goldingen.
From its impregnable walls the knights launched lightning raids against the
enemy’s settlements, performing such feats that the Kurland advocate and
Goldingen castellan became legendary figures in their own lifetime. Repeatedly,
they carried the war deep into enemy country. Even though the advocate was
once unhorsed beneath the gate of Doblen, he survived to rout hostile Semgallian
forces repeatedly.30 Although the tales of knightly deeds and virtue were typical
of the era and perhaps achieved their intent of encouraging the outnumbered
crusaders, the deeds themselves were insufficiently intimidating to bring about
surrender. Consequently, the knights clamored for Master Conrad to lead them
personally or at the very least to visit Riga and Goldingen. In the summer of
1280 Conrad left Prussia to the governance of a new master, Manegold, the
castellan of KOnigsberg,31 and sailed to Riga with a number of young knights
who had been newly admitted to the order.
It so happened that they arrived at Diinamiinde on Saint Margaret’s
Day in two ships. The [Daugava] is the name of the well-known river
that passes by Riga, as those know who lived there. A messenger
came running there to inform the brothers that the Master had come.
Their horses were in the pasture and they sent for them quickly. The
citizens were also informed. They were pleased over his arrival and
rode out with the brothers to meet the Master on the beach. The field
is well-known to many of you. They welcomed him gladly. He
thanked commoner and noble, as was proper, all those who came to
greet him. Then he rode with many escorts to Saint George’s. That
monastery lies within the city and the brothers live there. The Master
bade the brothers sit down and they were served wine and mead. Then
they rode back to their quarters. A few days after the brothers had
ridden to meet him, they advised him to inspect the land, so he rode
288
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
through Livonia. He found many good castles there, well-defended by
brothers.32
This passage, though somewhat naive, is a good description of the
customary practices of Livonian ceremony. As elsewhere in Europe, pageantry
and formal entertainment were considered very important. Wars would be
interrupted for celebrations, normal activities set aside for important visitors, and
of course, no diplomacy could be conducted without the accompaniment of
extravagant pomp and ceremony. Conrad’s inspection of the castles, interviews
with the bishops, and negotiations with the Danish vassals were long and festive
occasions. He was unable to turn to Semgallia for several months until he had
visited each of the major castles and cities in Livonia and Estonia.
In the meantime, because the Christians’ wide-ranging attacks from
Goldingen continued without interruption, the Semgallian commander, a famed
warrior named Nameikis (Nameise), began to look for means of distracting his
enemies from Doblen, the pagan stronghold southwest of Mitau. If he went on
the offensive, attacking across the Daugava, perhaps he could force the Christians
to shift forces eastward, thereby lessening the pressure on Doblen from
Goldingen. In the winter of 1280-1281, when he gathered his warriors together
and began to cross Christian Semgallia, scouts from Mitau observed their
movements and sent word to Riga, where Gerhard von Katzenellenbogen was
waiting with a small force.
The marshal called up his men, sent word to the crusaders in the town, and
ordered out a native militia unit of 100 men from Wenden, which was serving
in its turn to guard the frontier along the Daugava. He made camp in the open,
planning to locate the raiders the next morning and overwhelm them. During the
night, however, some Semgallians captured a sentry who, though interrogated
harshly, kept the crusaders’ knowledge of their presence from them, confessing
instead that no one suspected they were nearby. The Semgallians, encouraged by
the thought of succeeding in a surprise attack, hurried on toward Riga until they
suddenly came upon the marshal’s camp. Then, realizing that they were in great
danger, they fled in such panic that they even dropped their shields. Meanwhile,
the sentry took advantage of the confusion to escape. When he informed the
marshal as to what had happened, Gerhard immediately set out in pursuit with
a small force of horsemen and left orders for the infantry to follow along as
quickly as possible. After several hours of riding in the tracks of the fleeing
pagans, he caught a glimpse of some raiders far ahead of him before they
disappeared into the woods.
The raiders had been riding upon a frozen river, following its course until,
at one point, the ice gave way, plunging thirty horsemen into the freezing water.
Abandoning their horses, these unfortunate ones scrambled out of the river and
hid in the forest. Marshal Gerhard rode past them unaware of their presence, so
intent was he on catching the main body of the enemy. He did not even notice
that most of his followers halted to pull the valuable horses out of the water.
Soon he had only nine men with him: five knights, three sergeants, and a
crusader from Westphalia, who at last dropped out of the pursuit when his horse
j-fie Conquest of Semgallia	289
Jeanie exhausted. Still Gerhaid rode on, not knowing where the raiders were but
^lieving they were still ahead of him, whereas their commander was actually
t^hind him with thirty men. The pagans first attacked the lone knight straggling
in the rear and killed him, then set out in pursuit of Gerhard. When the marshall
slowed down to look for tracks, the Semgallians came up on him from behind,
catching him completely by surprise—for he had doubtlessly expected the
galloping horsemen to his rear to be his own men. The pagans quickly
overwhelmed the small band, killing three knights and capturing the others,
including Gerhard. The rest of the Christian knights arrived too late to rescue the
prisoners. Gerhard died in Lithuania, dueling for his life in a pagan ceremony.33
This incident, so typical of the bitter warfare along the frontier, did not
deter Conrad from the campaign he was planning against Doblen. Amassing a
great force from among his own men, he invited the knights from Estonia,
Bishop Dietrich of Dorpat, and many others to join the army in Riga. Arraying
his units under their various flags, Conrad led them to Doblen, where he ordered
them to undertake the task of besieging the castle. The Christians had built a
large siege engine and advanced it to the ditch, when his scouts reported that a
Samogitian army was approaching. After dismantling the machine and
abandoning the siege works, Conrad deployed his men into battle formation.
Although he moved against the foe, Conrad could not close with the enemy, who
retreated into the swamps, using the thawing morasses as a protective buffer
zone. At last Conrad gave up his plans and returned to Riga, but he vowed to
return in the summer for another try.34
The situation looked better in the spring of 1281, when a number of
crusaders arrived in Riga, including Wizlaw of Rugen and his Slavic followers,
the Danish vassals under their headman, volunteers from all parts of Livonia,
and, as usual, a large contingent of Riga citizens. Skirting the swampy lands
southwest of Riga, the army boarded ships for transport to Mitau, where the men
camped outside the castle. The next morning, after the singing of mass, Conrad
led the army to Terwerten and besieged it Soon an army of Kurs arrived from
Goldingen, so that the total number of Christian troops was almost 14,000. As
soon as the siege tower was completed and the ditch was filled, the tower was
moved forward under the cover of missile fire. When the besiegers threw wood
into the ditch and ignited it, the conflagration destroyed part of the wooden wall
and several quarters of the town. Although the first Christian assault failed, it
came sufficiently close to succeeding that the Semgallians called out and asked
for peace. They offered to pay taxes and live quietly as neighbors of the
Christians. Conrad, however, rejected their offer as insufficient, adding that they
could not be trusted to keep their word. Then the natives appealed to the duke
of Rugen, claiming they were repentant sinners, and requesting that he, as a good
Christian, should speak on their behalf. Wizlaw did approach the prior of Saint
Mary’s and the friars. Then, after hearing their opinions, he took the churchmen
to Conrad, to whom they remonstrated, asking that he relent and grant the
Semgallians fair terms. When the peace treaty with the Semgallians at Terwerten
was confirmed, the Christians returned to Riga.35
290
THE BALTIC CRUSA^g
This expedition had succeeded in making one Semgallian stronghold
capitulate on favorable terms, but it did not lead the remainder of the
Semgallians to seek an end to hostilities under the same conditions. The most
diehard pagans went into exile; among them was, Nameikis, who was soon
fighting alongside Traidenis against the Teutonic Knights in Prussia. Moreover
when the Semgallians rebelled again, Terwerten once more became their major
defensive bastion, shielding central Semgallia from Christian reprisals.
Master Conrad had meanwhile turned over his duties in Prussia to Master
Manegold and suggested that a successor be appointed for Livonia as well, a
man who could govern the extensive northern territories under the direction of
the master in Prussia. In the spring of 1282 the assembly of the Teutonic Order
ordered Manegold to carry out this plan, to coordinate from Prussia an overall
strategy for defeating the pagans. As part of this, he should travel overland to
Livonia to inspect the country and assist Conrad in supervising the election of
a successor for the Livonian Order. After the representatives assembled at Fellin
elected Willekin von Nindorf (Endorp)36 as master, Manegold returned to
Prussia, then traveled to Acre in the Holy Land for the election of a new
grandmaster. He obtained the new grandmaster’s confirmation of Willekin’s
election shortly before his departure from Acre, after which he was lost at sea.
Conrad sailed to Germany, and became grandmaster of the Teutonic Order a
decade later.37
Willekin continued the debilitating war with Semgallia and Lithuania
without much success, for his assignment was too great for the resources at his
disposal. The death of Traidenis, apparently in 1282, was not followed by the
customary struggle for power. Traidenis left no sons, and his daughter was
married to Duke Boleslaw of Masovia, who, being Polish, was disqualified from
consideration. His eldest surviving brother, Daumantas, may have been governor
in lands associated with Smolensk, but he certainly was not ruler of that
city—however, his claims on that territory may have helped Willekin in 1283
when he sent a delegation to the Russian duke about securing the trade ties
between Smolensk and Riga.38 All we can say for certain is that under Grand
Duke Daumantas Lithuania remained a powerful and relatively unified pre-feudal
state, justly famous for its generals and warriors, but backward in developing
trade and industry.39
In short, Willekin had his hands full in attempting to defeat the Lithuanians
in war in their forested homeland. Moreover, in addition to providing garrisons
for his own castles, he now had to provide troops for the episcopal castles as
well. The new archbishop of Riga was a retiring churchman who abdicated his
powers to Willekin in order to have peace of mind. Johann II von Fechten was
not elected by the canons but was appointed by the pope (a sign of episcopal
weakness, in Addition to the pope’s perhaps having instructed his nominee
privately to keep the peace at all costs). In any case, he did not hurry from Rome
to Riga after his consecration in 1285 but spent a full year traveling through Italy
and Germany before traveling by ship to his new post.40 By that time the
eclipse of the Rigan bishopric was almost complete. The crusading order had
taken over the direction of military operations and had then seized most of the
fhe Conquest of Semgallia	291
^hbishop’s lands. What little authority remained to the archbishop was being
usUrped by the canons and the papacy. As a result, Johann П lacked even the
funds to garrison his own castles. In theory, his powers remained great, but in
practice they were negligible. This weakness invited the Teutonic knights to exert
authority in the areas that had formerly been dominated by the archbishop.
Tension Between the Livonian Order and Riga
Only one estate remained which was not subordinate to the will of the
Livonian Order: the burghers of Riga. Backed by the merchant communities of
Visby and Lubeck and commanding great wealth, the patrician merchants of Riga
resisted the encroachments of the Teutonic Knights upon their rights and
privileges. The attitude of the Teutonic Knights was similar to that of other
nobles rebuffed by their "inferiors," but if the other merchant communities had
hung together, the Rigans could have upheld their rights with greater success.
The merchant communities of Germany failed to support the position of the
Rigans because developments during this era were favorable to them only at the
cost of merchants farther east The decisions made by merchants in the 1280’s
determined the politics of the next decade.
The 1280’s was the decade during which the Hanseatic League developed
out of burgher and merchant resistance to royal attempts to harm their interests.
It was the era when Lubeck led the cities—including Riga and Reval—in
refusing to trade with Norwegian ports until they were promised a monopoly of
their trade. It was also the era when Lubeck worked very closely with King
Magnus of Sweden, who was bent on expanding his kingdom at the expense of
his neighbors and who curtailed the merchants’ independence in the Baltic.
The Swedish monarch moved south into the Danish provinces, assisted by
the friendship of the German merchants and by discord in the Danish ranks. His
chief opponent, King Eric Clipping of Denmark, had faced a hostile nobility and
rebellious prelates and suffered under papal censure. Repressive measures
increased his opponents’ resolution, and Eric’s refusal to allow parliament to
meet had resulted in a civil war which prevented him from defending his lands
against Magnus. Eric might have done much better in future encounters if he had
not allowed his arrogance to antagonize even the nobles friendly to him. In 1286,
on the pretext that he had seduced their wives, a number of nobles dressed as
monks assassinated him. The remaining frontier defenses collapsed, and Magnus
seized the provinces along the border. This sudden advance by the Swedes had
a great impact on a nascent Hanseatic League, because Magnus cast longing
glances on Gotland and the wealthy city of Visby.
The merchants in Riga perceived in the Swedish monarch a serious threat
to their interests. Traditionally, Visby was much more closely connected to
Livonian affairs than was Lubeck, the Gotland city being concerned solely with
seeing that Baltic trade flourished, while Lubeck already saw itself as a center
of international commerce, with ties to Flanders, England, and central Germany
as well as to the Baltic. And the danger to Gotland was all the greater because
292	THE BALTIC CRUSAbp
Liibeck stood to profit from Visby’s decline, especially if the merchant
communities abandoned the island and resettled in the city on the Trave. Liibeck
had already persuaded her neighboring cities to exclude Gotlanders from the
North Sea trade, just as Flemings were excluded from the Baltic. In closing the
narrow straits to all foreign vessels, Lubeck had overridden Danish objections
which showed that its city council could determine the fate of that kingdom. At
the time the Rigans had not realized what this meant to their own survival and
prosperity; indeed, it was a Rigan vessel that first bypassed the customs
inspection at Visby and sailed directly to Lubeck. Only after Magnus occupied
Gotland in 1288 and the maritime court was moved to Lubeck did the Rigans
begin to complain. By then it was too late. Riga’s protests merely antagonized
the Liibeckers (perhaps there was jealousy between the cities as well) and close
relations were never fully restored.41
Lubeck’s ambitions were clear. Its councilmen were moving toward making
themselves masters of the Baltic and the North Sea. Whenever there were
grounds for complaints about restrictions on their commerce, they complained;
and when they complained, they expected quick action. A few examples from
Livonia illustrate this development, the first of which occurred in 1286, when the
Rigans found themselves in a controversy with the Lithuanians and Russians. No
matter that a state of war existed, no matter that fierce differences of opinion
regarding religion still held sway, Rigan merchants continued to trade in
Lithuania and with Polozk, and Lithuanian and Russian merchants came down
the Daugava to Riga with their merchandise. This arrangement broke down when
the pagans imprisoned a Rigan ambassador and allowed him to die in captivity.
In retaliation, the Rigans seized a number of Lithuanian merchants and held them
against the payment of damages. When negotiations failed, war appeared to be
imminent. Although the Rigans warned all travelers that the Daugava was no
longer safe, two Lubeck merchants, confident that the reputation of their city
would protect them, ignored the warning and sailed up the river, where they were
robbed by Lithuanians. Although the Rigans rescued them shortly, the Liibeckers
were extremely angry about their treatment, even demanding that the Rigans
repay them for the loss of the merchandise. They had already written their city
council about the behavior of the Rigans and their failure to guarantee safety on
the Daugava before they returned home.42
Another case involved salvage rights from a shipwreck. Lubeck’s
councilmen, seeking to recover goods taken from a cog which had been blown
onto the shores of Estonia and wrecked, visited first Gotland and then Estonia.
Although local officials were willing to assist in searching for the whereabouts
of the stolen goods, they were not finding anything. Finally, two Danish vassals
summoned their Estonian subjects to testify and discovered that the shipwrecked
goods had indefed been salvaged, but the guilty individuals had fled from their
villages and were hiding in the forest When the other villagers resolutely refused
to pay for the missing goods, the Liibeckers conceded defeat and went home.
The lengths to which those councilmen had gone clearly indicate that the
merchants were accustomed to succeeding in such legal processes. The episode
also illustrates the extent of Liibeck’s power throughout the Baltic.43
fhe Conquest of Semgallia	293
The formation of the Hanseatic League under the leadership of Lubeck did
not help Riga as much as might be expected, because Lubeck was now less
interested in military adventures in the eastern Baltic than had been the case at
фе beginning of the century. This lack of interest was unimportant as long as the
Teutonic Knights were involved in a war along the southern frontier of Livonia,
but when that war ended, a long-brewing conflict broke out between the master
and the burghers; and Riga did not have Lubeck’s unquestioning support to offset
the order’s many foreign allies.
Master Willekin, unwilling to risk another military disaster, proceeded more
cautiously against the pagans than his predecessors had done. He refused to
waste time planning an offensive to reconstitute the land connection to Memel
until he had occupied Semgallia, and he could not conquer the Semgallians until
he had captured their key castles one by one. Without a base in the heart of the
country, a policy of terror and intimidation was of limited effectiveness against
a warlike people inured to hardship and suffering. His past raids had failed to
intimidate the Semgallians, partly because geography favored them. The
numerous rivers and deep forests of Semgallia hindered the order’s favorite tactic
of attacks led by columns of knights. Instead, the swamps and forests lent
themselves more to guerrilla operations by small groups of warriors. Master
Willekin recognized that overcoming geography and tribal patriotism was not
going to be an easy task.
A New Dynasty in Lithuania
The Lithuanians provided the Semgallians as much assistance in resisting
the order’s attacks as they could spare from their other commitments, but the war
was clearly stretching Daumantas’ resources thinly. The Galician-Volhynian
Chronicle—despite its many unclear references, the best source of information
regarding the rulers of Lithuania—reported in its usual terse style:
All the Lithuanians and Zemoitans (Samogitians) marched against the
Germans [in] Riga. But [the Germans] learned [of their coming] and
hastily flocked into the cities.... [In the meantime] when the Germans
of Toruri heard that all the Zemoitans [had] marched on Riga, they
advanced upon 2emoit, [thus] helping their countrymen. They took
countless [prisoners], killed [many] others, and thus came home with
a great number of captives.44
Clearly, Grand Duke Daumantas, who had ruled the upland Lithuanians
since his brother’s natural death in 1281 or 1282, saw the German advance into
Semgallia as a threat His failure to come to the rescue of his fellow pagans
again was probably due the greater attraction provided by opportunities to expand
his realm south, east and even west. The weakness of the Russian
states—relatively rich in agriculture and trade, eager to throw off the Tatar Yoke,
294
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
threatened by Roman Catholic neighbors (Poland and Hungary)—repeatedly im^
him and his successors away from the crusader front. In the end, however, he
overreach himself. In 1285, taking advantage of the Russians’ preoccupation with
a Tatar invasion, the grand duke invaded Smolensk. He miscalculated the forces
which could come into the Held against him and was slain in battle by a coalition
of dukes from central Russia—Svjatoslav of Tver, Dmitri of Moscow and others
Unless Daumantas had been leading a hit-and-run raid for slaves and
booty—which would hardly have justified raising the armies which united to
fight against him—he must certainly have brought a large army onto the
battlefield. If he had not thought victory possible—and in the wake of victory,
to make territorial gains—he would have retreated rather than risk combat with
such a formidable alliance of rulers; the losses among his Lithuanian warriors
must have been terrible. Supreme authority passed to a new dynasty founded by
Pukuveras, who was probably descended from the second grand duke of
Lithuania (who would have ruled between Ringaudas and Dausprungas).45
Pukuveras and his sons, Vytenis and Gediminas, continued to be drawn
toward Russia. As far as they were concerned, the Semgallian provinces had
nothing comparable to offer. Moreover, the Semgallians could not even be
counted upon to recognize the grand duke as their lord despite being attacked by
Christians from the east, north, and west. The fact that Vytenis could persuade
the Samogitians to fight under his leadership at this time is evidence that the
lowland Lithuanians viewed the crusader advance with great alarm. That they
were alarmed is understandable: the Teutonic Knights were essentially
depopulating the border regions, especially Sudavia—the district south of the
Memel River—resettling in Prussia those who surrendered, frightening many
others into fleeing to Lithuania, and killing the rest.
The Final Conquest of Semgallia
The implications of the events in Lithuania were important for Master
Willekin. The Prussian operations occupied the Samogitians’ attention so fully
that they were unable to spare armies to oppose his attacks. Willekin also had the
advantage of administering a feudal system of government. Therefore, he was
able to give orders and expect that they would be obeyed. He was able to
coordinate attacks on Semgallia from east, north, and west, deploying personnel
and distributing supplies, employing the resources available to a more industrial
and mercantile civilization. The tribal government opposing him found it difficult
to supply border posts with men and food. Moreover, the number of Semgallian
warriors available was so small that an invasion of Christian lands was out of the
question unless reinforcements came from Lithuania. In short, the master had
several advantages over his pagan opponents.46
Willekin demonstrated his material and organizational skills in his
preparations for the winter campaign of 1285-1286. He sent supplies to Mitau by
ship in the summer and put them into warehouses. When the ice had frozen thick
enough for an army to march on the rivers, he gathered forces from all
Livonia and Estonia, led them from Riga to Mitau, loaded the supplies onto
fhe Conquest of Semgallia	295
sleds, and ordered an advance on Terwerten. His plan was not to attack the castle
there (a tactic that had failed often enough before), but to build a new
fortification nearby from which a daring garrison could harass the Semgallians
in the surrounding villages and Helds. His men quickly constructed a timber and
earth castle on a large hill, named the castle Heiligenberg [the Holy Mountain],
and filled it with supplies. Having erected two stone-throwers on the walls, the
anny returned home, leaving a garrison of 300 men isolated deep in the enemy’s
heartland.
In the meantime, the Semgallians had sent word of this to the Samogitians.
Although the pagans must have hurried to the rescue as swiftly as possible, by
the time the warriors could have gathered at the assembly point and marched to
Terwerten, it was too late to engage Willekin’s forces. They were just in time,
however, to join in a desperate battle against the new castle’s garrison, which
had been sallying into the valley between the castles, attempting to achieve
dominance in the countryside. The arrival of the Samogitians tipped the scales
of this combat, causing the knights to withdraw within their own walls. But even
though the Christians were confined inside their battlements, the pagans could
still not approach the walls of Heiligenberg closely because of the deadly missile
fire.
This was a critical moment for paganism. The Semgallians could not defend
their fields alone, much less capture the fortress. The Samogitians could not
leave a large garrison in Terwerten, but they were equally unwilling either to
abandon the Semgallians or attempt to storm the wooden ramparts of
Heiligenberg. Meeting in council, the elders discussed the alternatives available
to them. At last they agreed that they could not maintain Semgallia’s
independence against Willekin’s careful strategy unless they demonstrated once
and for all that they could capture any isolated castle he chose to build.
Therefore, it was now incumbent on them to besiege and capture Heiligenberg.
The pagans’ military technology had improved in recent decades as a result
of witnessing the crusaders’ skill at siege warfare. While some warriors cut wood
to build towers and catapults, others moved protective barriers close to the moat
and threw in dirt to fill it. Meanwhile, the garrison built new bulwarks, dug new
itches, and strengthened their fortifications. For ten days and nights the armies’
engineers competed, with survival at stake for each side. On the eleventh day of
the siege the Samogitians pushed their machines toward the base of the castle’s
outer wall, where they could begin undermining the log and earth fortifications.
Then thousands of warriors swarmed forward in the face of withering missile
fire, attempting to clamber through the breeches and climbing scaling ladders.
The white snow reddened with the blood of the dead and wounded of both sides.
As the catapults, dragged by hundreds of straining warriors, were brought close
to the battlements the crusaders turned their missiles on the machines, striking
нгеп with every shot, cutting them down with volleys of arrows. When it became
apparent that no one could survive the hail of death, the warriors retreated.
The attack was suddenly over. Although the pagans abandoned the dead—a
fact of enormous significance, considering their religious beliefs—many warriors
296	THE BALTIC CRUSADjj
carried their wounded from the field "like Germans carried their brides."
Samogitians went home after cremating those bodies they could recover from the
battlefield. Three days later the Semgallians burned Terwerten and withdrew to
Racketen. The soldiers of the garrison counted 450 bodies along the base of the
wall. The castellan informed the master of the victory and began attacking the
settlements around Racketen and Doblen. Throughout the spring his men сщ
down natives in fields and villages. Later in 1287 the garrison repulsed another
assault on their castle with bloody losses.47
The Semgallian elders, unable to defend themselves or their harvests against
the raiders from Heiligenberg, resorted to their standard tactic: they would attack
in another quarter. However, crusader scouts had discovered the enemy’s
intentions and notified the Riga garrison.
One lenten season it happened that the Semgallians were observed
going toward Riga, planning on raiding for booty. News of this
reached Heiligenberg and they sent messengers immediately. The
warning arrived at Riga, and when the Landmarshall heard that they '
intended to attack around Riga, he said, "We should prevent that." He
ordered his brothers to arms, and they carried out his orders gladly.
Very soon he and they were ready. After that they rode out before the
city. Some townspeople and a small band of crusaders came along, as
well as the Letts who were stationed in Riga. Some of the Livs were
there also, and they joined the force gladly. So in total there were four
hundred and fifty in the army. They remained there most of the day,
galloping and jumping, running and wrestling. When evening came,
they still had not caught sight of the hostile army. The townspeople
returned to the City, but the Marshal ordered the brothers and the
natives to a well-known compound outside the city called the
Brothers’ Stables. The Landmarshal ordered the gates left open,
saying, "If it is the will of God that they attack us put up a fight. So
prepare your spears manfully so that we will always be ready. We will
rush out to meet them before they have a chance to get inside." The
gates remained open. The Marshal ordered watchmen to ride out,
brothers and good soldiers. He thought that he would be well
protected by so many men. But he was deceived, for all protection is
in vain, if God does not shelter us....Watchmen had been sent out, as
you already know. But it was at a time when the night was dark and
cold, so that they did not see the army. All their precautions were in
vain. The enemy arrived at Riga and no person saw them when they
entered the stables. The brothers and the natives were all asleep. A
squire, nevertheless, saw the enemy and cried loudly, "The enemy!"
He awoke a few who were asleep. Had God not been watching over
them, no one would have survived, for the stable was filled with the
enemy. Yet they had inflicted no injuries until the Livs awoke and
began to flee. That was the brothers’ undoing. The brothers defended
themselves, but the heathen force showered them with spears. All the
rlte Conquest of Semgallia	297
natives fled, leaving eighteen knights to fight alone. Five of them were
killed and only three escaped serious injury. Some of the soldiers were
slain, too, and those heroes were later greatly mourned. The
Semgallians burned the stables.48
The warning and the preparations had been in vain. The reflection that
God’s will would prevail and that He had not chosen to protect the knights was
some comfort; if He did not protect them, then all preparation was indeed futile,
put the Livonian Knights had suffered disasters before and expected to suffer
them again, and they had little doubt that God favored their cause nevertheless.
Though battles were lost, they usually inflicted more casualties than they
received, and they could replace their losses more easily than could their native
enemies. Therefore, despite the defeat of early March, 1287, the Christians
looked to the future optimistically.
Twelve days after the massacre, Willekin called his castellans and advocates
together in Riga to meet with representatives of the order from Germany and
Prussia. As they were celebrating with their visitors, a report came that a
Semgallian force was ravaging the islands of Uexkiill in the Daugava River. The
castle there was safe, but the nearby native settlement had been burned by the
raiders. The master invited all his officers and guests to participate in an
expedition to drive away the reported fourteen hundred raiders. Leaving a
lieutenant in his place, he rode out at the head of his force to Holm, where sixty
crusaders and citizens and two hundred native militiamen were waiting. This
gave him a total of five hundred mounted warriors. Assigning the men to the
various banners, he hurried toward Uexkiill, where buildings were still burning
when he arrived. He set off in pursuit, slowed by the need to cross dangerous
streams and avoid becoming lost in the pathless forest. Consequently, the enemy
remained far out in front. On the evening of the third day the crusaders made
camp in a thick wood alongside a stream, built huge fires, and fell into an
exhausted sleep. Unknown to them, they had almost overhauled the Semgallians,
whose scouts had spotted them. The pagans realized that their gods had led the
crusaders into a trap. Sending their booty on, so that in case they were defeated,
it would be safe, the Semgallians tumed back to fight their pursuers.
At dawn, as Willekin was waking his men, watchmen reported that the
Semgallians were advancing on the camp. Everyone hurried to arms, knights
gathering on foot around their banners, citizens and crusaders around theirs. But
their native allies were nowhere to be found. They had already slipped into the
forest; and when the alarm was sounded, they had already taken to their heels,
abandoning their horses and equipment.
The two forces fell upon each other fiercely, the crusaders led by Volmar
von Bemhausen, the grandmaster’s representative. While one Semgallian
formation engaged the knights in battle, the others overran the camp, capturing
the horses. After that, the Christians had no choice but to fight on, no matter
"’’hat the odds. Soon it was no longer an organized fight but isolated groups of
^en hacking away at one another as the Germans sought to break through the
298
THE BALTIC CRUSAjjg
encircling foe. The dead were strewn through the forest as one group
Christians after another was pursued, surrounded, and annihilated. By the tiip
the Semgallians had cut down the last small group of knights around their batt]6
flags, Volmar von Beinhausen and Master Willekin were dead, together with
thirty-one of their knights. While the Semgallians were in the process Of
searching for wounded and stripping the dead, an injured knight came out of
hiding, struck down a pagan horseman, seized his mount, and fled through the
forest. He evaded pursuit and lived to report the disaster to the knights in Riga
The Semgallians beat another wounded knight to death, buried another alive, and
took four prisoner.49
This second defeat within a month was a costly one. It was not so much
that so many knights were killed; rather, it was that the inner circle of leadership
in Livonia had been destroyed. The fallen castellans and advocates had been the
most capable and experienced men in the country, and the visitors from Germany
and Prussia who had perished were highly placed officers. The acting master
therefore called upon the second-rank officials to fill the various offices and
summoned them to a meeting to make plans for the future. The assembled
officers decided not to mourn the dead, but instead to rejoice that the fallen
heroes had slaughtered many enemies and had earned martyrdom. Then they sent
to the Holy Roman Empire to ask for replacement troops—Germany (including
Austria, Bohemia, and the Tyrol) possessed reserves of knights who could be
sent to them so that they could continue the war. Within months many of these
knights would have learned the special skills necessary to make war effectively
in Livonia, while the Semgallians and Lithuanians could make good their losses
only much more slowly.
In response to the request for immediate help, Grandmaster Burchard rode
from Germany to Prussia with reinforcements and, at a council in Elbing,
supervised the election of the new master for Livonia, Cuno (Conrad) von
Hattstein (Herzogenstein), a man who had fought on the Lithuanian frontier in
Prussia and with important administrative experience in Thom and Elbing.50
Cuno was not a willing candidate—his familiarity with Prussia’s geography and
the customs of the natives (including perhaps the language), was not easily laid
aside; but the will of the grandmaster prevailed. Cuno accepted the difficult and
dangerous post.
Early in 1288 Cuno led his reinforcements along the sea from Memel to
Kurland. He was heartily welcomed in Goldingen for having demonstrated that
this route, though hardly safe for ordinary travel, could still be utilized by large
armies coming from Prussia, since the Samogitians had not built fortresses or
stationed large forces near the coast. When the news of the master’s safe arrival
reached Riga, the citizens there recovered swiftly from their despondency-
Together wihi the order’s knights, they hastened to greet him ceremoniously
outside the city and led him through the gates to a great celebration. Only when
the festivities were over did Cuno assign his young knights from Franconia and
Swabia to the castles which were most in need of reinforcements and begin his
own tour of inspection. This journey, too, was marked by formal entertainment
in the currently fashionable chivalrous tradition. (Given the monastic nature ot
^he Conquest of Semgallia
299
ле military-religious order, most of these fetes were all-male celebrations.
Certainly, the friar-knights did not dance with women.) It was only with the
nproach of winter that he was able to turn from parties and diplomacy to the
military situation in Semgallia.51
Reports from Heiligenberg indicated that the garrison was in no immediate
danger. They kept up their raids into the countryside and did not fear a native
effort to storm the walls. But they had received no supplies at all. Therefore,
unless Master Cuno could bring in stores during the winter of 1288-1289,
starvation would force the garrison either to abandon the castle or to surrender.
Cuno, in response to the request of the castellan of Heiligenberg, had sent
men, clothing, food, and equipment to Mitau during the summer. Thanks to the
German merchants, the master had ships available to transport these supplies up
the Aa River to Mitau, but the overland journey to Heiligenberg presented
numerous difficulties, not the least of which was fear of ambush by the
Samogitian and Semgallian forces. After the winter cold had transformed the
lakes, rivers, and swamps from obstacles into highways, Cuno summoned his
allies and subjects from Livonia and Estonia to Riga. He then led this force to
Mitau and loaded the supplies onto sleds. Having a large army and not seeing
any sign of resistance, the master felt secure in dispatching six hundred men
from his column to the pagan fortress at Doblen. These raiders burned the
outerworks of that castle, then rejoined the supply column at Heiligenberg.
Rather than retreating, as everyone expected, Cuno hurriedly marched against the
Semgallian fortress at Racketen. His men sacked the outlying village, killing
numerous natives caught by surprise, but the knights were unable to climb the
icy hill to the fortress gate against the enemy’s resistance. He laid siege to the
fortress three days before ordering his army to begin the retreat to Riga.52
Cuno’s bold expedition had been a success—such a success, in fact, that the
Semgallians saw in it a potential death blow to their hopes of preserving their
independence. Worn down by the constant raids from Heiligenberg, they could
no longer sustain the war of attrition. Too many of their people had been killed,
and the harvest had been so badly disrupted that the survivors were starving. The
Semgallians estimated that they had the strength for only one more great
effort—and that only if the Samogitian were willing to send a large army. They
planned to invade Livonia, seek out the Christian army, and deliver such a
crushing blow that the master would have to abandon Heiligenberg.
A large army of grim pagan warriors crossed the Daugava in the spring of
1289. They spread out across the archbishop’s lands, burning and robbing the
Lettish settlements almost without resistance, defying the crusaders to come out
and fight. News of the attack found Cuno in Riga. He immediately summoned
all his friends and allies to join him as quickly as possible, and troops soon
tegan to arrived from Kurland, Mitau, Heiligenberg, and the garrisons around
^iga. The episcopal vassals, though few in number, responded, too, as did the
C1tizens and crusaders. However, when the entire force was assembled, they
numbered only 3,500 men. The Estonian vassals could not (or would not) hurry
300	THE BALTIC CRUSAbg
so far south as fast as the situation required. Their presence was sorely misseq
In fact, nobody was eager to fight without them.
After Cuno reviewed the assembled units, he met with his council to discuSs
the course of action. No one advocated meeting the enemy challenge. There were
simply too many pagans to challenge with the forces at hand. But, Cuno
reasoned, if so many pagan warriors were in Livonia, there could be very few
left in Semgallia. This argument persuaded the council to ignore the ravaging
invaders and, instead, strike the enemy’s home ground. Dividing his army into
two columns, Cuno ordered a swift advance against Doblen and Sidobren
fortresses to the west of Mitau and Heiligenberg. The crusaders almost captured
Doblen, and they inflicted severe casualties on the defenders of Sidobren. In fact
it was the very knight who had been the sole survivor of Willekin’s last battle
who almost captured the gate of Sidobren before it could be closed. Carrying a
banner, he rode among the fugitives from the nearest settlements as they crowded
into the refuge, cutting his way to the front of the panicked mass and reaching
the entrance before the garrison threw down rocks and fired missiles, striking the
leading knights and wounding him. Closing the gates to the rest of their people,
the garrison withstood the crusaders’ assault. However, since relatively few
people had been able to attain the safety of the fortress and all had lost almost
their possessions, the area could be considered essentially depopulated. A second
raid compounded the destruction.
Meanwhile, the garrison at Heiligenberg had been making such devastating
sallies against fields and villages that the native peoples withdrew farther and
farther away, abandoning their ancestral homes and hearths. The knights drove
cattle away, cut down grain, and appeared before Doblen and Racketen with such
frequency and suddenness that at any moment they might unexpectedly assault
an inadequately guarded gate. In the end, the Semgallians burned Doblen and
moved way. Soon thereafter even Racketen proved untenable. The starving
natives burned it as well and moved to Sidobren. The raids from Heiligenberg
had won the war. Only mopping-up operations against the last remaining fortress
remained.
The knights, now confident of victory, relentlessly attacked Sidobren.
Another expedition from Livonia and Kurland thoroughly ravaged the
surrounding farmland, and even the archbishop sent his men to help.53 By early
1290 the Semgallians’ morale was so low that a group of warriors opted for
surrender. Seizing control of the fortress, they ordered those who wished to
continue the fight to depart for Samogitia, because they wished to be able to
parley for terms in good faith. They sent to the castellan at Mitau, informed him
of their wishes, and asked him to send someone to negotiate their surrender.
The castellan was skeptical, but he accepted hostages, declared a truce, and
sent to Rigatfor instructions. Cuno was no longer in Livonia, having sailed for
Germany in late 1289 to resign his office, but his substitute called a council to
approve the action. They rejoiced at the Semgallians’ decision but insisted that
Sidobren be destroyed so that it could not serve as a center for rebellion. The
castellan at Mitau thereupon rode to Sidobren with a large force, left his men m
a nearby wood, and in the company of a small escort told the Semgallians of th®
The Conquest of Semgallia	301
council’s harsh decision. To his surprise perhaps, the natives agreed to the terms
and signed the treaty. Then the knights came up from the wood to supervise the
evacuation of the fortress, after which it was burned to the ground. The natives
were resettled near Mitau, where they could be supervised more closely.
The Semgallians who refused to accept the verdict of battle withdrew into
Samogitia, and the remainder, worn down by war, famine, and plague, lacked the
strength to challenge German rule. The Semgallian war was over.
The peace the Teutonic Knights now imposed was far different from that
which had been agreed upon a decade earlier. No longer would they trust the
Semgallians to live in fortified settlements. Although they permitted some to
return to their ancestral lands, the castles at Terwerten, Doblen, and Mitau were
now garrisoned by the crusading order, whose advocates closely supervised
native life.
The new Livonian master, Halt (Holt),54 dealt with the Samogitians in the
summer of 1290. After a bloody campaign even these courageous pagans were
too exhausted to continue the fighting.55 In the future the Teutonic Order would
take on the formidable Samogitians directly, intending to bring Christianity to
these determined pagans and create a land bridge across their territories from
Konigsberg to Riga. The Teutonic Knights could not have realized it at the time,
but the advance they made in 1290 was to be the last permanent conquest of
their career.
The Teutonic Knights, fighting and dying for their Lady Mary, thus
concluded the conquest of the Baltic coastline begun nine decades earlier by
Bishop Albert. In years to come, they would temporarily occupy territories in the
interior, but each time rebellions were to force them back to the frontiers of
1290. This medieval military frontier eventually became so permanent a
boundary that the modem border of Latvia and Lithuania marks the place where
the crusader and pagan armies fought to a stalemate.
Nor did the Teutonic Knights realize the extent to which this bitter warfare
had brutalized their sensibilities. They had never been known for their tender
hearts, but the desperation of the wars in Livonia, Prussia, and the Holy Land
had hardened them even more. As they turned to the arts of peace, they
discovered that free men could not be treated in the same way as conquered
subjects. Turning, at last, in knightly arrogance, to the upstart citizenry of Riga,
they provoked a conflict that ended all hope of permanent victory in
Samogitia.56
302
THE BALTIC CRUS^
ENDNOTES
1.	Johansen, "Die Bedeutung der Hanse fiir Livland." See also Karl Pagel, £>,•
Hanse (Braunschweig: Georg Westermann, 1965), 58-66 and Phillipe Dollingee
La Hanse (Paris: Aubier, 1964), 42-46.	Г’
2.	Transehe-Roseneck, Livlandfahrer, 101-102.
3.	Hermann Hildebrand, ed., Das Rigische Schuldbuch (St. Petersburg, 1872) has
much to say regarding the growing importance of the Rigan merchant community
and the means it adopted to assure continued growth and prosperity.
4.	Arbusow, Grundriss der Geschichte Liv-, Est-, und Kurland, 52-
Urkundenbuch, I, no. 445.
5.	1268-1285 (1289?) from Haseldorp in Holstein, and the son of the count who
fell at Saule in 1236.
6.	Bishop Albert’s nephew.
7.	Saulius Suzieddlis, "Traidenis," EL, Ш, 488-489; Giedroyd, The Rulers of
thirteenth-century Lithuania, 14-22.
8.	Reimchronik, 11. 7895-7912.
9.	Nothing is known about this man’s career от origin. Ritterbriider, 714.
10.	Reimchronik, 11. 7962-7994.
11.	When this Hessian knight joined the order in 1268, his wife entered a
nunnery. His family contributed two sons and many gifts to the Teutonic Order.
Ritterbriider, 476-477.
12.	Reimchronik, 11. 7995-8030.
13.	Reimchronik, 11. 8031-8071.
14.	Also named von Rassburg. He was from a prominent burgher family in
Liibeck with relatives in Riga. Ritterbriider, 524-525.
15.	Ibid., 11. 8072-8106.
16.	Urban, The Prussian Crusade, 243-305.
17.	Ykemele, who was stationed in Riga in 1272. Ritterbriider, 744.
18.	Reimchronik, 11. 8107-8120.
19.	W. Newmann, in "Die Ordensburgen im sog. polnischen Livland,
Mitteilungen aus der livlandischen Geschichte, 14 (1899), 303-12, described this
new castle; Hermann de Wartberge, 48.
20.	Guillebert de Lannoy, Scriptores rerum Preussicarum, III, 447.
21.	Reimchronik, 11. 8209-8241.
22.	Fennell, Crisis of Medieval Russia, 140.
23.	SuziedClis, "Traidenis," IV, 489.
24.	Urkundenbuch, I, nos. 452,457; Alexander, Bubonic Plague in Early Modern
Russia, 12; Urban, Prussian Crusade, 318-20, describes how crusading Poles and
the Teutonic’Knights in Prussia decided to make these pagans their principal
target. See also Hellmann, Das Lettenland im Mittelalter, 203-5, and Fennell-
Crisis of Medieval Russia, 156.
25.	Fennell, Crisis of Medieval Russia, 144.
fhe
Conquest of Semgallia
303
, A list of archiepiscopal vassals of this time is in Transehe-Roseneck,
rivlandfahrer, 102-104.
27 Reimchronik, 11. 8393-8503. The correct year is 1279 (Hermann de
^artherge, 49).
28 Reimchronik, 11. 8527-8604. Udo Arnold, "Conrad von Feuchtwangen,"
preussenland, 13/2(1975), 2-33; Ritterbriider, 222-223, describes him as
descending from a ministeriale family near Oettingen which had contributed
several sons to the order; he had most recently served in Austria, overseeing the
oider’s possessions there.
29 Reimchronik, 11. 8605-8812; Ritterbriider, 373.
30; [bid., П. 8929-9192.
31.	Ritterbriider, 437-438.
32.	Reimchronik, 11. 8875-8911.
33.	[bid., 11. 9193-9404.
34.	/bid., 11. 9427-9507.
35.	Ibid., 11. 9508-9667. See Urban, "Military Occupation of Semgallia in the
Thirteenth Century," 21-34.
36.	Member of a ministeriale family of Bremen. Ritterbriider, 474-475.
37.	Hermann de Wartberge, 50. This marks the end of efforts to govern Livonia
and Prussia jointly. The administrative division of the two lands soon leads to
divergent policies. Manfred Hellmann, "Die Stellung des livldndischen
Ordenszweiges zur Gesamtpolitik des Deutschen Ordens vom 13. bis zum 16.
Jahrhundert,” Von Akkon bis Wien (Marburg: Elwert, 1978), 10-11.
38.	Urkundenbuch, I, p. 136.
39.	Suzieddis, "Traidenis," 489; Giedroyd, "Arrival of Christianity in Lithuania,"
29, and "Rulers of thirteenth-century Lithuania," 10,15; for details of Samogitian
operations, see Robert Krumholtz, "Samaiten und der Deutsche Orden bis zum
Frieden am Melno-See," Altpreussische Monatschrift, 3(April, 1889), 238-243.
40.	Archbishops John I and John II accepted the subordinate role that earlier had
been forced upon Albert Suerbeer. Their comparative poverty made it impossible
to do without the assistance of the Teutonic Knights even in the garrisoning of
their castles.
41.	Urkundenbuch, I, no. 505; Ш, no. 523a; Antjekathrin GraBmann, "Lubeck
und der Deutsche Orden. Moglichkeiten zu neuen Forschung," Werkstatt des
Historikers der mittelalterlichen Ritterorden (Toruri, 1987) [Colloquia Torunensia
Historica, IV], 33-47.
42.	Urkundenbuch, I, no. 507.
43.	Urkundenbuch, I, nos. 511-529; III, no. 512a.
44.	The Galician-Volhynian Chronicle, 98; one section of this chronicle was
composed about 1289. It is notably free from distinction among the various
rnnns of Christian piety, Roman, Orthodox, or convert. David M. Goldfrank,
Orthodoxy and Catholicism in the Lithuanian-Belorussian Chronicles," Nuovi
Sl»di Storici, 17(1992), 353.
304
THE BALTIC

45.	Giedroyd, "Rulers of thirteenth-century Lithuania," 10-11, 15; Paszkew
The Origin of Russia, 200-201; also, S. C. Rowell, Lithuania Ascendin *CZ’
Pagan Empire within East-Central Europe, 1295-1345 (Cambridge, 1994)
46. The Samogitian Crusade, 47-48.
47.	Reimchronik, 11. 9899-10200; for a description of the site, see Ozols, "jy
vor- und friihgeschichtlichen Burgen Semgalliens," 26-34.	’ Ie
48.	Reimchronik, 11. 10201-10290.
49.	Ibid., 11. 10329-10714.
50.	Ritterbriider, 296.
51.	Reimchronik, 11. 10745-10934.
52.	Ibid., 11. 10935-11088.
53.	Ibid., \L 11089-11461.
54.	An East Saxon, he had been advocate of Jerwen from 1282 to 1287
Ritterbriider, 289-290.
55.	Reimchronik, 11. 11462-11610; Hermann de Wartberge, 51-52.
56.	Contemporaries were aware that the Baltic Crusade was moving out of one
era into another, in Prussia as well as in Livonia. Peter of Dusburg noted in-his
Cronica for 1283: "Explicit bellum Prussie. Incipit bellum Lethowinorum."
Urban, Prussian Crusade, 322,325-37; Acre, the last base in the Holy Land was
lost in 1291, after which the grandmaster moved to Venice, then, in 1309, to
Marienburg in Prussia.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THE END OF THE CRUSADE
Although it was not apparent in 1290, the conquest of Semgallia marked the
last expansion of the crusader state in Livonia. Now that the most dangerous
enemies of the western Christians had been defeated or were experiencing
political difficulties, it seemed that a period of peace and prosperity would
follow. Master Halt was confident of the Livonian Order’s ability to defend its
possessions against attack from without and disorder within. He possessed the
largest portion of the conquered lands, almost all the key fortresses, and, in
addition, could call upon the resources of Prussia and the homeland. In fact, the
chances were good that he could anticipate an even greater share of the Teutonic
Order’s resources than ever. First of all, the new grandmaster was Conrad von
Feuchtwangen, who had been master in Livonia between 1279 and 1281. Second,
in 1291 the Moslems would storm Acre in Palestine, slaying on the ramparts the
acting grandmaster and all his men, capturing the city, and to all practical intents
bringing a conclusion to the crusade in the Holy Land. With that event crusading
interest diminished throughout western Europe. Nevertheless, Master Halt and his
officers were by now no longer as dependent on annual convoys of volunteers
as they once had been. He could now provide sufficient knights and men-at-arms
from his own resources. He coordinated regional defense, administering for
Archbishop Johann II the border castles along the Daugava which were useful
for watching the river crossings—and, since these were the archbishop’s
strongest posts, this policy reduced the prelate’s ability to challenge the order’s
policies. Halt could tolerate a greater independence on the part of Bishop
Bernard of Dorpat and Heinrich of Oesel-Wiek—they were too weak to present
any danger—and Bishop Johann of Reval and Edmund of Kurland were non-
entities. In any case, the master knew that the episcopal nobles were unlikely to
support a rebellion, especially not the Danish vassals in Estonia who had come
to rely upon military service in Livonia to supplement their income. Only the
cities remained outside the master’s control, and of those only Riga was strong
enough to be of any military significance. It was reasonable to assume that, as
time passed, Halt’s successors would surely be able to dominate this city just as
their counterparts in Prussia had long dominated the cities there.1
The citizens of Riga were aware of the master’s hostility, but they assumed
that in any dispute with the Livonian Order they could expect aid and comfort,
Perhaps even material help, from Lubeck and the cities of the emerging
Hanseatic League. However, their loud disapproval of Liibeck’s allowing Visby
to be occupied by the Swedish king had recently strained their relations with
those merchant communities. Moreover, those German cities had problems of
their own. Nevertheless, the citizens of Riga persisted in imagining that if a crisis
arose, the commercial and family ties between the cities would compel Lubeck
to support them.
306
THE BALTIC CRUSAjjg
Political Turmoil in Scandinavia and Germany
Civil conflict in Denmark had once again gotten out of control. The
of the last monarch had put on the throne a young boy, Eric (the "priesthater"^
who was determined to crush those ambitious and righteous prelates suspected
of complicity in his father’s assassination, especially the archbishop of Lund
John Grand. When the archbishop forbade Danish subjects to fight against the
Norwegians, who were plundering the kingdom on behalf of the king’s exiled
opponents, the young king incarcerated the archbishop on charges of treason2
The effects of this new quarrel were eventually felt even in distant Livonia.
Young King Birger of Sweden meanwhile was expanding his control over
Karelia, including the area directly east of Danish Estonia. Having built a fortress
at Vyborg on the northern coast of the Gulf of Finland, by 1291 the monarch
was ready to respond to brigands subject to Novgorod who were plundering
Swedish subjects. He launched what became known as "the third Finnish
Crusade," but which was actually more akin to a police action designed to root
out pirates from coastal nests. This was not a popular war, and the royal forces
were far from numerous, but by 1300 Birger had secured the coast as far as the
mouth of the River Neva. Apparently scurvy and the lack of food was a greater
problem than Russian or native resistance.3
Russia was politically vulnerable to attack at this moment. The Tatars, after
decades of warfare in the Middle East, plundering the riches of the Fertile
Crescent and Egypt—years in which they ignored Russia—turned north to
remind the princes of Perejaslavl, Moscow and Tver who their masters were.
They then drove south and west through Galicia and Volhynia as far as
Sandomir.4 Sweden’s king benefitted from the Russians’ discomfiture, since
Novgorod was unwilling to undertake a war with him at a time when Duke
Andrej was busy with Tatar affairs—in effect, Andrej was a willing supporter of
the khan to the day of his death in 1304.
As a result of this cooperation between the duke and the khan, Novgorod
never dared stand up for its traditional right to conduct vicious internal quarrels.
The great city, which early in the century an outside observer might have
predicted would become a great republic, was only now learning the skills of
cooperation and conciliation which would make it impossible for future princes
to play off one faction of boyars and merchants against another.5 And when the
danger of Swedish and German expansionism dimmed, as it did in the fourteenth
century, the anti-German party lost the issue most likely to appeal to the
citizenry. The result was less disorder, more civic peace, more trade.
The same phenomenon can be observed in the German commercial centers.
Under most circumstances the merchant communities would have objected to the
Swedes’ obtaining a potential stranglehold on the trade route to Novgorod. But
Visby had been weakened, and Lubeck was not strong enough to act at a
distance; the young Hanseatic League was unsure of its rights or its ability to act
together, as well as being opposed to expensive wars of any kind. On those
occasions when the Hanseatic cities were concerned about distant matters, they
End of the Crusade
307
referred to employ economic embargoes and legal tactics—usually by writing
letters to appropriately chosen lords and clerics. At this moment they did little.
North Germany was experiencing domestic quarrels. Soon after young
Heinrich of Mecklenburg returned home from crusade in Livonia, he set out for
фе Holy Land, where he fell into Moslem hands. The Egyptians refused to
ransom him, and as a result, his lands were governed by an uncle on behalf of
Heinrich’s young son, who came of age in 1285, at which time a feud began
involving Saxony, Luneburg, Holstein, and Schwerin. Although Heinrich’s son
successfully defended himself against his enemies, the feud became part of a
series of minor wars among these princes that lasted well into the next decade.
It was in this latter period that the Teutonic Knights resumed the negotiations for
prince Heinrich’s release. Princess Anastasia, his wife, raised 2,000 marks and
delivered them to Lubeck so they could be transferred to the Teutonic Order and
ultimately paid to the sultan. Her hopes were dashed after two years. The
grandmaster returned the money, explaining that the Moslems were refusing to
ransom any prisoners at that time.6
Lubeck, Hamburg, Wismar, and Liineburg began complaining of robber
barons in Saxon-Lauenburg, one of the two territories into which the duchy of
Braunschweig had been divided. Lauenburg lay roughly mid-way between these
cities, controlling the roads and rivers. This state of affairs was particularly
annoying to Lubeck because the city had hired the duke of Saxon-Lauenburg as
its advocate, expecting that he would be able to end these acts of robbery and
piracy perpetrated by his own subjects, even by his own vassals. The duke,
however, did little. The Hanseatic cities, finding themselves unable to end the
depredations peacefully, then terminated the duke’s contract and hired the dukes
in Mecklenburg, the archbishop of Bremen, and the duke of Saxony to suppress
the outlaws. The coalition attacked the castles from which the barons were
making their raids. By capturing and hanging several guilty nobles, the peace
forces provoked feuds with the relatives and friends of the deceased barons, and
soon they were at war with the duke of Saxon-Lauenburg as well. A pitched
battle resolved this feud in favor of the merchants, but it did not bring peace.
No sooner had one dispute been temporarily ended than another arose. The
Prince of Werle in Mecklenburg, who had children from two marriages, made
a grievous error in delaying the appointment of an heir. After he was killed by
his eldest sons in an abortive kidnapping, his lands fell into turmoil. Since the
disputed inheritance was now complicated by charges of patricide, all the
neighboring princes became involved in the affair, and the surviving robber
barons took advantage of the resulting disorder to revenge themselves on the
merchants’ caravans.7
Lubeck had internal troubles which came to match the external difficulties.
The city’s bishop, seeing that the city had perhaps overreached itself in foreign
affairs, sought to make himself its master, so desperately pursuing a policy of
nile or ruin" that for a long time thereafter secular and ecclesiastical power vied
for supremacy. And in one of those periodic catastrophes so typical of the
medieval period, Lubeck was destroyed by a terrible conflagration. When a new
308
THE BALTIC CRUSAbg
dynasty came to the imperial throne in Germany, it proved to be a costly chano
for the Liibeckers, who had paid their taxes for several years in advance but were
now told that this payment would not be recognized by the new emperor. Despite
all these troubles, the city of Lubeck continued to expand in wealth and power
Its city council organized the league of princes and cities, paid for the mercenary
troops, and commanded the navy. Its armies won battles, its fleets swept the
North and Baltic Seas. Therein lies one reason for Riga’s isolation at the time
its citizens accepted the challenge of the Livonian Order: the Liibeckers could
not be everywhere at once. Victorious over their numerous enemies at home, the
Liibeckers had to be careful not to strain their resources. Should they take on
such a powerful foe as the Teutonic Knights? Or should they preserve their
neutrality and attempt to negotiate an end to the conflict?8
Cities everywhere had grown in importance, and as the cities waxed, the
nobles regarded them with fear and envy. Liibeck’s burghers had faced and
overcome the opposition; now Riga’s faced the trial. Master Halt’s successors
understood the danger in burgher independence, and when they had both the
opportunity and the excuse to suppress Riga’s liberty, they tried to do so.
Riga’s Prosperity and Power
Because of the long and often disastrous Semgallian and Samogitian wars,
the Teutonic Knights had left Riga alone. Its citizens had often proved to be
important allies against the pagans and the archbishops. Moreover, the citizens
had developed a pride in themselves and their city—perhaps even
arrogance—that offended the class consciousness of the noble knights. Riga had
become a large and wealthy city thanks to the wise policies pursued by its city
council over the decades.9 From the very beginning councilmen and mayors had
decided that their city would be permanent and substantial, rather than merely a
community of visiting merchants, such as Visby had been. With this in mind
they had invited many diverse groups to settle there, even admitting Russians to
citizenship. They fostered close and friendly relations with Visby and Lubeck,
and they stimulated trade through a wise use of credit (though occasionally, as
must be the case in trial and error economic policy, there were bankruptcies
among even the most senior firms). Moreover, Riga’s trade with the natives and
with Russia and Lithuania proved immensely profitable. In summer their rivers
were filled with shipping, and in winter their sled trains crossed the snow and ice
to distant markets.
Without much question, Livonia had prospered in recent years. Certainly,
the recovery of the population from the early wars of conquest provided the
material foundation for this economic growth, but in addition, peace and stability
tend to promote growth even under the worst of governments—and whatever
difficulties the system of taxation and the requirements of military service had
placed on native producers, the laissez-faire policies of the masters seemed to
have benefitted them as well as the merchants who purchased their grain,
animals, furs, and beeswax. The governments clearly prospered from the
collection of native rents and taxes, but the amounts collected were never
End of the Crusade	309
efficient to meet perceived needs. Moreover, the harvests had not been as good
jn recent years as previously, because the climate was changing; the region kept
experiencing c°lder winters and shorter summers. Already crop production in
Scandinavia had fallen off, and the price of gram had risen. Aware that the order
was suffering economically, the master’s officers looked on jealously as the
merchants prospered in virtually every type of trade, including the buying and
selling of the grain which the natives brought to the advocates and castellans as
№ payments. Riga was the foremost mercantile center of the eastern Baltic, and
its merchants grew in numbers and wealth. They were adding an occasional brick
commercial residence/warehouse to the rows of traditional half-timber houses;
they used locks to safeguard their property and acquired new types of knifes and
scissors; their new ovens were copied by wealthy merchants and nobles in the
countryside; and everywhere they settled, the use of coins became more
common.10 Parish churches, well equipped for services—some even including
organs—dotted the countryside,11 though the number of priests remained small.
Riga had benefited from the prosperity of past decades, and although it remained
a rather modest little town by modem standards, even by comparison with
medieval German rivals, in Baltic terms it was a metropolis.
Riga’s citizens were proud of their accomplishments. They had fought for
their survival and for the advancement of Christianity, and they were now ready
to fight just as hard for their rights. Long ago, one of William of Modena’s first
acts had been the negotiation of civic privileges, when the burghers and Bishop
Albert found themselves at loggerheads; another most serious civil rights conflict
arose in the time of Albert Suerbeer, but there, too, the burghers and the
Livonian Order had formed an alliance which prevailed over their common
enemy, the archbishop. As a result, the burghers became rich, numerous, warlike,
and quite aware of their power. In 1292 the city council embarked on a new
building program: the new city wall was to be twenty-four feet high, and all
buildings within it were to be constructed of brick or stone. Master Halt must
have taken due notice of this, but he probably paid more attention to the boastful
civic pride which accompanied it. The Rigans, seemingly, had not been worried
about the way their words and actions affronted the knights’ pride.12
The Rigans were also becoming more independent in foreign affairs. They
vigorously protested the removal of the maritime court from Visby to Lubeck.
Although their proposals were not acted upon, the fact that they made
suggestions illustrates the high regard they held of their own standing in the
Mercantile community.13 The burghers even sent a permanent representative to
the papal curia to defend their interests. Knights observing these actions began
to wonder if the burghers were not acting in a spirit inimical to the long-range
Mterests of the Livonian Order; indeed, they thought the situation might already
be out of hand.
As the officers and knights of the order debated the situation, it may have
kerned that the present moment was most favorable for a showdown with the
Upstart townsmen. The master had immense resources in Prussia and Germany
io back up his army in Livonia; he had peace with the neighboring states; and
310
THE BALTIC CRUSadj,
the cities in the west were not only occupied with their own domestic affai
they were, on the whole, disposed to be friendly toward the order. Riga, On
other hand, was temporarily embarrassed by its quarrel with Lubeck and had no
other allies of importance. Reval had profited by Visby’s decline and would
profit even more from Riga’s defeat; in addition, Reval looked to the king Of
Sweden to protect its maritime route to Novgorod and, therefore, tended to
ignore affairs in Livonia. The Danish vassals, traditional allies of the Teutonic
Order, would remain neutral.
The archbishop, Johann П, was so subservient to Master Halt that when he
traveled to Germany in 1290 he left his lands to the master’s care and, upon his
return, had leased a number of strategic castles to the order.14 In that same year
Bishop Edmund of Kurland ended his cathedral chapter’s independence when he
and all his canons became priests of the Teutonic Order, as was the case in three
of the four bishoprics in Prussia. Halt thereby became responsible for the
territorial defense of Kurland as far south as Memel; Edmund remained in Pilten,
about as far from the pagans as was possible.15 Bishop Bernard of Dorpat, too,
assigned responsibilities in his territories to the master. Even though he did not
succumb fully to the order’s blandishments, the action still provoked
consternation among the other churchmen in Livonia.16 Consequently, the
bishops and abbots were ready to urge strong action after death repeatedly shook
the continuity of policy in Livonia. Master Halt died in 1293, and his successor,
Heinrich von Dincklage (Dumpershagen),17 had barely taken office before he
passed away unexpectedly in 1295. In the middle of this period, in February of
1294, Johann П died. The Rigan canons, unhindered by the strong hand of an
experienced master—presumably the order’s representatives were in Germany
awaiting the naming of Halt’s successes'—elected Johann of Schwerin as
archbishop. This was an ominous choice from the view of the Teutonic Knights.
It may not have been merely a coincidence that they chose a descendant of
Heinrich the Black and Gunzelin of Schwerin, a potentially strong man who
could defend their interests, before the grandmaster could persuade the weak
pope, Celestine V, to appoint a man who would be so subservient that he would
even convert the chapter into a convent of order priests, as had been done in
Kurland. The canons were well aware that Grandmaster Conrad had a permanent
representative at the papal court, a procurator (a combination lawyer and
lobbyist), to represent his order’s interests and through good advice, flattery, and
gifts build a reservoir of good will which could be tapped when necessary.18
The election of Johann 1П did not mean an immediate revival of
archiepiscopal authority. The Teutonic Order’s procurator in Rome managed to
delay the papal confirmation of the election until the candidate appeared in Rome
personally to promise the new pontiff, Boniface VIII, that his election would not
be a precedent which might hinder papal appointments in the future. Johann Ill’s
confirmation followed swiftly. However, not even the strongest-willed prelate
could immediately undo the errors and reverses of his predecessors. Nor did
Johann III dare revive old claims against the order without reconstituting some
of the lapsed military and diplomatic authority. In fact, by 1296, the year that
trouble arose, he had not made significant headway in any of his potential
j-ffg End of the Crusade
311
designs, anc^’ w^at was even more important, during the critical months
preceding the outbreak of fighting he was in Flanders, seeking treatment for a
broken leg. During his absence his property had been left to the care of Acting-
piaster Bruno and the city council.19 If the archbishop had been of little help to
the burghers, the other bishops would provide even less aid. Whether the
foregoing action was part of a premeditated plan to consolidate the order’s
hegemony or simply the master’s taking advantage of individual situations to
coordinate territorial defense, everyone saw the city as increasingly weak and
isolated vis-^-vis the Livonian Knights.
In short, if ever there was a time for the Livonian master to unify the
country under his leadership, if ever one had reason to suspect the master of
tyrannical aspirations, this was it And the acting-master, Bruno, was the man to
do it. If Bruno had a model, it was Prussia, where the master tolerated no
trouble-making from the bishops, abbots, secular knights, or burghers. However,
simply stated, Prussia was not a centralized state, either. First of all, the concept
of centralization hardly existed in the thirteenth century; to the extent the concept
was understood, it would certainly not have had the same connotations that it
does today. The existence of a hierarchy of authority, with either a pope or
emperor (or both) at the apex was commonly subscribed to, but almost equal
value was ascribed to the rights of assemblies of learned and powerful men.
Secondly, with communications as poor as they were, centralization did not exist
anywhere in medieval Europe, much less in a large state like Livonia. What
Bruno and his brother knights wanted was a feudal state in which the master was
powerful enough to coordinate policy in war and peace, to enforce the laws, and
to impress friends and enemies alike, but not so powerful as to behave
tyrannically toward his brother knights, the churchmen, the secular nobles, and
their subjects. No one considered the Prussian master a tyrant at this time.20
This vision of a well-managed and peaceful state was one that many
contemporaries might have endorsed in principle but feared trying to put into
practice. Those whose rights and customs were potentially threatened by a
powerful ruler preferred the status quo or even an alternate plan whereby power
could be transferred to a parliamentary body—for instance, the future Livonian
Confederation, composed of representatives from the secular knights and the
towns, as well as the abbots, bishops, and the Livonian Order—as long as this
body limited its activities to debates or to actions which would be unanimously
approved by the members. Naturally, the Livonian Order saw such proposals as
a wild leap into democratic chaos and military weakness.
The perception of Riga’s vulnerability did not contradict the impression that
the citizens were also powerful and well-supported. It is human nature to see an
enemy as both dangerous and weak, implacable in his lust for total victory,
invulnerable unless stopped immediately, and inhuman in his methods and goals;
and, furthermore, to believe that only the opposing side has any option except
war. Surely, Bruno must have felt a need to act decisively. The citizens, for their
Part, looked upon Bruno as a natural tyrant and bully.21
312
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
War Between the Order and Riga
Tension heightened as the tenth decade of the thirteenth century passed. City
and crusading order quarreled on minor issues. The Teutonic Knights, moreover
recognized the significance of Lubeck in German politics and international affair^
from Denmark to Russia, and, consequently, sedulously cultivated its merchant
community. This was to the advantage of the order’s commercial allies in
Prussia, but not, in the eyes of Riga’s merchants, to their benefit. The critical
moment for Riga came shortly after the archbishop sailed west to Flanders.
The winter of 1295-1296 had been more severe than usual, and the spring
floods caused so much trouble, that ice floes dammed the Daugava below Riga,
and the backed-up water threatened to flood the city. After the crisis passed, the
citizens held a public meeting to discuss ways of avoiding floods in the future,
and it was at this meeting that they were impressed by the plan of a visiting
crusader. He suggested that the city construct a massive bulwark upstream to
divert the current. By preventing ice from flowing past the city, the bulwark
would protect the city walls and lessen the danger of an ice jam downstream.
The citizens approved the plan and chose a site where a small island facilitated
the work. It was impossible to collect suitable materials—wood, stone, earth—on
the northern bank of the Daugava, however, and therefore the burghers built a
bridge across the river near the site of the proposed bulwark, so they could
obtain their supplies from the wilderness on the opposite bank.
The bridge was an expensive undertaking that cost mere than 100 marks to
complete. Wide and well built, it had a section that could be lifted to allow the
passage of river traffic. It was no surprise, therefore, that the citizens soon
announced that the bridge would be preserved—in addition to the proposed
bulwark. The friar-knights must have worried about this eventuality because the
bridge could used to blockade upstream river traffic to and from the city in time
of war. It could also isolate the Teutonic Knights in the interior and give the
citizens control of the Daugava. The castellan in Riga did not even notify the
citizens that he could not permit this, but simply had his men demolish the
almost finished structure.
The citizens immediately sent a delegation to the acting-master, who seems
to have been at some distance, perhaps in Wenden, asking Bruno to rebuke his
men and give permission to rebuild the bridge. Bruno indicated that he would
look into the matter. Then, eight days later, he revoked all the privileges the
citizens had held to wood, pasture, fishing, travel, and trade in the territories
belonging to the Teutonic Knights. He followed this by arresting all the
merchants in his lands and holding them as hostages. When the citizens
threatened to appeal to the pope, an officer replied that the pope couldn’t help
them even if lie lived in Riga, and, in any case, he was too far away. Only
intervention by Dominican and Franciscan friars averted the outbreak of violence.
Each side then began preparations for a long conflict. The citizens of Riga
wrote to Rome, while the castellan brought in more soldiers and laborers and
built two new towers on his convent, converting St. George’s into a fortress that
could accommodate a garrison of 500 men. When the castellan felt he was ready-
fhe End of the Crusade	313
1,е announced that the truce the friars had arranged would expire in one week,
aS provided for in the agreement. The alarmed citizens sent another delegation
to Bnino, but they also wrote to Liibeck, explaining the origins of the dispute
and asking for help.22
Fighting broke out in the city even before the truce expired. One citizen was
filled and several were wounded by volleys of arrows from the knights’ convent,
and the knights set fire to the nearby houses. As the fire spread, the knights
prevented the citizens from trying to extinguish it by threatening to massacre the
populace. Later, angry citizens stormed St. George’s, destroyed it, and threw six
captured knights into prison. The damage had been great, but the council was
still in control of the city.
At this point Archbishop Johann III returned to Riga. After arranging
another truce, he investigated all the conflicting charges, but as he, Bishop
Bernard of Dorpat, and Abbot Alexander of Diinamunde, and other churchmen
attempted to mediate with the Livonian Order they discovered that the dispute
concerning the bridge was no longer important—the knights claimed they had an
old grudge to settle. In defiance of Johann’s request that they refrain from
military action until the papacy could investigate the matter, the knights ravaged
the city’s lands, burning manors, homes, and bams, cutting down fruit trees,
driving off livestock, attacking fortifications, and killing the crusaders and
merchants who tried to drive them away. On Christmas Eve they defeated a force
from the city, killing nine crusaders and a number of burghers, and mocked the
terrified citizens, shouting, "Where is your pope?"23
Archbishop Johann retired to his castle at Treiden to organize his defenses,
but he was besieged there by the Livonian Knights, who attacked with catapults
and fire for eight days, until the garrison could resist no longer. Taking the
archbishop prisoner, the knights transported him to their castle at New Mill and
held him for thirty-three weeks on bread and water. Bruno—by now appointed
Livonian master and apparently encouraged to act forcefully—seized the
archbishop’s treasury and the church ornaments valued at 6,000 marks, then used
Johann’s seal to prepare documents that he forced the prelate to sign. When the
cathedral canons rejected the conditions for peace, Bruno seized their lands. He
also forced the archiepiscopal vassals to renounce their lord and swear homage
to him.24
When news of all this reached Bishop Conrad of Oesel-Wiek,25 he sent
supplies to Riga and began to raise an army to rescue the archbishop. His vassals
refused to fight, however. Their grounds were not that they were too heavily
outnumbered to have any chance of success, but that they had not been consulted
about the declaration of war. When the vassals met with the representative of the
Livonian Knights at a peace conference—presumably the castellan of
Arensburg26—he violated the chivalric code by oveipowering and disarming the
vassals. Then he pursued the bishop to his castle at Leal, which he then besieged,
forcing the prelate to surrender. The knights plundered and burned both the
elands and the mainland, taking cattle and grain and destroying every house and
church in their path.27
314
THE BALTIC CRUSADB
News of such actions could not pass unnoticed, and when the reports Гщац
reached Rome in 1299, the pope was outraged. Boniface VIII, a strong ропг£
who was determined to emulate his greatest predecessors, summoned
Grandmaster Conrad of Feuchtwangen, Gottfried Rogge (Master Bruno’
successor), and three castellans of the Teutonic Knights to appear in Ron/
within six months to explain their conduct, as well as Archbishop Johann, Bishon
Bernard of Dorpat, and Bishop Conrad of Oesel-Wiek. Unknown to pOpe
Boniface, however, his intervention came too late to affect events in the
northeast, where things had gotten completely out of hand.28
In March 1298 the desperate burghers tumed to the Lithuanians, those
inveterate enemies of the Teutonic Knights, and signed an alliance with Grand
Duke Vytenis. It was stipulated, of course, that the pagans would adopt the
Christian faith—a clause that was as necessary as it was meaningless: the
Lithuanian envoys who signed the treaty immediately conducted an animal
sacrifice to support their oaths to observe the terms of the agreement.29 For the
next fifteen years the Lithuanian ruler maintained a strong garrison inside Riga
to assist the citizens against the Livonian Knights. Soon thereafter, Lithuanian
invasion forces entered Livonia and inflicted several defeats on the knights,
including one in June on the Gauja River north of Riga in which they slew
Master Bruno, the castellan of Fellin, and sixty knights.30 Unhappily, very little
is known about all of this, because a defeat involving such a high percentage of
the order’s manpower must have had serious consequences.
Almost nothing is known about Bruno’s successor, Gottfried Rogge, but
studies of the typical master’s career pattern indicate that after 1288 most spent
their entire adult life in Livonia. We assume that Gottfried rose through the ranks
to become either marshal or one of the leading castellans or advocates.31 Thus,
he would have come to office filled with prejudices against the archbishop and
the Rigans.
Equally little is known about his principal enemy, Vytenis. The grand duke
was the son of the previous ruler, Pukuveras, and his brother was Gediminas,
who would succeed him and become one of the greatest monarchs of this era.32
Discovering Poland to be temporarily weak, Vytenis began a series of
devastating raids on Volhynia, Sandomir and Masovia. But the grand duke was
more than a marauder—by permitting religious freedom to everyone in the lands
he conquered, he laid the basis for assimilating more Poles into his expanding
empire.33 The Rigans also signed an alliance with the king of Denmark,
promising him some of the order’s lands in Semgallia in return for his assistance.
In short, by the time Pope Boniface acted, the issue could no longer be limited
to the Christians in Livonia.34
The pope succeeded in obtaining the release of the archbishop and the
restoration oftsome of his property, and in July 1299 Grandmaster Gottfried von
Hohenlohe and Archbishop Johann III pleaded their cases before him. Again, the
Teutonic Knights prevailed—the arbitrator left the archiepiscopal territories in the
hands of the order until danger from the pagans had passed, which meant until
Riga surrendered. Johann III did not return to Riga but remained in Rome,
probably hoping to influence Boniface in his favor; in the summer of 1300, he
ffie End of the Crusade	315
Unvoted to Schwerin, where he died. Finally, a number of Westphalian cities
intervened in the dispute and arranged a truce between Riga and the Teutonic
^nights.35 The papal legate who came to take testimony encountered
unbelievable stories of misconduct on the part of the Livonian Order.
The knights and masters were accused of kidnapping and murdering
churchmen, selling weapons to the pagans, obstructing trade, imposing taxes and
tolls, and hindering the conversion of the native peoples.36 In each case there
was some truth to the story: they had kidnapped Albert Suerbeer and his prior,
Johann von Fechten; they had sold weapons to the Samogitians during the truce
of 1257-1259, to King Mindaugas, and perhaps to Vojsek and his allies; they had
in the most recent decade obstructed trade (though over the long run they had a
good working relationship with the merchants, as did the Teutonic Order in
Prussia). And, in the eyes of those who wanted an inquisitional body to root out
the last vestiges of paganism among the natives, the Teutonic Knights were
putting the salvation of every soul in Livonia at risk.
In response, the Teutonic Knights said nothing. Their tactic in all such
matters was to refuse to discuss their policies except at the highest levels. They
knew from experience that most secular and ecclesiastical rulers looked upon
ideologues and impractical idealists as dangerous people indeed, and that the
well-intended enthusiasm of devout believers was being manipulated by cold-
blooded careerists and hot-blooded enemies. In their own minds, they were
preventing ignorant fanatics and jealous rivals from provoking the converts into
rebellion, thereby putting at risk the achievements of a century of terrible
struggle.
Native Life at the End of the Century
This charge that the Livonian Knights were hindering the process of
conversion lies at the root of every judgment about the order’s actions. On the
one hand, an interpretation dating from the end of the thirteenth century (and
reinforced at the end of the nineteenth century) denounced all interference with
native customs as western colonialism and cultural imperialism; at the same time
its adherents denounced the order’s failure to spread Christianity and education
among the Baltic peoples so as to raise them to the level of the Germans. The
order’s enemies assumed that a low-key approach, through native priests, would
make an impression on their hearers through their ability to use the native
language skillfully and through a morality higher than second-rate foreigners
possessed. Perhaps they were right. However, that was not the choice the order
had. Religious education and the hiring of priests was the duty of the archbishop
and bishops, not the master and his officials. If the friar-brothers had attempted
to teach religion, no pope would have hesitated to rebuke them severely.
Moreover, every effort to persuade the bishops and their canons to become
members of the Teutonic Order provoked howls of indignant protest.
Clearly, all efforts to preach the word of God among the Baltic peoples
were ineffective. Moreover, the reasons for the failure were obvious even to
316
THE BALTIC CRUSAUg
contemporaries: the Church hesitated to trust the sons of pagan priests not
make false interpretations of Christianity which would endanger the souls of the^
congregations; enforcing clerical chastity would become more difficult; and^
moreover, because the prelates and their canons did not speak Estonian ’
Latvian, they could not be sure what native-born priests might be saying q,.
doing. The Church lacked the funds to maintain clergy in the countryside and
was unable to prevent the priests they recruited in Germany from drifting back
to the cities where they could find work and, at the very least find someone they
could speak to other than an occasional merchant, the local noble, or some
advocate, or the nearest priest—individuals with whom they had little in
common. Lastly, all people who have accepted Christianity relatively quickly
have adapted local myths and ancient practices into their understanding of the
new faith. We may not worry today about Irish fairies and Croatian vilija, but
the medieval church did. And so the Church resisted incorporating Baltic pagan
beliefs, especially those connected with burial and the remembrance of the dead,
into daily worship and seasonal observances.
The native peoples resisted Christian burial rites successfully in every part
of Livonia. However, we may have information about this form of resistance
rather than about other methods only because it was much easier for the church
to observe burial practices than to investigate the breaking of fasts, the
performance of secret ceremonies, and beliefs in superstitions different from
those held by Germans.37 The women, in particular, were more stubborn in their
resistance to change.38 Perhaps this was because their lives were less affected
by the new regime than was the world of men.
All converts seemed to have understood was the need to repeat certain
prayers, to respect the saints, and to add new superstitions to their already
heterogenous belief system.39 The concept of the trinity as monotheistic was
incomprehensible, and the Christians’ moral codes might as well have been
imported from ancient Rome and Palestine as from western Europe and seemed
to have little connection, at times, with how ordinary Germans lived; and that the
rulers would not find out what was going on—the knights of the order least of
all, because they were supposed to be in the convent at prayers instead of mixing
with the natives (drinking parties with men were acceptable but not entertainment
where women were present). What the natives wished to preserve was preserved
musically, in songs the foreigners could not understand. This singing tradition
has endured through the ages to our present time—in 1988-1991, when the Baltic
states won their independence again, they did so not through terrorism or force,
but by means of a "Singing Revolution."
The order’s indirect approach to conversion was more successful in Prussia,
where large numbers of German and Polish peasants speeded the process of
cultural assimilation and eventual Germanization. Even so, the question of ho*
sincerely converted the natives were was discussed through the centuries-
Missionaries preached in vain, because they were too few in number and lacked
sufficient command of the language to stir the Livonians’ hearts. Christianity
fhe End of the Crusade
317
made inroads into native society only when the Reformation and Counter-
Reformation reached the Baltic.40
Contrary to what is widely believed, serfdom and slavery were not the
immediate fate of the converts. Taxation and labor duties, yes, and formal
acknowledgement of adherence to Christianity, but in most other ways the native
peoples were able to rebuild their society along traditional lines. The elders
continued to administer local affairs, the warrior class came to look forward to
the opportunities war provided for earning booty and prestige, and farming
families had to perform peihaps no more than three days of required labor each
year in the fields of their often distant lord.41 Without question, the lords
endeavored to enlarge their estates, abused judicial privilege, and used little
restraint in collecting taxes. Almost as certainly, some knights defended their
actions as rights they inherited from their Estonian and Livonian mothers and
grandmothers—widows от daughters of nobles slain in the wars of conquest, or,
in the case of the von Ropp family, marriage into a prominent Russian dynasty.
Livonia remained administratively divided. Consequently, the experiences
of individual communities were probably quite diverse. Relatively few Germans
settled on the order’s lands, only a few more on the archbishop’s. German
influence hardly extended beyond the walls of the small communities clustered
around the major castles. In Estonia, however, where the bishops of Dorpat and
Oesel-Wiek governed through landed vassals, and in the lands of the Danish
monarch, German knights, merchants, and artisans were more numerous.
Unfortunately, it was only this handful of administrators and merchants who
compiled the records and wrote the letters which comprise our most important
historical sources from this period. When we reach the last lines of The Rhymed
Chronicle and realize that our author has laid down his pen for good, we
experience a loss almost as painful as the one we feel when we come to the end
of The Chronicle of Henry of Livonia. The century of the Baltic Crusade came
to its end with the outbreak of a quarrel we must follow through lawyers’ briefs
and statements by the order’s enemies at hearings conducted by papal legates,
which, unfortunately, were boycotted by the Teutonic Knights, so that we never
hear their version of events directly. The Rigans dared not give up their
Lithuanian alliance, because that would have meant, in effect, their surrender to
the Livonian master. For thirty years the Rigans would continue to fight
desperately but vainly for their liberty. The crusade ended as it had begun, in
civil conflict.
318
THE BALTIC CRUSAbg
ENDNOTES
1.	The prestige of the crusading orders was at a peak. Nicholson, Templars
Hospitallers and Teutonic Knights, 135.
2.	Miinter, Kirchengeschichte, 525-27; Dahlmann, Geschichte von Ddnnemark
I: 421-23; Erik LOnneroth, "Der Kampf um die Seeherrschaft in Nordeuropa цщ
1300," Hansische Geschichtsblatter, 109(1991), 1-9.
3.	Jutikkala, A History of Finland, 28-30; Christiansen, The Northern Crusades
115-117; LOnneroth, "Der Kampf um die Seeherrschaft," 10-12; Fennell, Crisis
of Medieval Russia, 156.
4.	Spuler, Die golden Horde, 74.
5.	Fennell, Crisis of Medieval Russia, 152-157.
6.	LUbeckisches Urkundenbuch, I: 432,471; Amelung, Baltische Culturstudien,
I, 107-114.
7.	Fromm, Chronik, 49; Witte, Mecklenburgische Geschichte, 174-76.
8.	Hanseatic policy was always selfish and shortsighted, which provided strength
at times but ultimately was ruinous. Riga was only the first great city to be
denied support at a critical time.
9.	Friedrich Georg von Bunge, Die Stadt Riga im dreizenten und vierzehnten
Jahrhundert (Reprint Amsterdam: Bonset, 1968); for archeology, A. Caune,
Shilishche Rigi Xll-XIV bb. do dalnym arxeologicheskix raskopok (Riga: Zinatne,
1984).
10.	Mugurevids, "Aspekte der Kultuikommunikation," 441-458.
11.	The churches and contents were described in later documents listing the
destruction caused by pagan attacks in subsequent years. Urkundenbuch, П,
12. Das Rigische Schuldbuch, Ixxii-lxxix.
13.	Urkundenbuch, VI, no. 3053.
14.	Urkundenbuch, I, no. 673 for the treaty of 1292.
15.	Urkundenbuch, I, no. 606,608. Other documents illustrate how the Livonian
Order supplied its castles in Kurland with foodstuffs, money and manpower from
its other territories.
16.	Urkundenbuch, VI, no. 2757.
17.	Ritterbriider, 173.
18.	William Urban, "The Diplomacy of the Teutonic Knights at the Curia,"
Journal of Baltic Studies, 9/2(Summer 1978), 116-128.
19.	Fritz SchOnebohm, "Die Besetzung der liviandischen Bistiimer," 329-30;
almost nothing is known about Bruno’s background. Ritterbriider, 150.
20.	Historians not specializing in the Teutonic Order tend to read back in time
accusations from a later century. William Urban, "Der Deutsche Orden in
amerikanischert Schulbiichem," Beitrage zur Geschichte des Deutschen Ordens
(Marburg: Elwert, 1986) [Quellen und Studien zur Geschichte des Deutschen
Ordens, 36], 111-122.
The End of the Crusade
319
21-	See Terry Jones, Chaucer's Knight, The Portrait of a Medieval Mercenary
(tev. ed. New York. Methuen, 1985) for a personality type which would fit the
descriptions Rigans gave of the Livonian Knights.
22.	Urkundenbuch, I, no. 567; Zeugenverhor, 3, 8, 134; Herman de Wartberge,
55,149. A more complete description of this episode is found in William Urban,
The Livonian Crusade (Washington: University Press of America, 1980), the
sequel to this volume, and in Constantin Mettig, Geschichte der Stadt Riga
(Riga: Jonck and Polieissky, 1897), 44-52.
23.	Urkundenbuch, I, nos. 568, 584, 585; Zeugenverhor, 3, 8, 12-14, 114, 124-
27, 140. Some of these accusations might be understood in light of the military
subculture. William Urban, "The Sense of Humor among the Teutonic Knights
of the Thirteenth Century," Illinois Quarterly, 42(1979), 40-47.
24.	Urkundenbuch, I, no. 584; Zeugenverhor, 6,11,26,55,99,128-29,141,201.
25.	There is great confusion about who held office at this time. The records
usually refer to "the vice-master," the "bishop" and so forth.
26.	This was presumably Gerhard von Jork, who becomes master in 1305.
Ritterbriider, 365.
27.	Gemet, Die Anfange der Livlandischen Ritterschaften, 25-30; for the officers
in Hapsal who would have been involved in these actions, see Ritterbriider, 99,
421, 489.
28.	Urkundenbuch, I, nos. 572, 578, 586; III, no. 514b; Zeugenverhor, 4-20, 36;
Christiansen, Northern Crusades, 140-43.
29.	Rowell, "A pagan’ word," 149.
30.	Ritterbriider, 264.
31.	Ritterbriider, 65-67, 546-547.
32.	Juozas JakStas, "Vytenis," Encyclopedia Lituanica, IV, 221-222.
33.	Michael Giedroyd, "Lithuanian options prior to Kreva (1385), La
cristianizzazione della Lituania, 86-87.
34.	Urkundenbuch, I, nos. 570, 572; Hermann de Wartberge, 54-55, 149.
Giedroyd, "Arrival of Christianity," 29-30; Urban, The Livonian Crusade, 19-43.
35. Urkundenbuch, I, nos. 581, 582; II, nos. 606, 610; VI, nos. 2764, 3207;
Zeugenverhor, 7, 10, 12, 68.
36.	In the Zeugenverhor. Much of this testimony is confused chronologically and
topically, so that the episodes have to be picked apart carefully. Too much of the
testimony is phrased, "as everybody knows."
37.	Selirand and TOnisson, Through Past Millennia, 162-165.
38.	Brundage, "Christian Marriage in thirteenth-century Livonia," 314.
39.	Moora and Viires, Abriss der estnischen Volkskunde, 251-259.
40.	Boockman, Der Deutsche Orden, 109-114.
41.	Enn Tarvel, "Zur Problematik der Baueraufsthnde in Estland im Kontexte der
Christianisierung und Kolonisation des Landes," Die Rolle der Ritterorden, 117.
Viborg
Finland
^gorod
ttmgsberg
Silesia
-
Marburg
N
) Great
Poland '
Little Sandomir
Poland J
Cracow
Reval
Estonia
g
okenhusen
Gardinas
brng
Jatwigia
elsinki
ilnius
Lithuania
KMinsk
Novogrodek
ulneburg
Norway
Karelia
Gotland
Sweden £ visb^J
Dorpat^MPskov
Bornholm
Rugen
Denmark
КигГа
Memel
Semgallia
Samogitia
Schleswig^f 1C3
Holstein
Schwerin
S-L
Brand
. Danzig
rania * ,
Pomerellia/'Thotn
Bohemia
p
Cities in normal print, states in italics.
Minor German States
Braunschweig = В
Brandenburg = Brand
Hesse = H
Saxon-Lauenburg = S-L
Saxony = Sax
Thuringia = T
Cities
Greifswald=G
Magdeburg = M
Nuremburg = N
Prague = P
Rostock = R
Polozk
Smolensk
rest
Volhynia
Galicia
0
0
150	300 km.
90 180miles
THEBALTIC
REGION
IN 1300
320
EPILOGUE
THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY
To contemporaries who lived through this era the first decades of the
fourteenth century did not appear very different from the last decades of the
thirteenth. Involved in her own difficulties and ambitions, Lubeck failed to assist
giga. Troubled by robber barons without and by their bishop within, the
Liibeckers became embroiled in increasingly complex problems, from which they
would eventually emerge to lead the Hanseatic League to greatness. The king of
Denmark continued his quarrel with the archbishop of Lund, and when Pope
Boniface VIII discovered that he could not settle it, he decided to transfer the
archbishop to another post. As Johann III of Riga had since died, he offered the
vacant see to the Dane, John Grand, who refused the post, but later accepted the
archbishopric of Bremen. Isamus, Boniface’s next choice for Riga, resigned his
office after two years to transfer to Lund, after which almost two years elapsed
before another archbishop sat in Riga. This prelate, Friedrich, also failed to come
to terms with the Teutonic Knights, and for many years thereafter both he and
his successors lived in exile at the papal court in Avignon.1
The last of the important crusades (aside from those in Spain) was directed
to Prussia, but Prussia served more as a showplace for the bored chivalry of
Europe than as a theater for real crusading, and many knights came to Prussia
less to fight pagan tribesmen than to participate in the grandiose rituals of
knighthood that had been invented and fostered by the Teutonic Knights.
Nevertheless, it was an important outlet for the vestigial crusading fervor.2
By 1300 many Roman Catholic Christians considered the crusades a failure.
The Holy Land had not been liberated, nor had Constantinople been saved and
returned to the bosom of the Church, nor had all the pagans been
converted—each victory in these various endeavors proved transitory and
eventually harmful. Nor could it all be attributed to personal and spiritual
shortcomings. Saints fared no better in their endeavors than did sinners: Louis
IX was unsuccessful in his two crusades, and Francis of Assisi could not convert
the Saracens. Even the wealthy and respected Templar Order would soon be
dissolved amid shameful and embarrassing controversy. When people, mindful
of such failures and tragedies, began to ask themselves if God really approved
of crusades, holy war lost its popular appeal.
No one of this era was ready to argue that the personal salvation offered
only by Christianity was not the supreme value, the only significant goal of a
considered life; no one suggested that converting the heathen was not the duty
of every Christian; and similarly, no one said that crusading was not an effective
means of saving the souls of the heathen and the crusaders alike. What they did
say was that they were busy, crusading would have to wait for better times.
This decline in enthusiasm for crusading in the Holy Land was matched by
a decreasing willingness to fight in Livonia. This was true despite the ability of
promoters of the Baltic Crusade to point to several undeniable successes.
322
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
Material Successes of the Crusade
The first goal of the crusade had been to protect missionaries and merchants.
This had been accomplished. A second goal was to protect the converts. This,
too, had been done. Although those tribes which had been dominant before the
crusaders arrived were not pleased with their new status as subjects of foreign
rulers, the tribesmen who had been their traditional victims had benefitted.
Thirdly, practices which contemporary Christians considered primitive and
barbaric—polygamy, the exposure of infants, human sacrifice, the worship of
idols and the honoring of the spirits of the dead—were extirpated or driven
underground. Whether от not some of these practices had even existed outside
the imagination of propagandists, whether or not the rituals had been
misunderstood by western observers, was less important to thirteenth-century
men and women than the perceived need to bring all peoples into the Church,
into the culture of Christendom, where their immortal souls would benefit from
the Salvation offered to all believers and defenders of the true faith.3
Subsidiary goals had also been achieved, fully in some cases, or in others,
only to a considerable degree. The ambition of the Swordbrothers and the
Teutonic Order to establish a state of their own was largely met; that of Bishop
Albert was only partially fulfilled—his family did establish itself firmly in
Livonia, but its members did not become as important as he had intended. Albert
Suerbeer had died a disappointed man. Some immigrant knights had done well,
others had returned home. Some merchants and artisans had prospered, others
experienced bankruptcy, and a number died in battle от at the hands of robbers.
The native peoples experienced similarly mixed fortunes. The terrible years
of the conquest, when the land was stained red with the blood of its slain
inhabitants, were followed by decades of relative peace. To be sure, incursions
from Lithuania, Polozk and Novgorod did not cease altogether, and the new
rulers required all free men to perform military service in the wars against these
enemies, but this was not an unbearable burden. Probably fewer cattle were
stolen, fewer bams were burned, and fewer people were carried away into
slavery after the conquest than before. While taxes and labor services reduced
the fanners’ surpluses, some native knights increased their worth through
participating in the wars against the Lithuanians and through managing the
Germans’ estates. In general, with the notable exceptions mentioned above—
mostly connected with pagan practices—native customs were not disturbed.
Material life saw few changes. Traditional practices continued even in the new
communities which sprang up around each castle, offering opportunities to any
artisans and laborers willing to settle there and provide for the needs of the new
rulers.4 In theory, this should have caused western technology and practices to
infiltrate into Maily life in the countryside, but what seems to have happened is
that the conquerors adapted to the local culture, and whatever they needed for
their own use that the native economy could not produce, they imported from
home. Weapons and Rhenish wine are such cases.
Without question, the Church failed to live up to its ambitions for the native
peoples. The bishops could neither recruit satisfactory priests nor properly
Epilogue	323
support the ones they hired. In part, this reflected the poverty of Livonia. The
land was simply insufficiently rich, too thinly populated, and too large to
administer easily. In addition, the military establishment required most of the
income which was raised locally and almost all of the money collected in
Germany and Scandinavia. Whatever remained went to the building and
maintenance of churches and monasteries, poorhouses, hospitals, and religious
fraternities. Of course, the bishops could have continued the early practice of
training local boys as priests. That would have resolved a host of problems.
However, experience had taught them that native-born priests could not resist
attempting to overcome their parishioners’ doubts by equating local traditions
with similar Christian ones. The bishops were unwilling to risk having pagan
gods identified with Christian saints.
Moral Failure of the Crusade
It was asked at the beginning of this book if the ends justified the means,
and what the alternatives to the crusade might have been. What were the means
which were employed? 1) Use of armed force. This was not uniformly applied
by the crusaders in all situations. It was the only way to deal with pirates and
overland raiders. Armed attacks on Lithuania and Samogitia ceased whenever the
opportunity of a peaceful conversion appeared. (In the fourteenth century
Lithuanian grand dukes would learn to manipulate this crusader characteristic
skillfully.) Peaceful missionaries had been murdered in the past and were often
not allowed to preach in the years before the arrival of armed crusaders. This
matter of preaching the Gospel, perhaps more than any other, inflamed the
Christians of the thirteenth century: there was no crime, not murder, robbery, or
rape which was as evil as to deprive a soul of its chance for redemption and
salvation. In short, all Christians believed in the worthiness of any missionary
effort which could baptize and save the souls of an entire people. Twentieth-
century secular society does not hold to this doctrine, but the basic idea that
every human being is entitled to an opportunity to earn eternal life lies near to
the heart of the current debate over abortion. 2) Taking hostages. This was not
as evil as the practice of slavery, and most hostages seem to have returned home
or earned positions of potential importance to their people—service as priests or
native knights being well-documented occurrences. 3) Requiring changes in
native societies. Christianity was more than a religious persuasion; it was so
closely associated with western forms of government, theological traditions,
ethical and social systems, that converts had to change from an essentially rural,
essentially tribal existence to a partly urban, largely manorial, and feudal way of
life. The Wends did this, the Lithuanians, too, both thereby saving their
independence. The Latvians and Estonians did not—they were overwhelmed too
quickly to make the necessary adjustments—and lost their political freedom, their
ancestral religion, and, with the notable exception of the native knights, were
probably left with a lower economic status (we cannot estimate the impact on
local economies made by the end of tribal warfare in the interior regions, the
324
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
stimulus provided by trade, or the distortions brought about by diverting native
labor to building castles, churches, bridges, roads, and for military service). ц
should be remembered that the Teutonic Knights were denounced by some
contemporaries for their failure to make even more sweeping changes in native
life—which is exactly the opposite of most modem criticisms.
What alternatives were there? 1) To stay home; 2) to attempt a conversion
by missionaries; 3) to regulate the crusade by sending legates or legislating from
afar; 4) to give authority to churchmen, especially the mendicant orders. How
many individuals opted for the first we will never know. Concerning the other
options, as we have seen, one group or another among the crusaders tried each
alternative and failed. Arguments relevant to the 1992 celebration of Columbus’
voyage to America, pro and con, can be applied here. Over the course of
centuries, the Spanish experimented with each of the above alternatives.5 None
worked particularly well. Neither has the ensuing debate been particularly helpful
in preparing us to live in the world we have inherited. Similarly, it is doubtful
that emphasizing wrongs committed in the thirteenth century—as contrasted with
knowing about them—will be particularly useful for the Baltic peoples today.
The envisioned conversion of the Baltic peoples did not take place in a
political, spiritual, or economic vacuum. Missionaries had to contend not merely
with skeptical natives, but also with hostile pagan priests, disdainful warriors, and
jealous Orthodox monks and taxcollectors. What really doomed the peaceful
mission was the fact that no conversion could be counted as successful as long
as neighboring peoples offered military aid to traditionalist leaders who were
willing to use force against the newcomers and their followers. Of course, had
there been a native leader among the Livs, Letts, or Estonians with the authority
to persuade or compel his people to accept his choice of religion—as was the
case in Lithuania—a peaceful conversion might have been achieved in a manner
similar to the way Christianity came to Scandinavia.
Superficially, the crusade was a success. The Christians defeated many of the
pagans, brought the coastal lands into the circle of Christendom, ended piracy
and made trade routes safe. As late as 1291 Western and Central Europeans
approved of crusading and the military orders which sustained it.6 Yet almost
everyone today agrees that the crusade was a moral failure.7
Why was the crusade to Livonia a moral failure? As Adam of Bremen wrote
long before, the Slavs could have been converted more quickly by persuasion
than by arms, but cupidity and avarice set the Christian cause back by many
years. It was no different in Livonia. Christianity had triumphed; peace had
triumphed; order had triumphed; but at what cost? War itself had become the
greatest obstacle to conversion. Yet, it may be asked, if a crusade for the
protection and propagation of the faith, for the defense of rights and property,
and for the liberation of entire peoples from slavery and superstition is unjust,
what war is just?
The cause of the failure must be laid to avarice and fanaticism. Each of these
vices is dangerous by itself, but together they are deadly. How shocking to the
modem mind is Henry of Livonia's admonition:
Epilogue
325
Behold how the Mother of God, so gentle to Her people who serve Her
faithfully in Livonia, always defended them from all their enemies and
how harsh She is with those who invade Her land or who try to hinder
the faith and honor of Her Son in that land! See how many kings, and
how mighty, She has afflicted! See how many princes and elders of
treacherous pagans She has wiped off the earth and how often She has
given Her people victory over the enemy! Up to this time, indeed, She
has always defended Her banner in Livonia, both preceding and
following it, and She has made it triumph over the enemy. And what
kings, whether of pagans or of Danes or of other nations, have fought
against Livonia and have not perished? Consider and see, you princes of
the Russians, or the pagans, or the Danes, or you elders of whatever
people. Fear this gentle Mother of Mercy. Adore this Mother of God and
give satisfaction to Her, Who takes such cruel revenge upon Her
enemies.8
Brundage’s translation requires two and a half pages for the chronicler’s
tirade, and ends, appropriately, with Henry’s praise of the peace and justice the
Virgin brought to her followers. The Virgin cult was very important to the
crusade, its dedication to her honor being a primary attraction for the volunteers
from the West, but the Virgin cult and fanaticism were European phenomena of
that era and not special characteristics of the Baltic Crusade.9
Westerners were acutely aware that Moslems, Jews, Orthodox Christians, and
heretics did not share their emotional and intellectual commitments to the
practices and institutions which were developing from the medieval Catholic
Church—universities; new bodies of friars, monks and nuns; hospitals and
orphanages; mass enthusiasm for new saints and fundamental reforms;
pilgrimages and crusades; and expressions of popular piety which ranged from
praiseworthy to bizarre. Westerners combined a supposed monopoly on
theological truth with a well-founded fear of heresy, added a mistrust of the
ability of recent converts from Orthodoxy and paganism to understand the
complexities of this rapidly evolving Roman Catholic faith, and finally concluded
that the only safe policy was to bar the Baltic peoples (including, for all practical
purposes, most German immigrants to Livonia as well) from the priesthood.
Some adherents of paganism, especially the priests but also some nobles,
reacted with fury to western policies which either eliminated their traditional
roles or reduced their influence. Other adapted well to the changed situation. The
elders, for example, retained important roles in military and judicial affairs, but
the pagan priests were suppressed without even allowing them the face-saving
gesture of abandoning a partial truth for a fuller revelation. Pagan priests,
branded as agents of evil and idolatry, deemed unfit for retraining and unworthy
of any special status, encouraged resistance both to foreign missionaries and to
native leaders who argued for changes in society and government which would
unify the tribes in order to resist German and Danish aggression.
326
THE BALTIC CRUSAbB
Since missionary efforts could not long be separated from the extension
ecclesiastical institutions into the countryside, the Church became associated
the minds of the native peoples with taxes and foreign influence. As a resu^
missionaries had to call on armies of crusaders to protect them. Once the Balti
peoples had been conquered and paganism had gone underground, the churchmen
had neither the means to extirpate the old religion or the ability to cause the new
one to be loved. Compromises with the past, practical in many aspects of secular
life, were impossible in religion. Moreover, as we have seen, efforts by the
Teutonic Knights to leave native life essentially undisturbed were denounced by
Christian idealists and fanatics who wanted a thorough cleansing of the last
vestiges of Satan’s influence—they wanted far more sweeping changes than
supplanting the priests.10
It is absolutely just and right to argue that the Church should have lived up
to its proclaimed ideals better than it did. However, it is ahistorical and irrelevant
to suggest that the Church should have stood on principle as a pacifist
organization. It is only partly true that medieval society was divided into those
who worked, those who fought, and those who prayed. Unlike the modem
churches, the medieval Church performed roles central to basic functions of
society. A few members of regular orders could be spared to pray for everyone
else’s souls—but, as we have seen, if a regular canon, or a monk like Baldwin
of Aina, was observed to have talent and energy, he was quickly taken out of his
convent and put to work as a missionary, diplomat, or administrator. There were
too few educated men available to the secular Church to allow any to molder in
out-of-the-way monasteries. The secular Church did not have the luxury of
standing to one side and criticizing. Its leaders had responsibilities to carry out,
and they had to carry them out with the poor human material available. Popes
and cardinals honored absolute pacifists like Francis of Assisi, but they had
learned by hard experience that such individuals always botched any assignment
that required dealing with boring routine, intractable foes, and money. St. Francis
could meet with the Egyptian sultan, even volunteer for a trial by fire, but his
piety did not bring about a single conversion among the witnesses of the
interview, much less bring an end to the war. Without question, St. Francis’
example was extremely important for the Baltic Crusade. Once his followers
began to demand that crusaders live up to the spirit of Christianity as well as
they followed the letter of the law, the balance began to turn against the Church
Militant—at least temporarily, until the radical Franciscan tendency to dabble in
heresy, speculations about the end of the world, and apologies for paganism
undermined their prestige among practical men and brought schism to the
order.11 For better or worse, pacifists can only thrive in societies managed by
sympathetic non-pacifists. They are most effective as living examples of a better
way of life; thpy are least effective as spokesmen for political programs that they
themselves are unwilling to administer. Sainthood and responsibility do not mix
together well—but if the best men and women of any society choose not to dirty
their hands with practical matters and hard choices, or if they confine their
energy and imagination to ivory towers in realms of fantasy, then power will be
exercised by the next-best people—or even by the worst.
Epilogue
327
In the case of the thirteenth century crusade in the Baltic, from the very
beginning avaricious and fanatical men tried to make the venture their own. Over
tjie course of decades they found reasons to reduce the native nobles’ role in
government, exclude native boys from the priesthood, then in the course of
centuries discovered ways to reduce the warrior class to the level of commoners.
The commoners were exploited as much as the rulers dared—much during the
conquest, then, out of fear of revolt, less. In the fifteenth century, after the
foreign wars ceased, the landlords slowly increased the services and taxes toward
the level customary in Germany and Poland; and in the sixteenth century, in the
aftermath of the terrible Livonian War, a new set of landowners imposed
serfdom on almost all peasants. Of the Germans who ruled in the thirteenth
century, the Livonian Knights were in some ways the best, in others the worst,
depending upon one’s viewpoint Unhappily, while the surviving records are very
good in informing us about some events, they do not allow us to obtain more
than a glimpse into others. As a result many colorful and complex contradictions
of this era remain only partially explicable.
Why the Crusade was Important
What is noteworthy about the Baltic Crusade? First and foremost, it was a
Baltic Crusade. Although most of the crusaders were Germans, as was almost the
entire membership of the Teutonic Order, and although German knights made up
the majority of the secular vassals in Livonia and Estonia, Frisians, Slavs,
Swedes, and Danes participated in the crusade in large numbers. Moreover, it
was in the period when the Danish kings and their vassals were active in the
crusade that the greatest successes were achieved. The archbishop of Lund was
personally active in Estonia for many years, and it was Scandinavian help that
made the difference between success and failure in the early, critical days of the
crusade. As we have seen, the political situation in the West often determined the
success of the crusade in the East, and when Danes and Slavs ceased to
participate in the crusade, the expansion slowed to a halt. In general, the swifter
the conquest, the better the later relationship between conqueror and conquered
was to be; the last, slow years of the crusade were marked by brutality and hate.
Yet, crusading was supported as an act of love and charity, an act symbolized
by the black cross woven on the white tunic, the prayers and fasts, and the alms
and pious donations; it was an act performed willingly, to risk one’s life to serve
God and protect one’s fellow man.
The importance of the work of converting the native peoples, saving their
souls, and protecting them from pagan reprisals was understood from Italy to
Ireland, from Frisia to Finland. A French monk included prose stories of Baltic
converts in his Libri miraculorum in 1225. This, one of the more popular books
of the era, demonstrates the international character of Christendom that was still
able to offset the growing tendency to identify people as members of a nation.12
Second, the crusade was, in great measure, a mercantile adventure. At no
time did the Teutonic Knights от the bishops possess a fleet, yet never did they
328
THE BALTIC CRUSAbg
lack shipping, never did they request aid from the merchants in vain. Midqi
class crusaders were so important that they were admitted into the fraternity 0L
the Swordbrothers and received privileges in the Teutonic Order. The Rigan
served in all important campaigns and assisted in recruiting, transporting,
maintaining the crusaders, whose booty from the raids was sold through these
merchants’ efforts, and they, in turn, provided for all the needs of the western
occupiers of Livonia. Lubeck’s profits from the lucrative fishing industry and her
merchants’ trade with Russia were perceived to be connected with the success
of the crusading endeavor in Livonia. If this was so, then the rise of German
cities and the Hanseatic League must be attributed in part to the successes of the
Baltic Crusade.13
Third, there could have been no success without the natives’ cooperation.
"Divide and rule" was the motto, but the divisions were ready-made. The
Christians merely stumbled onto a fortunate situation: in a backward, quarreling
land they could side with the weaker tribes against the stronger tribes, until the
whole country was conquered. Only the strongest native peoples—the Russians
and the Lithuanians—could defend themselves against their traditional enemies
when the latter were backed by the crusaders.
The blame for the brutalities in these cruel wars must be shared with the
westerners by native irregulars, militiamen and knights. It was native troops who
were responsible for gathering loot, rounding up prisoners, and searching fields
for hiding places and refuges. They had ample opportunities to commit atrocities
unobserved. They had ample reason, too. Their already ancient hatred of other
tribes was fanned by the memory of recent injuries and insults until it burned at
a white heat If in the early years the native peoples had joined in a common
effort against the crusaders, while their levies from abroad still arrived irregularly
and soon departed, the crusaders could never have maintained themselves
permanently. However, this could only have occurred if the rising tribal leaders
had been able to persuade the clan elites to surrender power to them, then if
stronger tribes had been able to persuade the weaker that the future would be
more than a return to the status quo ante bellum, with the powerful tribes even
more dominant than in the past. That the Lithuanian grand dukes had no
intention of sharing power with the lesser peoples of the north was demonstrated
after the Estonians rose in rebellion in 1343. Potential rebel leaders in Livonia
approached the Lithuanian ruler, offering to revolt and become his subjects if he
would recognize them as nobles. His response was gruff: peasants you were,
peasants you shall remain.14
The choices for native leaders in the decades after 1200 were limited. On the
one hand, they did not want to be dominated by Germans, but they saw no
means of avoiding military defeat; on the other, as Christians and as allies of the
crusaders, thejr would rise in honor and wealth (at least for a brief period, and
surely they could not foresee that serfdom would be imposed on their people
three hundred years later). For the Livs and Letts, at least, assisting the crusaders
against traditional enemies was a more logical act than fighting to the death or
fleeing into the interior. The Semgallians, too, were occasionally allies of the
epilogue
329
cfUsaders against Lithuanian domination, and the Kurs joined the Christians for
lliat same reason. Only the Estonians, who lost the dominant position they had
enjoyed in their region, had reason to see the conquest as a thorough and
compete disaster.15
Fourth, there would have been no lasting military success without the
presence of the Teutonic Knights. While there is much to condemn about the
order’s activities, much of the modem criticism reflects an ignorance of the fact
that many contemporary denunciations were made by enemies who wanted its
lands. Apparently, they found something wrong in having these friar-knights as
landlords and rulers, whereas archbishops and kings were justified in whatever
they did. Moreover, the crusading orders were being blamed for the loss of the
Holy Land. One is reminded of die exaggerated accusations leveled against the
Templars during these years.16 Early in the fourteenth century that crusading
order was to be dissolved after a long trial based on trumped-up charges of
heresy, and the Templars’ property was confiscated by their enemies. This
event—contemporaneous with the hearings on the conduct of the Teutonic Order
in Livonia—was one of which everyone was very aware.17
Fifth, superior military technology and tactics were vital to the crusaders’
victories, but these were not permanent Christian monopolies. The knight was an
efficient military machine, but the pagans soon copied his weapons and tactics.
At first the crusaders’ stone castles were impregnable, while the pagans’ log forts
could easily be taken by the skillful use of hurling machines, siege towers, and
tunnelling; but the pagans soon learned all the western techniques of building
castles and conducting sieges. Mounted western cavalry, properly led, could ride
down any infantry force in the open field, but soon the pagan cavalry, armored
and led by skilled war chiefs, was countercharging or luring the knights into
woods and swamps, where the crusaders were at a disadvantage. The feudal
chain of command, so important in the crusaders’ early victories, was soon
copied by the Lithuanian pagans. A long-term German advantage rested in
money raised by levying taxes. This gave the master the ability to hire troops as
needed and to build more castles. The Russians, of course, raised significant
amounts of money, too, but they had to spend it on their civil wars and
defending themselves against Tatars and Lithuanians. Novgorod was a major
mercantile center which relied on its ability to sell to western markets. As a
result, the Russians wanted peace with the Germans as much as the Germans
needed peace with them.
The crusaders were perhaps never able to raise sufficient revenues in Livonia
to equal their expenses. Decades passed before the population had recovered
from the wars of conquest. During these years administrators were dependent on
the service of crusaders. Afterwards, when the number of crusaders coming to
Riga was lower, they had to pay mercenaries. This would have been impossible
without the gifts of money from devout churchgoers in Germany, Denmark, and
Sweden; and the Teutonic Knights’ churches and hospitals in Germany supplied
the Livonian Order with men and revenues. Lastly, the crusaders’ success in
Livonia, Estonia and Prussia can be attributed to the presence of an army of men
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THE BALTIC CRUSAug
bound by oaths of poverty, chastity and obedience. The Swordbrothers and the
Livonian Knights provided the manpower and the will to defend and extend the
frontiers against a skilled and determined pagan foe in the south, to protect the
rights of merchants travelling east to trade.
Sixth, climate was important. When the knights learned to fight in winter
they gained a great advantage over their opponents. They could sally from their
castles against the villages, travel up the frozen rivers on the ice, and better avoid
ambush in forest and swamp. The cold weather was miserable but better—from
the crusaders’ standpoint—than fighting in the summer. Later, the most
significant Russian and Lithuanian victories came in battles on the ice, after they,
too, had learned the techniques of winter warfare.
This necessity to adapt to new conditions brings up the fact that Livonia was
a frontier region.18 The frontier theories of Frederick Jackson Turner, Walter
Prescott Webb, and Owen Lattimore—though oft attacked and denigrated—still
retain considerable power to stimulate thought and discussion. One should just
be careful not to apply crudely and foolishly to the thirteenth centuries tools
which do not completely explain the nineteenth and twentieth century situations
they were meant to illuminate. What can be suggested is that the western
community in Livonia had to adapt in order to deal with the challenges of the
high seas, the dark forests, and the long winters. And quite possibly an American
reader might gain some insights into the criticisms made of the Livonian Knights
by western churchmen if one were to compare them to comments made by
educated dudes from the East about frontiersmen in the West.
Seventh, the crusade illustrates the role of the papacy in its greatest century.
The popes stood behind the crusade, encouraging and supporting it in every way.
In their enthusiasm and impatience, they attempted to direct the crusade, which
brought resistance and rebellion on the part of the bishops and the crusading
orders; their zeal, though surely intended to secure a better future of the Church
than any likely to emerge from the quarrels among the crusaders, was often
interpreted as a naked desire to exercise power. The popes were fallible men who
made mistakes. Baldwin of Aina and Albert Suerbeer, both papal appointees,
were no credit to the Church, though their goals may have been worthy; fanatics
like their opponents, the crusading orders and the merchants, they disturbed
waters already muddied by civil strife. There were too few men like William of
Modena, who followed the same papal instructions to very different conclusions.
Significantly, William of Modena was a friend of the crusading orders which he
saw as the only hope for bringing order out of the chaos of war. The first step
to peace was victory or, he believed, at the least, a truce forced on the enemy;
the second step was a treaty defining everyone’s duties and obligations and
protecting the rights of converts. The popes, listening to the advice and counsel
of ambitious prelates, tried to exercise leadership, but their methods of leadership
too often suggested the presence of ulterior motives—would papal interference
in the Baltic not end in a vendetta similar to that which had destroyed the
Hohenstaufen dynasty or in another Templar trial? Offers by individual popes to
coordinate the crusade and to bring peace and justice to the region were rejected
by men who had come to distrust and fear papal authority.
epilogue
331
Last, because the memory of past victories and injustices lives on and has
influenced even post-Soviet Baltic politics, neither the exiled German Balts nor
фе nationalistic Latvians, Lithuanians, Estonians, or Russians have forgiven or
forgotten.19 There was no death feud between Germans and Russians. The
movie Alexander Nevsky notwithstanding, war between these peoples was the
exception, peaceful trade the rule.20 Similarly, the picture of the crusade has
been distorted, though perhaps not as much as has been assumed; one
occasionally reads comments, even statements by historians which indicate that
their knowledge of historiography is completely second-hand. Future generations,
should they read more carefully than the present one, may conclude that the late
twentieth-century historians who emphasize the evils of imperialism, colonialism
and racism may have exaggerated as greatly as did those nineteenth century
Baltic German scholars who found excuses for their ancestors’ misdeeds.21 Of
the period 1900-1945—with some exceptions—and in some cases for several
decades thereafter, it is best not to speak except to utter words of caution.
Presentism has a temporary advantage over historicism in that it speaks to the
concerns of the contemporary audience, but it does not wear well over time. We
should certainly not forget the cruel deeds which were committed, but neither
should we reduce the men and women of the past to crude stereotypes. The
crusaders were neither all good nor all evil; they were simply men who lived in
an era which valued highly the military virtues of strength, endurance, courage,
obedience, loyalty, honesty, and cleverness, and put great weight on piety as
well.22 There were too many fanatics among them, but one rarely hears of the
many simple, honest men who also crusaded in the northeast. One finds
extremists of every type in mass movements, from those who are motivated by
hate to those who are guided by love. Then as now, unfortunately, the former
type prevailed. We should not forget that Mother Teresa was bom in Yugoslavia,
a nation which came to its end in fratricidal bloodshed and "ethnic cleansing."
Extreme devotion to good deeds and the perpetration of terrible crimes can be
found in any country.
In addition to this, crusading armies contained mercenaries from all parts of
Europe, significant numbers of native militiamen who entertained hopes of
enriching themselves from booty, middle-class volunteers who expected to cover
their expenses (and then some) by selling merchandise on the side, and a few
criminals expiating their sins. In short, the medieval army hardly resembled a
modem professional force. The employment of criminals as crusaders illustrates
several differences between the medieval and the modem mind. Medieval
Catholic society viewed criminal acts not as anti-social behavior alone, but as
sin. Punishment, therefore, had to take into account the spiritual needs of the
criminal. Was hanging, flogging or exiling a criminal better than requiring him
to perform some socially useful service? Was it more practical to attempt to
dispossess a powerful man of his lands and offices, or to encourage him to join
a crusade? We have seen how bishops and secular rulers were able to escape the
penalty for having belonged to the losing faction in the Welf-Hohenstaufen wars
by volunteering to go to Livonia. Similarly, less prominent men could escape the
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THE BALTIC CRUSAug
consequences of petty crime and non-lethal violence by becoming crusaders
joining a crusading order. Such men, though few in number, when joined to the
fanatics, the mercenaries and the vengeful, could do a great deal of harm. in
short, if the army of God had been composed of saints, it would have been too
small to accomplish any practical goal.23
The Impact on the Native Peoples
The crusade was especially important for Latvia and Estonia. A small
German settlement, less than seven percent of the population in modem times
dominated their cultural, intellectual, and political life until these states achieved
independence and even then remained important until these "Baltic Germans"
were "returned home" by the Hitler-Stalin pact of 1939; from 1941 to 1991, the
Soviet Union imposed a program of cultural and linguistic assimilation and
attempted to justify it by memorializing the "fraternal help" Russia had given the
Baltic peoples in the thirteenth century.24
Although for several centuries German influence was confined to the cities,
it eventually made its way into the countryside during the great Livonian War
(1558-1583). The massive resettlement of peoples from endangered frontier
regions to the coast and the interior, the repopulation of devastated regions with
prisoners-of-war and farmers from other areas, and the subsequent restoration of
internal peace and economic growth caused some native peoples to lose then-
regional identities and become either Latvians or Estonians. We have no means
of judging how many native nobles melted into the German-speaking noble
classes. In the past, historians tended to say, "None, or very few."25 Today,
some concede that few of the German knights who settled in Estonia could have
brought wives and families. The rest must have married local women—and there
was an abundance of them to choose from in the years following the conquest,
when the widows and daughters of prominent tribal leaders must have far
outnumbered the surviving eligible men. And since the traditional option of
polygamy was no longer available, the noble woman’s prospect for marriage with
a socially prominent man was poor indeed. As a consequence of the convergence
of needs, both Estonians and Germans/Danes would have found intermarriage
practical and desirable. This was especially desirable for German ministeriales
striving for upward mobility. They were unlikely to encounter any objection from
their families in the distant West, and the marriage would have provided a
valuable connection to the previous ruling classes and could make their task of
establishing themselves in the countryside much easier. Unfortunately, the source
materials to prove or disprove this thesis are almost altogether lacking.
Without question, there was in later centuries a strong barrier against nobles
marrying acripss the ethnic line. But it might easily be argued that this prejudice
was, at its very essence, a class barrier. Race or ethnic origin was never a
problem in medieval Germany for arranging marriages, and even religious
differences seldom stood in the way. All that was important was class. And since
the ministeriales of the crusading era were more roughly equal to the seniores
Epilogue
333
of the Estonians, intermarriage, could well have been common in Danish Estonia,
Dorpat, and Oesel-Wiek in the era before records become abundant In contrast,
relatively few German nobles settled in the lands comprising modem Latvia until
much later, and the ones who did tended to be wealthier than the knights in
Estonia. Therefore, intermarriage there was much less likely.26
Native nobles who did accommodate to the newcomers faced less formidable
barriers to assimilation than nineteenth-century historians assumed. At least one
became a knight in the Teutonic Order and others became part of the German-
speaking nobility.27 As contemporary practice in Poland toward Germans
demonstrated, tension between ethnic groups did not prevent immigration or
intermarriage. Medieval nationalism cannot be equated exactly with its modem
counterpart.
Marriage between German merchants and native women was probably very
rare, because it was relatively easy for a businessman to arrange for an alliance
with the daughter of some commercial partner in Germany.28 Artisans, who
were less likely to be able to afford the cost of transporting a woman across the
Baltic, were also more likely to see native craftsmen as social equals.
There may also have been a considerable number of children bom to
irregular alliances: rape, prostitution to avoid starvation, the natural attraction of
country girls for rich young foreigners, and lonely priests attracted to
housekeepers and parishioners. However, this had no appreciable effect on the
culture found in the villages and isolated settlements. Not until much later did
western influence penetrate into the daily life of the countryside. Archeological
research indicates that the earlier cultures continued almost unchanged for several
centuries—the quality of life (certainly the quality of luxury items) may have
declined, but very little is added or subtracted to the material culture.
A certain degree of bilingualism undoubtedly existed, and translators
certainly contributed to cultural interchange. Low German terms made their way
into the native languages, and native words were adopted into the language of
the Baltic Germans.29 The assumption that Germans could not or would not
learn the native tongues is not borne out by the evidence; just as false are
assumptions that nobles did not bathe (they became addicted to the sauna) or
were illiterate (they may not have been proflcient in Latin, but a sufficient
number seem to have been able to read well enough in Low German that they
sent messages in writing—and we know that the number of priests was
insufficient to summon one every time a letter arrived or an entry had to be
made in the books). Of course, the fact that the knights grew up in Germany and
lived in convents—and were probably occasionally transferred from one language
area to another—certainly hindered their acquiring the fluency in the local idiom
that some of their native subjects had in German. Merchants, bartenders,
prostitutes and city folk in general had to be multi-lingual; the rural population
did not.30 Men had greater opportunities for using foreign tongues than did
women. There were many people—the mentally-handicapped, the ignorant, the
prisoners-of-war—who might be considered fortunate if they could communicate
334
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
a thought effectively in any local language. And the serfs in the Baltic,
elsewhere, survived on a minimum of everything—food, clothing, vocabulary
Serfdom did not become a major institution until the early sixteenth
century.31 It is true that some tribes were required to pay double tribute as
punishment for their early revolts, that individuals were probably deprived of
their rights for crimes or failure to pay taxes and debts, and that prisoners-of-war
were settled on estates as serfs. Nevertheless, the Teutonic Knights understood
that serfs make poor soldiers, and since they had no choice but to employ native
militia units in their armies, they had to put some limits on their exploitation of
the free farmers and the warrior class. This self-imposed limitation was all the
more important because there was no way the masters could face Russian and
Lithuanian armies if they had to worry constantly about the loyalty of the militia
units (remember the battle of Durbe) nor could they effectively conduct offensive
operations without the native knights' enthusiastic help in scouting and foraging.
We should not forget that native peoples did not behave as stereotyped oppressed
peasants. We should interpret the choices made by the native elders in the early
years of the crusade as expressions of a foreign policy toward all outsiders, not
as uninformed outbursts of anger and rage.32
Some warriors benefited from the successful wars of conquest, some
welcomed the opportunities to take revenge on traditional tribal enemies, and
some probably welcomed the diversion from the boredom of everyday life. They
may not have been willing to die for Christ or His Mother, but they fought
willingly alongside the crusaders whenever victory seemed likely. On the other
hand, when defeat loomed, the lack of a deep commitment and the tradition of
hit-and-run tactics combined to leave the crusaders fighting without infantry
protection when it was most needed. The Teutonic Knights understood that they
could not rely unconditionally on native militiamen even under the best of
circumstances, much less when they nursed deep grievances. Therefore, the
bishops and masters had to choose between allowing militiamen to retain then-
traditional culture, including the use of arms, and making them into potentially
rebellious serfs. The choice was obvious. Moreover, they trained the militia units
carefully, provided them with uniforms, banners, warsongs, and German
commanders. This did not mean that every native warrior was happy. Certainly,
the poorer natives, who did not share in the rewards of successful warfare, had
little reason to rejoice over the taxes and services necessary to support priests,
church buildings, roads, bridges, castles, and to pay for priests, crusaders and
mercenaries. The history of revolts in the Baltic, especially the Great Peasant
Rising of 1343 in Estonia, demonstrates the depth of general discontent. On the
other hand, were peasants fully satisfied with their lot anywhere in Europe? Was
the oppression unusual? Could the crusaders have managed with fewer taxes and
services? Responding to each of these questions is far from simple, given our
lack of good source material, but the weight of the evidence that does exist
suggests negative answers. Peasants were so oppressed everywhere that the
German oppression of Estonians, Livs, Letts, and Kurs does not seem, in the
eyes of most contemporaries, to have been particularly onerous.33 Of course, the
Baltic peoples did not travel sufficiently to realize this, and their more northerly
epilogue
335
climate made paying taxes more difficult for them than for more southerly
farmers who reaped larger harvests.
Testimony concerning the oppression comes from two sources. The first is
a series of reports by papal legates. These are, in effect, testimony by enemies
of the Teutonic Order. The masters chose not to respond, but to challenge the
legality of the entire process, instead. Therefore, we must not put unconditional
faith in these biased records. The second source is based on legislation and land
records from later epochs, often from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, a
period when the native peoples were being disarmed and enserfed. Obviously,
this is an unsteady foundation for making judgments about conditions in the
thirteenth century. The indictment by Roger Bacon, as we have already noted,
was based on astrology and a belief in magical powers. Even in his own lifetime,
views like his, that the Mongols must be the forces of the Anti-Christ predicted
by Joachim of Fiore, were denounced by the Church.34 In contrast to these
sources, we have the chronicles and correspondence of the Teutonic Order, both
of which are biased in favor of the crusaders. Historians have often allowed their
nationalist or political sympathies to determine which parts of this extensive
evidence to use.35 As a result, we have often been given an incomplete picture
of the society of late thirteenth century Livonia and distorted interpretations of
the Baltic Crusade.36
By reorienting the native peoples from encroaching Russian-Lithuanian
cultural influences to western ones, this crusade brutally contributed to the
creation of the Latvian and Estonian nations out of collections of tribes. The
process begun at this time was continued in the following centuries through the
resettlement of villagers from endangered regions, replacement of decimated
populations by prisoners-of-war, and the foundation of new villages in the
frontier wilderness once peace was established; then came the Great Livonian
War (1558-1583), which caused many peasants to flee the invading armies from
Russia, Sweden, and Poland. The result was a thorough mixing of the native
population which produced the modem Estonian and Latvian peoples. This
nation-building was accomplished so thoroughly by the eighteenth century that
subsequent efforts at Russification by tsars and commissars have been largely
unsuccessful. As of 1991, when Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia once again
became sovereign and independent states, most Russian-speaking inhabitants
were recent immigrants from the Soviet Union. They had not mixed extensively
with Latvians, Estonians and Lithuanians, whose national heritage was firmly
rooted in the Middle Ages. The new immigrants failed to win their hosts’ hearts
and minds. By occupying the role of colonial masters vacated by the Germans,
after 1940 the Soviets kept alive a spirit of national resistance which did not bum
itself out in valorous but futile uprisings, but instead expressed itself in quiet but
unmistakable gestures—such as naming children for medieval heroes: Lembit in
Estonia, Mindaugas in Lithuania; or for saints, as in Latvia. Through
independence their nations were returned to the Baltic peoples. Their Russian-
speaking fellow-citizens went from the dominant linguistic group to a minority,
336	THE BALTIC CRUSADE
from cultural superiority to the embarrassing realization that all their moral and
political authority had suddenly vanished.37
Just as the influence of the Baltic Germans lasted long after the last
crusaders from the West went home, the importance of the Russian-speaking
population will persist far past the redeployment of the ex-Soviet armed forces.
How much success the Baltic States will have in dealing with this complex
situation depends greatly on how much they are willing to cooperate, partly
because international cooperation requires relaxing nationalist rhetoric and
bureaucratic regulations more than is common in the world today, and partly
because a lessed nationalism might calm the fears of the Russian-speaking
inhabitants. Cooperation among the three republics was relatively meager during
the first era of independence between the wars, and it probably be difficult to
achieve in the second. The shared suffering of recent centuries is not the only
history the Baltic peoples have.38
Visitors walking the streets of Baltic cities today observe the comfortable
mixture of architectural styles from the thirteenth to the twentieth century.
Slowly they become aware that the passing of time has brought new forms
without completely abolishing the old, and that, somehow, everything fits into
an understandable whole. As with the architecture, the attitudes of the people
living in these cities have developed over generations; these attitudes, formed
from an understanding of each nation’s past, both good and bad, added to and
modified, but seldom completely lost, are part of a living tradition. Consequently,
anyone who wishes to understand the contemporary situation in Latvia,
Lithuania, and Estonia is well advised not to forget how the Baltic peoples
perceive their own history. The enduring influence of the Baltic Crusade lies not
in churches, walls and city halls, but in present-day attitudes and actions.39
Epilogue	337
ENDNOTES
1.	Urkundenbuch, П, no. 616.
2.	When the first edition of The Baltic Crusade appeared in 1975, it contained
the phrase: [The crusade in Prussia] "deserves closer investigation than it has
received." That can no longer be said. Thanks to the efforts of Polish and
German historians, often working together, numerous excellent publications have
appeared. The most lengthy series is Quellen und Studien zur Geschichte des
Deutschen Ordens, edited by Udo Arnold at the University at Bonn.
Reviewers of the first edition of this book reacted to the phrase "bored
chivalry" with mixed feelings. Yes, there was something to be said of this
crusade as a form of tourism (a package deal—travel, accommodations,
entertainment), but was that not overstating the case? Yes, it does overstate it.
But since the phrase gets at a fundamental truth, I have decided to leave it in the
text (p. 321) even at the cost of contradicting some statements in my more recent
book, The Samogitian Crusade.
3.	Christiansen comments, The Northern Crusades, 250: "To present these wars
as false—either as matters of interest disguised as matters of conscience, or
simply as misnamed events—is too easy. This type of judgement is itself
fraudulent. It avoids the unavoidable question of why men who were never
reluctant to wage war for profit, fame, vengeance or merely to pass the time,
without any disguise or pretext, nevertheless chose to claim that certain wars
were fought for God’s honour and the redemption of mankind."
4.	Materials for Livonia are poor. Hellmann, Das Lettenland im Mittelalter, 237-
239, summarizes the evolution of the pre-conquest fonns into Gutsherrschaft
(collecting rent) and Grundherrschaft (using peasant labor on manorial fields).
Compare the situation in Prussia: Zur Wirtschaftsentwicklung des Deutschen
Ordens im Mittelalter (ed. Udo Arnold. Marburg: Elwert, 1989) [Quellen und
Studien zur Geschichte des Deutschen Ordens, 38].
5.	To give one example for each alternative: Cortes violated royal orders in
attacking Mexico; Franciscans preached to the Indians north of Mexico; royal
commissions investigated abuses, and each governor had to report to the Council
of the Indies at the end of his term of office; Franciscans and Jesuits were
authorized to rule in California and Paraguay.
6.	Nicholson, Templars, Hospitallers and Teutonic Knights, 133-135. This began
to change after 1291, when "failure was taken as a sign of God’s displeasure,
and therefore of sin."
7.	Johnson, "The German Crusade on the Baltic," 549: "The cost of this superior
western civilization was so high that the Baltic peoples refused to pay. It had to
be imposed upon them by conquest, crusade, and German settlement. The Baltic
peoples would be made to pay for the new freedom of the Germans with the loss
of their own."
338
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
8.	Henry of Livonia, 109; note the comment on the Virgin Mary by Christiansen,
The Northern Crusades, 214: "For the Teutonic Knights, she was mainly a war-
goddess."
9.	Bartlett comments on Livonian conquest literature, Making of Europe, 99-101.
10. While we can speculate that the crusaders did in many native priests, we
have very little information about their fate. One expecting a bit of boasting on
the crusaders’ part will come away from the sources disappointed.
11.	The radical Franciscans’ condemnation of the crusades remains very much
alive today, whereas Dominican efforts to apply the just war doctrine have been
practically forgotten. Humberto Eco’s gothic novel The Name of the Rose (1980.
New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1983) illustrates some of the heresies.
12.	Jacob Ozols, "Caupos Knecht, Eine Geschichte des C&aurus von
Heisterbach," Journal of Baltic Studies, 5/3(1974), 222-225.
13.	Bartlett, Making of Europe, 308-309, notes that this "knightly-clerical-
mercantile consortium" was responsible for all expansionary movements in the
eleventh and twelfth centuries, and that in the Baltic the "commercial interests
were intertwined with the crusading movement in a way that was as often
mutually destructive as it was symbiotic."
14.	Warteberge, 72; Peter Rebane, “The Jiirido Mass (St. George’s Night
Rebellion) of 1343," Baltic History, 40.
15.	Bartlett, Making of Europe, 301: "Not all native leaders were hostile. In
many cases outsiders were invited in and encouraged by local aristocrats eager
to gain an edge in their own competitive arena;" Johnson, "The German Crusade
on the Baltic," 561, notes: "The piecemeal nature of the conquest and occupation
made impossible effective coordinated resistance."
16.	Riley-Smith, The Crusades. A Short History, 210: "The Order-states were
established in reaction to one of the most sensational events in late medieval
history, which would probably never had occurred had not the role of the
Military Orders already been the subject of critical discussion."
17.	Urban, "The Teutonic Order and Lithuania," 117-121; see Michael Burleigh,
"The German Knights. Making of a Modem Myth," History Today, 35(June
1985), 24-29; Johnson, "The German Crusade on the Baltic," 546-547;
Christiansen, The Northern Crusades, 145-148.
18.	Bartlett, Making of Europe, has the frontier as a central theme, with
discussions of the intermingling of languages, laws, and institutions. Summary
292-314.
19.	Lieven, The Baltic Experience, describes this as well as do any of the many
recent commentators.
20.	Birnbaum, Lord Novgorod the Great, 122; Fennell, Crisis of Medieval
Russia, 162-168.
21.	Benninghoven, "Zur Role des Schwertbriiderordens," 162-163.
22.	Ephesians 6:10-17: "Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able
to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and
blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness
of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore take unto
Epilogue
339
you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day,
and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with
truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness; and your feet shod with the
preparation of the gospel of peace; Above all, taking the shield of faith,
wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. And take
the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God."
23. Ritterbriider, 590, lists a former Teutonic Knight, a certain Gerwin, who was
arrested in Wismar between 1267-1272 on charges of piracy.
24.	For an overview, see Lieven, The Baltic Revolution; also, Lowell Tillett, The
Great Friendship. Soviet Historians on the Non-Russian Nationalities (Chapel
Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1969).
25.	The notable exception is Edgar V. Saks, Eesti soost vassalkond Taaniaegsel
Virumal: Jiiridd Mass (Philadelphia-Wilmington, 1971), whose linguistic
erudition is employed to demonstrate that many noble names traditionally
considered German actually mask Estonian origins.
26.	Bartlett, Making of Europe, 55-56, discusses marriage between newcomers
and former elites in several frontier areas; Muldoon, Popes, Lawyers, and
Infidels, 159-160, has a note on the irrelevance of modem ideas of racism for
understanding the medieval world.
27.	Ritterbriider, 744; Lieven, The Baltic Experience; one might note the
provocative statement by Bartlett, Making of Europe, 297: "One paradoxical
result of this difference in Christian policy regarding paganism and Islam
[extirpation of the former, tolerance of the latter] was the fact that the native
inhabitants in the Mediterranean area were much more clearly recognizable as
a subordinate and colonial population than many of those in the north and east.
In pagan eastern Europe the choice was a sharp one between resistance and
conversion, and many shrewd native dynasties and Elites chose the later."
28. Noted in Bartlett, Making of Europe, 58-59.
29.	Bartlett, Making of Europe, 199-201.
30.	Bartlett notes, Making of Europe, 180-181, that urbanization and
Germanization went hand-in-hand, but it was the small market town which was
the vehicle of cultural transformation. Since German numbers were too small to
affect the language of commercial exchange in the myriad rural crossroad
centers, the more widely-used local dialects expanded at the cost of the minority
native tongues.
31.	fevalds MugureviCs, "Wechselbeziehungen der Deutschen und Ostbaltischen
Kulturen im Lettland des 13. bis 16. Jahrhunderts," Liibecker Schriften zur
Archaologie und Kulturgeschichte, 12(1986), 229-39, and "The Culture of
Inhabitants of Medieval Settlements in Latvia in Livonian Period (the End of the
12th—the [first] half of the 16th Century," Fasciculi Archeologiae Historicae,
2(1987), 57-70; William Urban, "Characteristics of Medieval Warfare in the
Baltic," Zur Geschichte des Deutschen Ordens in Livland (ed. Norbert
Angermann), in press.
32.	Urban, "The Military Occupation of Semgallia," 28-29.
340
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
33.	Compare the peasant risings, the pogroms, described by Norman Cohn, The
Pursuit of the Millennium (New York: Harper, 1961), 87-98; by the fifteenth
century, this attitude had changed. See Muldoon, Popes, Lawyers, and Infidels
107-119.
34.	Beggola, Die Mongolen, 201-209; indictments of the military order often
contain gross errors indicative of the authors’ lack of knowledge about the Baltic
as for example, in A. G. Little, "The Mendicant Orders," in The Cambridge
Medieval History, VI (Cambridge: the University Press, 1964), 753: "In Prussia
and Lithuania the friars came into collision with the political aims of the
Teutonic Knights, who opposed the Christianization of the Slav subjects."
35.	In his January 1994 "state of the world" address, Pope John Paul II warned
of the rise of a "new paganism" which placed ethnic and national interests above
the common good and human solidarity. Though the pope’s contemporary
examples were in Africa, Asia, and the Balkans, the message transcends time and
place.
36.	Oswald Backus, "The Impact of the Baltic and Finnic Peoples Upon Russian
History," Baltic History, 4, calls aspects of this attitude "snobbery;" Michael
Burleigh, "The German Knights, Making of a Modem Myth," History Today,
35(1985), 24-29; Edgar Johnson, "The German Crusade on the Baltic," A History
of the Crusades, III (ed. Hany Hazard. Madison: Wisconsin, 1975), 546-49;
William Urban, "Der Deutsche Orden in amerikanischen Schulbiichem," Beitrage
zur Geschichte des Deutschen Ordens (ed. Udo Arnold. Marburg: Elwert, 1986),
111-22; Adomas Butrimas, "Die Darstellung der deutsch-litauischen Beziehungen
im litauischen Geschichtslehrbiichem," Nordost-Archiv, Neue Folge, 2/2 (1993),
415-440, especially pp. 439-40.
37.	The Soviet victory in the Great Patriotic War gave the Russian people a
heightened sense of power and confidence, a pride in having crushed the forces
of evil, and a hope for a better future for everyone based on scientific socialism.
This tremendous moral authority was squandered in the decades to follow. The
future role of the Russian-speaking inhabitants of the Baltic States is impossible
to predict as of this writing (as editor of the Journal of Baltic Studies between
1990 and 1994, I was in constant communication with experts of Baltic
demography and politics who emphasized the unpredictable nature of ethnic
relationships which depended greatly on events in Post-1989 Russia).
38.	William Urban, "The Implications of the Past for the Future of the Baltic
States," Lituanus, 37/4(Winter 1991), 65-75.
39.	See Mdmer, Towards a New History in the Baltic Republics; Virgil
Krapauskas, "Marxism and Nationalism in Soviet Lithuanian Historiography,"
Journal of Baltic Studies, 23/3(Fall 1992), 239-260; Sven Ekdahl, "Tannenberg/
Grunwald—ein politisches Symbol in Deutschland und Polen," Ibid., 22/4(Winter
1991), 271-32i,
HOHENSTAUFEN EMPERORS
Frederick Barbarosa+1190
I ----------1
Heinrich VI +1197 Philipp +1208
Frederick II +1250
BUXHOEVED FAMILY
Hartwig Sofia Hugo von Apeldem -Adlelis - Buxhoeved Johann others
+1207 ’	I	*1
Archbishop	|	|
of Hamburg- Heinrich Johann
Bremen	(Crusaders to Livonia)
+1234	I
Vassal	I
in Estonia Engelbert
andRiga	Line
Extinguished
____________ 1277
1 I I
Heidenricus Heinrich Hermann
Theodoric
+1236
____________ Bishop of
I I I I	I Oesel-Wiek
Albert Engelbert Rothmar Hermann sister
+1229	+1209 +1234	+1248 m. Engelbert+1224
Bishop	Prior at Prior at	Bishop
ofRiga	Riga	Dorpat	ofDorpat
de Ropp family
still survives
Thisenhusen family
still survives
Source: Gnegel-W aitschies, Bischof Albert von Riga and
Bernd Ulrich Hucker in Studien uber die Anfange der Mission in Livland
COUNTS OFHOLSTEIN
Adolfin
+1225
i---
Adolf IV
+1261
Mathilde - Abel of Schleswig
+1252
Bruno
Bishop of Olmiitz
—I---------------1
Johann	Gerhard
+1263	+1290
341
THE ASCANIAN HOUSE
Albrecht the Bear
+1170
Otto of Brandenburg
+1184
Siegfried
Archbishop of
Hamburg-Bremen
tt	mi , +1184
Hermann of Orlamunde
+1176
Bernard of Saxony
+1212
Albrecht П
+1220
Siegfried-r-Sophie
+1206	of Denmark
+1206
Albrecht
+1261
Hermann
Albert of
Orlamunde
Count of Holstein
Heinrich
of Anhalt
+1252
Matilda-Otto the Child John Otto
Duke of Braunschweig
Johann Otto П
Duke of	Duke of Saxony
Saxon-Lauenburg
THE HOUSE OF WELF
Henry the Lion - Matilda of England
+1195 I
Heinrich Gertrude - Canute Otto IV	Wilhelm - Helen of Denmark
Count Palatine
+1227
King of Holy Roman +1213
Denmark Emperor+121%
Matilda of Brandenburg - Otto the Child +1252
________________| Duke of Braunschwieg
Ъ	Albrecht of Braunschwieg Johann of Liineburg
+1279|	+1272
Heinrich	Lothar	Albrecht Otto the Strong
Grandmaster
of the Teutonic Knights	342
HOUSE OFLIPPE
Bernard
Count of Lippe, Bishop of Semgallia
i—
Hermann
Count of
Lippe
-----1 I J-------------------1-------1------
Bernard Theodoric Simon Otto
Bishop °f	Prior of Bishop of Bishop of
Paderborn 15 P °J Utrecht Paderborn Munster
Utrecht
Hedwig - Adolf IV of
Holstein
Gerhard П
Archbishop of
Hamburg-Bremen
Bernard Johann Gerhard Mathilda—Abel of
Count of Counts of Holstein	Schleswig
Lippe
DANISH ROYAL HOUSE
Waldemar I
(1157-1182)
Canute
(1182-1202) (1202-1241)
m. Gertrude m. Richza
daughters of
Henry the Lion
Waldemarll bjgeborg —
Philip Augustus
of France
Sophie —
Siegfried of
Orlamunde
Helen—
Wilhelm 0/
LUneburg
Richeza-
Enc of Sweden
Albert
Jutta -
Bernard of
Saxony
Ingeborg-Birger
Jarl (regent)
Waldemar Eric IV Abel
(1241-1250) (1250-1252)
Christopher
(1252-1259)
Magnus
+1290
Waldemar Eric Abel
Dukes of Schleswig
EricV
(1259-1286)
Eric VI
(1286-1320)
Birger
+1321
343
GRAND DUKES OF LITHUANIA
Ringaudas
+before!219
Dausprungas Mindaugas	other sons	daughter-Vykintas
+C.1238	+1263	and a daughter
+C.1238
m. daughter
of Vykintas
Tovtivil Edivydas daughter-Daniel
+1263-4 +1266-7 of Galicia
Constantine Andrej?
Bishop of Tver
Ruklys
+1263
Rupeikis
+1263
Vojsek
+1267
daughter-Svamo
of Galicia
Zvinbudas
+C.1220
Kukovaitis Utenis
I--------1----:-----1-------1
Sventargis Giermantas Giliginas Trobius
?
i
Romantas
I
?
Traidenis
+1281-2
Gaudimante-Boleslaw
Duke of
Masovia
Daumantas | Alsia Giedrius
+1285 Narimantas
---1	। other sons?
Pukuveras
+1295
Borza Lesis Svikenis
all + c. 1268-9
Vytenis Gediminas
+1315	+1341

Charts based on Michal Giedroyc, "The Rulers of Thirteenth-Century Lithuania," Orford
Slavonic Papers, ХУЛ (1984).
344
RUSSIAN DUKES DESCENDED FROM VSEVOLOD 1П
(Greatly Simplified)
VsevolodHI+1212
1 Constantine +1218	Yuri +1238	1 Jaroslav +1246	l Svjatoslav +1252
1	1—	—J		Dmitri
Vsevolod Mstislav	Vladimir		+1269
+1238	+1238	+1238		
Alexander Nevsky Andrej Jaroslav Constantine Vasily
+1263	+1264 \ +1271 .	+1255	+1277
Vasily	Dnlitri Andrej
+1271	+1294	+1304
Daniel v .	[	|
+1303 Yun Svjatoslav Michael
of Tver +1319
+1283-4
Daumantas-Мале
of Pskov
Boris	Yuri	Ivan of Moscow
+1303	+i325 +134Q
Ivan П
+1359
Dukes of Tver
Dmitri
+1389
DUKES OF GALICIA	DUKES OF SMOLENSK
Roman
+1205
I_______
I-------1
Daniel Vasilko
+1264	+1269
—
Roman	Lev
+C1258	+1300
I	I
Vasilko	Yuri
+C1282	+1308
1----------------->
Roman	Mstislav Khrabni
+1180	+1180
Mstislav the old	'	' 1
Vladimir Mstislav the daring
+1233	+1228
+1223
Svamo
+1269
Jaroslav- daughter —
daughter Theodoric
of Vasily von Buxhoevden
of Polozk
Svjatoslav Vsevolod
+1232 +1239
Charts based on John Fennell, The Crisis of Medieval Russia.
345
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
The literature pertaining to the Baltic Crusade is extensive, and the time
and vast area covered by the crusade tend to give it a mosaic quality. No one
historian, or collection of historical sources, covers every aspect of this complex
era, and although certain works stand out, answers to many vital questions can
be found only by reference to rather obscure and/or general historical works.
Because German historians provide exhaustive bibliographies, we have limited
Our list to a few key works.
Fortunately for American students, the number of bodes in English
which discuss the crusade has increased dramatically since the first edition of this
book was published. Although these still vary in quality and the number of pages
given to the crusade often very limited, several provide excellent insights into the
era. The most important books dealing with the crusade directly are:
Original Sources in Translation
The Chronicle of Henry of Livonia. Translated by James A. Brundage. Madison:
University of Wisconsin Press, 1961. The Chronicle is a lively, intelligent
account of the period 1180-1227 and ranks as one of the better medieval
histories. Apparently written for the benefit of William of Modena, the papal
legate who arrived in Riga in 1225, it is more thorough and more reflective than
all but a very few medieval chronicles. It is a true classic and deserves the
attention of the industrious student (in the original Latin if possible).
Chronicle of Novgorod, 1016-1471. Translated by Robert Michell and Nevil
Forbes. Vol.25 of the Camden Third Series. London, 1914. Much less useful than
the foregoing, and uneven in quality. Unfortunately, the editors mix together the
texts of several editions of this indispensable account of the early history of this
important Russian state.
The Hypatian Codex. Pari Two: The Galician-Volhynian Chronicle. An annotated
translation by George A. Perfecky. Munchen: Fink, 1973. [Harvard Series in
Ukrainian Studies, 16, II] A somewhat dense and frustrating text with fascinating
anecdotes. Essential for thirteenth-century Lithuania.
The Livonian Rhymed Chronicle. Translated by Jerry C. Smith and William
Urban. Bloomington: Indiana University Publications, 1977 [Uralic and Altaic
Series, volume 128]. An indispensable narrative: naive, lively, informative.
Secondary Sources
Bartlett, Robert. The Making of Europe. Conquest, Colonization and Cultural
Change, 950-1350. Ewing NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993.
Bilmanis, Alfred. A History of Latvia. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton UP, 1951.
Written by a knowledgeable retired diplomat who was not a medievalist.
348
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
Christiansen, Eric, The Northern Crusades. The Baltic and the Catholic Frontier,
1100-1525, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 1980. Scholarly, witty;
especially strong on geography, economics, societies.
Fennell, John, The Crisis of Medieval Russia, 1200-1304, London and New
York: Longmans, 1983. Vol. 2 of the Longman History of Russia,
Johnson, Edgar. "The German Crusade on the Baltic," A History of the Crusades,
III. Ed. Harry Hazard. Madison: University of Wisconsin, 1975. Pp. 545-585.
Rowell, Stephen C. "Pious Princesses or the Daughters of Belial: Pagan
Lithuanian Dynastic Diplomacy, 1279-1423," Medieval Prosopography (in press)
Rowell, Stephen C. Lithuania Ascending. A Pagan Empire within East-Central
Europe, 1295-1345. Cambridge: Cambridge U. Press, 1994.
Thompson, James Westfall. Feudal Germany. 2 vols. New York: Frederick
Ungar, 1928. Despite its Welfish viewpoint, this book is valuable for
understanding northern Germany in the period before the crusade.
Urban, William. The Prussian Crusade. Washington: University Press of
America, 1980. The Teutonic Knights in thirteenth-century Prussia.
Urban, W. The Livonian Crusade. Washington: University Press of America,
1981. The sequel to The Baltic Crusade, covering the years between 1300 and
1583.
Urban, W. The Samogitian Crusade. Chicago: Lithuanian Research and Studies
Center, 1989. The sequel to The Prussian Crusade, covering 1300-1399.
Two books deserve special note for their outstanding illustrations:
From Viking to Crusader. Scandinavia and Europe 800-1200. Edited by Else
Roesdahl and David Wilson. New York: Rizzoli, 1992.
Lietuvos istorijos paminklai [Monuments of Lithuanian History]. Edited Birute
Kulnyte. Vilnius: Mintis, 1990.
Original Sources
Thes^have been brought together in a few great collections. Most of the
individual chronicles or document collections derive directly from the editions
originally prepared for the first three series listed.
Bibliography
349
Monumenta Germaniae Historica. Edited by Georg Heinrich Pertz, Theodore
Mommsen, and others. Hannover, Berlin: Deutsches Institut fiir Erforschung des
Mittelalters, 1826-. Well-known to every medievalist, this giant collection
includes correspondence, public documents, and chronicles. It is divided into
several subdivisions. Under the subdivision Scriptores rerum germanicarum in
usum scholarum separatim editi we find the following chronicles important:
Magistri Adam Bremensis Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum. 1st
edition. 1846; 3d edition. Edited by Bernhard Schmeidler. Hannover. Hahnsche,
1876; Annales Stadenses auctore Alberto. Edited by Johann M. Lappenberg.
Hannover: Hahnsche, 1859; Helmoldi presbyteri Bozoviensis Chronica Slavorum.
1st edition. 1868; 3rd edition. Edited by Bernhard Schmeidler and Johann M.
Lappenberg. Hannover: Hahnsche, 1937. There are also valuable chronicles in
vol.2 of the subdivision Deutsche Chroniken, Scriptores qui vernacula lingua usi
sunt. Edited by Ludwig Weiland. Hannover: Hahnsche, 1877. Correspondence
is found in the subdivisions: Constitutiones et acta publica imperatorum et
regum. Hannover: Hahnsche, 1893-1919; and Epistolae SaeculaeXIII e. regestis
pontificum romanorum selectae. Berlin: Weidmann, 1883-1894.
Scriptores rerum Livonicarum; Sammlung der wichtigsten Chroniken und
Geschichtsdenkmale von Liv-, Ehst-, und Kurland. Edited by A. Hansen. 2 vols.
Riga and Leipzig: E.Frantzen’s Verlag-comptoir, 1853. Very carefully edited
chronicles, but in an old edition. The basic works are available elsewhere.
Scriptores rerum Prussicarum. Edited by Theodore Hirsch and others. 2 vols.
Leipzig: S. Hirzel, 1861-1874. Contains important chronicles and collections of
documents. Especially important for the latter part of the thirteenth century.
Annales Danici medii aevi. Edited by Ellen J0rgensen. Copenhagen: G.E.C. Gad,
1920. Basic collection of chronicles, some of which are included in MGH.
Heinrici chronicon Livoniae 2d edition. The standard scholarly edition, edited by
Leonid Arbusow and Albert Bauer. Hannover: Hahnsche, 1955. Relies on
different manuscript from Brundage’s. For this chronicle and the following, note
the comments by Enn Tarvel, ’’LivlMndische Chroniken des 13. Jahrhunderts als
Quelle fur die Geschichte des Schwertbriiderordens und Livlands," Werkstatt des
Historikers der mittelalterlichen Ritterorden. Quellenkundliche Probleme und
Forschungsmethoden (Toruri: Nicolaus Copernicus University, 1987) [Colloquia
Torunensia Historica IV], 175-184.
Livlandische Reimchronik. Edited by Leo Mayer. Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1963.
Reprint of 1876 edition. It is the principal account of the period 1227-1290.
Liv-, Est-, und Kurlandische Urkundenbuch. Edited by Friedrich Georg von
Bunge. 12 vols. Reval: H.Laakman 1853-1859; Riga and Moscow: 1867-1910.
Volumes 1,2,3, and 6 are very useful for the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
350
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
Must be used in conjunction with Liv-, Est-, und Kurlandische Urkundenregesten
bis zum Jahre 1300. Edited by Friedrich Benninghoven. Hamburg, 1959.
Das Rigische Schuldbuch. Edited by Hermann Hildebrand. St. Petersburg, 1872.
Surviving records of Rigan merchants.
Das Zeugenverhor des Franciscus de Moliano (1312). Edited by August
Seraphim. Konigsberg: Thomas Oppermann, 1912. A transcript of the inquiry by
the papal legate into the feud between Riga and the Teutonic Knights. Often
incautiously mined for snappy quotes.
Von zur Miihlen, Heinz and Hans Feldmann. BaltischesHistorisches Ortslexikon,
Teil 1, Estland (Einschliesslich Nordlivland). KOln-Wien: Bdhlau, 1985.
Zeps, Valdis. Placenames of Latgola. Madison: Baltic Studies, 1984.
For a description of Lithuanian records, see S. C. Rowell, ’’Of Men and
Monsters, Sources for Lithuanian History in the Age of Gediminas (ca. 1315-
1345)," Journal of Baltic Studies, 24/1 (Spring 1993), 73-112.
Secondary Accounts
An excellent guide to the secondary accounts is Towards a New History
in the Baltic Republics. Historical Perspectives at the Time of the Recovery of
Independence (ed. Magnus and Aare R. MOmer. Gothenburg, 1993) [Skrifter friln
Historiska institutionen i GOteborg. GOteborgs universitet, 2].
Studies of this crusade in German are relatively numerous, and the
number of articles is almost beyond counting. The most important are:
Angermann, Norbert, ed. Zur Geschichte des Deutschen Ordens in Livland, in
press. Excellent contributions.
Arbusow, Leonid. Grundriss der Geschichte Liv-, Est-, und Kurlands. Riga:
Jonck and Poliewsky, 1918. Dated.
Benninghoven, Friedrich. Der Orden der Schwertbriider. Cologne-Graz: Bohlau,
1965. The authoritative work on the Swordbrothers. Detailed investigation of
their origin, activities, and downfall at Saule (1236) and Lake Peipus (1242).
*
Bunge, Friedrich Georg von. Livland, die Wiege der deutschen Weihbischofe.
Leipzig: E. Bidder, 1875. Important for ecclesiastical history.
Bunge, Friedrich Georg von. Der Orden der Schwertbriider: deren Stiftung,
Verfassung und Auflosung, Leipzig: E. Bidder, 1875. Excellent short but dated
account of the organization of the Swordbrothers.
Bibliography
351
Donner, Gustav Adolf. Kardinal Wilhelm von Sabina, Bischof von Modena 1222-
1234. Helsingsfors: H. Crohns and C. von Bonsdorff, 1929. Minute investigation
of the role of the papacy and papal legates in Livonia. Indispensable.
Fenske, Lutz and Klaus Militzer (eds.) Ritterbriider im livlandischen Zweig des
Deutschen Ordens. Koln: Bohlau, 1993. [Quellen und Studien zur baltischen
Geschichte, 12] Biographical sketches of all known knight-brothers of the
Swordbrothers and the Livonian Order, with lists of commanders and advocates.
GnegeLWaitschies, Gisela. Bischof Albert von Riga: ein Bremer Domherr als
Kirchenfiirst im Osten. Hamburg. A.F. Velmede, 1958. A fine biography by a
student of Paul Johansen.
Goetze, Peter von. Albert Suerbeer, Erzbischof von Preussen, Livland und
Ehstland. St. Petersburg: W.Graff, 1854. Best available account of this important
figure, but outdated.
Hausmann, Richard. Das Ringen der Deutschen und Danen um den Besitz
Estlands bis 1227. Leipzig: Dincker und Humbolt, 1870. Good, but should be
read in conjunction with Koch and Usinger.
Hellmann, Manfred. Das Lettenland im Mittelalter: Studien zur ostbaltischen
Friihzeit und lettischen Stammesgeschichte, insbesonders Lettgallens. Miinster:
Bohlau Verlag, 1954. A study of Livonia from the aspect of legal and social
history. Investigates otherwise ignored questions related to eastern Livonia.
Johansen, Paul. ’’Die Bedeutung der Hanse fur Livland,’’ Hansische
Geschichtsblatter, 65-66 (1940-1941): 1-55. Discusses relationship of merchant
communities to the crusade. Johansen is one of the great scholars of medieval
Baltic history.
Johansen, Paul. "Eine Riga-Wisby Urkunde des 13. Jahrhunderts,” Zeitschrift des
Vereins fur liibeckische Geschichte, 38 (1958): 93-108. Provides new insight into
the arrest of Archbishop Albert Suerbeer in 1268.
Johansen, Paul. "Die Estlandliste des Liber census Daniae. Copenhagen: H.
Hagerup, 1933. Detailed investigation into Estonian tax lists for information
about the mysterious period 1227-1238.
Johansen, Paul. Nordische Mission: Revals Griindung und die Schwedensiedlung
in Estland. Stockholm: Wahlstrom and Widstand, 1951. Another look at the
crusaders’ policy in Estonia.
352
THE BALTIC CRUSADE
Koch, Friedrich. Livland und das Reich bis zum Jahre 1225, Posen, 1943. Fine
work by a young scholar who was killed in World War II. Especially good for
North German and Danish influences on crusade.
Helen Nicholson, Templars, Hospitallers and Teutonic Knights. Images of the
Military Orders, 1128-1291. Leicester, London and New York: Leicester
University Press and St. Martin’s, 1993.
Osten-Sacken, Paul von. "Der erste Kampf des Deutschen Ordens gegen die
Russen," Mitteilungen aus dem Gebiet der livlandischen Geschichte, 20 (1910):
87-124. Account of the "Battle on the Ice" (1242). This journal is important for
the many other interesting (though dated) articles on the crusading era.
Rohkohl, Martin. "Albert Suerbeer, Erzbischof von Livland, Estland, und
Preussen," Zeitschrift der Gesellschaftfiir schleswig-holsteinische Geschichte, 47
(1917): 68-90. Important biography of this key figure, but outdated.
Transehe-Roseneck, Astaf von, Die ritterliche Livlandfahrer des 13. Jahrhunderts
(Wurzburg: Holzner, 1960). Useful but spotty in its coverage.
Usinger, Rudolf. Deutsch-ddnische Geschichte, 1189-1227, Berlin, 1863. A very
helpful book. Contains list of extant documents referring to Albert of Orlamunde.
Wittram, Reinhard. Baltische Geschichte; die Ostseelande, Livland, Estland,
Kurland: 1180-1918, Munich: R. Oldenbourg, 1954. Good, but the section on the
thirteenth century is short.
Secondary Accounts in other Languages
Biskup, Marian and Labuda, Gerard. Dzieje Zakonu Krzyzackiego w Prusach.
Gospodarka - Spoieczenstwo - Panstwo - Idelogia, Gdansk: Morskie, 1986.
Gdrski, Karol. L'Ordine Teutonico, alle origini dello stato prussiano, Turin:
Einaudi, 1971. Solid nationalist history from the Polish viewpoint.
Lowmianski, Henryk. "Agresja zakonu krzyzackiego na Litwe w wiekach XII-
XV," Przeglpd Historyczny, 45(1954), 338-71.
Lowmianski, Henryk. Studia nad Dziejami Wielkiego Ksigstwa Litewskiego.
Poznari: UaM,^l983.
Vassar, Artur and G. T. Naan. Istoriia Estonskoi SSR, Vol. I. Tallinn, 1961. A
standard, though the Marxist terminology becomes tiresome.
Index
Aachen 216
Aa [Guaja] River 90, 98, 126, 314
Aa [Semgallian] 126, 264, 280, 299
Abel 152, 188, 189, 195, 205-7, 222-
223, 255
Absalon, AB of Lund 8, 15, 50, 55
Acre 290, 305
Adalbert, AB of Hamburg-Bremen 7
Adelbertus of Bohemia 34
Adam of Bremen 22-3, 39, 324
Adolf, AB of Cologne 86
Adolf, C of Dassel 87, 133, 142
Adolf II, Count of Holstein, 2, 4, 5, 8,
12, 14, 15, 48, 50
Adolf 1П 16-17, 50, 52, 54f, 61, 87,
142,
Adolf IV 145, 153-55, 159, 175, 206
Advocates: Magistrates 10, 13, 309
of AB of Riga 62, 75, 101, 103,
118, 124, 136, 140, 162, 200, 235,
244, 247, 266, 278
of crusaders 151, 166
of Lubeck 223, 256, 309
of Magdeburg 124
of Riga 134, 268
of Teutonic Order 236, 244, 246-7,
297, 314
of King Waldemar 134
Albert, В of Riga 49ff, 6Iff, 72-77,
81-85, 87-94, 98-112, 117, 118,
121-132, 134-7, 144, 149, 151, 159-
60, 162, 170, 309, 322
Albert of Orlamunde 62, 72, 87, 108,
111, 117, 119, 121, 135, 141-5, 155
Albert of Stade 47, 54
Albert Suerbeer 163, 208-210, 216-
220, 226, 223, 226-228, 235, 237-
240, 244-6, 250, 309, 315, 322, 330
Albrecht of Saxony 124, 127f, 153-55,
159, 166-7, 176, 206
Albrecht the Bear 2, 4, 7, 8, 11
Albrecht, D of Brauns. 256-7
Aldenesch, Battle of 178-9
Alexander П1 8
Alexander IV 227, 238, 244
Alexander, В of Dorpat 267-8
Alexander, A of Dunamiinde 313
Alexander Nevsky 191-199, 214, 217,
221, 228, 258, 267, 268
the movie 198, 331
Aina 163 See also Baldwin of Aina
Aites Land 48
Amazons 23
Ambassadors 74, 89, 124, 130, 271
Amber 21, 26
Amboten 211
Anastasia 307
Andrej 191, 217, 269, 306
Andreas, К of Hungary 118
Andreas, AB of Lund 129, 134
Andreas Sunesen 55, 63, 74, 81, 124,
129, 130, 134, 141
Andreas von Felben 189, 196-200,
210, 216, 218-222, 254
Andreas von Westphalen 280
Angevin dynasty 46, 86, 104
Anno von Sangerhausen 224-5, 236-8,
240, 250, 262, 265
Apostasy 251, 253
Appanages 205
Arensburg 313
Armagh 209, 220 See Albert Suerbeer
Arnold of Liibeck 8
Arnold von Meiendorf 62
Arnold, Swordbrother 96
Ascheraden 124, 165, 215, 285
Assemblies See Councils
Athos, Mt. 226
Augustinian Order 34, 37, 52, 73, 95
Aurochs 221
Austria 4, 179, 297
Avignon 321
Baghdad 269
Baldwin of Aina 163-170, 175, 182,
184, 188, 326, 330
Ballistarii See Crossbowmen
Baltic Crusade i-iii, 50, 58, 321-336
Baltic Germans 80-4, 88, 101, 153,
160, 332-333
Baltic Manifestos 150
Baptism 28, 36, 49, 75, 127, 129, 162,
165, 217, 218, 262
Bardewick 142
Batu 191, 193, 213, 227
Bavaria 4, 5
353
Bela, К of Hungary 193
Belarus 71
Benedictine Order 34
Benninghoven, Friedrich 159-160, 190
Bernard, В of Dorpat 305, 310, 313-4
Bernard of Saxony (Anhalt) 11, 16,
51, 85, 87
Bernard von Haren 211, 246
Bernard von Seehausen 62
Bernard, Saint 2, 37, 56, 66
Bernard of Lippe: Abt of Diinamunde,
В of Semgallia 57, 65, 97, 99, 104,
110, 117-19, 121, 126-8, 131-2,
136-8, 143, 228
Bernard of Lippe, В of Paderborn 99
Bemec, See Bernard von Haren
Berthold, В of Uexkiill 48-49
Berthold of Wenden 90-1
Bilingualism 333
Birger of Sweden 306
Bison 221
Black Russia 212, 214, 221, 240, 241,
284
Black Sea 139
Bohemia 34, 72, 158, 193, 224-6, 298
Boleslav 34
Boleslaw of Masovia 290
Boniface VIII 310, 314,321
Booty 88, 89, 110, 124, 161, 210,
215, 237, 245, 263, 264, 283, 328
Boris Gynwilowitsche 28
Bornhoeved, Battle of 154-5, 157, 205
Bouvines, Battle of 46, 104
Boyars, 30, 100, 212, 214, 217, 242,
306
Brabant, D of 178
Brandenburg (and D of) 4, 7, 16, 50,
72, 95, 131, 153, 158, 223, 225,
255, 272
Braunschweig (and D of) 5, 7, 12, 53,
111, 179, 223, 272
See also Liineburg, Otto the Child
Bremen: AB of See Hamburg-B
citizens 95, 135, 176f, 207
city 8, 47, 50, 54, 85, 94, 130, 176,
223, 257, 307
Bridge over Daugava 312-3
Brindisi 109, 159
Brothers of the Militia 84-91
Bruno, Master 311-4
Bruno of Querfurt 34
Brunward, В of S 157
Bryacheslav 214
Bug River 284
Bulgaria 226
Bulwark (dam) 312
Burchard of Oldenburg-W 143, 177
Burchard von Querfurt 124
Burchard von Stumphausen 85
Burckhardt von Hornhhusen 240, 245-
248
Burgundy 1
Burondaj 228
Buxhoevden family 49, 58, 132, 250,
322
Buxtehude, C von 241
Byzantium 1, 21, 27, 30, 74, 199
Calatrava, Order of 157
Caltrops 74
Canons See Chapter
Canute I 93
Canute IV 15-16, 50, 54-55
Canute, son of Waldemar 195, 206
Capetian dynasty 47
Carmel, Mt. 249
Casimir of Poland 186
Caspian Sea 139
Castles: garrisoning of
Germany and Denmark 3, 10, 227
impregnability of 249, 329
Livonian 36, 38, 49, 56, 96, 138
native forts 36
Castellans 69, 90, 244, 297-8, 312,
314
Catapult 74, 96, 127-8, 138, 143, 192,
284, 295, 313
Caucasus region 139
Caupo 63, 70, 74, 96, 97, 105, 119
Celestine 1П 45-6,
Celestine V 310
Chaplains 68, 91, 125, 151
Chapter, cathedral:
Hamburg-Bremen 7, 16, 135, 207-8
Riga 52, 54, 106, 162, 237, 244,
245, 270, 310
Livonian 243, 315
Schwerin 105
Swordbrothers, Teutonic Knights
68 -69, 189, 196, 240, 281, 286
354
China 30, 181
Chivalry 66, 73, 247, 256, 280, 281,
282, 298, 313, 321
Christendom 5, 14, 33, 58, 71, 181,
253, 322, 324, 327
Christian, В of Prussia 157-8, 183,
188, 209
Christians See Crusaders; Rigans
Christopher 152, 206, 208, 228, 255
Church i, 87, 257, 325-6, 329
See Papacy
Cistercian Order 36, 37, 48, 56, 57,
58, 65-6, 68, 125, 157, 158, 163,
164, 166-7, 169, 183
Clans 23, 25-7, 197, 242, 244
Cleves, C of 178
Climate See also Winter
Cogges 93
Cologne: AB of 7, 11-3, 46, 77, 86,
141, 223
City 72, 86, 167
Colonization 9, 48, 56, 131, 152, 183,
212, 254-5, 278
Columbus 324
Confratres 68, 102
Cono von Isenburg 72
Conrad, В of Oesel-Wiek 313-4
Conrad, king of Germany 220
Conrad of Masovia 71, 157-8, 242
Conrad of Thuringia 189, 200
Conrad von Dortmund 52
Conrad von Fuchtwangen 286-290,
305, 314
Conrad von Mandern 262-5
Conrad von Marburg 167
Conrad von Meiendorf 54
Conrad von Uexkiill 70,-144
Conradin 277
Constantine 99, 109, 133, 191, 258
Constantine, s of Treniota 260
Constantine, Donation of 263
Constantinople 71, 103, 184, 226
Conversion 1, 33f, 102, 253, 315f,
323f
Copenhagen 133
Coronation 220
Corporation of pilgrims 166
Councils
In Bremen 176
in Denmark 206, 208
Elbing 286-7
Lateran 104, 106f, 117, 157
in Lubeck 176
in Lyon 207, 209
in Riga 152, 165
Teutonic Knights 300
Courland See Kurland
Court 5, 11, 50-1, 61, 77, 82, 126,
142, 153
maritime 309
Courtly love 67
Cracow 242
Criminals 83, 331
Crossbowmen 74, 97, 120, 127, 222,
286
Crusaders 38, 49, 56, 84, 88, 151,
253, 277, 288, 313, 329, 331
Crusades 51, 56,245, 271
1171 9-10
1189 14, 17
1197 17, 47, 182
Second 2, 9
Third 14
Fourth 71, 73, 103, 190, 199
Fifth 112
Aachen 216
Albigensian 103, 176
Baltic 7, 17, 33, 88, 109, 155, 180,
193, 208, 224, 266, 272, 317, 321f,
326, 335-36
Children’s 103
Finland 195, 255
Frederick H’s 108-9, 158, 159
Novgorod 188f
Prussia 176, 193, 272
Samland 208, 224-6
Stedingen 155, 158-9, 176-9
Wendish 2-4, 9, 118
Crusading Orders 12, 17, 56, 58, 65f,
81-2, 157, 160, 181
Culm 277
Cumans 29, 193
Cuno von Hazigenstein 298-300
Cynoceophali 23
Damietta 112
Danes See Denmark
Dange River 224, 240, 259
Daniel of Galicia 71, 110, 118, 139,
186, 193, 212-4, 216-8, 221-2, 224,
355
226-8, 241, 251, 260, 279
Daniel von Kokenhusen 83
Dannenberg (and C of) 61, 141, 143,
184
Danute 138
Danzig 277
Daugava:
defensive line 84-5, 90, 92, 164,
247, 250, 254, 258-9, 288, 305
travel on 29, 30, 36, 39, 50, 74, 93
312
Daumantas of Nalsen 251, 254, 260-3,
265-9, 271, 273
Daumantas, grand duke 290, 293, 294
Dausprungas 27, 71, 181-2, 185, 294
Deltuva 27
Demeter 35
Denmark (and Danes) 9, 13-17, 50,
55, 61f, 72, 85f, 86-7, 93-5, 121-5,
130, 132-3, 135, 155, 157, 170, 175,
187, 195, 205-7, 222-3, 255f, 265,
277, 286, 291, 306, 314, 327, 329
See Abel; Canute; Christopher; Eric;
Waldemar
Delmar Y16
Diana 35
Dietrich von Griiningen 189, 196f,
210f
Dietrich von Haseldorp 222, 255, 279
Dievas 35
Dithmarschen 15, 52, 54, 153, 154
Dmitri Alexandrovitch 258, 267-8,
274
Doblen 247, 249, 287-9, 296, 300-1
Dobriner Order 157
Dolen 92
Dominican Order 149, 162, 239, 253
Donation of Constantine 263
Donner, Gustav 159, 190
Dorpat (and В of) 91, 143, 156, 162,
169, 198, 200, 210, 240, 250, 251,
253, 258, 267, 271, 279, 310, 313,
317, 333
Vassals 143
Dovmont See Daumantas of Nalsen
Drang nach Osten 7, 71
Druids 35
Drushina 242
Diinaburg 263
Dunamiinde 56, 90, 165, 169, 259,
269, 283-4
Durben, Battle of 248, 281-2
East Gotland, D of 133
Eberhard von Seine 221-2, 224
Edivydas 185, 213, 224, 242, 260-1,
263, 267
Edmund, В of Kurland 305
Egypt 112, 208, 306, 307, 326
Eilard von Hoberg 285-6
Eisenstein, Sergi 198
Elbe River 2, 5, 7, 9, 86, 107
Elbing 277, 286-7, 298
Elders 25-27, 38-9, 52, 77, 89, 126,
160, 210, 211, 242, 244, 245, 247,
295, 317, 332, 334
Eleanor of Aquitaine 67
Embargo 52-3, 165, 269, 271, 284
Emperor See Frederick I; Frederick
II; Philip of Hohenstaufen; Otto IV;
Rudolf of Hapsburg
Engelbert von Buxhoevden 56, 91,
101
Engelbert von Thisenhusen 96-7, 143
England 7, 13, 14, 86, 103
money from 12, 14, 16, 47, 7
Eric IV, К of Denmark 152, 200, 205-
208, 222
Eric V 228, 255
Eric VI 291, 306
Eric Ш, К of Sweden 133, 208
Ernst von Rassburg 281, 283, 284-5
Eskil, AB of Lund 34
Estates See Rigans
Estland See Estonia
Estonia (and Estonians) 21-3, 25, 37,
63, 64, 69, 73, 84, 88f-95ff, 110,
118-121, 124-5, 127, 129, 132-7,
143, 144, 150, 156, 168-9, 186, 187,
198, 288, 292, 323, 329, 335
allies of crusaders 135, 182, 195,
236, 247-9, 278, 284
attacked by Lith 69, 124, 328
attacked by Russians 100, 110, 118f,
122-3, 197-8, 265
Danish vassals in 136, 152, 159,
160, 188, 189, 195f, 200, 243, 248,
267, 279-80, 289, 292, 288, 289,
299, 305, 310, 317, 322, 333
peasant uprising 328, 334
356
Excommunication 82, 95, 141, 145,
151, 165, 206, 216, 227, 238, 245,
255, 257
Eylard von Dolen 97
Falera 2
Falkenau 167
Famine 163, 165, 300
Fanaticism 66, 315, 324-5, 326-7,
331-2
Fellin 96-7, 119, 132, 136, 138, 266,
314
Feudalism in Germany 2, 4, 11, 19
in Livonia and Estonia 19-20, 76,
105, 115, 121, 152, 240, 244
in Scandinavia 125
Finland (and Finns) 29, 32, 133, 194-
195, 255, 327
Finland, В of 133, 194-5, 208
Finland, Gulf of 21, 28, 306
Finno-Ugric 93
Flanders 291, 311, 312
Floods 81, 312
Florenz, Abt 56-57, 90
Forgeries 263
France 2, 14, 71-2, 103, 208, 209, 277
Franciscan Order (and St. Francis) 76,
162, 189, 206, 218, 220, 253, 312,
317, 321, 326
Friedrich, AB of Riga 321
Friedrich C of Haseldorf and В of
Dorpat 255 See Dietrich
Friedrich von Hausen 6*1
Frederick I (Barbarossa) 1, 4-5, 8, to-
ll, 14, 17
Frederick II 86, 103-4, 111, 130, 140,
141, 145, 150, 153, 164, 166, 175,
179-80, 183, 194, 201, 205-9, 216,
219, 220, 223
Frische Haff See Kurland Lagoon
Frisia (and Frisians) 8, 52, 223, 228,
327
Frontier 9, 330
Fulco, В of Estonia 34
Fur 51
Galicia 71, 100, 110, 111, 118, 124,
138, 186, 193, 196, 212, 217, 260,
261, 279, 284, 306
Galician-Volhynian Chronicle 293
Gardinas 186, 191, 213
Gediminas 314
Gelnhausen 77
Georg 249-250, 254
Gerhard I, AB of Hamb-B 94, 107-8,
121-2, 126
Gerhard П AB of Hamb-B 126, 130,
133-5, 145, 153f, 158-9, 163, 176-9,
206f, 222, 228
Gerhard von Katzenellenbogen 287-9
Gerlach 187
German master 221
Germanization 83, 282, 316
Germany See Holy Roman Empire
Gerzike 27, 84, 92, 105, 144, 238
Ghengis Khan 139, 191
Gideon 73
Gimbutas, Marija 35
Gingeike 214f
Gniezo, AB of 34, 157, 200, 239
Golden Bull of Rimini 183
Golden Horde 180 See Mongols
Goldingen 210, 211, 236, 246, 249,
250, 258, 262, 287, 288, 298
Goslar 7, 8, 10
Gotland 25, 28-9, 36, 38, 48, 50, 63,
85, 93, 124, 133, 134, 151-2, 164,
291-2
crusaders from 38, 52, 85, 160
merchants 52-3
Gottfried 82-3, 156, 170
Gottfried Rogge 314
Gottfried von Hohenlohe 314
Gottschalk 17
Government 2, 10, 21, 25-6, 28, 30,
32, 39, 75, 150, 151, 188, 242, 244-
245, 308
philosophy of 1, 76, 83, 103, 1634
282
Governor See Headman of Estonian
Knights; Master
Grand Duke of Lithuania See also
Mindaugas, Ringaudas, Traidenis,
Vytis, Dausprungas
Grandmaster See Anno of
Sangerhausen; Hartmann von
Heldrungen; Hermann von Salza
Gregory I, pope 64
Gregory IX, pope 64, 159, 163, 166,
169, 177-8, 186-7, 188, 194, 196
357
Gresen 262-3
Griefswald 277
Grooms 260
Guido, Cardinal 257
Guillebert de Lannoy 283
Gunzel of Schwerin 55, 131, 140
Gunzelin 265-7, 269-71
Halberstadt 87, 122
Halt, Master 301, 305, 309, 310
Hamburg 16, 54, 85, 107, 135, 145,
206, 223, 307
Hamburg-Bremen, AB of 7, 12f, 16,
33, 42, 50f, 85, 94, 107-8, 121-2,
130-1, 135, 142, 207 See also
Gerhard I and II; Hartwig I and II
Hannover 36
Hanoi 269
Hanseatic Society 10
Hanseatic League 176, 223, 257, 277,
291-2, 305, 306, 321, 328
Harburg 135
Harden 100, 118, 129, 136, 188, 243
Hartberg von Iburg 52
Hartmann von Heldrungen 187, 281,
286
Hartwig I, AB of Hamb-Bremen 7, 11
Hartwig П 13, 15-7, 33, 36, 47f, 54f,
72, 85, 87
Haseldorf, C of 180, 184, 222, 255
Headman of Estonian knights 200,
243, 289
Hearth tax 227, 269
Hedwig 145, 155, 189
Heidenreich, В of Culm 220
Heiligenberg 295-6, 299, 300
Heinrich Ш, Holy Roman Emperor 7
Heinrich IV 7
Heinrich VI 17-8, 45
Heinrich, В of Oesel 196, 305
Heinrich, К of Germany 142, 153
Heinrich of Braunsch 14, 53, 55, 72
Heinrich Burwin 54, 122, 145
Heinrich of Mecklenburg 266, 268,
271, 307
Heinrich of Oldenburg 177-8
Heinrich of Schwerin 87, 137, 140f,
145, 153-55, 265, 267, 310
Heinrich von Dannenberg 61, 142
Heinrich von Dincklage 310
Heinrich von Franken 284
Heinrich von Heimburg 200
Heinrich von Stumphenhusen 72
Helmerich, В of Wurzburg 258
Helmold, C von Plesse 97
Helmold von Liineburg 143
Helsinki 195
Henrik of Poland 193
Henry the Lion 2-15, 16, 19, 29, 46,
132
Henry, Bishop 133
Henry of Livonia 26-28, 39, 123, 127,
159, 170, 317, 324
Herde 158
Heresy 176-8, 184, 254
Hermann Balke 183, 187-9, 210
Hermann von Buxhoevden: В of
Estonia, В of Dorpat 91, 130-2, 140,
142-3, 153, 156, 195, 198, 200
Hermann, В of Oesel-Wiek 279-80
Hermann, C of Hesse 257
Hermann of Lippe 99, 117, 158, 176
Hermann of Orlamunde 87
Hermann von Salza 142, 145, 148,
150, 158, 178, 183, 189
Hildesheim, В of 12, 178
Historicism ii-iii, 331
Hitler-Stalin Pact 332
Hohenstaufens 1-2, 4, 8, 12-14, 16-17,
45-8, 50-1, 53-4, 62, 77, 81, 86-7,
92, 94, 122, 209, 330
Holland 8, 77, 104, 179
Holm 36, 48, 75
Holstein 4, 12, 13, 52, 61-2, 72, 87,
104, 111, 118, 135, 142, 154, 160,
175, 180, 189, 205-6, 223, 246, 255,
272, 307
Union with Schleswig 206
Holy Land 17, 47, 51, 58, 81, 108,
111, 117, 135, 140, 158, 160, 180,
182, 192, 220, 271, 277, 317, 329
Holy Roman Empire 1-3, 5, 14-15,
45f, 83, 85, 87, 91, 934, 117, 130,
175, 179, 228
Homburg, C of 132, 134
Honorius 1П 64, 111, 130-1, 140, 149-
150, 152, 153
Hordes 192, 196
Horses 23, 49, 71, 98, 185, 191, 192,
211, 245, 251, 268, 280, 286-88
358
Hospitallers 17, 160
Hostages 52, 54, 97, 129, 130, 136,
143, 145, 165, 195, 323
Housecarls 1, 62, 125
Hungary 110-111, 158, 192-3
Hunting 188, 218
Ice, Battle on the 198-99, 279
Idumea 90-1
Immunities 238
Imperialism 33, 315, 331
Ingeborg 72
Innocent Ш, pope 17, 45-7, 51, 53,
57, 63Л, 72, 85, 87, 93-5, 103f
Innocent IV 201, 205, 216, 218-9,
220, 227
Inquisition
Ireland 209, 220
Isamus, AB of Lund 321
Isborg 195, 271
Italy 1, 4, 10, 12, 46, 87, 94-5, 103,
140, 179, 207, 327
Itzehoe 154
Jaroslav Vladimirovich 32
Jaroslav Vsevolodovich (Kiev) 100,
109-10, 134, 139, 162: 191
Jaroslav Jaroslavovich (Tver) 217,
228, 258, 260, 261, 268, 272
Jaroslav Vladimirovich (Pskov) 190,
195
Jaroslav of Rugen 255
Jatwigia 186, 213f, 226-7, 240, 289
Jerusalem 51, 57, 93, 141, 193, 245,
271, 277
Jerwen 100, 118, 122, 129, 136, 138,
166, 188, 265
Joachim of Fiore 254, 335
Johanna 46
Johann, В of Reval 305
Johann Selich 168
Johann of Appeldom 143
Johann of Holstein 206-7, 223, 256-7
Johann of Parchim 266
Johann von Dolen 143, 151
Johann von Lode 157, 170
Johann von Scheida 91
Johann von Thisenhusen 284-5
Johann I of Riga [von Lune] AB 278
Johann П [von Fechten] 270, 290,
305, 310, 315
Johann П1 [of Schwerin] 310-315
Johansen, Paul 159, 190
John, к of England 71, 86, 104
John, к of Sweden 133
John Grand 306, 321
John (Master, Vicelegate) 151, 156,
159, 160, 165
Juijev 91
Just War 181-2, 324, 338
Kalka, Battle of 138f
Kammin 277
Karakorum 191, 194
Karelians 32, 133, 195, 243, 255, 306
Karl Birger 194-5, 255
Karshowen 247, 248, 249
Kegola River 267-8
Kentauras 262
Kemave 218, 262, 285
Kholm 212, 236-7
Kidnapping 140-1, 209, 223, 270, 307,
315
Kiev 30, 99, 100, 110, 138-9, 186,
191, 192, 219
Kokenhusen 27, 81, 83-5, 92, 143
Konigsberg 226, 236, 240, 301
Kopore 195, 284
Kotyan, Khan 138-9
Kreitingen 258-9
Kurland (and Kurs) 23, 25, 27, 39, 42,
63, 73, 93-6, 124, 130, 157, 164-66,
169, 185, 205, 219, 210-2, 215,
218-20, 224, 228, 235, 240, 245ff
advocates 246-7
allies of crusaders 236, 246
В of 169, 218, 220, 224, 227, 284,
289, 305
conquest of 165, 214, 226, 258
Kurland Lagoon 224-5
Ladoga, Lake 29, 194
Laima 35
Lambert, В of S 165
Landfriede 3, 175
Landmarshall See Marshall
Lateran, See Council
Lattimore, Owen 330
Latvia 21, 198, 335
Lauenburg 4, 12, 53, 61
359
Leal 133, 136, 266, 313
В of 130, 132, 162, 279, 313
See also Oesel-Wiek; Estonia
Legate, papal 51, 76, 144, 149, 151
152, 159, 163, 164, 165-66, 209,
216, 238, 270, 315, 317, 335
Legenda Negra 39
Legnano, Battle of 11
Lekno 157
Lembit 97, 118-121, 335
Lengewin 211, 213-7
Lennewarden 84, 93, 12*4, 250
Leopold of Austria 14, 16
Leszek, к of Poland 71, 110
Lettgallia (and Letts) 23, 25-7, 32, 34,
73, 84-5, 88-90, 92, 99, 106, 119-
120, 123, 127, 135-7, 139, 182, 185,
248, 249, 296, 323, 328
Lev of Galicia 227, 261, 284
Libri miraculorum 327
Liegnitz 193, 196
Lipitsa River, Battle of 100, 109
Lippe family 137, 222 See Bernard
Lippstadt 132
Lithuania (and Lithuanians) 21, 23,
26-7, 34-6, 73, 74, 84-5, 88-90, 92,
117, 123-4, 126, 128, 135, 205, 208,
211-5, 217-22, 235f, 262, 279, 282,
290, 308, 314, 317, 328
attack Livonians and Estonians 26,
29, 36, 69-70, 84, 95f, 117, 127,
129, 134, 161, 181, 259, 279-80,
283, 322, 328
attack Poland 181
attack Russia 27, 100, 123, 162,
181, 190, 191, 193, 284, 294
attacked by crusaders 26, 88, 217,
281, 283-90, 293, 301
attacked by Mongols 284
В of 239
converted to Christianity 205, 281-2
government 205-6, 211-13, 221, 242
merchants 292
See also Samogitia
Livonian Confederation 311
Livonian master See Masters
Livonian Order 189, 305, 327
See Teutonic Order
Livonians (and Livs) 23, 25, 36, 49,
52, 73, 83-4, 88, 89, 92-3, 95f, 99,
101, 106, 119-21, 123, 127, 129,
135, 182, 236, 249
Livonian War (1558-1583) 327, 332
335
Loccum 36, 48, 56, 142
Lombardy 10, 19
Lothair, emperor 5
Louis IX 208, 277, 317, 321
Louis von Naumburg 184
Lublin 241
Lubeck 5, 7, 50ff, 61, 103, 104, 108,
121-122, 130, 132, 145, 151, 153,
155, 159, 166, 170, 175-6, 194, 196,
206-208, 216, 220, 222-224, 256,
277, 286, 291-3, 305f, 312, 313
ties to Baltic 176, 208, 216, 224,
328
В of 8, 178, 216, 223, 255, 277,
292, 307, 321
Ludolf von Dassel 61
Ludwig 238, 240
Lund, AB of 13, 33, 34, 74-5, 77,
124, 127, 130, 133-4, 196, 227, 257,
306, 321
See also Absalon; Andreas Suneson,
John Grand
Luneburg 12, 145, 257, 307
Lyo 141
Lyon 209, 219
Lyster 63
Magdeburg 50, 133, 162, 193
AB 12, 91, 107, 122, 130, 132, 163
Advocate of 124
Magistrates See Advocates
Magnus 291-2
Maholm 267
Manegold 287, 290
Manors 4, 25
Marburg 179, 184, 187, 281, 286
Marco Polo 269
Margaret of Denmark 228, 255
Maria Dmitrova 268
Marienfeld 56, 65, 90
Marriages 140, 144, 190, 217, 332-3
Marshal 248, 288, 296
Martha of Lith 218, 220, 251
Masovia (and D of) 71, 186, 214, 242,
314
Massacres 73, 79, 88, 106, 127, 128,
360
136, 192, 235, 259
Masters 68-9, 220, 272, 290
See also Wenno, Volquin, Hermann
Balke, Andreas, Anno, Burchard,
Werner, Conrad von Mandem, Otto,
Walter, Ernst, Conrad von
Feuchtwangen, Willekin, Cuno,
Halt, Heinrich, Bruno, Gottfried
Matilda, w of Hemy the L 38, 46, 67
Matilda, w of Abel 255
Mecklenburg 2, 4, 15, 55, 83, 104,
122, 175, 206, 257, 266, 307
Meinhard, В of Uexkiill 36-39, 45, 53
Meissen 272
Memel 224-6, 235, 236, 240-1, 243,
246, 258
Memel River 224-5, 294
Mercenaries 67, 85, 151, 160, 180,
269, 329, 331-2
Merchants 7, 26, 28-9, 31, 36, 52-3,
58, 96, 109, 118, 124/154, 161,
219, 307
Crusaders 38-9, 49-50, 58, 101, 151,
161, 177, 180, 200, 207, 277-8, 331
importance of 31-2, 154, 161, 165,
223, 269, 307, 312, 322, 327f
Mesoten 126-7, 165
Messengers 220
Michael Vsevolodovich 134, 144, 162,
186, 268
Milgerin 214-5
Militia of Christ See Swordbrothers
Militia 10, 26, 69, 144, 160-162, 236,
246, 248-9, 283, 285, 294, 328, 331,
334
Mills 243
Mindaugas 27, 181-2, 184f, 211-5,
217-22, 226-8, 235, 239-43, 251,
253-4, 258-60, 262, 265, 283, 335
Minden, В of 178
Ministeriales 9-10, 51, 66-8, 101, 152,
154, 160, 244
Minnesingers 51, 67
Minsk 30, 226
Missionaries 1-2, 4, 33-J9, 51, 73, 75,
89, 124, 150, 181, 253, 316, 322,
324, 326
Mitau 236, 264, 280, 288, 294, 299,
301
Modena 149-50 See William
Molln, Battle of 145
Mongols 138f, 186, 199, 213, 217,
221, 227, 228, 241, 243, 254, 258,
269, 284, 306, 335
Moravia 193
Moscow 306
Moslems 181, 253, 271, 350
Mother Teresa 331
Mstislav of Smolensk 135, 139
Mstislav the daring 71, 91, 100, 109-
111, 118, 124, 134, 138-9
Mstislav the old 100, 118, 139
Munster, В of 177-8
Myths 76
Nalsen 182, 185, 251-2, 261, 267, 283
Nameikis 288, 289
Narva (and River) 195, 197, 267
Naumburg, В of 239
Nemunas River 221-2, 224
Nepotism 101
Netherlands 200
Neumunster 56
Neva River 29, 133, 194-5, 306
New Mill 313
Nicholas, В of Riga 162, 200, 209,
220, 227, 239
Nicholas von Hardehausen 57
Nobility 2f, 9-10, 15, 242
See Vassals, feudalism,
Minnisteriales, elders
Nordalbigensia 2, 4, 7, 17, 132, 155
Nordhausen 142
Normandy 71
North Mark 4 See also Brandenburg
Norway 208, 255, 306
Novgorod 25, 27-33, 89, 91, 99-101,
109f, 118-9, 122-4, 133-4, 137, 139,
144, 162, 188f, 214, 217, 221, 228,
243, 250, 258, 260, 267f, 271, 284,
306, 322
Chronicle of Ml, 123, 138, 162,
258
See also Alexander Nevsky, Dmitri
Alexandrovitch, Jaroslav, Yuri,
Novogorodek 186, 218, 221, 226-228
Nun 287
Nuremberg 153
Odenpah 89, 110, 118, 136
361
Odense 206
Oesel (and Oeselians) 23, 63, 75, 93,
94, 106, 108, 118, 121, 124, 129,
133, 135-6, 138, 143, 156f, 196-7,
249, 279
Oesel-Wiek, В of 156-7 162, 170,
186, 210, 220, 227, 240, 243, 250,
305, 313-4, 317, 333
See Hermann, Gottfried, Heinrich
Vassals 143, 156-7, 170, 243, 249,
279
Oldenburg 94, 106, 177, 228
Oracles 35, 215
Organs 198, 309
Orthodox Christians 21, 32-34, 37, 76-
77, 92, 105, 119, 194, 196, 212,
221, 226, 254, 261-2, 282
Osnabruck, В of 177-8
Otto IV 14, 19, 46-7, 53, 55, 77, 86-7,
94-5, 103A 107-8, 111
Otto, В of Munster 103
Otto, Cardinal 163, 166, 209
Otto the Child 145, 153, 154-5, 177-9,
200, 206, 208, 223, 255
Otto of Wittelsbach 86
Otto von Lutterburg 265-6, 270-1,
272, 277-80
Ottokar, к of Bohemia 226, 272, 277
Pacifism 326
Paderborn, В of 12, 95, ’177-8, 222,
228
Paganism 33-39, 49, 53, 76, 81, 96,
106, 183, 185, 196, 215, 220-1, 245,
252, 253, 262, 282, 289, 295, 315-6,
322, 325
Pageantry 69, 288, 321
Papacy 4, 5, 12, 17, 29, 33, 45, 149,
205-8, 275, 309-10, 330
intentions in Livonia 163-4, 170,
188, 208, 330
See also Alexander Ш; Alexander
IV; Boniface VIII; Celestine IV and
V; Gregory IX; Honorius Ш;
Innocent Ш; Innocent IV; Urban IV
Paris 206 l
Patzinaks 29
Peasantry 4-10, 13-14, 26, 62, 83,
132, 144, 206, 208, 212, 223, 242,
255, 334
Peipus, Lake 198, 205, 210, 271
Peking 269
Perejaslavl 109, 195, 306
Perkunas 35, 262
Philip Augustus 71, 72, 46, 104
Philip, В of Ratzeburg 72, 87, 95,
102-5, 107-8
Philip of Hohenstaufen 45, 47-8, 50f
71-2, 77, 85-7, 140
Pilgrims 51, 54, 56, 58, 84, 151, 226,
255, 258 See Crusaders
Pinsk 226, 251
Pirates 1, 14, 35, 39, 63, 64, 75, 93-4,
121, 152, 306
Plague 99, 139, 261, 284
Plenary indulgence 58
Plows 25
Poland 71, 132, 181, 183, 191, 193,
196, 212, 214, 226, 242, 272, 282,
314
Polonin 226
Polovtsians 138
Polozk (and Prince of) 23, 27, 29, 30,
33, 73, 74, 81, 85, 92, 105, 117,
134, 186, 213, 214, 242, 254, 260-1,
263, 265, 322
Polygamy 53, 322
Pomerania 2, 4, 50, 83, 93, 104, 132,
183, 282
Popes, 4, 181, 312 see Papacy
Poppo, Master 196, 266
Posadnik 32, 118, 269, 271
Praemonstratensians 2, 95, 165
Preaching the crusade 62, 72, 83, 111,
132, 243, 245, 256
Prester John 192
Priests 68, 136, 197, 200, 220, 236,
253-4, 315-6, 322-3, 333
Princes 2, 130, 153, 175, 194
Procurator 310
Prostitutes 333
Prussia (and Prussians) 25, 29, 93, 95,
150, 157, 183, 186, 187, 196, 200-1,
209, 214, 216, 219, 224, 242, 248,
250, 260, 272, 311, 329
В of See Christian, Albert Suerbeer
Prussian master See Hermann Balke,
Dietrich von Griiningen
Pskov (and Prince of) 27, 32, 33, 89,
91, 93, 100-101, 109f, 115, 118,
362
123, 127, 185, 190, 195f, 261f, 269,
271 See also Vladimir
pukerveras 294, 314
Queen of Denmark See Margaret
Queen of Lithuania See Martha
Queen of Gerzike 92
Racketen 296, 299
Ragana 35
Ransom 89, 142, 152, 154, 215, 217,
266, 307
Rape 71, 333
Rasno, Lake 182
See also Wolkenburg
Ratzeburg, В of 8, 95, ^7, 178
See Philip
Reinfeld 36
Rendsburg 52, 145, 154
Reval 118, 121, 124-5, 136-7, 310
В of 127, 129, 132-4, 155, 156,
168-169, 188, 189, 200, 217, 257,
267, 305 See Estonia
Rhineland 62, 72, 86, 159, 179
Rhymned Chronicle 317
Richard the Lionheart 14, 16-7, 46-7
Riga 52, 54, 62f, 73, 84-5, 88, 90-2,
96, 107, 109, 117, 118, 125-7, 129,
132, 134-7, 150, 156, 161, 187, 224,
236, 241, 246, 259, 262, 271, 278,
301, 305f, 321
В of See Albert; Nicholas; Johann;
citizens of 84, 90, 118, 130, 132-4,
137, 143, 144, 150, 156, 161, 164,
166, 189, 200, 209, 219, 227, 238,
259, 291-3, 308f
AB of 227, 290-1, 305
vassals 227, 313
Ringaudas 27, 74, 84, 294
Ripon 206
Rodenpois 70
Roeskilde, В of 124, 141
Roger Bacon 220, 2534, 335
Roman Danielovich 227, 228, 260
Roman of Galicia 71
Rome 4, 52, 56, 63, 85, 95, 104, 130,
290, 313, 314 See Papacy
Roncaglia 8
Ropp family 143, 170, 250, 317
Rostock 122, 277
Rotalia 105, 118, 121
Rothmann von Buxhoevden 73, 143
Rudolf of Hapsburg 278
Rudolf von Jerichow 92, 96
Rudolf von Kassel (Wenden) 130, 198
Rudolf von Stotle 124
Rudolf von Ungem 263
Rugen, (and Prince of) 125, 255, 289
Ruklys 243
Rurik, House of 29, 31
Russia (and Russians) 29-33, 85, 89,
92-3, 109, 117, 119, 121-4, 127,
134-8, 137, 138, 181, 185, 190f,
219, 221, 226, 240, 242, 243, 250,
282, 293f, 306, 328, 329, 335
Russification 335
Russin 89, 96, 102
Rhymed Chronicle 91, 245, 249
Sabina, Ca of See William of Modena
Saccalia 89, 97, 106, 118, 121, 130-2,
134-135, 137-8
Saint Bernard See Bernard
Saint George’s 73, 151, 154, 240, 287,
312
Saint Jacob’s 151
Saint Mary’s 56, 88, 91, 101, 102,
106, 137, 151, 162, 239, 289
Saint Mauritius’ Blackheads 154
Saint Nicholas 125
Saint Sophia 258, 268
Salvage rights 292
Samland (and Samlanders) 25, 93,
130, 208, 224-5, 240, 248
Samogithia (and Samogithians) 25, 27,
88, 200-1, 210-11, 213-4, 219, 224,
240, 245-8, 262, 308 See Lithuania
Sandomir 193, 242, 306, 314
Saracens See Moslems
Sarai 192, 217
Saule, Battle of 184-6, 190, 199, 222,
255
Sauna 66, 260
Saxon-Lauenburg 11, 307
Saxons 5, 51, 119-20, 129
Saxony 5, 7f, 48, 72, 86, 95, 99, 132,
155, 159
Dof 5, 11, 13, 16, 307
See also Henry the Lion; Albrecht;
Bernard
363
Schauenburg 87, 142 See Adolf 1П
Schleswig 121, 124-6, 205f, 222, 256
В of 75, 124, 126 See Waldemar
Schoden, Battle of 246
Schwerin 4, 10, 52, 72, 83, 87, 95,
104, 140, 145, 157, 208, 266, 269,
315
В of 8
C of 14, 206, 270, 307
See also Gunzel; Gunzelin;
Heinrich; Johann 1П of Riga
Sedde River 137
Segeberg 2, 17, 26, 52, 73, 154, 207
Segewold 102, 136, 259, 270
Seiburg 84
Selonia (and Selonians) 23, 84, 165,
219-220, 267
Semgallia (and Semgallians) 23, 27,
69, 73, 88, 126-9, 131, 137, 157,
164f, 185, 205, 210, 212, 214-5,
217-8, 228, 247-9, 250, 264, 267,
278-83, 285-90, 293, 294-301, 305,
308, 314, 328
allies of crusaders 26, 69-70, 74, 88,
236, 284, 328
В of 126, 131, 143, 1$2, 170, 218-
219, 222, 280
See also Bernard of Lippe, Lambert
Sens 227, 235
Serfs 27, 144, 197, 242, 316, 327,
328, 333-5
Sergeants 68, 259, 288
Servants 68
Sicily 4, 45, 53, 86
Sidobren 300
Silesia 193
Simon of Lippe, В 222, 228
Simon of Tecklenburg 55
Singing Revolution 316
Slaves 1, 25, 27, 53, 106, 212, 235,
242, 245, 259, 316
Slavs 2, 15, 29, 239, 266, 289, 327
See also Russians, Wends, Poles
Smolensk 27, 30, 31, 100, 139, 186,
213, 214, 217, 221, 293
Soviet Union 3^2
Stade 7-8, 50-1, 55, 85-6, 106, 126,
153
Stedingen 85, 107, 155, 170, 176-9
Stensby, Treaty of 188, 195, 196, 200
Steppe 29, 138, 158, 181, 192-5, 212
Stonemasons 36, 85
Statutes 200
Stralsund 277
Sudavia 294
Superstition 215, 254
Suzdal 32, 217, 269
Svjatoslav Vsevolodovich 32, 99-100
Svjatoslav Mstislavich 118
Svjatoslav Jaroslavich 217
Svjatoslav Vladimirovich (Tver) 261,
267-9, 273, 294
Svantopulk of Pom. 188, 208, 216
Svamo of Galicia 227, 261
Sylvester, pope 34
Swabia 1
Sweden (and Swedes) 16, 63, 87, 93,
131, 133, 189-191, 194-5, 217, 255,
278, 305, 306, 310, 327
D of 39
Swordbrothers 56-57, 64-70, 74, 81f,
88, 90-93, 95, 118-20, 127, 129,
131-2, 134, 136-7, 139, 143, 150-1,
153, 160f, 166, 180f, 184, 186-90,
199, 201, 322, 328, 329
quarrels w В Albert 82, 101, 129f
quarrels w Baldwin 168-170
quarrels w Hermann Balke 187, 190
See also Wenno, Volquin
Synod See Council
Tallinn 125 See Reval
Tatar Yoke 217, 293
Tatars, Tartars See Mongols
Tartu 91, 93, 99, 136, 139, 143, 156
See Dorpat
Taxes 13, 25, 36, 75, 102, 109, 121,
130, 135, 144, 158, 161, 177, 179,
180-1, 196, 208, 210-15, 218, 223,
237-8, 244-7, 272, 308, 309, 317,
322, 334
Templar Order 68, 157, 160, 166, 183,
200, 317, 329, 330
Terwerten 127, 164, 217, 280
Teutonic Knights 17, 150, 157f, 182-
184, 187f, 193, 208ff, 227, 235f,
244-5, 254f, 260, 266, 272, 293,
308f, 333f
in Kurland 210f, 226, 227, 235, 248,
250f, 258, 329
364
in Russia 195-9, 265-6, 271
in Samogithia 200-1, 219, 235f,
262f, 272
in Semgallia 215, 217, 262f
in Holy Land 17, 158
in Holy Roman Empire 183
in Hungary 158, 168, 173
in Lithuania 217
in Prussia 158, 181, 183, 193, 196,
199, 208, 225, 248, 272, 281-2, 311
in Germany 183-4, 298
view of 209, 239, 329
Theodoric, A of Diinamiinde and В of
Estonia 36f, 52, 56f, 74, 77-8, 89,
98, 107-8, 109, 124-6, 130
Theodroic of Buxhoevden 62-3, 75,
91, 93, 99, 101, 110, 136, 143, 170,
190, 250 See Ropp
Theodoric of Seehausen
Thomas, bishop 133, 194, 195
Thiesenhusen family 143-4, 284-5
Thompson, James Westfall
Thor 35
Thom 183, 293
Thuringia 51, 255
Thuringia, C of 12
Tithe 38, 57, 75, 82, 244 See Taxes
Tolowa 102
Torkill, В of Reval 200
Tournament 256
Toumai 163
Tovtivil 185-6, 213, 217, 221, 228,
242, 251, 254, 258, 263
Tower, assault 175, 195
Trade 3, 27-9, 133, 217, 238, 250,
261, 269, 308, 315
See Merchants
Traidenis 262, 279, 283-6, 290
Transylvania 158, 168
Trave River 176, 277 See Lubeck
Treiden 52, 74, 82, 94-98, 134, 313
Treniote 222, 235, 237, 240-2, 254-9,
260-2
Tribute 25, 36, 39, 74, 78, 101, 109,
118, 227
Tunisia 277
Turks 191
Turner, Frederick Jackson 330
Tusche 214-5
Tver 217, 306
Tverai 222
Tyrol 298
Uexkiill 36, 48, 52, 56, 297
Ukraine 71
Ungannia 91, 93, 106, 110, 130, 132,
134-5, 137-9, 143, 156
Uniate Church 212, 216
University of Paris 117
Uppsala 133
Urban IV, pope 250, 257
Utrecht, В of 158, 177
Varangians 30 See Vikings
Vassals See Estonia, Oesel-Wiek, Riga
Vassals in Germany 5, 9, 10, 131, 180
Vasilko of Volhynia 71, 139, 212f,
241, 251, 260
Vasily Alexandrovich 228
Vasily Jaroslavich 269
Veche 32
Velinas 35
Venice 47
Verden, В of 95, 97, 103, 178
Verona 108
Vetseke 81, 85, 139, 143
Vester 164f
ViceUn 2, 5, 17, 73
Victor IV, antipope 8
Viesthard 69-70
Vikings 1, 30, 62, 133
Vilnius 220, 23940, 262, 279, 285
Virgin Mary 17, 54, 66, 67, 88, 91,
102, 109, 135, 152, 156, 159, 189,
195, 268, 285, 301, 325
Visby 29-31, 39, 50, 52, 63, 65, 194,
277, 291-2, 305-310
Vistula River 183
Vitebsk 243
Viterbo 184, 186
Vladimir (in Russia) 191, 258
Vladimir (in Volhynia) 212
Vladimir of Polozk 27-8, 34, 36, 73-4,
96, 117, 118
Vladimir of Pskov 91, 96, 100-1, 109,
115, 122-3
Vojsek 220-1, 226, 260, 261, 265, 315
Volhynia 41, 193, 212, 221, 228, 284,
306, 314 See also Galicia
Volmar von Bemhausen 297-8
365
Volquin 91-5, 101, 110, 119, 124,
128-9, 131, 135, 137, 151, 156, 158,
161, 166, 168-70, 182, 184f
Vortua 218
Vsevolod 1П 30, 32, 100
Vsevolod Mstislavich 115, 133
Vsevolod Yurivich 139
Vsevolod of Gerzike 92, 105
Vyborg 306
Vykintas 27, 37, 185, 213, 217-9,
221-2, 235, 242, 243
Vytenis 294
Waldemar: В of Schleswig 16, 61, 85-
86, 94, 142, 152
D of Schleswig
Waldemar I of Denmark 3, 15-6, 29,
118
Waldemar П 50, 54f, 61, 72, 75, 93,
104, 107, 117f, 124-6, 129, 132,
134-6, 140f, 144-5, 152, 159, 175,
182, 187f, 195
Waldemar of Schleswig 223, 255
Walter von Nortecken 280-1
Walther von der Vogelweide 51
Warfare 26-28, 52, 106
Waridote 89
Webb, Walter Prescott 330
Welf 2-4, 7f, 16, 46-8, 50-1, 53, 55-
62, 71f, 85f, 86-7, 91, 94-5,
257, 266, 331
interpretation of history 18, 94
See also Henry the Lion; Otto IV
Wenceslaus of Rugen 124
Wenden (and Wendendorf) 90, 94,
123, 136, 215, 258, 312
Wends 2, 3, 5, 83, 125, 323
Wendish cities 176
Wendish Crusade 2-3
Wenno 68, 69, 81-2, 90-1
Wergild 197
Werle, Prince of 307
Werner 250-1, 258, 262
Wesenberg 265
Weser River 135
Westphalia 7.-8, 52, 56, 72, 77, 159,
160, 289, П5
Wickbert 90-91
Wiek 136, 166, 259
Wierland 118, 122, 136, 138, 166,
188, 267
Wilhelm of Braunsch. 61, 62
Wilhelm, C of Holland 223, 228
Willekin von Endorp 290, 293-298
William of Modena 144, 149f, 162,
164, 169-70, 178, 180, 184, 187-90,
196, 201, 208-9, 219, 309, 330
Windau River 210
Winter 21, 36, 53, 56, 64, 73, 81, 88,
99, 124, 127, 153, 191, 279, 312,
330
Wismar 122, 307
Wit,BofLith 239
Witches 35
Wizlaw of Riigen 286, 289
Wolkenburg 182
Wolmar 132
Women 129, 213, 316
Wurzburg 189
Wurzburg, В of 141
Yugoslavia 331
Yurev See Dorpat
Yuri Vsevolodovich 100, 133, 135,
139, 144, 191
Zeeland 188
Zemyna 35
366