Livonia

Livonia, as understood after the retreat of Denmark in 1346, bordered on the Gulf of Finland in the north, Lake Peipus and Russia to the east, and Lithuania to the south.

Beginning in the 12th century, Livonia became a target for economic and political expansion by Danes and Germans, particularly for the Hanseatic League and the Cistercian Order.

Around 1160, Hanseatic traders from Lübeck established a trading post on the site of the future city of Riga, which Bishop Albrecht von Buxthoeven founded in 1201.

[1] The Livonian Chronicle of Henry from the 1220s gives a firsthand account of the Christianization of Livonia, granted as a fief by the Hohenstaufen (de facto but not known as) the King of Germany, Philip of Swabia (r. 1198–1208), to Bishop Albert of Riga (Albert of Buxhoeveden), nephew of Hartwig II, the Archbishop of Bremen, who sailed (1200) with a convoy of ships filled with armed crusaders to carve out a Catholic territory in the east as part of the Livonian Crusade.

Bishop Albert founded the military order of the Livonian Brothers of the Sword (Latin: Fratres militiæ Christi Livoniae, German: Schwertbrüderorden) in 1202; Pope Innocent III sanctioned the establishment in 1204.

The Brotherhood had its headquarters at Fellin (Viljandi) in present-day Estonia, where the walls of the Master's castle still[update] stand.

The commanders of Fellin, Goldingen (Kuldīga), Marienburg (Alūksne), Reval (Tallinn), and the bailiff of Weißenstein (Paide) belonged to the five-member entourage of the Order's Master.

[3] Pope Gregory IX, through cardinal Otto of Tonengo, tasked Baldwin of Alna as papal legate to resolve the dispute.

[6] Previous generations of historians have argued that Baldwin attempted to make the whole Baltic region an ecclesiastical state, but Manfred Hellmann [de] (1993) refuted this idea as "fanciful speculation".

[8] The terms of the agreement were not finalised until the Treaty of Stensby (7 June 1238), when the Livonian Sword Brothers, crushed at Saule and now submitted to the Teutonic Order, relinquished their claims to Reval and much of northern Estonia to Denmark, and to share future territorial gains with two-thirds for the Danish king and one third for the Livonian Order.

Between 1237 and 1290, the Livonian Order conquered all of Courland, Livonia, and Semigallia, but their attack on northern Russia was repelled in the Battle of Rakvere (1268).

[citation needed] Shortly after that, Erik XIV quickly lost any allies that he was about to obtain, either in the form of Magnus or of the Archbishop of Riga.

Erik XIV did not like this, and the Northern Seven Years' War (1563-1570) broke out, with Sweden pitted against the Free City of Lübeck, Denmark, and Poland-Lithuania.

[citation needed] Compared to the Harrien-Wierland gentry, the Reval city council, and hence probably the majority of citizens, demonstrated a much more reserved attitude towards Denmark and towards King Magnus of Livonia.

[citation needed] Dismissing hostilities, these forces perceived an agreement with Muscovy as a chance to escape the atrocities of war and to avoid the division of Livonia.

[citation needed] The Peace Party, however, had its own armed forces – scattered bands of household troops (Hofleute) under diverse command, which only united in action in 1565 (Battle of Pärnu and Siege of Reval), in 1570–1571 (Siege of Reval; 30 weeks), and in 1574–1576 (first on Sweden's side, then came the sale of Ösel–Wiek to the Danish Crown, and the loss of territory to Tsardom of Russia).

In 1575, after Muscovy attacked Danish claims in Livonia, Frederick II dropped out of the competition, as did the Holy Roman Emperor.

Due to the religious upheavals of the Reformation the distant Holy Roman Empire could not send troops, which it could not afford anyway.

The Livonian Order saw no other way than to seek protection from Sigismund II Augustus (King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania), who had intervened in a war between Bishop William of Riga and the Brothers in 1557.

After coming to an agreement with Sigismund II Augustus and his representatives (especially Mikołaj "the Black" Radziwiłł), the last Livonian Master, Gotthard Kettler, secularized the Order and converted to Lutheranism.

[13][15][16][17][18][19] Having rejected peace proposals from its enemies, Ivan the Terrible found himself in a difficult position by 1579, when Crimean Khanate devastated Muscovian territories and burnt down Moscow (see Russo-Crimean Wars), the drought and epidemics have fatally affected the economy, Oprichnina had thoroughly disrupted the government, while The Grand Principality of Lithuania had united with The Kingdom of Poland (1385–1569) and acquired an energetic leader, Stefan Batory, supported by Ottoman Empire (1576).

Stefan Batory replied with a series of three offensives against Muscovy, trying to cut The Kingdom of Livonia from Muscovian territories.

After Magnus von Lyffland died in 1583, Poland invaded his territories in The Duchy of Courland, and Frederick II decided to sell his rights of inheritance.

As of 1598 Inflanty Voivodeship was divided onto: Based on a guarantee by Sigismund II Augustus from the 1560s, the German language retained its official status.

[12] The armies of Ivan the Terrible were initially successful, taking Polotsk (1563) and Parnawa (1575) and overrunning much of Grand Duchy of Lithuania up to some 250 km (160 mi) proximity of Vilnius.

[citation needed] In the next phase of the conflict, in 1577, Ivan IV took advantage of the Commonwealth's internal strife (called the war against Gdańsk in Polish historiography), and during the reign of Stefan Batory in Poland, invaded Livonia, quickly taking almost the entire territory, with the exception of Riga and Reval.

Livonia remained within the Russian Empire until the end of World War I, when it was split between the newly independent states of Latvia and Estonia.