The Founding of Livonia and the Sword Brothers
The founding of the Latin church in Livonia was a long and difficult process, extending from the mission of Meinhard in 1186 to the establishment of the territorial bishoprics in the 1220s. The process involved the cooperation of several distinct agencies — the German bishops, the German merchants, the German crusaders, and, from 1202, the Brotherhood of the Sword — and it produced, by the 1220s, a substantial political and ecclesiastical construction on the eastern Baltic.
The founding of Livonia is, in the wider history of the Teutonic Order, an important chapter. The Latin church in Livonia was, in effect, the first substantial territorial possession of a military-religious order in the Baltic. The working partnership between the bishop, the brotherhood, and the German mercantile community of Riga was a model that the Teutonic Order would encounter, in different forms, in the much larger conquest of Prussia.
The Mission of Meinhard
The Latin church’s presence in Livonia began in 1186 with the arrival of the Cistercian monk Meinhard at the mouth of the Daugava. Meinhard had been sent to the eastern Baltic by the Archbishop of Bremen, and his mission was a preaching mission to the Livs, a Finnic people inhabiting the coastal regions of what is today Latvia. Meinhard established a small church at Üxküll and began, with the support of the German merchants of Lübeck and Gotland, the slow work of Christianisation.
The mission was, in the first years, a modest affair. The native populations were not politically unified, and the conversion that Meinhard achieved was partial and reversible. The Latin church’s presence in the region depended, throughout Meinhard’s episcopate, on the goodwill of the Livonian chieftains and on the support of the German merchants. Meinhard was consecrated Bishop of Üxküll in 1188, and he died in 1196. He was succeeded, briefly, by Berthold of Hanover, who was killed in 1198 in an attack on a Livonian fortification.
The Arrival of Bishop Albert
The Latin church’s presence in Livonia was substantially strengthened by the arrival of Bishop Albert of Riga in 1200. Albert, a canon of the Bremen cathedral chapter, was consecrated Bishop of Livonia in 1199 and arrived the following year at the head of a substantial fleet assembled in Lübeck.
The first consequence of Albert’s arrival was the founding of the city of Riga in 1201. The new city was established on the site of an older Liv settlement at the mouth of the Daugava, and it was granted the customary law of Hamburg. The new city was conceived from the outset as a German mercantile settlement under episcopal protection, and it was the principal instrument of the Latin church’s political and commercial presence in Livonia.
The second consequence was the launching of a substantial campaign of conquest against the Livs and the Latgalians. The campaign was the principal business of the first years of Albert’s episcopate and was conducted, by the German crusaders that Albert had brought with him. By 1207, the Livonian and Latgalian chieftains had acknowledged the suzerainty of the bishop and had accepted baptism.
The Foundation of the Brotherhood of the Sword
The third consequence of Albert’s arrival, and the most consequential in the longer term, was the establishment in 1202 of the Brotherhood of the Sword. The principal source for the foundation is the Chronicle of Henry of Livonia, which records that Albert, recognising that the Latin church required a permanent military force, established the brotherhood as a fraternitas militiae with the privileges of a militaris religio. The brotherhood was modelled on the Templars and Hospitallers, and it was given, by papal grant, the privileges that the established orders had acquired.
The brotherhood’s first Master, Wenno von Rohne, was appointed by Albert himself, and the brotherhood’s principal base of operations was the city of Riga. Its initial complement was no more than a few dozen knight-brothers, and its resources came initially from the bishop and the German merchants of Riga. The tension between the brotherhood’s nominal autonomy as a military order and its actual dependence on the bishop was, from the outset, a constant theme of its history — a tension that was, a productive one.
The Working Partnership
The founding of Livonia, in the early thirteenth century, was the product of a working partnership between three distinct agencies: the bishop, the brotherhood, and the German mercantile community of Riga. The bishop was the ecclesiastical superior, the diplomatic interlocutor with the surrounding powers, and the principal beneficiary of the territorial expansion. The brotherhood was the military arm, the garrison of the Latin church’s chain of stone castles, and the principal instrument of the conquest of the remaining pagan territories. The German merchants of Riga were the commercial arm, the source of much of the material support that the Latin church required, and the principal beneficiaries of the commercial expansion that the Latin church’s presence in the region made possible.
The Establishment of the Territorial Bishoprics
The Latin church in Livonia was, by the 1220s, organised into a number of territorial bishoprics, each with its own territory and its own cathedral chapter. The principal bishoprics were the bishopric of Dorpat, established in 1224; the bishopric of Ösel-Wiek, established in 1227; the bishopric of Reval, established in 1240; and the bishopric of Courland, established in 1234.
Subject to the Holy See, the territorial bishoprics were ecclesiastical foundations. The bishops were, in theory, ecclesiastical officials. In practice, however, the bishops of the territorial bishoprics were typically German nobles, often related to the knight-brothers of the brotherhood, and they were actively involved in the political and military affairs of the region. The result was a federalised political system that was a continuation of the working partnership that had been established in the founding period.
Sources
- Benninghoven, Friedrich. Der Orden der Schwertbrüder: Fratres Milicie Christi de Livonia. Cologne: Böhlau, 2005.
- Favreau-Lilie, Marie-Luise. Die Ritterbrüder im livländischen Zweig des Deutschen Ordens. Cologne: Böhlau, 2003.
- Hjorth, Poul, ed. Henrici Cronicon Lyvoniae. Copenhagen: Copenhagen University, 1962.
Related Reading
For the bishop who founded the brotherhood, see the article on Bishop Albert of Riga. For the brotherhood itself and its foundation in 1202, see the article on the Sword Brothers founded in 1202. For the broader context of the Latin church in the eastern Baltic, see the parent overview of the Livonian branch and the cluster on the Livonian Confederation. The brotherhood’s history is treated in detail in the cluster on the Sword Brothers. The German settlement of Livonia, of which the founding was the principal chapter, is examined in the history of the Teutonic Knights.