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German missionaries arrived in the Baltic lands, but the process of converting the locals to Christianity was difficult. People resisted and preachers risked their lives. Fortified strongholds were needed in order to protect them, and secure and stately churches where the new religion could be practiced were needed to spread the new faith. In other words, stone castles and churches were the tools of the Germans’ advance into the Baltic.
The ruins of the first church in the first crusaders’ castle in what would later become Livonia have survived. In 1185 the canon of the Seegeberg Abbey in Holstein, Meinhard, founded a stone castle in Üxküll village. It is likely that the church on the site of a wooden chapel was built around the same time. Meinhard became a bishop and managed to come to an agreement with the local Livs. According to the legend, they agreed to have a castle built after they had been raided by Lithuanian tribes. The castle was supposed to protect them. In exchange for protection, Meinhard extracted from them a promise to be baptized.
However, the relations between the Catholics and the locals were not friendly: the Semigallians decided to destroy Üxküll castle. Being inexperienced in storming castles, they chose quite an exotic method: they tied ropes to the walls and pulled, hoping that the castle would collapse like a house of cards. The attack was repelled and, moreover, Meinhard managed to build another castle on the same conditions — christening in exchange for protection. That Holme castle in the area of today’s Salaspils has not survived. Those were the two first German castles in Livonia.
Ikšķile
Now in Ikšķile (the modern name of Üxküll), on the island in the middle of the Daugava, one can see the conserved ruins of Meinhard’s church and the memorial signs commemorating Üxküll castle and its bishop Meinhard.
In 1199, the new (the third in succession) bishop of Livonia, Albert of Riga, arrived at the estuary of the Western Dvina (Daugava) with 23 ships and a strong army. In 1201 the crusaders founded Riga fortress. Very few monuments have survived from the early Order’s days in modern Riga, and those that exist have been rebuilt.
In Skārņu street 10/16, the rebuilt church of St George is located, which used to be a chapel in the first Order Castle of the Sword Brothers in Livonia. The first mention of that church dates back to 1208. It is a part of the first, the oldest castle of the German knights in the region. The castle, built around 1204, was called white-stoned. There the first Master of the Order of Sword Brothers, Wenno von Rohrbach (1204–1209), began to rule his Livonian domain. After the Teutonic Order and the Sword Brothers merged in 1237, the seat of the Livonian Master was moved from Riga to Wenden.
The 13th-century fragments survive in two large churches of Riga. In 1211, Albert, the bishop of Riga, founded the cathedral church — Rigas Doms. It had been built for a long time — until 1270, and in the 16th century it was twice destroyed: during the Reformation in 1524 and in the city fire of 1547. The today’s building bears the traces of subsequent reconstructions; it is a mixture of Gothic, Romanesque and Baroque. The grave of Bishop Meinhard (died 1196) was moved here from Ikšķile.
Rigas Doms
While St George’s church can be considered to be ‘a place of memory’ of the Sword Brothers and Rigas Doms — of the first Catholic bishops, St Peter’s church (first mentioned in 1209) was built as a church for the townsfolk, the burghers. It houses a crypt of the town’s militia soldiers. Many significant events are associated with that church: Riga’s first school was opened there, in 1297 the townspeople used the church roof to shoot with catapults at the knights’ castle during the conflict between the city and the Order. The present look of the church came into being during the reconstructions of the 14th—17th centuries. The church suffered a lot in the second quarter of the 16th century, during the Reformation. The belfry with a clock (123 m high) was added in 1473, destroyed in the 17th century and rebuilt again in 1699 and after the fire of 1743.
From the Daugava estuary, the crusaders moved inland along the river. They had to deal with the resistance of the local tribes, converting them to Christianity. They were able to subdue the chiefdom centers Jersike and Koknese. The monuments to the crusaders’ advance across the land of future Latvia are the castles of Dobele, Wenden, Rauna, Sigulda, Turaida. By the mid-13th century the power of the Livonian branch of the German (Teutonic) Order was completely established over those lands, although it took long to suppress certain pockets of resistance.
Jersike
Koknese
Venden
The knights arrived at the line of confrontation with their main adversaries in the centuries to follow — the Russians (Novgorodian land) and the Lithuanians (the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, populated by both the Lithuanian tribes — the Aukshtaites and Samogitians — and the descendants of disintegrated Kievan Rus’ inhabitants — the Orthodox Rusins, the Rus’ people). Their confrontation would write the main chapter of the region’s history in the 14th—15th centuries.
A. I. Filyushkin
Tags: routes, 13 century, Teutonic Order (Livonia), The paths of the Teutonic knights: Livonia in the 13th century, Teutonic knights, Baltic region