History of Latvia: a Brief Survey

A battle between the Couronians and the German crusaders nearthe coast of Gotland in the Baltic Sea, 18 April 1210. It was thegreatest victory of the ancient Latvians over the crusaders in theBaltic Sea.The stamp of Rīga city in 1225.ships and five hundred armed German soldierswere hired to assist the Christian missionaries ina campaign to forcibly convert the people of theregion. In 1201 Bishop Albert began building thecity of Rīga near the mouth of the river Daugava,where Liv villages were located on the RīdzeneRiver. Rīga became the largest and most powerfulcity on the southern coast of the Baltic Sea. Thefounding of Rīga was the beginning of urban historyin the whole Baltic area.An image of Pope Innocent III (whowas Pope 1198-1216) from a medievaldocument. A papal bull issued byInnocent III began the second crusade inthe Baltic territory.Structure of the Holy Roman Empire.Illustrations from the NurembergChronicle (Die Schedelsche Weltchronik),by Hartmann Schedel (1440-1514).As the German soldiers of the Livonian Order seized control of the region, the developmentof separate tribal realms and state-like formations in ancient Latvia came to an end.Among religious orders, Cistercians and Dominicans played the most important role inLivonia. The Cistercians established the first monastery in Daugavgrīva (German: Dünamünde)in 1205-1207 which became a sort of Western diplomatic centre in the Baltics. In the1200s,a confederation of feudal nations was developed under German rule and named Livonia.The territory included today’s Latvia and Estonia. The confederation of Livonia remainedan important factor in the politics of Northern Europe until the second half of the 16thcentury. Livonia was the part of a mainly Germanic conglomeration of lands of the HolyRoman Empire.9