The Chronicle Henry of Livonia

THE CHRONICLE of HENRY OF LIVONIA HENRICUS LETTUS TRANSLATED WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY James A. Brundage � COLUMBIA UNIVERSI'IY PRESS NEW YORK Columbia University Press RECORDS OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION is a series published under the aus Publishers Since 1893 pices of the InterdepartmentalCommittee on Medieval and Renaissance New York Chichester,West Sussex Studies of the Columbia University Graduate School. The Western Records are, in fact, a new incarnation of a venerable series, the Co Copyright© University ofWisconsin Press, 1961 lumbia Records of Civilization, which, for more than half a century, New introduction,notes, and bibliography© 2003 Columbia University Press published sources and studies concerning great literary and historical All rights reserved landmarks. Many of the volumes of that series retain value, especially for their translations into English of primary sources, and the Medieval and Renaissance Studies Committee is pleased to cooperate with Co Library of Congress Cataloging-in-PublicationData lumbia University Press in reissuing a selection of those works in pa Henricus, de Lettis, ca. II 87-ca. 12 59. perback editions, especially suited for classroom use, and in limited [Origines Livoniae sacrae et civilis. English] clothbound editions. The chronicle of Henry of Livonia / Henricus Lettus ; translatedwith a new introduction and notes by James A. Brundage. Committee for the Records of Western Civilization p. cm. - (Records of Western civilization) Originally published: Madison : University of Wisconsin Press, 1961. Caroline Walker Bynum With new introd. Joan M. Ferrante Includes bibliographical references and index. CarmelaVircillo Franklin Robert Hanning ISBN 978-0-231-12888-9 (cloth: alk. paper)---ISBN 978-0-231-12889-6 (pbk.: alk. paper) r. Livonia-History. I. Brundage, James A. II. Title. III. Series. Robert Somerville, editor DK500.L57H4613 2003 947.98'02-dc22 2003062458 � :. e ·,:,_ Columbia UniversityPress books are printed on permanent and durable acid-free paper. Printed in the United States of America "" PireMemorire Contents M. T. B. nunc diis manibus dedicat auctor List of Abbreviations X Introduction to the 2003 Edition XI Maps XXXV Bibliography XXXIX Introduction to the 1961 Edition 3 · The Chronicle of Henry of Livonia Boök One 25 BookTwo 31 BookThree 35 Book Four 83 Index 247 �. .. Abbreviations lntroduction to the 2003 Edition L UB Liv-, Esth- und Kurlandische Urkundenbuch nebst Regesten, ed. Friedrich Georg von Bunge MGH Monumenta Germaniae Historica SS Scriptores [I] SSRG Scriptores rerum germanicarum PL Patrologiae cursus completus... seriesLatina. Ed. For LatinChristians during the closing decades of the twelfth J.P.Migne, 1841-1864 century, theEast was the golden land of opportunity.Shortly before the beginning of the century, crusading forces from the West had conquered Jerusalem, and thepolitical, military, and commercial outposts that they and their successors had built in the Levant soon became powers to be reckoned with. In Europe itself, Western soldiers, missionaries, merchants, hunters, and peasants had, fornearly two hundred years, since the time of Otto the Great (r. 951-973), been pushing at Western Christendom's eastern frontiers on the Elbe River. TheSlavic peoples whom they encountered there offered tan talizingly ripe prospects for conversion, commerce, a:nd col onization.A fewyears afterthe turnof the thirteenth century, other Western armies would establish outposts of Latin Note: This new iritroductionis meant to replace my 0riginal r96r introduction to Henry's Chronicle. The older piece is also reprinted in this volume. xi --\;.;,":. Xll [ INTRODUCTION TO THE 2003 EDITION INTRODUCTION TO THE 2003 EDITION] Xlll Christendom in southeastern Europe when they attacked, slaught farther eastward, beyond the Oder River valley. overcame, and partitioned the Byzantine Empire. Meanwhile Christian colonists from Germany and the Low The political, social, and religious geography of Central Countries had begun to establish permanent settlements in and Eastern Europe went through dramatic changes during the newly won territories.3 the centurybetween 1140 and 1240. In u40, Germany's east During the decade following the crusade against the ern frontier still lay along the Elbe valley. East of the river, Wends, merchants fromLübeck and other German, Swedish, Slavic chiefs and kings ruled an assortment of rival ethnic and Danish ports began to call regularly at harbors along the groups who depended for their survival primarily upon a rel eastern coast of the Baltic Sea.4 There they traded with the atively crude agricultural technology, supplemented by hunt indigenous peoples-Estonians and Karelians, who spoke ing, fishing, and a modest trade in furs and amber. By 1240 Finnic languages; Kuronians, Lettgallians, Semgallians, who all this had changed. The Elbe by that point was no longer are sometimes collectively called Letts; and Livonians and the frontier; it now lay in the middle of the German kingdom. Lithuanians, all of whom spoke Baltic languages. With these The opening of the trans-Elbe regions to permanent various peoples, the Western merchants exchanged silver German settlement occurred rapidly in the aftermath of the (rarely gold), fine textiles, and other luxury goods in return crusade of u47 against the Wends, a Slavic people living in for honey, beeswax, leather, dried fish, amber, and furs. This what would soon be called the north German plains. St. Ber commerce was brisk and profitable,although the hazards were nard of Clairvaux (ro90-u53) envisioned thisWendish cru considerable. Added to the unavoidable natural risks of sea sade as a campaign for the expansion of Christendom and travel, theWild East was rifewith human dangers-piracy at instructed the crusaders that they were to wipe out either the sea and baIJ.ditryon land were constant perils, and when dis Slavs or their religion. 1 Although the u47 expedition, which putes arose, few governments in the region were well formed part of the broader crusading enterprise known as the equipped to enforce commercial agreements by peaceful Second Crusade, achieved only modest success, it inaugurated means. a century of conquest and colonization in Easternand Central The growth of German commercial involvement in the 2 Europe. By the middle of the thirteenth century, successors eastern Baltic quickly led to. efforts to create permanent trad of the 1147 crusaders had occupied the region east of theElbe ing posts. Enterprising merchants wanted to constructsecure River and had driven any pagan Slavs who survived their on- strongholds along the Baltic coasts and river valleys where they could build warehouses to store their goods and snug r. Bernard of Clairvaux, Epist. 457, in bis Opera, ed. Jean Leclercq et al., 8 vols. (Rome: Editiones Cistercienses, 1957-77), 8:433; Friedrich Lotter, Die Kon houses for themselves so that they could stay over winter in zeptiondes Wendenkreuzzug,r: ldeengeschichtliche, kirchrechtliche, und historisch-politische Voraussetzungen der Missionierung von Elb- und Ostseeslawen um die Mitte des 12. 3. On the Second Crusade as a whole, see Giles Constable, "The Second Jahrhunderts,Vorträge und Forschungen, Sonderband 2 3 (Sigmaringen:JanThor Crusade as Seen by Contemporaries," Traditio 9 (1953): 213-79; Hans Eberhard becke, 1977), 10-12. Mayer, The Crusades, 2d ed., trans.John Gillingham (Oxford: Oxford University 2. Eric Christiansen, The Northern Crusades:The Balticand the Catholic Frontier, Press, 1988), 93-106; and Jonathan Riley-Smith, The Crusades:A Short History noo-rszs (London: Macmillan, 1980), 48-69; and Edgar N. Johnson, "The _(London:Athlone Press, 1987), 93-104. German Crusade on the Baltic," in A Historyof the Crusades, ed. KennethM. Setton 4. LivländischeReimchronik, ed. Leo Mayer (Hildesheim:Georg Olms, 1963), et al., 6 vols. (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1969-1989), 3:545-56, 11. 127-228; English translation by Jerry C. Smith and William L. Urban, The provide excellent briefaccounts of the campaigns in 1I47 and following against Livonian Rhymed Chronicle, 2d. ed, (Chicago: Lithuanian Research and Studies the Slavs. Center, 2001), 3-4. �":- XIV [ INTRODUCTION TO THE 2003 EDITION INTRODUCTION TO THE 2003 EDITION ] XV reasonable ease and safety, rather than facing the recurrent His chronicle likewise provides a vivid record of the experi discomfort and risk of sailing out fromtheir home bases every ences and impressions of a contemporary witness who was spring, followed by another voyage back when autumn came. personally involved in this vast movement. Henry was a Creating settlements of this sort inevitably entailed com shrewd observer. He often describes sights he had seen and plications. Construction itself required importing skilled sounds he had heard, as well as the personal appearance and craftsmen-mainly carpenters and masons-although less quirks of many of the people he encountered. His chronicle expert laborers might be recruited from among the indig is a very human document. A later verse narrative, the Liv enous peoples. Even though few merchants survived forlong ländische Reimchronik, corroborates much of Henry's version without being able and equipped to protect themselves, they of events.and provides additional informationabout some ep also needed trainedsoldiers to guard their outpostswhile they isodes.6 Documentary records of the events that Henry's were away about their business. They needed, in short, to chronicle deals

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