THE LIVONIAN CRUSADE & MEDIEVAL LIVONIA

 

Swedish and Danish Vikings had been active in the eastern Baltic littoral between the seventh and eleventh centuries CE, and they had established a number of trading and raiding outposts in Livonia, Estonia, and Russia (in the eastern Baltic and Russia, the Vikings were generally known as Varangians). From about the eighth century CE, Christian missionaries began to travel throughout the Viking world, but Denmark is not considered to have become fully Christianized until the beginning of the eleventh century CE, while Sweden was not fully Christianized until the end of the twelfth century CE. Nevertheless, Christian missions seem to have first arrived in Livonia during this time period (ca. seventh to twelfth centuries CE), initially becoming established at various Viking/Varangian outposts and later making some converts among the native tribes, although the numbers of Livonian converts seem to have been very modest. However, as the Holy Roman Empire embarked on the Ostsiedlung (German, "East-settling")—a process of colonial expansion from what is today western Germany into eastern Germany, western Poland, and the central and eastern Baltic littoral—the Papacy and the Imperial Diet were united in a desire to eradicate the last vestiges of paganism in eastern Europe. The German priest, Meinhard of Segeburg (1134/36-1196 CE), was tasked with leading the first major German mission to Livonia, and he established a fortified church complex at the river port of Ikskile (German, Üxküll) on the Daugava River in Livonia (ca. 1184 CE). Livonia was the land of the Livs (a.k.a., the Livonians), a Finnic people, and encompassed an area roughly analogous to modern-day northern Latvia. Meinhard and his fellow missionaries made some initial converts among the Livs, but these converts turned on the Catholic missionaries in 1186 CE and forced them to abandon Uxkull. Meinhard returned to Germany to try to gain support for another missionary effort and received the support of Hartwig of Uthlede, Archbishop of Bremen (ca. 1184/85-1207 CE), who consecrated Meinhard as Bishop of Uxkull (ca.1188 CE). His consecration was confirmed by Pope Clement III (1187-1191 CE). Meinhard returned to Uxkull in 1191 CE at the head of a new mission. One of Meinhard's missionary recruits—a priest named Theoderic—was able to convert a prominent Livonian chief—Caupo of Turaida—but after Meinhard's death (of natural causes), his successor—Berthold of Hanover—was attacked while trying to consecrate a Christian cemetery at Salaspils (ca. 1196 CE), to the southwest of Uxkull, and the nascent Christian communities in Livonia came under attack by the pagan majority. Caupo was driven from his stronghold in Turaida, and he and many other Christian converts took refuge with the German missionaries at Uxkull, where they were protected by the stone walls of the fortified church complex (this stone church-fort is believed to be the first stone structure built in Latvia). Berthold escaped by ship (via the Daugava River and the Baltic Sea) to the German port-city of Lübeck, on the Baltic coast of Germany, where he appealed to Clement's successor, Pope Celestine III (1191-1198 CE), to give him a fleet with which to return to Livonia and relieve the besieged missionaries at Uxkull. This expedition was delayed until the spring of 1198 CE, when Berthold returned to Livonia with another force of German missionaries, this time accompanied by German mercenaries and settlers. He sailed to the mouth of the Daugava River and established another fortified church complex (this would form the nucleus around which the city of Riga would soon grow), then sailed up the Daugava to the relief of Uxkull. However, on 24 July 1198 CE, Berthold was killed in battle against the Livonians (Medieval German prelates often continued to fight as knights even after ordination as priests).

Berthold was succeeded by Albert von Buxhövden (1165-1229 CE), another appointee of Hartwig of Uthlede, who sailed from Lübeck to Berthold's fort at the mouth of the Daugava (ca. 1200 CE) with 23 ships and 1,500 crusaders provided by Philip of Swabia (King of Germany, 1198-1208 CE). Celestine's successor, Pope Innocent III (1198-1216 CE), officially declared the Livonian Crusade in 1198 CE, after Berthold had been killed fighting the Livonians, which allowed Philip of Swabia to divert resources toward Livonia that had originally been earmarked for the Fourth Crusade to the Holy Land (this crusade infamously never reached the Holy Land, instead being diverted to the Orthodox Christian capital of the Byzantine Empire, Constantinople, which was stormed and sacked). Albert made the fort at the mouth of the Daugava River his base of operations in 1201 CE, and he took the most zealous of his crusading knights and formed the military Order of the Sword Brethren in 1202 CE (Innocent III confirmed the legitimacy of the Order in 1204 CE)—the Order of the Sword Brethren adopted white livery with a coat-of-arms that displayed two red charges (a cross pattée above a point-down sword) on a field of argent (white). Caupo and his followers remained loyal to the crusaders, probably supplying them with their first Baltic latrunculi (i.e., Christianized native auxiliary contingents)—he was restored to Turaida in 1212 CE and was subsequently assisted in building a stone fortress there. There were some willing initial converts, but annual infusions of crusaders and German colonists led to a brutal campaign of conquest and forced conversion that had devastated and depopulated large swathes of Livonia by about 1220 CE. With few exceptions like Caupo and his followers, the surviving Livs were reduced to serfdom (i.e., peasant farmers legally tied to the farmland attached to the manor of a lord, in this case being German crusaders that chose to settle in Livonia). The Livonian Crusade was expanded to include the conquest of the Latgallians and Selonians (ca. 1208-1209 CE), tribes of Balts whose territories lay to the south of Livonia in what is today southern Latvia, then the Semigallians and Curonians (ca. 1219-1290 CE), Balts whose territories lay to the southwest of Livonia in what is today southwestern Latvia. The crusaders were often able to take advantage of rivalries between these various peoples, and sometimes within the tribal federations themselves, and thus as had happened with Caupo and his followers in Livonia, there was a minority of willing converts who served as latrunculi in the armies of the crusaders, and their leaders were sometimes rewarded by being granted lands as feudal lords within the new socio-political order (two of the three Latgallian federations, in particular, allied themselves with the crusaders early on, and thus Latgallians later made up the bulk of crusader latrunculi in Medieval Livonia). As in Livonia, the survivors among those that resisted were reduced to serfdom, and many Latgallians, Selonians, Semigallians, and Curonians were forced to resettle as serfs in the depopulated areas of Livonia (the subsequent assimilation of the Livonians, Latgallians, Selonians, Semigallians, and Curonians led to the ethnogenesis of the Latvians). The conquered territories were organized as the Principality of Terra Mariana (Meinhard's initial foundation at Uxkull had been dedicated to the Holy Mother, Mary, and so the crusaders dubbed their state "the Land of Mary"). Albert was named Prince-Bishop of Riga in 1207 CE by the Holy Roman Emperor, Otto IV (1175-1218 CE), which made Livonia an Imperial Estate of the Holy Roman Empire, but in 1215 CE Pope Innocent III asserted the primacy of the authority of the Holy See as the overlord of Livonia (via its primacy over the Catholic clergy of Europe and the military orders)—the ambiguity of these relationships were never really resolved, and taken together with the fundamental strategic weakness of feudalism in which social, religious, and political hierarchies were often in conflict, the result was that Medieval Livonia was essentially an autonomous state that had no direct administrative ties to either the Papacy or the Holy Roman Empire. Following German custom, however, the bishops of Riga, as well as the other bishops later given authority in various parts of Livonia and Estonia, ruled both as secular lords and as prelates of the Catholic Church (and most continued to lead troops into battle fighting as knights), and therefore held the German title of Prince-Bishop (Hochstift). The Order of the Sword Brethren, which came to directly administer about half the fiefs in Livonia, was supposed to be subject to the authority of the prince-bishops of Riga, but they often chose to ignore their overlord, particularly when it came to the alliance with Denmark intended to bring the Ests into the Catholic fold (the Ests were a Finnic people that lived to the north of Livonia, in what is today Estonia), and in terms of the relationship between Catholic Livonia and Orthodox Russia.

In 1218 CE, Pope Honorius III (1216-1227 CE) enlisted King Valdemar II of Denmark (1202-1241 CE) to join the Livonian Crusade and extend it into Estonia. Valdemar was joined by Prince Wizlav of Rügen (a Christianized West Slav/Wend principality that encompassed the Baltic island of Rugia), and the Rugian navy landed the Danish and Rugian crusaders on the northern coast of Estonia, where they stormed the Estonian port of Kolyvan (subsequently renamed Lyndanisse in Danish)—they built a stone fortress there (the Castrum Danorum, Latin, "Castle of the Danes"), and the Estonians came to call the town and its fortress Taani-linna ("Danish-town"), the etymological root form of the modern Estonian name for the city (i.e., Tallinn), which is the capital city of modern Estonia (to make matters more confusing, the Germans called this city Reval). A force of Est warriors of the Rävala tribal federation attempted to drive off the crusaders, but the Ravalas were narrowly defeated at the Battle of Lyndanisse (15 June 1219 CE), and the territories of the Ravalas, as well as those of the neighboring Virumaa, were subsequently conquered and organized as the Duchy of Estonia, a fief of the Danish crown. As part of this operation, the Order of the Sword Brethren invaded Estonia from the south, and by 1220 CE they had conquered much of central Estonia (the lands of the tribal federations of Sakala, Nurmekund, Mohu, Alempois, Järvamaa, and Harju). In 1224 CE, Prince-Bishop Albert von Buxhövden of Riga annexed southeastern Estonia (the lands of the tribal federations of Ugandi, Jogentagana, and Vaiga) and installed his brother, Hermann von Buxhövden, as Prince-Bishop of Dorpat, a subordinate bishopric of Riga (the principle stronghold of the Ugandi was Tarbatu, rendered as Dorpat in German). The Estonians of these regions apparently accepted Christianity and invited in Albert out of fear of the Brothers of the Sword, whose conquest of central Estonia was accomplished with a high degree of brutality (for their part, it should be pointed out that the Estonians were known to roast captured crusaders in their armor over a bonfire). After some initial quibbling over the exact division of territories in Estonia, Valdemar and Albert made a treaty that ratified their respective domains, and Valdemar returned to Denmark (ca. 1220 CE). In 1227 CE, the Sword Brethren launched an attack against the last pagan strongholds of the Ests along the Baltic littoral of Estonia (the tribal federation of Läänemaa) and in the West Estonian Archipelago (the tribal federation of Saaremaa). Having felt they had been short-changed by the treaty between Valdemar and Albert that had divided the territories of Estonia between Denmark and Terra Mariana, the Brothers of the Sword then seized control of the Duchy of Estonia (Valdemar was by that time embroiled in a border war with the Holy Roman Empire and could do nothing to prevent the annexation of the duchy). The Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick II (1194-1250 CE), and Pope Gregory IX (1227-1241 CE) protested, as did the Order's nominal overlord, Albert of Riga, but the Order remained obdurate until the Master (Herrmeister) of the Order (a knight known only as Volkwin) was defeated and killed in battle against the Zemaitijans at the Battle of Saule (22 September 1236 CE)—by that time, the resources of the Order were already being stretched thin, and with the loss of 48-60 knights at Saule, as well as about 2,700 crusaders, vassals, and auxiliaries, not to mention the death of the Master of the Order, the Order of the Sword Brethren had no choice but to submit to the authority of the Papacy in return for aid. In 1237 CE, the Order of the Sword Brethren was made a sub-order of the Teutonic Order (they thereafter adopted the livery and heraldry of the Teutonic Order), and it was re-named the Livonian Order (a.k.a., the Livonian Brothers of the Sword). The Teutonic Order was at that time engaged in the conquest of nearby Old Prussia (i.e., the pagan lands of the Prusi, which lay to the southwest of Livonia along the central Baltic littoral), and in 1238 CE the Grand Master (Hochmeister) of the Teutonic Order concluded a treaty with Denmark (the Treaty of Stensby) whereby the Duchy of Estonia was returned to the fealty of the Danish crown. The Livonian Order retained some minor territories in Läänemaa and Saaremaa, but the bulk of these territories were organized as the Bishopric of Ösel-Wiek, a vassal fief of the Teutonic Order (although subordinate to Riga in ecclesiastical matters).

 

The Livonian Order remained as fractious under the Teutonic Grand Masters as they had been under the Prince-Bishops of Riga. The Teutonic Order was not finished with the conquest of Prussia until 1283 CE, and thereafter it considered its primary mission in the Baltics to be the conquest and conversion of the pagan Lithuanians, whose territories lay in-between Catholic Livonia, Catholic Prussia, Orthodox Russia, and Catholic Poland. However, the membership of the Livonian Order developed a preoccupation with conquering and converting to Catholicism the Orthodox Christian inhabitants of Russia's northwestern principalities—the Republic of Novgorod, and the principalities of Pskov and Polotsk. The Livonian Brothers of the Sword attacked the Republic of Novgorod and the Principality of Pskov eleven times between the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries CE. Novgorod dominated most of northern Russia between the Gulf of Finland and the Ural Mountains, while Pskov was the westernmost principality of Russia, controlling a swathe of territory that stretched from the lands east of Estonia and Latvia (to the east of Lake Peipus and the Narva River) in the north to the headwaters of the Velikaya River in the south (the Velikaya and its tributaries flow north and feed into Lake Peipus, and these waterways were important regional trade networks). In 1241 CE, the Livonian Order managed to take the city of Pskov, but following the disastrous Battle of Lake Peipus (5 April 1242 CE)(a.k.a., the Battle on the Ice), in which the forces of Novgorod led by Prince Alexander Nevsky (1221-1263 CE) smashed a crusader army led by Prince-Bishop Hermann of Dorpat and the Livonian Order, the crusaders were forced to abandon Pskov, and the border between Medieval Livonia and the Republic of Novgorod was permanently established along the Narva River and Lake Peipus. Pskov became a satellite of Novgorod thereafter (ca. 1242-1348 CE). At the time of the initial declaration of the Livonian Crusade, the Russian Principality of Polotsk (in what is today northern Belarus) had established outposts in the territories of the Latgallians, and two Russo-Latgallian principalities had arisen in southeastern Livonia and northern Belarus—the Principality of Jersika (1000-1209 CE) and the Principality of Koknese (1180-1209 CE). These were both conquered by the combined forces of Prince-Bishop Albert of Riga and the Brothers of the Sword (ca. 1205-1209 CE), and soon thereafter Polotsk temporarily fell under the dominion (as a vassal-state) of Medieval Livonia (ca. 1227-1240 CE). However, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania made Polotsk its vassal in 1240 CE, and the Lithuanians annexed the territories of Polotsk altogether in 1307 CE, which effectively ended the expansion of Medieval Livonia into Belarus (the frontier was always vague here, although it roughly corresponded to the modern border between Belarus and Latvia). 

 

Riga was made an archbishopric in 1255 CE, which technically made it the overlord of both the Teutonic Order and its Livonian sub-order, but its secular authority was never really fully recognized outside its own fiefs in Livonia, as well as those of the Bishopric of Dorpat in Estonia. Under Canon Law, the other bishoprics in Livonia (Courland), Estonia (Dorpat and Ösel-Wiek), and in Prussia (Culm/Kulmerland/Culmerland, Pomesania, Ermland/Warmia, and Samland/Sambia) were considered suffragans of the Archbishopric of Riga in the Catholic Church hierarchy (i.e., subordinate sees), and they do seem to have accepted the authority of Riga in ecclesiastical matters, but each of these bishoprics also owned land that was parceled out to secular vassals (crusaders and other colonists that had settled in Livonia or Prussia), and it is here that the strict hierarchy of the Church began to break down. The Bishopric of Dorpat had been created by Prince-Bishop Albert of Riga, and therefore the prince-bishops of Dorpat and their vassals had been clearly subordinated to Riga, but the Bishopric of Courland had been developed from territorial conquests made by the Brothers of the Sword, and therefore its fiefs were subordinate to the Brothers of the Sword, and as we have seen, the Bishopric of Ösel-Wiek was established under similar conditions, except that it held its fiefs under the secular authority of the Teutonic Order. After the Brothers of the Sword were absorbed into the Teutonic Order, the fiefs of the Bishopric of Courland also came under the secular authority of the Teutonic Order. The prince-bishops of Riga had had even less to do with the conquest of Prussia, and the bishoprics established there in 1243 CE by the Papal Legate, William of Modena, were fiscally and administratively even more dependent on the State of the Teutonic Order (one-third of the revenues of the episcopal fiefs were kept by the Church, two-thirds by the Teutonic Order). The members of the military orders, despite having taken religious vows to live according to quasi-monastic rules, were still technically considered to be laymen (i.e., not clergy), guided by the Papacy in religious/spiritual concerns but not strictly within the bureaucratic hierarchy of the Catholic Church (in modern terms, they were paramilitaries), and the fundamental tension this created would eventually lead to the suppression of the military orders by the Catholic Church by the end of the Middle Ages. The competing interests of the Catholic Church and its vassals, the military orders and their vassals, the Christianized Latvian and Estonian nobles and their vassals, and the secular German colonists (most of whom were artisans and merchants that inhabited the towns) were particularly divisive in Medieval Livonia, which made it strategically weak. Johannes III von Schwerin, Prince-Archbishop of Riga (1294-1300 CE), made an attempt to bring the Livonian Order to heel, which led to a civil war (ca. 1296-1330 CE), but this effort ultimately failed, and after a widespread uprising of the Estonians (St. George's Night Uprising, ca. 1343-1345 CE) was defeated by the Teutonic Order and its Livonian vassals, many of the Danish lords and settlers in Estonia appealed to the Teutonic Order to take direct control of Estonia—the Danish crown was in no position to resist (it was embroiled in various struggles with the Holy Roman Empire, and had never been able to divert significant attention to Estonia), and the Duchy of Estonia was sold to the Teutonic Order on 1 November 1346 CE.

 

The Zemaitijans/Samogitians were a tribal federation of Balts that originally inhabited the lowland plains and western highlands in what is today western Lithuania, and the Aukstaitians were an ethnically and culturally related federation of Balts that lived in the highlands to the east of Zemaitija in what is today eastern Lithuania. These two groups formed a larger defensive federation (see my Finns, Balts, & Ugrians gallery) between 1180 and 1219 CE, in order to resist crusader expansion in the Baltics, and they were joined by large numbers of Prussian refugees after the Teutonic Order embarked on the conquest of Old Prussia (ca. 1217-1283 CE). The Lithuanian federation was the foundation upon which the later Kingdom of Lithuania (1251-1263 CE) and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (1263-1795 CE) were built. The Zemaitijans, whose territory lay in-between Medieval Livonia and the State of the Teutonic Order in Prussia, bore the brunt of the early assaults of the crusaders as the Teutonic Order and the Livonian Order sought to make their territories contiguous—the Livonian Order tried to expand south out of Livonia, while the Teutonic Order tried to expand northeastwards out of Prussia, with the intent of crushing the Zemaitijans in a massive pincer. However, despite annual forays into Zemaitija over a period of almost 200 years (ca. 1229-1410 CE), the crusaders were only able to conquer a narrow strip of territory along the eastern Baltic littoral between the Pregolya/Pregola River and the Curonian Peninsula (they sometimes took control of larger sections of Zemaitija, but these conquests were all short-lived). It is largely due to the defeat suffered by the Brothers of the Sword at the hands of the Zemaitijans at the Battle of Saule (22 September 1236 CE) that led to its merger with the Teutonic Order, but even with Teutonic support the Livonian Order suffered several major defeats fighting the Zemaitijans—the battles of Memel (1257 CE), Skuodas (fall 1258 or 1259 CE), Durbe (13 July 1260 CE), Lievarde (1261 CE), and Medininkai (27 July 1320 CE) being prominent examples. The Lithuanians supported a major revolt by the Semigallians in Medieval Livonia (ca. 1270-1290 CE), but despite several impressive Lithuanian victories—the battles of Karuse (16 February 1270 CE), Garoza (March 1287 CE), and Aizkraukle/Ascheraden (5 March 1279 CE)—the Semigallian revolt was eventually crushed, and as many as 100,000 Semigallian refugees fled to Lithuania (ca. 1290 CE). Zemaitija was gradually transformed into a militarized buffer zone that protected central Lithuania from the Baltic Crusader States (its settlements were fortified on the crusader model, and refugees from other Finnic and Baltic peoples were settled there to continue their resistance to crusader expansion with the active support of the Lithuanian state), and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania became something of a nemesis for the Teutonic Order as the Lithuanians halted crusader expansion in Zemaitija, while simultaneously expanding the hegemony of Lithuania to the east and south, and forming an alliance with Poland that isolated the State of the Teutonic Order and eventually led to the decisive defeat of the Order at the Battle of Grunwald/First Tannenberg/Zalgiris (15 July 1410 CE). While the Lithuanians annexed the Russian principalities of Polotsk (ca. 1240-1504 CE)(northern Belarus), Kiev (ca. 1316-1471 CE)(southern Belarus and western Ukraine), and Smolensk (ca. 1392-1514 CE)(western Russia), and pushed the Mongols out of much of the Ukraine (ca. 1345-1569 CE), the only significant territorial acquisitions of the State of the Teutonic Order during this same period was the annexation of Polish Pomerelia (ca. 1309-1466 CE)(called Danzig-Pomerania or Eastern Pomerania in German sources), the purchase of the Duchy of Estonia from Denmark (ca. 1346-1561 CE), and the occupation of the Baltic island of Gotland (ca. 1398-1409 CE)—Gotland was seized after King Albert/Albrecht III of Sweden (1364-1389 CE) offered the island to the Order in return for the promise that the Order would eliminate the Victual Brothers, a guild of privateers/pirates that had made the island their base-of-operations (ca. 1393-1398 CE). The crusaders of Medieval Livonia made no significant territorial acquisitions during this period (ca. 1290-1410 CE)—indeed, as we have seen above, it lost its hold over Polotsk (ca. 1240-1307 CE), which effectively ended the expansion of Medieval Livonia to the southeast, and it was forced to accept Novgorod's hegemony east of the Narva River and Lake Peipus (ca. 1242 CE), which effectively ended the expansion of Medieval Livonia to the east and northeast.

 

By the beginning of the fifteenth century, the Livonian Order had re-established a degree of autonomy from the Teutonic Order—the Livonian Order did not even send troops to fight for the Teutonic Order at Grunwald—but Medieval Livonia was subject to the same forces of change that were affecting the State of the Teutonic Order. The Republic of Novgorod had fallen to the Grand Princes of Moscow (ca. 1397-1478 CE), and the growing unity of the Russian state made the expansion of Medieval Livonia to the east a virtual impossibility. It also meant that trade with Russia, or through Russian territory with more-distant trade partners (e.g., the Golden Horde or the Ottoman Sultanate), was now subject to the interference of a single political entity whose monopoly on the Russian trade routes limited the leverage of German merchants. Similarly, the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania had been moving steadily toward an ever-closer union of common interests, and with the marriage of the Grand Duke of Lithuania (Jogaila) and the Queen of Poland (Jadwiga)(4 March 1386 CE), and the subsequent Christianization of Lithuania (ca. 1386-1387 CE), the Baltic Crusader States found themselves increasingly isolated. The Livonian Order attempted to take advantage of the Lithuanian Civil War of 1432-1438 CE in order to make territorial gains in Zemaitija, but the combined forces of the West Lithuanians and the Livonian Order were defeated by the East Lithuanians and Poles at the Battle of Swienta/Wilkomierz/Vilkmerge (1 September 1435 CE)—the Master of the Order and a large number of crusaders were killed (9,500 KIA). As had happened to the Teutonic Order after Grunwald, the fortunes of the Livonian Order rapidly declined after Swienta. The commercial interests of the cities of Medieval Livonia steadily expanded throughout the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, which led to their joining the Hanseatic League—a commercial confederation of merchant guilds/market towns that dominated the trade routes of the Baltics and the North Sea—and in 1419 CE, Prince-Archbishop Johannes VI Ambundii of Riga (1418-1424 CE) formed the Livonian Diet (Landtag), a representative assembly of Livonian bishops (Riga, Courland, Dorpat, Reval, and Ösel-Wiek), the Master of the Livonian Order and his deputies, and the deputies of the municipal councils of Riga, Reval, and Dorpat (the primary Hanseatic League members in Livonia). The formation of the Livonian Diet essentially marked the end of the period of the feudal state of Medieval Livonia, and created what was hoped to be a more cooperative modern state—the Livonian Confederation (1435-1562 CE)—although the resources of this state were still dwarfed by those of neighboring Sweden, Russia, and Poland-Lithuania. The Protestant Reformation (ca. 1517-1648 CE) was also felt in Medieval Livonia (from the 1520's), and this schism had the same divisive effects on the various social components of Medieval Livonia as it did in the rest of Europe. Ivan IV Vasilyevich (a.k.a., Ivan "the Terrible")(1547-1584 CE), the tsar/czar of a newly unified Russian Empire, invaded Livonia (ca. 1558-1562 CE) and decisively defeated the Livonian Confederation at the Battle of Ergeme/Ermes (2 August 1560 CE), but the Livonian Confederation appealed to Sigismund II Augustus (1548-1572 CE), King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, and to Eric XIV (1533-1577 CE), King of Sweden, with the result that Livonia became the epicenter of a three-way land-grab between Poland-Lithuania, Denmark-Sweden, and Russia known as the Livonian War (1558-1562 CE). Bishop Johan von Münchhausen of Ösel-Wiek and Courland sold his sees to King Frederick II of Denmark (26 September 1559 CE), a Swedish invasion (ca. 1561 CE) led to the seizure of the Duchy of Estonia and its Hanseatic seat (Reval/Lyndanisse/Tallinn), and Russia fought Poland-Lithuania for control of the remainder of Livonia (ca. 1562-1584 CE). The Bishopric of Dorpat/Tartu was occupied by the Russians (ca. 1558-1560 CE) and its last prince-bishop, Hermann Wesel, was forced to retire to an Orthodox monastery in a remote area of Russia. The Treaty of Vilnius/Vilna (28 November 1561 CE) officially dissolved the Livonian Diet, disbanded the Livonian Order, and placed those parts of Livonia not under Danish-Swedish control under the protection of Poland-Lithuania (Riga alone was excepted, becoming an Imperial Free City of the Holy Roman Empire). The territories of Medieval Livonia that fell under the Polish-Lithuanian mandate were divided into the Duchy of Courland and Semigallia (1561-1795 CE) and the Duchy of Livonia (1561-1621 CE).