Free peoples · The Baltic and Rus' · as at first light, 1 January 1200

The Livs

The Livs are a Finnic-speaking people (kin to the Estonians, not to the Baltic Latvians) who live along the lower Daugava, the lower Gauja and the coast north of it, in lands grouped round hillforts.

On the Daugava: Üxküll (Ikšķile), Holme (Salaspils), Lennewarden (Lielvārde), Ascheraden (Aizkraukle) and the villages at the river mouth where Riga will one day stand. On the Gauja: Treiden (Turaida) and Satekele (Sattesele, at Sigulda), with Idumea inland where Livs and Latgalians live mixed, and Metsepole with the Livs of the Salaca on the coast. (The Livs of the north Courland coast are counted with the Curonian lands.) German merchants from Gotland and Lübeck sail up the Daugava every summer; with them came the canon Meinhard (about 1180-1184; Henry gives no year), who built a church at Üxküll and had Gotland masons raise stone castles at Üxküll and Holme as refuges against Lithuanian raids, in return for promises of baptism that most Livs did not keep.

His successor Berthold came back with Saxon crusaders and was killed in battle beyond 'the Riga mountain' on 24 July 1198. The beaten Livs took priests into their forts and promised a measure of grain from each plough, but once the army sailed they washed off their baptism in the Daugava, plundered the monks, and in Lent 1199 decreed that any cleric still in the land after Easter (18 April 1199) would die. The clergy went home to Saxony; the merchants bought their lives with gifts to the elders.

So on the morning of 1 January 1200 the Livs are free and, but for a few, pagan again, with no German priest in the land so far as Henry tells, and no war being fought: the new bishop, Albert, is in Saxony raising an army (Henry puts him at Philip of Swabia's Christmas court at Magdeburg, III.4).

Who rules

Name
No single leader on 1 January 1200
Title
No ruler. Each Liv land answers to its own elders (Henry of Livonia's seniores), who meet and decide in common when the danger is common
Since
not applicable
Born
not applicable
Family
The elders named in or near these years are Anno of Treiden (named in Meinhard's time, before 1196, and again in 1200) and Caupo of Treiden (first named in 1200, after Bishop Albert's arrival). See Anno of Treiden and Caupo.
Confidence
medium

Henry of Livonia (Brundage tr.), chapters I-IX; the Church map record Üxküll.

Overlord

None that rules them. The prince of Polotsk takes tribute from the Daugava Livs: Henry says Meinhard came among the Livs with the leave of 'King Vladimir of Polotsk, to whom the Livonians, while still pagan, paid tribute' (I.3), and in 1203 the same king besieged Üxküll until the Livs promised him payment (VII.7). Whether the Gauja Livs of Treiden paid Polotsk too is not pinned.

What the realm holds

  • The Daugava Liv lands: Üxküll, Holme, Lennewarden, Ascheraden and the Daugava mouth (provinces Üxküll, Holme, Lennewarden, Ascheraden, Daugava mouth)
  • The Gauja Liv lands: Treiden (Turaida) and Satekele (Treiden, Satekele)
  • Idumea, shared with Latgalians (Idumea)
  • Metsepole and the Salaca coast (Metsepole)
  • In practice the two stone castles of Üxküll and Holme, emptied of their clergy in 1199 (the Church map writes them as contested, Üxküll)

How it was acquired

Ancestral. The Livs have held the lower Daugava and Gauja since before written record; the Rus' Primary Chronicle names them among the peoples of the north.

Allies and rivals

Rivals: the Lithuanians, whose raids drove Meinhard's flock into the forests (I.5); the Semigallians across the Daugava, who tried to pull down the new stone fort at Üxküll with ships' ropes (I.6) and who in 1202 burned the church at Holme 'not being at peace with the Livonians' (VI.7); the Saxon crusaders of 1198. The prince of Polotsk is their tribute lord on the Daugava. The German merchants are partners in trade, tolerated even in 1199.

The Estonians lie beyond Metsepole and Tālava to the north.

The realm that morning

Free and self-governing, apostate from the 1198 baptisms, and at war with no one in particular that winter. The mission has no priest in the land so far as Henry reports; the stone castles at Üxküll and Holme stand among Liv villages with no one holding them for the bishop (Üxküll). Polotsk's tribute claim stands on the Daugava. No raiding belt is drawn: the sources record no raid on the Livs between the Lent 1199 decree and Albert's arrival in 1200; the last Lithuanian raid Henry records here is the one of Meinhard's time (I.5).

Across the Daugava lie the Semigallians (left bank downstream of Jaunjelgava, semigallians) and the Selonians (left bank upstream, selonians); upstream on the right bank, the principality of Koknese (latgalians); to the east and north-east, the Latgalians of Autīne and Tālava; to the north beyond the Salaca, the Estonians of Sakala (estonians).

Wealth

Farming, cattle, fishing and the river. The Daugava is the road from the Baltic to Polotsk and Smolensk: the summer merchant ships come up it, and the goods of the Rus' trade (furs, wax) and of the west (cloth, salt, silver) pass through Liv land. Henry says the German merchants were 'accustomed to go to Livonia, frequently sailing up the Dvina' (I.2). No Liv tolls are recorded.

Military

Hillforts of earth and timber in each land, and Meinhard's two stone castles. The men of the lands muster together against a common enemy, as in 1198. Henry gives no numbers for the Livs.

Threats

  • Bishop Albert's crusading army, being raised in Germany and Gotland for the 1200 sailing season
  • Lithuanian winter raids
  • Semigallian enmity across the Daugava
  • Polotsk's demand for tribute

Government

Each land (Latvian historians call such a land a zeme or pilsnovads) centres on a hillfort with the villages round it, under elders drawn from the leading families. Henry shows the elders of the Daugava Livs and of Treiden as distinct bodies (Meinhard on his deathbed asks 'the Livonian and Treiden elders', I.14), and shows the Livs acting together through common decisions (the decree of Lent 1199, II.10) and a common muster against Berthold ('all of the Livonians were called together against him', II.5). Disputes, war and peace are settled by the elders and the assembled men; oaths and peace are sealed by pagan rite.

No law code survives.

Trade

The German (Gotland and Lübeck) merchants come in the sailing season and some winter in the land: in Lent 1199 there were merchants present to be threatened and to buy peace (II.10), and in 1198 one merchant ship stayed behind with the clergy (II.8). Whether any merchant wintered in 1199-1200 is not pinned.

Treaties

None in force with any outside power: the peace, priests and grain dues of 1198 were renounced in 1198-1199; the tribute to Polotsk is custom, not a written treaty.

Coinage

No coinage of their own: silver by weight (bars and hacksilver), ornaments and foreign coins serve as money (general knowledge, not checked in this run).

Faith

Pagan: sacred groves and divination (the Livs of Treiden cast lots with a horse to decide whether to sacrifice the monk Theodoric, I.10). A baptized minority dates from Meinhard (the first baptized at Üxküll were Ylo and Viezo, I.4) and from Theodoric's work at Treiden; the mass baptisms of 1198 were washed off in the river. The Orthodox Church had no known foothold among the Livs.

What the year holds

What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.

In 1200

  1. During the 1200 sailing season (Henry IV.1 gives the year, not the month)Bishop Albert comes up the Daugava with a fleet of twenty-three ships (Henry's figure), with Count Conrad of Dortmund and Hartbert of Iburg. The Livs attack the fleet and kill the priest Nicholas; a three-day peace at Üxküll; the bishop's men are besieged at Holme; Frisians burn the Liv crops and the Livs renew the peace.Depends on: Albert's recruiting and the Gotland and Lübeck shipping holding through the spring. Stopped by: A failure to raise men or ships; a Liv victory on the river.
  2. 1200, after the fighting (Henry IV.3-4)Livs including one Asso take baptism at Riga (the place, not yet a town); Albert calls Anno, Caupo and the elders to a drinking feast, shuts them in a house and takes about thirty boys of the Daugava and Treiden (Henry's figure) as hostages to Germany.Depends on: Albert's army in the land and the elders trusting the feast. Stopped by: The elders refusing the summons; a Liv rising before the army is ready.
  3. 1200, before Albert sails home (Henry IV.5)The Livs show Albert the site at the Daugava mouth where Riga is built the next year.Depends on: The peace holding. Stopped by: Renewed war.

Later, on the likely course

  1. 1201 (later)Riga founded; Albert grants the Liv forts of Lennewarden and Üxküll as fiefs to Daniel and Conrad of Meiendorf (Henry V).Depends on: The 1200 settlement holding. Stopped by: A defeat of the 1200 expedition.

Places of note

  • Üxküll (Ikšķile): Meinhard's church (about 1184) and stone castle (1185)
  • Holme (Salaspils): Liv fort on the island with Meinhard's stone castle of about 1186
  • Turaida (Treiden): hillfort of the Gauja Livs
  • The Riga landing: Liv villages and harbour at the Rīdzene; Riga does not exist

Where the sources disagree

  • The Church map record Üxküll puts Albert's sailing in 'spring 1200'. Henry (IV.1) gives the year 1200 but no season or month; the sailing could fall any time in the open-water season.
  • Henry (III.4) puts Albert at Magdeburg recruiting at Christmas 1199, when Philip of Swabia wore his crown there; this agrees with the campaign notes (Magdeburg hosted Philip's Christmas court of 1199) and places Albert in Saxony on 1 January 1200.

Evidence: Henry of Livonia, writing in the 1220s, is almost the only written source, and his chapters I-IV give a clear outline for 1184-1200 (read in Brundage's translation). The internal organisation of the Liv lands is inferred from his later chapters and from archaeology; their bounds are not recorded.

On the map: The Liv lands are drawn as provinces with rough outlines along the rivers; their real bounds are not recorded. The north Courland Livs are drawn inside the Curonian lands of Vanema and Ventava.

Primary sources for this realm

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

Sources and studies

  1. Henry of Livonia, Chronicon Livoniae, tr. J. A. Brundage, The Chronicle of Henry of Livonia (1961): Books I-III, chapters I-IX read for this record
  2. Berthold of Hanover (en.wikipedia)
  3. Livonians (en.wikipedia)

Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.