Mindaugas - Rise To Power

Rise To Power

Lithuania was ruled during the early 13th century by a number of dukes and princes presiding over various fiefdoms and tribes. They were loosely bonded by commonalities of religion and tradition, trade, kinship, joint military campaigns, and the presence of captured prisoners from neighboring areas. Western merchants and missionaries began seeking control of the area during the 12th century, establishing the city of Riga, Latvia in 1201. Their efforts in Lithuania were temporarily halted by defeat at the Battle of Saule in 1236, but armed Christian orders continued to pose a threat. The country had also undergone incursions by the Mongol Empire.

A treaty with Galicia–Volhynia, signed in 1219, is usually considered the first conclusive evidence that the Baltic tribes in the area were uniting in response to these threats. The treaty's signatories include twenty Lithuanian dukes and one dowager duchess; it specifies that five of these were elder and thus took precedence over the remaining sixteen. Mindaugas, despite his youth, as well as his brother Dausprungas are listed among the elder dukes, implying that they had inherited their titles. The Livonian Rhymed Chronicle describes him as the ruler of all Lithuania in 1236. His path to this title is not clear. Ruthenian chronicles mention that he murdered or expelled several other dukes, including his relatives. Historian S.C. Rowell has described his rise to power as taking place through "the familiar processes of marriage, murder and military conquest."

During the 1230s and 1240s, Mindaugas strengthened and established his power in various Baltic and Slavic lands. Warfare in the region intensified; he battled German forces in Kurland, while the Mongols destroyed Kiev in 1240 and entered Poland in 1241, defeating two Polish armies and burning Kraków. The Lithuanian victory in the Battle of Saule temporarily stabilized the northern front, but the Christian orders continued to make gains along the Baltic coast, founding the city of Klaipėda (Memel). Constrained in the north and west, Mindaugas moved to the east and southeast, conquering Navahrudak, Hrodna, Vawkavysk, and the Principality of Polotsk. In about 1239 he appointed his son Vaišvilkas to govern these areas, then known as Black Ruthenia. In 1248, he sent his nephews Tautvilas and Edivydas, the sons of his brother Dausprungas, along with Vykintas, the Duke of Samogitia, to conquer Smolensk, but they were unsuccessful. His attempts to consolidate his rule in Lithuania met with mixed success; in 1249, an internal war erupted when he sought to seize his nephews' and Vykintas' lands.