Mindaugas
Mindaugas was the first known Grand Duke of Lithuania and the only crowned King of Lithuania. Little is known of his origins, early life, or rise to power; he is mentioned in a 1219 treaty as an elder duke, and in 1236 as the leader of all the Lithuanians. The contemporary and modern sources discussing his ascent mention strategic marriages along with banishment or murder of his rivals. He extended his domain into regions southeast of Lithuania proper during the 1230s and 1240s. In 1250 or 1251, during the course of internal power struggles, he was baptised as a Roman Catholic; this action enabled him to establish an alliance with the Livonian Order, a long-standing antagonist of the Lithuanians. By 1245, Mindaugas was already being referred to as "the highest king" in certain documents. During the summer of 1253, he was crowned king, ruling between 300,000 and 400,000 subjects, and got nicknamed as Mindaugas the Sapient by the Livonians.
While Mindaugas's reign as king was marked by many state-building accomplishments, his conflicts with relatives and other dukes continued. The western part of Lithuania – Samogitia – strongly resisted the alliance's rule. His gains in the southeast were challenged by the Tatars. He broke peace with the Livonian Order in 1261, possibly renouncing Christianity, and was assassinated in 1263 by his nephew Treniota and another rival, Duke Daumantas of Pskov. His three immediate successors were assassinated as well. The disorder was not resolved until Traidenis gained the title of grand duke c. 1270.
Although his reputation was unsettled during the following centuries and his descendants were not notable, he gained standing during the 19th and 20th centuries. Mindaugas was the only king of Lithuania; while most of the Lithuanian grand dukes from Jogaila onward also reigned as kings of Poland, the titles remained separate. Now generally considered the founder of the Lithuanian state, he is also now credited with stopping the advance of the Tatars towards the Baltic Sea, establishing international recognition of Lithuania, and turning it towards Western civilization. In the 1990s the historian Edvardas Gudavičius published research supporting an exact coronation date – 6 July 1253. Although disputed, this day is now an official national holiday in Lithuania, Statehood Day.
Background
Family
Because written sources covering the era are scarce, Mindaugas's origins and family tree have not been conclusively established. The Bychowiec Chronicles, dating from the 16th and 17th centuries, have been discredited in this regard, since they assert an ancestry from the Palemonids, a noble family said to have originated within the Roman Empire. His year of birth, sometimes given as c. 1200, is at other times left as a question mark. His father is mentioned in the Livonian Rhymed Chronicle as a powerful duke, but is not named; later chronicles give his name as Ryngold. Dausprungas, mentioned in the text of a 1219 treaty, is presumed to have been his brother, and Dausprungas' sons Tautvilas and Gedvydas his nephews. He is thought to have had two sisters, one married to Vykintas and another to Daniel of Halych. Vykintas and his son Treniota played major roles in later power struggles. Mindaugas had at least two wives, Morta and Morta's sister, whose name is unknown, and possibly an earlier wife; her existence is presumed because two children – a son named Vaišvilkas and an unnamed daughter married to Svarn in 1255 – were already leading independent lives when Morta's children were still young. In addition to Vaišvilkas and his sister, two sons, Ruklys and Rupeikis, are mentioned in written sources. The latter two were assassinated along with Mindaugas. Information on his sons is limited and historians continue to discuss their number. He may have had two other sons whose names were later conflated by scribes into Ruklys and Rupeikis.Name
In the 13th century Lithuania had little contact with foreign lands. Lithuanian names sounded obscure and unfamiliar to various chroniclers, who altered them to sound more like names in their native language. Mindaugas's name in historic texts was recorded in various distorted forms: Mindowe, Mendog, Mindog, Mendolphus in Latin; Mindouwe, Myndow, Myndawe, and Mindaw in German; Mendog, Mondog, Mendoch, and Mindovg in Polish; and Mindovg, Mindog, and Mindowh in Old Church Slavonic, among others. Since Old Church Slavonic sources provide the most information about Mindaugas's life, they were judged the most reliable by linguists reconstructing his original Lithuanian name. The most popular Old Church Slavonic rendition was Mindovg, which can quite easily and naturally be reconstructed as Mindaugas or Mindaugis. In 1909 the Lithuanian linguist Kazimieras Būga published a research paper supporting the suffix -as, which has since been widely accepted. Mindaugas is an archaic dithematic Lithuanian name, used before the Christianization of Lithuania, and consists of two components: min and daug. Its etymology may be traced to "daug menąs" or "daugio minimas".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 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." In Rowell's interpretation, Mindaugas recognized the advantage to Christianity in attracting foreign merchants and military support from the Teutonic Order. As a result, in 1251, he was baptised Catholic. The conversion was purely for political gain with Catholic Europe; Mindaugas was known to continue to sacrifice to his old gods after his "conversion." In order to consolidate his power, Mindaugas married into rival families, defeated some in battle, and exiled the rest of his rivals.
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. Mindaugas established his residence in Navahrudak and succeededed in becoming master of the so-called Black Ruthenia on the upper Neman and its affluents with the cities of Hrodna, Vawkavysk, and Slonim, and also of 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.
Path to coronation
Tautvilas, Edivydas, and Vykintas formed a powerful coalition in opposition to Mindaugas, along with the Samogitians of western Lithuania, the Livonian Order, Daniel of Galicia, and Vasilko of Volhynia. The princes of Galicia and Volhynia managed to gain control over Black Ruthenia, disrupting Vaišvilkas' supremacy. Tautvilas strengthened his position by traveling to Riga and accepting baptism by the Archbishop. In 1250, the Order organized a major raid through the lands of Nalšia into the domains of Mindaugas in Lithuania proper, and a raid into those parts of Samogitia that still supported him. Attacked from the north and south and facing the possibility of unrest elsewhere, Mindaugas was placed in an extremely difficult position, but managed to use the conflicts between the Livonian Order and the Archbishop of Riga to further his own interests. He succeeded in bribing Order Master Andreas von Stierland, who was still angry at Vykintas for the defeat at the Battle of Saule in 1236, by sending him "many gifts".In 1250 or 1251, Mindaugas agreed to receive baptism and relinquish control over some lands in western Lithuania, in return for an acknowledgment by Pope Innocent IV as king. The Pope welcomed a Christian Lithuania as a bulwark against Mongol threats; in turn, Mindaugas sought papal intervention in the ongoing Lithuanian conflicts with the Christian orders. On 17 July 1251, the pope signed two crucial papal bulls. One ordered the Bishop of Chełmno to crown Mindaugas as King of Lithuania, appoint a bishop for Lithuania, and build a cathedral. The other bull specified that the new bishop was to be directly subordinate to the Holy See, rather than to the Archbishop of Riga. This autonomy was a welcome development. The precise date of Mindaugas's baptism is not known. His wife, two sons, and members of his court were baptized; Pope Innocent wrote later that a multitude of Mindaugas's subjects also received Christianity.
The process of coronation and the establishment of Christian institutions would take two years. Internal conflicts persisted; during the spring or summer of 1251, Tautvilas and his remaining allies attacked Mindaugas's warriors and the Livonian Order's crossbow-men in Voruta Castle. The attack failed, and Tautvilas' forces retreated to defend themselves in Tviremet Castle. Vykintas died in 1251 or 1252, and Tautvilas was forced to rejoin Daniel of Galicia.