Medieval Livonia, which roughly covered the present-day states of Latvia and Estonia, can be described as a combination of a military order's lordship, five secular bishoprics and several towns. It came into being in the beginning of the thirteenth century and ended its existence in 1562 when the Livonian branch of the Teutonic Order was dissolved and the territory of the Livonian Confederation was split up into parts that came to be dominated by Russia, Poland and Sweden. The Teutonic Order undoubtedly constituted the main power in this loose political structure since it controlled almost half of this territory. It administered a state of its own that was nearly as large as the parallel one which the same order had developed in Prussia after 1231. For this reason, Prussia and Livonia are often compared. Originally, the Livonian Order's state was not a creation of the Teutonic Knights. It had been built up by the fratres militiae Christi Livoniae or the Order of the Sword Brethren founded in 1202 by Albert, bishop of Riga, to assist him in converting the pagan tribes living east of the Gulf of Riga. Because this brotherhood had suffered a crushing defeat at the battle of Saule in 1236, it was taken over a year later by the Teutonic Order, who had its headquarters in the Holy Land by then but was at the same time very successful in fighting heathen tribes in nearby Prussia. Thus, the Teutonic Knights inherited the organisation and power structure of an already existing order, which they adapted according to their own ambitions and possibilities.
Because few of its archives have survived, there are not many books on the Teutonic Order in Livonia. Bernhart Jähnig's monograph on its structure, organisation and personnel is therefore most welcome. As we learn from his foreword, the study has been written at the request of the Baltic Historical Commission, which around 1985 felt it was time to invest more energy in the medieval history of the Baltic States. Its decision to ask Doctor Jähnig to pursue this project was a good one, since he was, and still is, versed in the history of both Livonia and Prussia. He wrote his dissertation on a Livonian theme and for a long time he has been attached to the Geheimes Preusisches Staatsarchiv in Berlin as conservator of the rich archives of the Order in Prussia, publishing many institutional historical studies. The first version of his manuscript was already finished in 1991, but the Commission did not manage to publish it directly, which offered the author the opportunity to update the book with the insights of new studies on Livonia and Prussia.
The book does not contain a year-by-year history of the Teutonic Order in Livonia. Rather, it attempts to explain the foundations of its lordly power, not only in the territories it could call its own but also in the adjacent bishoprics and towns. Therefore, its contents are organized thematically, apart from the first two chapters (I Herrschaftsgrundlagen, and II Herrschaftsausbau), in which the crusading origins of the knights and their territorial expansion in the Latvian and Estonian regions are treated in a chronological way. Chapter III (Burgenverfassung) analyses how the power of the Livonian Knights was exercised from castles, as centres of administration and lordly representation. The Sword Brethren built six major strongholds, starting in Riga with the house of St. George. The Teutonic Knights were able to extend this number to sixty-four great and small castles, that is, 45% of all medieval castles that have been counted in Livonia. Jähnig pays a lot of attentionto their shape and ground plan. Chapter IV (Kirchenvogtei) is mainly about the patronage that the Teutonic Knights tried to impose on the Livonian bishops and their cathedral chapters. Their toughest opponent throughout this period was the (arch)bishop of Riga, whose territory bordered the Order's lands on all sides. After some bitter conflicts in the fourteenth century the Order repeatedly succeeded in appointing its candidate when his see became vacant. Once enthroned, however, these protégées often showed as much inclination to be free from their patrons as their colleagues from outside.
After a short chapter (V), in which the Order's administrative districts are described with regard to the subjected peasant groups living within them, there follows a comprehensive one on personnel and hierarchy (VI Ämterhierarchie und Personalpolitik). For its composition, the author profited from the prosopographical study on the Livonian knight brethren published in 1993 by Lutz Fenske and Klaus Militzer. He analyses their figures carefully, weighing them with the data he himself had gathered for Prussia. At the high tide of the Order, around 1400, the Livonian branch numbered about 300-350 men: knight brothers, priests and a few sergeants. That is about half of the membership figure that the Prussian branch could boast. Over the course of the century these figures rapidly declined, although much faster in Prussia than in Livonia. Thus, the number of knights has always been relatively small. What counted for these knights were the honours and positions they could reach. Apart from individual talents and skills, promotion of the brethren in the ranks depended on several factors, the most important of which were social standing and the regional origin of their families. Jähnig carefully discusses here the results of all recent studies on this theme.
The pice de résistance of the book is Chapter VII on government and administration (Regierung und Zentralverwaltung), in which emphasis is placed on the government of the Master, with his advisors, chancellery, finances and residences. From a comparison with the Grand Master' position in Prussia after 1309, we learn that the Livonian Master never reached the status of the latter as a great territorial lord. One reason is that he could not realise the same continuity in residence, moving from Riga to Wenden and vice versa a few times. A more important factor, however, is that the rights he could exercise in Livonia were less absolute than those of the Grand Master in Prussia. As for the major officials of the Livonian Order, like the Land Marshal and the commander of Fellin, they receive less attention because of the scarcity of the sources. In the short Chapter VIII (Örtliche Verwaltung), a closer look is taken at how the administration was organised in the districts. The last chapter IX (Gerichtsbarkeit) treats the Order's jurisdiction, both at the central and regional levels.
All in all, Jähnig's book is highly informative and useful, all the more so since it is provided with clear maps, an index, and a name list of all known Masters and officeholders. The only comment I would like to make is that both in his reconstruction and his analysis the author seldom takes a viewpoint beyond Livonia and Prussia. No comparison is made with the Templars and Hospitallers with regard to their organisation and lordships. This somehow hinders the reflection on the Livonian branch of the Order as a semi-autonomous organisation that especially in its first and last periods showed traits of its own. At the takeover of 1237, for instance, the Teutonic Knights--according to my impression--did not immediately rearrange the whole structure of the Order of the Sword Brethren; its offices of the Master, the Land Marshal and the Treasurer (the Tressler as commander of Fellin?) were continued by them. As for the period after 1466, when the Prussian branch lost two-thirds of its land and was gradually transformed from a corporate-ruled ecclesiastical state into a princedom, the Livonian Order did not go along. It carried on with its own corporate system and developed it even further by giving more space to the activity of its high officials. Thus, for its last hundred years, the Livonian branch of the Teutonic Order seems to present a more clear-cut case of an early modern military order state than the Prussian branch. Jähnig's book does not end with a conclusive chapter or an epilogue, in which he could have reflected on such aspects. But perhaps this will be a task for the future scholar who has the goal of writing the political history of the Teutonic Order in Livonia.