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The Esthonians are mentioned again, in the eleventh century, by Adam of Bremen. They troubled their Scandinavian neighbors by piratical expeditions; whereupon Canute IV. of Denmark, with 760 ships, invaded their country, and forced some of them, for a time, at all events, to profess Christianity. It was about the same date, namely, in 1030, that Dorpat is said to have been founded by Yaroslaf I., Grand Duke of Novgorod; but we hear more of this region and the country southward, called Livonia, or Livland, owing to the shipwreck in 1158 of a Bremen trading vessel, by which a number of Germans were cast ashore near the mouth of the Dvina.
Here they subsequently established commercial relations with the inhabitants, and erected a fortified goods store. The traders were speedily followed by the churchmen, so that ten years later Meinhardt, an Augustinian monk, had converted some of the Livonians, and became their first bishop. The work of proselytism was more fully developed by his third successor, Bishop Albert, who founded Riga in 12021, and made it the seat of his bishopric.
The Christianity of this episcopal member of the Church militant appears to have been of a very muscular type; for he not only kept soldiers, and, under the name of monasteries, erected fortresses, but he founded the military “Order of the Brethren of the Sword,” by whose aid the natives were compelled to be baptized, and were reduced to serfdom, the land being divided to a great extent between the knights, churches, and monasteries.
Bishop Albert managed to persuade the neighboring Russian prince, Vladimir2, to make the conversion of the heathen an object of ambition; until, suspecting the designs of the German bishop in erecting so many fortresses, Vladimir ordered proselytism to cease.
But it was too late; and on the two coming to arms, the bishop, with the help of the Brethren, drove the Russians back, and subdued the greater part of Livonia, one-third being made over to the knights, and the dominion shared by the five bishoprics of Riga, Dorpat, Oesel, Kourland, and Lemgallen.3
These rulers had, however, many adversaries, both in the subdued inhabitants and the surrounding Russians and Lithuanians, as well as the Danes, the last of whom had landed on the southern shores of the Gulf of Finland. Accordingly the Brethren of the Sword were obliged to summon to their aid, in 1237, the Knights of the Teutonic Order, which had been incorporated by the Pope less than half a century before.
We read that a candidate for this order had to be German, born in wedlock,
| 1 | The accepted year is 1201, however, we have seen both 1200 and 1202, as here, cited in sources. |
| 2 | Prince Vladimir Vseslavich of Polotsk. |
| 3 |
 "Curland and Lemgallen paid homage in 1793 to the Russian sceptre"  1723's "Semgallen" misread for "Lemgallen" Modern sources indicate these are (historical names) Rīga, Dorpat, Oesel, and Courland (four), or five including Reval (e.g., Pihlajamäki, 2017). However, 19th century English-language sources such as the Edinborough Review (1870), confirm Lansdell's text: "Five bishoprics, Riga, Dorpat, Oesel, Curland, and Lemgallen, shared the dominion of the land with the knightly Order of the Sword and the Teutonic Order." Notably, in German, from Geographisch-statistisches Zeitungs-, Post- und Comtoir-Lexicon: O - R (1920): "Durch den Tod des Fürsten von Anhaltatharsna noch die Herrschaft Jeyer; Grusen begab sich 1783 unter ihren Schutz, Curland und Lemgallen huldigten 1793 dem russischen Scepter." That is, "Curland" and "Lemgallen" paid homage to the Russian sceptre as of 1793. That is the year of the [second partition of Poland], by which Courland (Kurzeme) and Semigallia (Zemgale) no longer fell under the suzerainty of Poland-Lithuania, but under Tsarist Russia. This indicates that "Semgallen," German for Zemgale, somehow changed into Lemgallen in German-language sources before propagating into English-language sources.
Further searches of German sources uncovered other instances purporting a "Lemgallen." In particular, we found a 1723 reference whose "Semgallen" Google Books had misread for "Lemgallen," mistaking a roman "S" for blackletter "L," those letters being similar in outline. Had Google merely repeated a centuries-old human mistake? Apparently so.
This left our primary question, was there a Bishopric of Semgallen? Indeed. A web search for "Semgallen Bistum" (Semigallia bishopric) returned as its first entry the German Wikipedia biography of Arnold von Semgallen, a member of the Cistercian order who was appointed to the Bishopric of Semgallen in 1246, succeeding Balduin von Alna. The Holy See was apparently dissatisfied with Arnold's performance owing to continued territorial unrest, as he was soon replaced by Heinrich von Lützelburg, who served as bishop of Semgallen (1247–1251), subsequently bishop of Courland (1251–1263) and bishop of Chiemsee (1263–1274, until his death). And so to our last question, what happened to the bishopric?
Von Lützelburg was also the last bishop of Semgallen. That bishopric was merged into the Archbishopric of Rīga in 1251, forming the Archbishopric of Riga-Semgallen. Semgallen was later dropped from the title. |
| 4 | Numbers indicate original page breaks where they occurred mid-paragraph. Web pages break at paragraph boundaries in the original source for ease of reading. |
