Acta Historica Universitatis Klaipedensis

This article discusses the development of relations between Žemaitijan society and societies in neighbouring territories, which formed the thirteenth-century Lithuanian state. The starting point for this discussion is the question of whether we can detect an early negative stance on the part of Žemaitijans towards the Lithuanian dukes. This issue was raised in E. Saviščevas’ 2009 article on Žemaitijan self-rule in the thirteenth-seventeenth centuries, which claims that given the bellicose state of affairs with the Teutonic Order at the end of the thirteenth century a tendency developed among Žemaitijans and their Semigallian and perhaps Skalvian allies to regard Lithuanians as enemies, as well as the Teutonic Order.

The article summarizes the data about three participants of the battle of Durbė: Pomesanian Matto, Sambian Sklodo, and a Swedish noble Jonker Karl Ulfsson. Their social setting, life circumstances, and their role in the battle are discussed in a wider context of the history of military practices and behavior codes. The dissemination of information about the perishing of Jonker Karl Ulfsson in historical German and Swedish sources and historiography of different countries is analyzed, as well as the materials about the battle of Durbė in Erikskrönika.

On the basis of archaeological and historical sources and the accumulated historiographical materials, the article analyzes the data on the wooden castles in the ethnic territory of Samogitia in the 13th c. which survived as mounds to the present time. The information about the said castles is scanty. The mounds best studied in terms of archaeology are those of Daugėliškiai, Šaukštelis, and Vedriai, however, no obvious findings of the 13th c. were found in them. Historical sources mention a nameless castle next to Georgenburg castle, built by the Order in 1259, and a never localized Tviremet castle in the same region. The scantiness of the data on wooden castles in Samogitia in the 13th c. cannot be accounted for by merely a shortage of research.

The crusades of the 13th century in the Baltic region represented a conflict between different social systems: on the one hand, the feudal system of Western Europe, and on the other hand, a social model closer to that of the Viking Age society. In the military conflicts of the early 13th century, the Curonians made use of the tactics and experience developed during the Viking Age. That included swift attacks at sea and a rapid change from fighting at sea to fighting on land, tactics that seriously threatened the crusader forces in the Baltic, including Riga, which was attacked by the Curonians on 13 July 1210.

In the 13th century, the territory of Samogitians, Curonians, Prussians, and Semigallians was in a constant state of war. The offensive and protective wars prevented natural economic and cultural development. Saulė, Semba, Durbė, Karuse, Aizkraukle, Turaida, Klaipeda, and other battles; the Order marauding campaigns into the territories of Samogitians, Curonians, Prussians, and Semigallians; the campaigns and raids of Samogitians, Curonians, and Sambians into the lands already occupied by the Order; and the revolts in the Order-occupied lands occurred almost every year. All that devastated the lands of Curonians, Samogitians, Prussians, and Semigallians, undermined demography, and weakened the economic capacity of Western and Northern Baltic tribes. The advanced armament and war tactics used in the offensive campaigns by the Order forced Curonians and Samogitians to take arms and resist. The structure of the army and the fighting methods were in the process of change, because in the mid-13th century Lithuania emerged as a state which already used conscription, and the nature of the army action was often offensive. Sometimes the Lithuanian historical literature mocks at the armament of Curonians and Samogitians, and their chargers Zemaitukai are considered as horses. That is why the historians who choose never to question a single word in the chronicles by the authors who eulogize the Order sometimes face the following questions: what kinds of armament were used by Curonians and Samogitians and what their battle methods were in the 13th century, when the attacked ones bravely went to fight their conqueror the Order. We will explore those questions in the article by employing the archaeological, historical, and cultural landscape research data.