Free City of Riga

Origins

Riga was founded by Bishop Albert in 1201 and soon received its own town law. By the late 13th century its merchant council was strong enough to act independently, and it joined the Hanseatic League in 1282, controlling trade along the Daugava with Polotsk and Lithuania.

Rule and society

The city was governed by a council of merchants, with guilds for merchants and craftsmen. Its rivalry with the Livonian Order led to open war from 1297; the city even allied with pagan Lithuania, but the Order captured it in 1330. Riga exported furs, wax, flax and timber and adopted Lutheranism in 1522, one of the first cities outside Germany to do so.

Decline and legacy

When Terra Mariana collapsed in 1561, Riga refused to submit and remained a free city for twenty years. In 1581 it accepted the rule of Stephen Báthory of Poland-Lithuania, and it later became the capital of Swedish Livonia and then of the Governorate of Livonia.