Albert of Riga

Albert of Riga was a German churchman and crusading bishop who played a central role in the Christian conquest of Livonia in the early thirteenth century. Appointed bishop of Livonia in 1199, he organised repeated crusading expeditions to the eastern Baltic, founded Riga in 1201 and made the new city the political and ecclesiastical centre of Latin expansion in the region.

Albert repeatedly travelled west to recruit crusaders and used Riga as the base from which Latin ecclesiastical and military power expanded along the Daugava. He supported the foundation of the Livonian Brothers of the Sword in 1202, although relations between bishop and military order were not always easy. His long episcopate tied conquest, mission, trade and settlement together in the creation of medieval Livonia.

In Peter Darman’s The Sword Brothers, Albert of Riga is the crusading bishop who provides the political and religious framework for the emerging Latin state in Livonia, recruiting western support while the military order fights to extend Christian control in the eastern Baltic.