Everything about Battle Of The Sun totally explained
The
Battle of Saule (German:
Schlacht von Schaulen,, ) was fought on
September 22 1236 between the
Livonian Brothers of the Sword and pagan
Samogitians. Some 60 or 50 knights were killed, including the Livonian Master; it was the earliest large-scale defeat suffered by the orders in Baltic lands. The Livonian Order, the first Catholic military order established in the
Baltic lands, was soundly defeated and its remnants accepted incorporation into the
Teutonic Order in
1237. The battle inspired
Curonians,
Semigallians, and
Selonians, Baltic tribes previously conquered by the Livonian Order, to rebel. Some thirty years' worth of conquests on the left bank of
Daugava were lost.
Background
The Livonian Order was established in 1202 in
Riga to conquer and convert pagan Baltic tribes to Christianity. By the
1230s under leadership of Master
Volquin, the Order was coping with strained financial resources, decreasing manpower, and ill reputation. In fall of 1236 a party of crusaders arrived from
Holstein; it demanded to be led into a battle. southward into pagan
Samogitia. Earlier in the year the Order obtained a
papal bull announcing crusade against
pagan Lithuania and Samogitia.
Events of the Battle
The knights raided some settlements of the Samogitians. On the knights' return to the north, however, they encountered a determined group of Samogitians at a river crossing. Unwilling to risk losing their horses in the swampland, the Holsteiners refused to fight on foot, forcing the knights to camp for the night.
The exact place where the battle took place isn't known. The
Chronicum Livoniae by
Hermann de Wartberge says the battle was fought in
terram Sauleorum. This may be near
Šiauliai in
Lithuania () or, less likely, near the small town of Vecsaule near
Bauska in what is today southern
Latvia.
[ Saule/Saulė means "the Sun" in both Latvian and Lithuanian languages.]
Further Information
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