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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 July 2021
Ivan the Terrible's 1558 invasion of Livonia plunged the eastern Baltic into military crisis. The ensuing conflict has most often been examined in terms of competition between the burgeoning powers that, by 1561, had occupied and partitioned the territories of the Livonian Confederation. The present study instead explores the fiscal and military responses of the Livonians themselves. An institutional approach to the dissolution of Old Livonia is eschewed in favor of one that foregrounds shifting networks of regional power holders endeavoring to defend their interests against a messy backdrop of mercenary warfare, military enterprise, factional rivalry, personal ambition, ad hoc negotiation, and desperate expediency. The Livonian experience reveals much about the struggles of small European polities and regional elites faced with the escalating financial demands of warfare in an age of emerging states.
1 See, for example, recent special issues of Business History 60 (2018), Financial History Review 25 (2018), and Scandinavian Economic History Review 65 (2017) dedicated to military finance and the business of war. For a critical assessment of the field, see Gunn, Steven, Grummitt, David, and Cools, Hans, “War and the State in Early Modern Europe: Widening the Debate,” War in History 15, no. 4 (2008): 371–88CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
2 Tilly, Charles, “Reflections on the History of European State-Making,” in The Formation of Nation States in Western Europe, ed. Tilly, Charles (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1975), 42Google Scholar.
3 Tilly, Charles, Coercion, Capital, and European States, AD 990–1992 (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 1992), 42Google Scholar.
4 The confederation's constituent members were the Livonian Order, the Archbishopric of Riga, and the bishoprics of Courland (Kurzeme), Dorpat (Tartu), and Ösel-Wiek (Saare-Lääne). Margus Laidre referred to these polities as “Kleinstaaten,” whereas Heikki Pihlajamäki characterized them as “small principalities.” Reval (Tallinn) was also the seat of a bishop, but his temporal powers were limited. Margus Laidre, “Der Hundertjährige Krieg (1558–1661) in Estland,” Forschungen zur baltischen Geschichte 1 (2006): 70; Heikki Pihlajamäki, Conquest and the Law in Swedish Livonia (ca. 1630–1710): A Case for Legal Pluralism in Early Modern Europe (Leiden: Brill, 2016), 24.
5 John Brewer, The Sinews of Power: War, Money and the English State, 1688–1783 (London: Unwin Hyman, 1989), xxiii.
6 Juhan Kreem's “The Business of War” is a valuable study of mercenaries in late medieval Reval but does not cover the period of the Livonian War. Alexander Senning's 1932 monograph on the military organization of Old Livonia touches upon the employment of mercenaries, and Theodor Schiemann's short 1885 chapter “Revaler Landsknechte” contains useful observations drawn from that city's rich archives. Robert Frost's The Northern Wars is the most comprehensive account of the long period of conflict that engulfed northeastern Europe from 1558 until 1721, but the Livonian experience is mostly treated as peripheral to the struggle between larger powers. David Parrott's The Business of War, the most influential study of early modern European military enterprise to appear in the past decade, does not describe the situation in Livonia. Juhan Kreem, “The Business of War: Mercenary and Market Organisation in Reval in the Fifteenth and Early Sixteenth Centuries,” Scandinavian Economic History Review XLIX, no. 2 (2001): 26–42; Alexander Senning, Beiträge zur Heeresverfassung und Kriegsführung Alt-Livlands zur Zeit seines Untergangs (Ph.D. diss., Jena, 1932); Theodor Schiemann, “Revaler Landsknechte zur Zeit der ersten Russennoth,” in Baltische Monatschrift, vol. XXXII (Reval, 1885), 227–49; Robert I. Frost, The Northern Wars: War, State and Society in Northeastern Europe, 1558–1721 (Toronto: Longman, 2000); David Parrott, The Business of War: Military Enterprise and Military Revolution in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012).
7 Priit Raudkivi, “Tracing Social Change: The Case of Old Livonia,” in Wandel und Anpassung in der Geschichte Estlands. 16.–20. Jahrhundert, ed. Karsten Brüggemann (Nordost Archiv. Zeitschrift für Regionalgeschichte 22) (Lüneburg: Nordost-Institut, 2013), 17.
8 Juhan Kahk and Enn Tarvel's An Economic History of the Baltic Countries, for example, discusses “feudal relations and state building” in Lithuania, but “feudal relations and the genesis of manors” in Livonia. Juhan Kahk and Enn Tarvel, An Economic History of the Baltic Countries (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 1997).
9 Klaus Zernack, “Schweden als europäische Groβmacht der frühen Neuzeit,” Historische Zeitschrift 232 (1981): 335. Unless otherwise noted, all translations are the author's own.
10 M. S. Anderson, The Origins of the Modern European State System 1494–1618 (London: Longman, 1998), 6; Michael Duffy, “Introduction,” in The Military Revolution and the State 1500–1800, ed. Michael Duffy (Exeter: University of Exter, 1980), 2. Even wealthy Spain was bankrupted by military expenses on three occasions in the latter half of the century. Martin van Creveld, Supplying War: Logistics from Wallenstein to Patton (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1977), 8.
11 John A. Lynn, “The Evolution of Army Style in the Modern West, 800–2000,” The International History Review 18, no. 3 (1996): 514.
12 Evald Blumfeldt, “Über die Wehrpflicht der estnischen Landbevölkerung im Mittelalter,” Apophoreta Tartuensia (Stockholm: Societas Litterarum Estonica in Svecia, 1949), 163–76. For the Estonian peasantry's military participation, see Jakob Koit, “Estnische Bauern als Krieger während der Kampfe in Livland 1588–1611,” Eesti Teadusliku Seltsi Rootsis Aastaraamat 4 (1966): 22–60.
13 Juhan Kreem, The Town and Its Lord: Reval and the Teutonic Order (in the Fifteenth Century) (Tallinn: Ilo, 2002), 61–65.
14 Friedrich Benninghoven, “Probleme der Zahl und Standortverteilung der livländischen Streitkräfte im ausgehenden Mittelalter,” Zeitschrift für Ostforschung 12 (1963): 619; Blumfeldt, “Über die Wehrpflicht der estnischen Landbevölkerung im Mittelalter,” 175.
15 Balthasar Russow, Chronica der Prouintz Lyfflandt (Barth: Förstliken Drückerye, 1584), 38.
16 See discussion in Leonid Arbusow, Die Einführung der Reformation in Liv-, Est- und Kurland (Leipzig: Heinsius, 1921), 177.
17 Walther Kirchner, “The Russo-Livonian Crisis, 1555: Extracts from Joachim Burwitz’ Report of February 19, 1555,” The Journal of Modern History XIX (1947): 42–51; Wilhelm Lenz, “Joachim Burwitz’ Bericht über Livland aus dem Jahre 1555,” Zeitschrift für Ostforschung 20 (1971): 708–29.
18 The Livonian Order requested that Schmedemann be arrested for slander. Carl Schirren, ed., Quellen zur Geschichte des Untergangs livländischer Selbständigkeit (hereafter QU), vol. IV (Reval: Kluge, 1885), 92–94.
19 A. M. Kurbsky, History of Ivan IV, ed. and trans. J. L. I. Fennell (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1965), 109–10.
20 Senning, Beiträge zur Heeresverfassung und Kriegsführung Alt-Livlands zur Zeit seines Untergangs, 62–63.
21 See records of Landsknechte stationed in the city in 1560 and in 1574–1575. Tallinna Linnaarhiiv (hereafter TLA) B.e.5.17-39 and TLA B.e.8.1-150. Common soldiers are frequently recorded by first name and city of origin (e.g., Hans von Frankfordt). Some are known by nicknames (e.g., “Jungblut”). TLA B.e.8.38-39.
22 Schiemann, “Revaler Landsknechte zur Zeit der ersten Russennoth,” 231. Mercenaries were also used to defend Baltic merchant vessels, and Landsknechte sometimes served aboard warships equipped by the Livonian towns. Kreem, “The Business of War,” 32–33; Paul Johansen and Heinz von zur Mühlen, Deutsch und Undeutsch im mittelalterlichen und frühneuzeitlichen Reval (Cologne: Böhlau, 1973), 294.
23 James Dow, Ruthven's Army in Sweden and Estonia (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1964), 14–15.
24 Johann Renner, Livländische Historien, ed. Richard Hausmann and Konstantin Höhlbaum (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1876), 210.
25 QU, I, 220–22.
26 QU, I, 252–53
27 QU, III, 120–21. The chronicler Salomon Henning noted the arrival of these troops the following month. Salomon Henning, Salomon Henning's Chronicle of Courland and Livonia, ed. and trans. J. C. Smith, W. Urban, and W. Jones (Madison, WI: Baltic Studies Centre, 1992), 51.
28 Renner, Livländische Historien, 247.
29 Schiemann, “Revaler Landsknechte zur Zeit der ersten Russennoth,” 229.
30 Parrott, The Business of War, 55.
31 TLA B.e.8.1-6 and 31–41.
32 The classic study of early modern military enterprise is Fritz Redlich, The German Military Enterpriser and His Work Force: A Study in European Economic and Social History, 2 vols. (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1964–1965). Recent reassessments of the role of early modern military entrepreneurs may be found in the special issue “Business of War,” Business History 60 (2018) and Jeff Fynn-Paul, ed., War, Entrepreneurs, and the State in Europe and the Mediterranean, 1300–1800 (Leiden: Brill, 2014).
33 A letter sent from Lübeck on June 15, 1559, to Livonian Land Master Wilhelm von Fürstenberg by his secretary, Michael Brückner, had suggested hiring mercenaries serving in this campaign. QU, III, 203–7.
34 The Stadt-Krieghauptmann for Reval was initially one Michael Schleier. Schiemann, “Revaler Landsknechte zur Zeit der ersten Russennoth,” 230–31.
35 J. R. Hale, “The Soldier in Germanic Graphic Art of the Renaissance,” The Journal of Interdisciplinary History 17, no. 1 (1986): 96; Frank Tallett, War and Society in Early-Modern Europe (London: Routledge, 1992), 96.
36 Parrott, The Business of War, 78.
37 QU, I, 19 and 130–31; QU, II, 210–11.
38 TLA B.e.6.18-21 and 5.
39 Hans von Zwiedineck-Südenhorst, Kriegsbilder aus der Zeit der Landsknechte (Stuttgart: Cotta, 1883), 49–50.
40 QU, I, 169–72.
41 QU, I, 44, 115, and 126. The number of guns was soon supplemented by contributions from the towns.
42 Thorough treatments of the armaments employed by Landsknechte may be found in Georg Ortenburg, Waffe und Waffengebrauch im Zeitalter der Landsknechte (Koblenz: Bernard & Graefe, 1984); Gerhard Quaas, Das Handwerk der Landsknechte. Waffen und Bewaffnung zwischen 1500 und 1600 (Osnabrück: Biblio, 1997).
43 Reinhard Baumann, Landsknechte. Ihre Geschichte und Kultur vom späten Mittelalter bis zum Dreissigjährigen Krieg (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1994), 72–86; Peter Burschel, Söldner im Nordwestdeutschland des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts. Sozialgeschichtliche Studien (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1994), 115–29.
44 QU, I, 169–72 and 260–63.
45 QU, I, 290–96.
46 QU, I, 169–72 and QU, I, 281.
47 Renner, Livländische Historien, 273.
48 Renner, Livländische Historien, 226.
49 Burschel, Söldner im Nordwestdeutschland des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts. Sozialgeschichtliche Studien, 173; Hans-Michael Möller, Das Regiment der Landsknechte. Untersuchungen zu Verfassung, Recht und Selbstverständnis in deutschen Söldnerheeren des 16. Jahrhunderts (Wiesbaden: F. Steiner, 1976), 77–80.
50 Nonetheless, the vicissitudes of war and the fleeting temptations of camp life meant that the common soldier rarely accumulated great wealth. It is with good reason that Urs Graf's famous caricature of the “Returning Landsknecht” bears the epigram “al mein gelt verspilt” (“all my money gambled away”).
51 In the mid-1550s, for example, a laborer in Reval made about seven schillings per day, compared to just four for a laborer in Riga. Ivar Leimus, “Vorläufige Bemerkungen zur Entwicklung einiger Löhne und Preise in Reval im 16. Jahrhundert,” Forschungen zur baltischen Geschichte 9 (2014): 52–53.
52 QU, I, 270.
53 QU, I, 270; F. G. von Bunge, ed., Monumenta Livoniae Antiquae. Sammlung von Chroniken, Berichten, Urkunden und anderen schriftlichen Denkmalen und Aufsätzen, welche zur Erläuterung der Geschichte Liv-, Ehst- und Kurlands dienen (hereafter MLA) (Riga: E. Frantzen, 1835–1847), vol. IV, 104.
54 Pihlajamäki, Conquest and the Law in Swedish Livonia (ca. 1630–1710), 26.
55 Bernhart Jähnig, Verfassung und Verwaltung Deutschen Ordens und seiner Herrschaft in Livland (Berlin: Lit, 2011), 55–56. For a discussion of whether the Landtag was more an assembly of estates from across five territories or an attempt to foster unity among those five territories, see Pärtel Piirimäe, “Staatenbund oder Ständestaat? Der livländische Landtag im Zeitalter Wolters von Plettenberg (1494–1535),” Forschungen zur baltischen Geschichte 8 (2013): 40–80. Older scholarship saw the Landtag as a step toward Livonian statehood, but more recent studies dispute this interpretation. Priit Raudkivi, Der livländische Landtag. Zur Enstehung einer mittelalterlichen Institution Reihe. Schriften der Baltischen Historischen Kommission, vol. 21 (Berlin: Lit, 2018).
56 Michael North, “Finances and Power in the German State System,” in The Rise of Fiscal States: A Global History 1500–1914, ed. Bartolomé Yun-Casillas and Patrick K. O'Brien (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 149.
57 Renner, Livländische Historien, 248.
58 The largest contribution listed was more than 3,000 marks from the Komtur of Doblen (Dobele), but most were much smaller. QU, III, 266–67 and 273–76.
59 Renner, Livländische Historien, 248–49.
60 Foreign exchange rates as of October 13, 1558, may be found in QU, III, 39.
61 QU, V, 194–96.
62 Renner, Livländische Historien, 281.
63 QU, II, 298–300.
64 QU, III, 27–32 and 302–4.
65 QU, V, 8–9.
66 QU, III, 249–52. The embassy was originally to have been led by Kettler, but he was recalled to take part in negotiations at Vilnius. MLA, V, 565–83.
67 Jason Lavery, Germany's Northern Challenge: The Holy Roman Empire and the Scandinavian Struggle for the Baltic, 1536–1576 (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 17; Eduard Reimann, “Das Verhalten des Reiches gegen Livland in den Jahren 1559–1561,” Historische Zeitschrift 35 (1876): 346–80.
68 Pepijn Brandon, “‘The Whole Art of War Is Reduced to Money’: Remittances, Short-term Credit and Financial Intermediation in Anglo-Dutch Military Finance, 1688–1713,” Financial History Review 25, no. 1 (2018): 19.
69 Friedrich Bienemann, ed., Briefe und Urkunden zur Geschichte Livlands in den Jahren 1558–1562 (hereafter Briefe), vol. I (Riga, 1865–1876), 62–64.
70 Briefe, I, 222–23.
71 QU, II, 197–99.
72 QU, II, 322–24. Carl Schirren, ed., Neue Quellen zur Geschichte des Untergangs des livländischen Selbständigkeit (hereafter NQU), vol. I (Reval: Kluge, 1885), 65–70.
73 According to Balthasar Russow, these consisted of guns, powder, shot, and a large quantity of bacon. See Russow, Chronica der Prouintz Lyfflandt, 44.
74 Münchhausen may have hoped that a Danish takeover would see him appointed Copenhagen's Statthalter in Estonia. Burchard von Klot, Jost Clodt und das Privilegium Sigismundi Augusti (Hannover: Hirschheydt, 1980), 35. For Münchhausen's negotiations in Denmark, see F. G. von Bunge, ed., Archiv für die Geschichte Liv-, Esth- und Curlands (Reval: Kluge, 1842–61), vol. III, 131–40. A contemporary account of Segenhagen's actions may be found in NQU, I, 76–78 and 121–26. Renner and Russow agreed that Münchhausen had accepted the castle without first ascertaining whether King Christian was willing to accept it. He was not. See Russow, Chronica der Prouintz Lyfflandt, 44; Renner, Livländische Historien, 190–93.
75 QU, I, 249–54 and 270.
76 Danish delegates led by Claus Urne had recently visited Moscow. Knud Rasmussen argued that it was they who persuaded the czar to accept the truce. Knud Rasmussen, Die livländische Krise, 1554–1561 (Copenhagen: Universitetsforlaget, 1973).
77 Renner, Livländische Historien, 250.
78 In the context of the “Schlitte Affair” of the 1540s, these tensions developed into an incident with international repurcussions. See discussion in Kurt Forstreuter, Preuβen und Ruβland von den Anfängen des Deutschen Ordens bis zu Peter dem Groβen (Göttingen: Musterschmidt, 1955), 116–36. Thomas Esper argued that Livonian claims of English and Dutch merchants supplying the Russians with armaments were a pretext for limiting the access of Western merchants to Baltic trade. Thomas Esper, “A Sixteenth-Century anti-Russian Arms Embargo,” Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas 15, no. 2 (June 1967): 180–96. In 1559, the Duke of Mecklenburg warned the Reichstag that the czar was hiring “English and German artillery masters and mercenaries.” QU, III, 161–66.
79 Renner, Livländische Historien, 240.
80 Henning, Salomon Henning's Chronicle of Courland and Livonia, 59.
81 Briefe, I, 139–40.
82 Henning, Salomon Henning's Chronicle of Courland and Livonia, 59–60.
83 QU, III, 295–300; NQU, II, 178–97.
84 A Livonian account of the battle may be found in Briefe, V, 269–70 and 276–84. Kurbsky, History of Ivan IV, 136–49, provides a Russian perspective.
85 They were also sometimes described as mercenaries, as when Gotthard Kettler referred to Livonian noblemen who had defected to Duke Magnus as “our former mercenary cavalry.” QU, V, 245. However, Sture Arnell considered the Hofleute more politically siginificant because of their affiliation with the local aristocracy. Sture Arnell, Bidrag till belysning av den baltiska fronten under det nordiska sjuårskriget 1563–1570 (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 1977), 11. Andres Adamson has argued that the initial aim of the Hofleute was to restore Livonian independence, but harsh military realities forced them to abandon this goal. Andres Adamson, “Livimaa Mõisamehed Liivi Sõja Perioodil,” Acta Historica Tallinnensia 10 (2006): 20–47.
86 Jüri Kivimäe, “Läänemaa talupoegade kaebused anno 1561,” Läänemaa Muuseumi Toimetised XXII (2019): 75–100.
87 The fall, in August 1560, of the great castle of Fellin was perhaps the most noteworthy disaster. Here, the unpaid garrison of 250 Landsknechte surrendered to a besieging force of 15,000 Muscovites. A list of the mutineers may be found in QU, VI, 199–201. Some of them were later hunted down and hanged by the Livonian authorities, but their commander, one Jorgen Fromknecht, managed to escape.
88 QU, IV, 337–40; QU, VI, 1–7. Further information pertaining to the city of Reval's expenditures between 1558 and 1562 may be found in the records of the Jasper Kappenberg, Jochim Belholt, and Jürgen Honerjäger. TLA, B.e.4.
89 NQU, III, 203–4.
90 Artur Attman, for example, saw Stockholm's annexation of Reval as “the beginning of Swedish Baltic policy on a large scale.” Artur Attman, The Struggle for Baltic Markets: Powers in Conflict 1558–1618 (Gothenburg: Kungl. Vetenskaps- och Vitterhets-Samhället, 1979), 14. The historical debate over whether Swedish intervention in the eastern Baltic was primarily motivated by economic or security concerns is summarized in Stefan Troebst, “The Attman-Rogers Debate on the Mercantile Background of Swedish Empire-Building,” in Die schwedischen Ostseeprovinzen Estland und Livland im 16.–18. Jahrhundert, ed. Aleksander Loit and Helmut Piirimäe (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 1993), 33–52.
91 See correspondence in NQU, III, 149–51.
92 Quoted in Sture Arnell, Die Auflösung des livländischen Ordensstaates. Das schwedische Eingreifen und die Heirat Herzog Johans von Finnland 1558–1562 (Lund: A.-b. P. Lindstedts Univ.-Bokhandel, 1937), 36.
93 QU, VI, 211–16 and 290–95; QU, VII, 23–29 and 113–22.
94 Briefe, IV, 241–51, 259–61, and 307–48; QU, VII, 311–24.
95 Janice E. Thomson, Mercenaries, Pirates, and Sovereigns: State-Building and Extraterritorial Violence in Early Modern Europe (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994), 27.
96 See, for example, David Parrott's remarks on the situation in France. David Parrott, Richelieu's Army: War, Government and Society in France, 1624–1642 (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 551–52.
97 Jeff Fynn-Paul, Marjolein ’t Hart, and Griet Vermeesch, “Entrepreneurs, Military Supply, and State Formation in the Late Medieval and Early Modern Periods: New Directions,” in War, Entrepreneurs, and the State in Europe and the Mediterranean 1300–1800, ed. Jeff Fynn-Paul (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 11.
98 Joachim Kuhles, “Die livländische Reformation unter vergleichenden Aspekten,” Comparativ. Leipziger Beiträge zur Universalgeschichte und vergleichenden Gesellschaftsforschung 3 (1993): 144; Inna Põltsam, “Tallinn ja orduvõim 1346–1561,” Acta Historica Tallinnensia 2 (1999): 3–17.
99 Madis Maasing saw some potential for Livonia to become more entrenched within the empire but also observed that even northern Germany's integration was only firmly established by the late sixteenth century. Reinhard Vogelsang pondered whether a united Livonia might have survived within the empire, but concluded that the Livonians simply lacked the strength to fend off their larger neighbors. Madis Maasing, “Livland und die Reichstage (1520–1555),” in Livland—Eine Region am Ende der Welt? Forschungen zum Verhältnis zwischen Zentrum und Peripherie im späten Mittelalter, ed. Anti Selart and Matthias Thumser (Cologne: Böhlau, 2017), 310; Reinhard Vogelsang, “Reval und der Deutsche Orden. Zwischen städtlicher Autonomie und landsherrlicher Gewalt,” in Stadt und Orden. Das Verhältnis des Deutschen Ordens zu den Städten in Livland, Preuβen und im Deutschen Reich, ed. Udo Arnold (Marburg: Elwert, 1993), 51.
100 Jürgen Heyde, Bauer, Gutshof und Königsmacht. Die estnischen Bauern in Livland unter polnischer und swedischer Herrschaft 1561–1650 (Cologne: Böhlau, 2000), 25.
101 Rafael Torres Sánchez, Military Entrepreneurs and the Spanish Contractor State in the Eighteenth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 5.
102 Anderson, The Origins of the Modern European State System 1494–1618, 32.
103 Juhan Kreem, “Der Deutsche Orden im 16. Jahrhundert. Die Spätzeit einer geistlichen Adelskorporation in Livland,” in Leonid Arbusow (1882–1951) und die Erforschung des mittelalterlichen Livland, ed. Ilgvars Misāns and Klaus Neitmann (Cologne: Böhlau, 2014), 295; Madis Maasing, The Role of the Bishops in the Livonian Political System, PhD diss. (Tartu: University of Tartu Press, 2016).
104 Nicola Gennaioli and Hans-Joachim Voth, “State Capacity and Military Conflict,” The Review of Economic Studies 82, no. 4 (2015): 1410.
105 Laidre, “Der Hundertjährige Krieg (1558–1661) in Estland,” 70.
106 Richard Bonney, “Introduction,” in The Rise of the Fiscal State in Europe, c. 1200–1815, ed. Richard Bonney (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 7.
107 At times, the nobility and towns in Estonia enjoyed greater autonomy under Swedish rule than did their equivalents in Sweden itself, although the seventeenth century would bring growing conflict between the Swedish crown and the Baltic gentry over the exploitation of the serfs. Torbjörn Eng, “The Legal Position of Estland in the Swedish Kingdom during the First Decades of the Swedish Rule,” in Die schwedischen Ostseeprovinzen Estland und Livland im 16.–18. Jahrhundert, ed. Aleksander Loit and Helmut Piirimäe (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 1993), 53–62; Marten Seppel, “‘Aadel ei või türanniseerida talupoegi nii nagu tahab.’ Mõisnike omavoli küsimus Liivi- ja Eestimaal,” Ajalooline Ajakiri 1 (2010): 19–35. In Courland and Livonia, the Privilegium Sigismundi Augusti outlined the terms by which these regions were to be brought under Polish-Lithuanian patronage and preserved many of the Livonian aristocracy's old rights. M. Dogiel, ed., Codex Diplomaticus Regni Poloniae et Magni Ducatus Lituaniae V 139 (Vilnius: 1759), 243–48. Antoni Mączak's work on clientelism provides a useful conceptual framework for understanding these developments. Antoni Mączak, Klientela. Nieformalne systemy władzy w Polsce i Europie XVI–XVIII w. (Warsaw: Semper, 1994).
108 Filyushkin, Alexander, “Livonian War in the Context of the European Wars of the 16th Century,” Russian History 43 (2016): 1Google Scholar.
109 Rough population estimates for the sixteenth-century eastern Baltic may be found in Plakans, Andrejs, A Concise History of the Baltic States (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 78–79Google Scholar. For Italy, see del Panta, Lorenzo, Bacci, Massimo Livi, Giuliano Pinto, and Sonnino, Eugenio, La popolazione italiana dal Medioevo a oggi (Rome: Laterza, 1996)Google Scholar.
110 Raudkivi, “Tracing Social Change,” 19.
111 This dynamic was not lost on contemporary observers. Russow, for example, lamented that the lords of the Livonian Order and the bishops “did not think of [Livonia] as their fatherland and only thought of how they could prosper during their days there.” Russow, Chronica der Prouintz Lyfflandt, 32.