ABSTRACT
Drawing on Henry's chronicle of Livonia and the surviving papal letters, this chapter explores the missionary bishops' strategies towards the papal curia and the response from the pope and his curial officers. It discusses how Innocent III perceived the distance between Rome and the faraway church provinces and how well informed he was about events in Livonia and Estonia. Henry's chronicle shows that the messengers from Riga often got a free ride for the first leg of their journey as they travelled by boat to Germany with the returning western arms-bearers. Riga would, however, have had to foot the bill for the rest of the journey which probably took between six and eight weeks, depending on the season and mode of transportation as well as the stay in Rome. Perhaps he wished to impress upon his audience that there were such close ties between Riga and Rome that the geographical distance mattered little.
