ABSTRACT
The region called Livonia (corresponding approximately to modern Estonia and Latvia) emerged out of the rapid transformation caused by the conquest, Christianisation and colonisation on the north-east shore of the Baltic Sea in the late twelfth and the early thirteenth centuries. The making of Livonia did not result in a homogenous state-like formation, but in a heterogeneous territorial conglomerate ruled by various overlords. Livonia was not only politically heterogeneous but also a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural and multi-lingual region. The inter-relation among commercial, social and personal ties can perhaps best be exemplified by the membership of Livonian merchants’ guilds, which from the late Middle Ages in Riga, Tallinn and Tartu were called the Great Guild. Connections to the cultural centres of Europe and individual or institutional intellectual contacts mostly came into being through the networks sustained by secular clergy and religious orders.
