ABSTRACT
One of the most important sources regarding the early process of conquest and Christianization in the territory of modern Latvia and Estonia is the so-called Chronicon Livoniae, written by a German priest named Henry who worked as a missionary and parish priest in what was then called Livonia, under the auspices of Albert von Buxhövden, bishop of Riga, in the first decades of the thirteenth century. It is believed that Henry began writing sometime around 1208, but the entire chronicle was not finished until around 1226 or 1227.1 The chronicle describes, often in great detail, how secular lords, crusaders and clerics conquered new lands and subjugated the local people to the Christian faith, expanding the frontiers of Christendom even further through the establishment of new political, military and religious centres of power in these new frontier societies.
