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Founded as an ecclesiastical center, trading hub, and intended capital of a feudal state, Riga was Old Livonia's greatest city and its indispensable port. Because the city was situated in what was initially remote and inhospitable territory, surrounded by pagans and coveted by regional powers like Poland, Sweden, and Muscovy, it was also a fortress encased by a wall. This book begins in the twelfth century with the arrival to the eastern Baltic of German priests, traders, and knights, who conquered and converted the indigenous tribes and assumed mastery over their lands. It ends in 1710 with an account of the greatest war Livonia had ever seen, one that was accompanied by mass starvation, a terrible epidemic, and a flood of nearly Biblical proportions that devastated the city and left its survivors in misery. Readers will learn about Riga's people—merchants and clerics, craftsmen and builders, porters and day laborers—about its structures and spaces, its internal conflicts and its unrelenting struggle to maintain its independence against outside threats. The book is an indispensable guide to a quintessentially European city located in one of the continent's more remote corners.

This chapter examines the city's experience during the Great Northern War (1700–1721). The end results of this war were the destruction of Swedish power in the Baltic Sea and Russia's acquisition of several new ports, including Riga. The chapter focuses on the actions of three powerful monarchs, Charles XII of Sweden, Augustus II of Poland-Saxony, and Peter I of Russia, as they clashed over the eastern Baltic. Its principal concern, however, is the experience of Rigans during these extraordinary times. The chapter ends with a scene of devastation in the starving and bombed-out city of Riga as its terrified residents surrendered to the victorious Russian state. It was in this manner that more than two centuries of tsarist dominion over Riga began in 1710.

This chapter is an origin story that introduces the watery and sandy landscape of early Riga and the pagans who lived in or near it at the close of the twelfth century. Riga's relationship with the waters that run past, through, and under it has given rise to many legends and sayings. The chapter considers the efforts of German merchants and Catholic missionaries to trade with and establish Christian communities among the Livish tribes. These tribes lived along the banks of the Düna River (which Latvians know as the Daugava). In doing so, the chapter provides readers with a broader context for understanding these early encounters by examining western Europe's commercial and religious expansion during the Middle Ages.

This chapter demonstrates the impact of new ideas on old arrangements in late medieval Riga. During this time, the restlessness of the 1520s brought an end to the Catholic Church's spiritual dominion over the city of Riga. Indeed, the Reformation was no impediment to Riga's growing material prosperity and in no way diminished the authority of its German elites. During an era when established authority was under challenge and neighboring dynastic states sought to expand their power and influence, it fell to the Livonian Order's long-reigning master, Walter of Plettenberg (Wolter von Plettenberg), to defend the feudal state and keep the peace in Riga. He later became the German emperor's appointed prince of Livonia between the years 1526–1535.

This chapter examines the tumultuous era that began with the failed Muscovite advance toward Riga. It continues through four decades of Polish rule (1581–1621). By this time, the demise of the archbishopric and of the Livonian Order during the Livonian War (1558–1582) left Riga and the territory of Livonia vulnerable to the ambitions of aggressive regional powers. Whatever the disagreements among the great powers of the Baltic Sea, all understood that a secure and prosperous Riga would add considerably to the fortunes of whomever controlled it. This era of alien occupation and of religious and political strife is illustrated by a close examination of Riga's unique “Calendar Upheavals” of the 1590s.

This chapter is about Riga's unstable political dynamics. The division of power in Riga satisfied neither the region's supreme religious authority, the Archbishop of Riga, nor the master of the Livonian Order, whose monk-knights were responsible for Livonia's defense. Least of all did the arrangement please the wealthy merchants of the Riga Town Council (Rath), an administrative body that embodied the ideal of urban self-governance. The Rath made law and administered the city's affairs. A set piece of this chapter is the fate of the Riga Castle, which the citizens destroyed twice during Riga's civil wars of the later Middle Ages.

This chapter explores the notion of Riga as a “city of God” to which thousands of monk-knights and other warriors arrived to do battle with the pagans in Livonia, which the crusaders called the “Land of Mary.” Here, the chapter considers the city's role in the Baltic crusade as both a regional trading center and as a gathering point for military expeditions against pagans and Rus'. Riga was virtually surrounded by native tribes, and both pagans and newly baptized converts. And within the city was a military order dedicated to holy war. Riga was also, in every respect, a colonial city, dominated by strangers to the region who arrived in shiploads to make a comfortable living, conquer territory, and spread the faith.

This chapter narrates Riga's history as a prosperous member of the Hanseatic League of northern trading cities. A distant outpost of the decentralized Holy Roman Empire, the “free city” of Riga became an important collecting point for primary goods from the east (Russia) destined for western European markets. This chapter maps the medieval city's castles, churches, markets, and streets while exploring the roles played by Germans and “non-Germans” in the city's social and economic arrangements. Forming the bulk of the city's lower classes, these “non-Germans” (Undeutsche) shared Riga's narrow streets and its “free air” with their social superiors, but found themselves increasingly excluded from its civic and social life. Multinational though it was, Riga was in most respects a typical German Hanse city in which business was the order of the day, but order was necessary for the conduct of business.

This chapter demonstrates that the peace, progress, educational advances, and cultural achievements of the seventeenth century made the Swedish era into something of a “golden age” for early modern Riga. For ninety years, Riga was under the dominion of the Swedish Empire, an absolutist state that relied on the Livonian port for supplies of food and for the defense of its Baltic possessions. As Riga was the empire's largest city, its most important fortress, and a significant source of income, the city underwent extensive physical renovations that strengthened its defenses and transformed its appearance. Yet the dawn of the “good old Swedish times”—or rather the end of Polish dominion—was far from promising, as the transition began during a drawn-out war accompanied by all the usual disruptions. For an entire decade, Riga was blockaded by sea and activity at its once-bustling harbor practically ceased.