In 1316 Andrei and Lev, the two sons of Yuri, divided Volynia and Galitch between them. But the great Roman’s inheritance was of small use to those, his weak and last male descendants. Those two sons of Yuri Lvovitch had each a daughter, one of whom married the Mazovian prince, Troiden; the other married Lyubart, a son of Gedimin. Lyubart received Volynia with his princess and laid claim to Galitch. So the Lithuania of Gedimin’s day was increased by almost the whole of South Russia.
Rome, meanwhile, did not cease to consider Lithuania as one of its bishoprics. The churches of Livonia and Lithuania were spoken of as neighboring churches, and the Pope acted in Lithuania through Livonia. But about the time Gedimin began to rule, a dispute was raging between the knights and the Bishop of Riga. The bishop complained to the Pope that the knights, by their greed, love of power, and savage treatment, turned people away from Christianity. The knights declared that the bishops, in dealing with conquered people, influenced them against the knights and encouraged them in paganism. They proved to the Pope that the Bishop of Riga had invited the people more than once to act against the Order; that the bishops negotiated in secret with Lithuanian princes and extended their influence over the people; that they acted in spite of the Order, and used the Order only when they had need of its services. In view of such contradictory statements, the Pope took sometimes the side of the bishop, and sometimes the side of the Order, not hindering either side, [[331]]however, in continuing the “sacred work” of converting the infidels.
Through the Bishop of Riga the Pope received in 1323 a message from Gedimin stating that he was ready for baptism, as were all people under him. He asked that the knights be prevented from making war on Lithuania, and declared that the Order had stopped him from having relations directly with the Curia; that they helped in no way to Christianize people.
At the same time letters went to the Franciscans and Dominicans in Riga, requesting that monks be sent to Lithuania. Letters were sent also to Germany with offers of free trade, and asking for colonists. The Pope was delighted with the letter from Gedimin, and commanded the Order to stop warlike action in view of Lithuania’s conversion. The Archbishop of Riga made a friendly alliance with Gedimin, and the Order was forced to join also.
In due time envoys appeared from Rome, and when they had confirmed all agreements between Lithuania and Livonia, they set out to find Gedimin and establish the Catholic faith in his capital and elsewhere. They intended to baptize and crown the Lithuanian prince, and then baptize all his subjects, but this they were unable to do.
In Vilna they found things very different from what they had expected. They found great hatred for the German religion; they found, to their astonishment, Orthodox churches; they found also that the heathen Lithuanians not only threatened to hurl Gedimin from power if he tried to baptize them, but to exterminate his whole family. They saw that all Jmud and the Prussians would rise if Gedimin endeavored to bring in the German religion. Besides this, Gedimin’s Russian Orthodox subjects formed three-fourths of the whole population; they also threatened loudly. Thus opposed on two sides, his position would have been difficult had he really wished to introduce the German religion. Gedimin had been christened in the Orthodox faith, whether through conviction or policy we may not determine at this day, but his motives must have been overwhelming, either to remain pagan or become Orthodox. He sent the legates away. They went back enraged and indignant at the faith-breaking ruler. But Gedimin found no fault in himself; he found it on the other side. Each side accused the other, but it was difficult to tell which was the more perfidious. [[332]]Illiterate Lithuania carried on its home correspondence in Russian, but with Rome and the West the Livonian Germans helped Gedimin in Latin, and he had monks for that purpose from Vilna. It proved that those zealous aids, in their Latin letters sent to Rome by the way of Riga, had written much over Gedimin’s name which he would not acknowledge. In every case, when thunders struck him from the Vatican, and throughout Western Europe men called him a preternatural deceiver and liar, a forerunner of Antichrist, who trampled on laws divine and human, Gedimin justified himself, saying that the Latin writers had not correctly translated his words; he had never uttered the words which they had written.
The German now became more troublesome than ever. Gedimin was forced to perpetual conflict with his neighbors. The knights, warring continually on the banks of the Niemen, made their attacks in the form of excursions, which they called “journeys.” Men came in large numbers from every part of the Holy Roman Empire to join those excursions. In 1336 there came of simple knights about two hundred counts and princes, and the Grand Master formed for their amusement what might be called a great pagan hunt.
Like the founder of Riga, his successor, the Grand Master did not cease to baptize pagan people, who later on complained to all Europe in these words: “Listen to us, O princes spiritual and secular! The knights are not seeking our souls for God; they are seeking our land for their own use. They have brought us to this,—that we must either beg or be robbers if we are to save the lives in us. The knights are worse than the Mongols. All that the land gives, or that bees gather in they take. They do not let us kill a beast, or catch a fish, or trade with our neighbors. They take our children as hostages, our elders they hunt off to Prussia and imprison; our sisters and daughters they take for themselves. And still those men wear the cross of Christ on their mantles! Have pity on us. We too are men, and not wild beasts. We would take Christianity, and be baptized not in blood, but in sacred water.”
When the knights did not cease visiting their “godchildren,” the latter greeted them with these words: “What place will ye rob now, for everything is taken by your prelates [[333]]and priests,—all wool, honey, and milk. They teach Christianity poorly.”
The Grand Master, for the amusement of his guests, made an “excursion” to the island of Pillene, where four thousand people of Jmud, men, women, and children, together with their elders, had entrenched themselves strongly. In vain did the Germans fill the ditches, attack and cut down people; they could not take the place. At last they hurled in burning arrows wrapped with a blazing substance, and the fortress took fire on all sides.