Livonian Mercenary Warfare and Fiscal Responses to the Military Crisis of 1558–1561

Abstract

Ivan the Terrible's 1558 invasion of Livonia plunged the eastern Baltic into military crisis. The ensuing conflict has most often been examined in terms of competition between the burgeoning powers that, by 1561, had occupied and partitioned the territories of the Livonian Confederation. The present study instead explores the fiscal and military responses of the Livonians themselves. An institutional approach to the dissolution of Old Livonia is eschewed in favor of one that foregrounds shifting networks of regional power holders endeavoring to defend their interests against a messy backdrop of mercenary warfare, military enterprise, factional rivalry, personal ambition, ad hoc negotiation, and desperate expediency. The Livonian experience reveals much about the struggles of small European polities and regional elites faced with the escalating financial demands of warfare in an age of emerging states.