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Europe · High and late Middle Ages

Principality of Jersika

drawn on the map 1111–1215

Latin Gerzika, terra Lettia; the Russian Lotygola. A Latgalian principality on the Daugava in what is now Latvia, a vassal of Polotsk.

Shown on the map
1111–1215
Peak area
23k km²
Region
Europe

Names

Latin Gerzika, terra Lettia; the Russian Lotygola. A Latgalian principality on the Daugava in what is now Latvia, a vassal of Polotsk. Its ruler, King Visvaldis (Vissewalde, rex de Gerzika), called rex in the Livonian Chronicle of Henry, allied with Lithuanians against the crusaders and was defeated in 1209 by Bishop Albert of Riga, forced to receive his own land back as a fief of the Bishopric. The principality was extinguished by the crusaders by 1239.

Common questions

What was the Principality of Jersika?
Latin Gerzika, terra Lettia; the Russian Lotygola. A Latgalian principality on the Daugava in what is now Latvia, a vassal of Polotsk.
When is the Principality of Jersika shown on the map?
The border data draws the Principality of Jersika 1111–1215. The source samples borders at fixed dates, so a span can begin late or run on past the end.
How large was the Principality of Jersika?
At its greatest extent drawn on this map, the Principality of Jersika covered about 23,000 km². That is the largest area the border data gives it across the years it is drawn, not necessarily its greatest extent in history.

Sources

This compendium cites its sources once for the whole document rather than per territory. Its bibliography names the English Wikipedia articles for each territory as the primary basis, with Encyclopædia Britannica, the World History Encyclopedia, academic works (John Fine on the Balkans, Halperin and Martin on Muscovy, Rady and Veszprémy on Hungary) and, for a few entries, the medieval Livonian Chronicle of Henry itself. The article this entry is anchored on:

This entry was last updated .

This entry was researched and drafted with AI from the sources above, and has not been reviewed by a historian. How entries are made

Text available under CC BY-SA 4.0: reuse it with a credit to The World Through Time and a link to this page. Passages drawing on the Wikipedia articles listed above are also licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 by their contributors.

Border geometry for the map itself comes from Cliopatria v0.12 (Seshat Global History Databank, CC-BY-4.0).

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