History

European cartography experienced a considerable rise in the 16th and the first half of the 17th century when maps became a practical necessity. Their importance rose in Lithuania too as people required more precise pictures of different localities due to intensifying economic ties with Europe, military conflicts and local land and administrative reforms. This is how the view of southern Lithuania emerged in 1559 according to the description of forests by Grigalius Valavičius. […]

In the 13th and 14th centuries, both pagans and Christians suffered from starvation because the lack of food was a common. Low economic productivity and the shortage of alternative crops to compensate poor harvests caused dire calamities to people’s lives, as did adverse weather conditions, plant and animal diseases, epidemics, and wars. Lack of everything, especially food, and repeated famines led to a form of social welfare. Those who could afford or had access to enough food and clothing would store everything safely in warehouses, barns or sheds. The abundance of food, which usually indicates prosperity, might, and wealth, accompanied by social responsibility, has been meticulously described in many sources while speaking of feasts, both pagan and Christian, which a generous and hospitable host was expected to arrange. […]

The raid of the Christian army against Lithuania in 1236 was dictated by the political circumstances that occurred after the Curonians’ surrender to Livonia in 1229-1230. It was then that Germans readied themselves to invite the pagans living south of Dauguva into the “sweet yoke of Christ’s faith.” It was at this point that the Christian German immigrant community of Riga and the interests of the Pope’s curia intersected. […]

Mykolas Giedraitis, a secular Augustinian born in Lithuania in the 15th century, has been confirmed as blessed, the Vatican News website reports. […]