1. Mindaugas was the first known Grand Duke of Lithuania and the only crowned King of Lithuania.
22 Facts About Mindaugas
1. 2.
Mindaugas extended his domain into regions southeast of Lithuania proper during the 1230s and 1240s.
3.
Mindaugas broke peace with the Livonian Order in 1261, possibly renouncing Christianity, and was assassinated in 1263 by his nephew Treniota and another rival, Duke Daumantas of Pskov.
4.
Mindaugas was the only king of Lithuania; while most of the Lithuanian grand dukes from Jogaila onward reigned as kings of Poland, the titles remained separate.
5.
Mindaugas's father is mentioned in the Livonian Rhymed Chronicle as a powerful duke, but is not named; later chronicles give his name as Ryngold.
6.
Mindaugas is thought to have had two sisters, one married to Vykintas and another to Daniel of Halych.
7.
Mindaugas is an archaic disyllabic Lithuanian name, used before the Christianization of Lithuania, and consists of two components: min and daug.
8.
Mindaugas established his residence in Navahrudak and succeededed in becoming master of the so-called Black Ruthenia on the upper Neman and its affluents with the cities of Hrodna, Vawkavysk, and Slonim, and of the Principality of Polotsk.
9.
Mindaugas succeeded in bribing Order Master Andreas von Stierland, who was still angry at Vykintas for the defeat at the Battle of Saule in 1236, by sending him "many gifts".
10.
In 1250 or 1251, Mindaugas agreed to receive baptism and relinquish control over some lands in western Lithuania, in return for an acknowledgment by Pope Innocent IV as king.
11.
The Pope welcomed a Christian Lithuania as a bulwark against Mongol threats; in turn, Mindaugas sought papal intervention in the ongoing Lithuanian conflicts with the Christian orders.
12.
Mindaugas used this opportunity to concentrate on the expansion to the east, and to establish and organize state institutions.
13.
Mindaugas strengthened his influence in Black Ruthenia, in Polatsk, a major center of commerce in the Daugava River basin, and in Pinsk.
14.
In 1255, Mindaugas received permission from Pope Alexander IV to crown his son as King of Lithuania.
15.
Mindaugas sponsored the construction of a cathedral in Vilnius, possibly on the site of today's Vilnius Cathedral.
16.
The chronicler writes that Mindaugas continued to practice paganism, making sacrifices to his gods, burning corpses, and conducting pagan rites in public.
17.
Historians have pointed to the possibility of bias in this account, since Mindaugas had been at war with Volhynia.
18.
Mindaugas's goal was to encourage all the conquered Baltic tribes to rise up against the Christian orders and unite under Lithuanian leadership.
19.
Mindaugas was buried along with his horses, in accordance with ancestral tradition.
20.
Mindaugas held a dubious position in Lithuanian historiography until the Lithuanian national revival of the 19th century.
21.
Mindaugas received only passing references from Grand Duke Gediminas and was not mentioned at all by Vytautas the Great.
22.
Mindaugas's known family relations end with his children; no historic records note any connections between his descendants and the Gediminids dynasty that ruled Lithuania and Poland until 1572.