Oeselians

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Part of a series on the
History of Estonia
LIVONIAE NOVA DESCRIPTIO
Ancient Estonia
Medieval Estonia
Swedish Estonia
Russian Estonia
Modern Estonia
Chronology
flag Estonia portal
The island of Ösel

Oeselians or Osilians is a historical name for the people who prior to the

Henry of Livonia in the 13th century. The inhabitants of Saaremaa (Ösel) are also mentioned in a number of historic written sources dating from the Estonian Viking Age
.

On the eve of Northern Crusades, the people then residing in Saaremaa were described in the Livonian Rhymed Chronicle: "The Oeselians, neighbors to the Kurs (Curonians), are surrounded by the sea and never fear strong armies as their strength is in their ships. In summers when they can travel across the sea they oppress the surrounding lands by raiding both Christians and pagans."[3]

Battles and raids

The

Chronicle of Henry of Livonia describes a fleet of sixteen ships and five hundred Oeselians ravaging the area that is now southern Sweden, then belonging to Denmark. In the XIVth book of Gesta Danorum, Saxo Grammaticus describes a battle on Öland in 1170 in which the Danish king Valdemar I
mobilised his entire fleet to curb the incursions of Couronian and Estonian pirates.

The Livonian Rhymed Chronicle describes the Oeselians as using two kinds of ships, the piratica and the liburna. The former was a warship, the latter mainly a merchant ship. A piratica could carry approximately 30 men and had a high prow shaped like a dragon or a snakehead as well as a quadrangular sail.

Religion and mythology

The superior god of Oeselians as described by

B.C. that formed Kaali crater
in Saaremaa.

Language

Henry of Livonia wrote about an encounter between the Oeselian pagans and a captured Christian missionary, Frederick of Zelle, during the 13th century. The Oeselians are quoted using the words "Laula! Laula! Pappi!" (Sing! Sing! Priest!) when torturing the missionary.[5] This Finnic[6] expression has been suggested to support the identification of Oeselians as a Finnic language group at that time.[7]

Conquest of Saaremaa

Bishopric of Ösel-Wiek and Oeselians at National Archives of Sweden

In 1206, the Danish army led by king

Karl of Linköping conquered Lihula in Rotalia
in Western Estonia. Oeselians attacked the Swedish stronghold the same year, conquered it and killed the entire Swedish garrison, including the Bishop of Linköping.

In 1222, the Danish king

Valdemar II attempted the second conquest of Saaremaa, this time establishing a stone fortress housing a strong garrison. The Danish stronghold was besieged and surrendered within five days, the Danish garrison returned to Reval, leaving bishop Albert of Riga' brother Theodoric and few others behind hostages as pledges for peace. The castle was leveled to the ground by Oeselians.[8]

In 1227, the Livonian Brothers of the Sword, and

Bishop Albert of Livonia organized a combined attack against Saaremaa.[9] After the destruction of Muhu Stronghold and surrender of Valjala Stronghold, the Oeselians formally accepted Christianity.[10]

In 1236, after the defeat of the Livonian Brothers of the Sword in the Battle of Saule, military action on Saaremaa broke out again.

Oeselians accepted

Bishopric of Ösel-Wiek in 1241, setting penalties for pagan rituals.[11] The next treaty was signed in 1255 by the Master of the Order, Anno Sangerhausenn, and, on behalf of the Oeselians, by elders whose "names" (or declaration?) had been phonetically transcribed by Latin scribes as Ylle, Culle, Enu, Muntelene, Tappete, Yalde, Melete, and Cake.[12]
The treaty granted several extraordinary rights to the Oeselians. The 1255 treaty included unique clauses concerning the ownership and inheritance of land, the social system, and exemption from certain restrictive religious observances.

In 1261, warfare continued as the Oeselians had again renounced Christianity and killed all the Germans on the island. A peace treaty was signed after the united forces of the

Danish Estonia including mainland Estonians and Latvians defeated the Oeselians by conquering the Kaarma stronghold. Soon thereafter, the Livonian Order established a stone fort at Pöide
.

On 24 July 1343, during

Duke Magnus of Holstein until the island was taken back to the direct administration of Denmark and in 1645 became a part of Sweden by the Treaty of Brömsebro
.

See also

Notes

  1. Latin: Osilia, Swedish: Ösel, Danish
    : Øsel

References

  1. ISSN 0027-9358
    . For centuries Swedish raiders pillaged along the Baltic's eastern shores, but there they faced rivals such as the Kurs and the piratical Saarlased, or Oeselians, from the Estonian island of Saaremaa. Saaremaa's current coat of arms pictures a longboat, and Viking images thrive in Latvian and Estonian legends, jewelry, and folk dress. "Saarlased were the Vikings of the Baltics," said Bruno Pao, a marine historian on Saaremaa. "We have found stone ship settings, burial mounds, silver hoards. The pagan era here lasted until the 13th century."
  2. ISBN 9781136141720
    .
  3. ISBN 0-929700-10-4
  4. ISBN 0-231-12889-4
  5. ISBN 9781317156796. Retrieved 5 October 2018. {{cite book}}: |last1= has generic name (help
    )
  6. ^ "Eesti ja Soome-Ugri Keeleteaduse Ajakiri". Archived from the original on 2018-10-10. Retrieved 2018-10-09.
  7. ^ Folklore Studies / Dept. of Philosophy, History, Culture and Art Studies, University of Helsinki, Helsinki (January 2015). "De situ linguarum fennicarum aetatis ferreae, Pars I". RMN Newsletter 9: 64–115. Retrieved 5 October 2018. Henry's chronicle includes quotations ascribed to the Oeselians, such as Laula! Laula, pappi! ['Sing! Sing, priest!'] (HCL XVIII.8). The expression is unambiguously Finnic and supports the identification of Oeselians as a Finnic language group. This is further corroborated by the Finnic toponymy that does not seem to include substantial earlier substrate layers (at least in the light of research today; cf. Kallasmaa 1996–2000){{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  8. ISBN 0-929700-10-4
  9. ^ 1227. (2018). In Helicon (Ed.), The Hutchinson chronology of world history. Abington, UK: Helicon.
  10. ^ Roston, Anne (15 Aug 1993). "A Newly Opened Estonian Island". The New York Times. New York. The New York Times Company. Retrieved 10 October 2018. In the early 13th century, the residents of Oesel, as Saaremaa was then known, were notorious for pirating Baltic churches. They were, indeed, the very last pagan holdouts in the region; by the year 1227, the Livonian Brothers of the Sword, crusaders who originated in Germany, had forced every other tribe and town in what now are Estonia and Latvia to submit to baptism or the sword. On Jan. 6, 1227, a huge army of crusading Germans, Rigans, Letts and Estonians gathered on the mainland parallel to Oesel. They and their horses marched across the frozen Baltic to the tiny island of Mona, attached by causeway to Oesel's northeastern tip. Deprived of a maritime defense, the Oeselians were finally forced to succumb.
  11. ^ Forey, A.J. 1993, "Military Orders and Secular Warfare in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries", Viator, vol. 24, pp. 79-100. (page 99 cited)
  12. ^ Liv-, est- und kurländisches Urkundenbuch: Nebst Regesten
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Oeselians&oldid=1189356476"