Saint George's Night Uprising
The weight of duties to the lay masters was further multiplied by the repression of indigenous religious practices and economic exploitation imposed by the Catholic Church.[1] On Saint George's Night (April 23) 1343, a signal was given by setting fire to a house on a hilltop for a coordinated attack on the foreigners in Harria."[2] According to the Younger Livonian Rhymed Chronicle, after renouncing Christianity, the rebel forces crisscrossed the whole province of Harria, burned down all the manors of the nobility and killed all the Germans who fell in their hands.However, the leaders of the rebellion were worried that once the Germans and Danes recovered from the initial shock, the Estonian government might not be able to withstand the combined onslaught of their enemies.After the countryside was firmly in the Estonian hands, the rebel army laid siege on the city of Hapsal (Haapsalu), the capital of the Bishopric of Ösel-Wiek.The large number of knights who arrived to the negotiations indicates that the true purpose of the meeting was to neutralize the Estonian kings and then to attack the leaderless rebel army.Some historians dismiss this explanation and say the negotiations were just a ruse to kill the leaders of the insurgency, and that the official version of the incident was a rather inept attempt to justify the murder of diplomatic envoys by the Teutonic knights.[6] A large army led by the Master of the Order proceeded immediately towards Reval, seeking out and engaging smaller Estonian units on the way.Therefore, he decided to use deceit and sent the vogts of Wenden (Cesis) and Treyden (Turaida) under the pretext of peace negotiations to the Estonians, apparently agreeing to the idea of vassalage without landlords.After the envoys had delivered the acceptance of terms to the Order, the Master and the knights agreed that the killed Germans need to be avenged and the Estonians deserved no mercy.The Master of the Order and the magistrates of Tallinn learned from a captured German deserter that the Estonians had been promised military assistance from Sweden that had recently conquered several Danish territories in Scandinavia.After discovering the Danish stronghold in the hands of the Order and the Estonian army utterly defeated, the Swedes satisfied themselves with looting around Reval before sailing back to Finland.The chronicler Bartholomäus Hoeneke also tells a story about Estonians plotting to get inside the castle of Fellin by hiding armed warriors in bags of grain.The German army looted and burned all the villages they came across and finally laid siege on Purtsa Fortress, one of the largest Estonian strongholds on the island.Nevertheless, Saaremaa remained free and staunchly anti-Christian as the German army was forced to cross back to the continent before the sea ice melted in the spring and the roads became impenetrable for the returning reinforcements from Prussia.The two sides reached an agreement and the army of the Livonian Order left Saaremaa after the Oeselians had reluctantly agreed to giving hostages and tearing down the fortress of Maasilinna Castle.The Saint George's Night Uprising has inspired several historical novels by Estonian writers, such as Eduard Bornhöhe's Tasuja (The Avenger).
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