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Lithuania was the last pagan state in Europe, object of the Teutonic Order's crusades in which the flower of European chivalry participated. According to the Livonian Rhymed Chronicle, Mindaugas invited the master to Lithuania, receiving him 'as one should a lord', with all due honour. More important than the non-existent 'protection' of the pope was the juridical and social status Mindaugas acquired as a vassal of the Teutonic Order's suzerain, the pope. A report written by an anonymous eyewitness at Mindaugas's coronation, perhaps for the papal Curia, also ignores the Teutonic Knights while emphasizing the role of the papacy. If the archaeological evidence has been correctly interpreted, there is physical evidence that a cathedral was nevertheless built by Mindaugas, for his own reasons. Mindaugas is unique and vitally important in Lithuanian history, but he also seems in many ways a typical medieval European monarch, an aspect obscured by the fragmentary nature of sources for Baltic history.
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