Bishopric of Dorpat

The Bishopric of Dorpat was a medieval prince-bishopric — both a diocese of the Catholic Church and a temporal principality ruled by the bishop — that existed from 1211 until 1558, generally encompassing the area that now comprises Tartu, Põlva, Võru and Jõgeva counties in Estonia, one of the states of old Livonia shown on the map. It was originally established as the Bishopric of Leal in 1211, based in Leal, modern Lihula; when the Sword Brothers in 1224 captured Yuryev — modern Tartu — they renamed it Dorpat, and Prince-bishop Hermann Buxhövden of Leal took up residence there, ordering the construction of the Dorpat Cathedral; around 1235 the bishopric was renamed from Leal to Dorpat. The prince-bishopric was a sovereign member of the Holy Roman Empire, formally from 6 November 1225, and part of the Livonian Confederation, its cathedral city Dorpat becoming one of the great towns of the Baltic. The prince-bishopric survived until 1558, when the armies of Ivan the Terrible invaded Livonia at the opening of the Livonian War and the bishopric fell, ending its three centuries of rule.