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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 May 2022
Chapter two on Lithuania and Samogitia
The Grand Duchy of Lithuania is a very extensive realm. There are many dukes in it, of Lithuania and Rus’ia, but one foremost monarch, commonly called Grand Duke of Lithuania, to whom all the others are subject. But the oldest writers and relaters of antiquities say that certain Italians, on account of disagreements of the Romans, deserted Italy and entered the lands of Lithuania. And the Italians gave the name of their fatherland, Italy, to the people. But the land began to be called Litalia and the people Litali (by a letter “l” placed in front) by the Ruthenian and Polish shepherds, their neighbours, making a larger alteration. Even in the present day they called the land Lithuania, and the people Lithuanians.
These people first built the town of Vilnius, at a latitude of 57 degrees from the Pole; and they called it Vilnius from the name of Duke Vilius, with whom they entered these regions; and they gave the rivers flowing around it the names Viliya and Vilnia, from the same duke. But they name Samogitia thus in their speech because in their language it means a lowland. But others, ignorant of the history, have wanted to name Lithuania from a lituo, which is a horn and trumpet of hunters (because there are many hunts in that region). This regards the outcome, but not the origin, of the history.
In former years, this Lithuanian people was obscure, disregarded, and worthless among the Ruthenians, so that the princes of Kyiv exacted only bark and the coverings of trees from them, on account of their poverty and the sterility of the native soil, as a sign of subjugation, until Vytenis, Duke of Lithuania, led a first rebellion against the Ruthenians and established himself as duke among the people. He attacked and clashed with the princes of Rus’ by cunning; and little by little his strength grew so great that they threw the yoke on the princes of Rus’, and exacted from them in payment what they used to pay the Ruthenians for many years.…
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