BOOK V.

FROM THE DEATH OF CHARLEMAGNE TO THE DEPOSITION OF POPE GREGORY VI,

A.D. 814-1046.

 

CHAPTER IV.

SPAIN—ENGLAND—MISSIONS OF THE NINTH CENTURY.

 

The Christians of Spain after the Mahometan conquest, who were known by the name of Mustaraba, or Mozarabes, enjoyed the free exercise of their religion, although on condition of paying a heavy monthly poll-tax. They generally lived on friendly terms with their Mussulman masters; many of them held office under the caliphs, and monks and clergy who understood both the Arabic and the Latin languages were employed in diplomatic correspondence.

But, notwithstanding these relations, the difference of religion was a continual source of trouble. The Mahometan mobs often abused Christians in the streets; they shouted out blasphemies against the Christian name, while all retaliation was forbidden by law under very severe penalties. If a marriage took place between persons professing the two religions, the general law against apostasy from Islam made it death for the Mahometan party to embrace Christianity; and the questions which in such marriages naturally arose as to the religion of the issue produced very serious difficulties. Moreover, the hostility of the Mussulmans towards the Christians who dwelt among them was excited by the persevering efforts of those who in other parts of the peninsula carried on a war of independence; while these efforts served also to raise among the Christians under the Mahometan rule a desire to do something for the more public assertion of their faith.

The Christians were divided into two parties. The one of these was bent on preserving peace with their rulers, as far as possible, and enjoying the toleration which was allowed them. The other party regarded this acquiescence as unworthy; they thought that their brethren had been corrupted by intercourse with the Moslems into a blamable laxity of opinions. They declared that the offices of Mahometan courts could not be held without compliances unbecoming a Christian; that those who occupied such offices were obliged to refrain from openly signing themselves with the cross, and from other outward manifestations of their faith; that they were obliged to speak of the Saviour in such terms as might not be offensive to the unbelievers. They complained that the Christian youth preferred the cultivation of “Chaldean” to that of ecclesiastical literature; that they were more familiar with Arabic than with Latin.

About the middle of the ninth century a persecution of the Christians broke out at Cordova under the reign of Abderrahman II. The first sufferer was a monk named Perfectus, who, having fallen in with some Mahometans in the neighbourhood of the city, was questioned by them as to the opinion which Christians entertained of the prophet. He attempted to evade the question, on the ground that he was unwilling to offend them; but, as they continued to urge him, and assured him that no offence would be taken, he said that Mahomet was regarded by Christians as one of the false prophets foretold in Scripture; and he remarked on some parts of his history as being scandalous, and as proving the falsehood of his pretensions. The Arabs, in consideration of the promise which they had given, restrained their anger for the time; but when Perfectus next appeared in public, he was seized, was dragged before a judge, on a charge of blasphemy against the prophet, and was executed. The next victim was a merchant, who had given no provocation; but the third, a young monk named Isaac, courted his fate. He went before the judge of the city, professing an inclination to embrace the religion of the Koran, and begging for some instruction in its doctrines; and when these were explained to him he denounced their falsehood with great vehemence. The execution of Isaac was followed by an outburst of fanatical zeal. Clergymen, monks, nuns, and laity rushed to the Mahometan tribunals, reviling the prophet as an impostor, an adulterer, a sorcerer, and declaring that his followers were in the way to perdition. And, besides those who voluntarily thrust themselves on death, many children of mixed marriages were delated by their Mahometan relations as apostates, although they had probably been brought up from the first in the religion of the Christian parent.

By this wild zeal of the weaker party the Moslems were naturally exasperated. Public outrages against Christians increased; any one who showed himself in the street was insulted, pelted with filth, or stoned: the Mahometans shrank from touching the very garments of Christians, as if it were pollution. The sound of church-bells excited them to a tempest of cursing and blasphemies; and at funerals of Christians the populace followed the corpse with outcries, begging that God would have no mercy on the deceased.

Abderrahman now enacted new laws, of increased severity. The bodies of those who were executed were to be burnt, lest their brethren should convert them into relics. Yet the caliph, wishing, if possible, to quell the excitement by peaceable means, requested the cooperation of the primate Recanfrid, archbishop of Toledo, who issued an order that no Christian should present himself before a Mahometan judge unless he were cited to do so. This order was received with indignation and defiance by the more zealous party, headed by Saul, bishop of Cordova; and Recanfrid, in pursuance of his policy, proceeded to imprison some refractory ecclesiastics—among them a monk and priest of Toledo named Eulogius, who had been very conspicuous in his opposition. From prison Eulogius wrote letters, intended to animate the resolution of his friends; with the fervour of a Tertullian he exhorts all who have any worldly ties to cast them aside and boldly to confess the faith, in the assurance of rejoining their martyred brethren in bliss. A council was held under the archbishops of Toledo and Seville, and determined that no one ought voluntarily to provoke death by his religion. By those who agreed with the spirit of this council the evils which had happened were charged on Eulogius and his associates. They ascribed the conduct of the sufferers to pride, and questioned their right to the name of martyrs—citing against them texts of Scripture, with the canons and practice of the early church. Some went so far as to declare that there was no opportunity of martyrdom at the hands of the Arabs, since these were not idolaters, but worshipped the one true God and acknowledged his laws.

Eulogius and Peter Alvar were the leading spirits of their party. They both (and more especially Alvar, who was an ecclesiastic of Cordova) write in an exalted strain of enthusiasm. Eulogius sets aside the distinction which had been drawn between heathens and Mahometans by saying that the Mahometans deny the Son of God and persecute the faithful. Alvar argues from the prophecies that Mahomet is the forerunner of Antichrist. The sufferings of the Christians, he says, had not been drawn down on them by the violence of zealots—for the first victims had done nothing to provoke their fate—but by the sins of the whole community. He will allow no compliance with circumstances, no forbearance to force the Christian profession on the notice of the infidels. He maintains that our Lord’s charge to His disciples, “when persecuted in one city to flee into another”, is inapplicable in the present case, since the object of that charge was that the disciples should spread the Gospel more widely—not that they should hide it. He would have Christians to press the truth on the Moslems for the purpose of making them “debtors to the faith”—not (as it would seem) out of love for them, but in order to render their unbelief inexcusable.

Abderrahman was succeeded in 852 by his son Mohammed, who carried the proceedings against the Christians further. On the first day of his reign the new king dismissed all who held any offices about the court or in the public service. He ordered that all churches which had been lately built should be destroyed, and prohibited all display in the ritual or in the furniture of the older churches which were allowed to stand. The persecution continued for many years. Eulogius himself, who had been elected to the see of Toledo, was arrested in 859 in consequence of having aided a young female convert, named Leocritia, to escape from her parents, who were bigoted Mahometans; and, after having firmly resisted the importunities of some Arabs who, out of respect for his sanctity and learning, endeavoured to persuade him to save his life by slight concessions, he was put to death. Four days later, Leocritia also suffered.

During this long persecution many of the more lukewarm Christians openly apostatized to the religion of Islam. The heats on both sides at length died away, and the old relations of the parties were restored. A German abbot, who went on an embassy to Cordova in 954, represents the Christians as living peaceably with their masters, and as thankful for the toleration which they enjoyed; nay, if the information which he received may be trusted, it would appear that they had carried their compliance so far as to submit to the rite of circumcision.

 

ENGLAND—THE DANES.

 

England, like France, was harassed and desolated by the ravages of the Northmen. Their first appearance on the coasts was in the year 767; the first descent which was severely felt was in 832; and from that time their invasions were incessant. Devon and Wales felt their fury as well as the eastern coasts; when the attention of the English was concentrated on one point, a fresh band of enemies appeared in an opposite quarter; and they penetrated into the very heart of the country. And here, as in France, the wealth and the defenselessness of the monasteries pointed these out as the chief objects of attack. The chronicles of the time abound in frightful details of their wasting with fire and sword the sanctuaries of Croyland, Medeshamstede (Peterborough), Bardney, and Ely; of Repton and Coldingham; of Lindisfarne, from which a little band of monks carried off the relics of St. Cuthbert over the mountains of Northumbria, in continual fear of the ravagers by whom they were surrounded on every side. At length, in 878, after the victory gained by Alfred over Guthrun at Ethandune, a large territory in the east of England, north of the Thames, was ceded to the Danes, on condition of their professing Christianity, and living under equal laws with the native inhabitants; but the peace thus obtained was only for a time.

Of the lustre of Alfred’s reign it is needless to speak to readers who may be presumed to know in any degree the history of their country. Alfred succeeded his father in 871, at the age of twenty-two, and held the throne for thirty years. His character may have been idealized in some respects, that it might fullfil the conception of a perfect sovereign; and institutions have been ascribed to him which are in truth derived from other sources. Yet historical reality exhibits to us this “darling of the English”—“Alfred the Truthteller”—as the deliverer, the lawgiver, and the wise ruler of his country, as a hero, and as a saint. It sets before us his efforts to revive the public spirit which had become all but extinct during the long calamities of the Danish invasions; his zealous and successful labours to repair in mature years the defects of his early education; his exertions for the restoration of learning among the clergy, which had fallen into melancholy decay, and for the general instruction of the people; his encouragement of learned men, whether natives,—as his biographer Asser, Plegmund, Werfrith, and Neot,—or foreigners whom he invited to impart to the English a culture which was not to be found at home—as Grimbald of Reims, and John of Old Saxony; his care to enrich the vernacular literature by executing or encouraging versions or paraphrases of religious and instructive works—portions of Scripture, writings of Boethius, Gregory the Great, Orosius, and Bede. It shows us that these labours were carried on under the continual tortures of disease, and amidst the necessities of providing for the national defense; it dwells on his habits of devotion, and on the comprehensive interest in the affairs of Christendom which induced him even to send a mission to the shrine of St. Thomas in India. Small as his kingdom was, he raised it to a high place among the nations; and among great sovereigns no character shines brighter or purer than his. Alfred died in 900 or 901.

 

MORAVIA

 

The conversion of Bulgaria, which has been related in the history of the dissensions between the Greek and Latin churches, led to that of the Slavonic inhabitants of Greece and of the Mainotes. The Croats were evangelized by missionaries from Rome; while the victories of Basil, about the year 870, were followed by the labours of Greek missionaries in Servia.

Christianity had been introduced into Moravia by the arms of Charlemagne, who, in 801, according to his usual system, compelled the king to receive baptism. Since that time, attempts had been made to extend the knowledge of the Gospel among the Moravians under the auspices of the archbishops of Salzburg and the bishops of Passau, who employed a regionary bishop for the purposed. But these attempts had little effect; the princes of the country had relapsed into heathenism, the Christians were few, and their religion was very rude. A new and more effectual movement arose out of an embassy which Radislav, king of Moravia, sent into Bulgaria, for the purpose of obtaining aid against Louis of Germany. His nephew Swatopluk or Zwentibold, who was employed on this mission, became a convert to the new faith of the Bulgarians; and on his return he was joined by the queen, who was herself a Christian, in urging it on her husband’s attention. An application for Christian teachers was made to the emperor Michael; and two missionaries, Constantine and his brother Methodius—perhaps the same Methodius whose skill as an artist had produced so great an effect at the Bulgarian court—were sent from Constantinople into Moravia.

Constantine—better known under the name of Cyril, which he is said to have assumed towards the end of his life, in obedience to a vision—was a priest and monk, and is designated as a philosopher. He was a native of Thessalonica, and, from the mixture of the Greek and Slave populations in his own country, had probably been acquainted from his early years with a dialect of the Slavonic. He had preached among the Khazars of the Ukraine and the Crimea, who in 843 had applied for instructors from Constantinople, on the ground that they were distracted between the rival pretensions of Judaism, Mahometanism, and Christianity—a mixture of religions which was found in the same regions by a Mussulman traveller seventy years later. The success of his labours among the Khazars is described as complete, and the impression of them was strengthened by his refusal of all recompense except the release of such Christians as were captives in the country; but some of his biographers appear to regard as more important his discovery of a body supposed to be that of St. Clement of Rome, who was said to have been banished by Trajan to the Chersonese, and to have been there martyred. The fame of the mission to the Khazars had reached the Moravian king, who especially requested that Cyril might be sent to him; and in 863 the brothers proceeded into Moravia, taking with them the relics of St. Clement. Their preaching was marked by a striking difference from the ordinary practice of the time—that, whereas the Greek and Latin missionaries usually introduced their own tongues as the ecclesiastical language among barbarian nations, Cyril and Methodius mastered the language of the country, and not only used it in their addresses to the people, but translated the liturgy and portions of the Scriptures into it—Cyril, after the example of Ulfilas, having either invented a Slavonic alphabet, or improved that which before existed. By this innovation the success of the mission was greatly forwarded. Radislav received baptism, his subjects were rapidly converted, churches were built for Christian worship, and the reverence in which the missionaries were held appears from the fact that in Moravia the clergy were styled by a name which signifies princes.

After a time a report of these proceedings reached pope Nicolas, who thereupon summoned Cyril and Methodius to appear before him. The Moravians were now more closely connected with the west than with the east; in the difference between the churches of Rome and Constantinople, Cyril, who had formerly been an opponent of Photius, was not inclined to side with the patriarch, whose deprivation probably took place about the time when the papal letter was written; and a refusal of compliance would have thrown the pope on the side of the Germans, from whom Radislav was in imminent danger. The brethren, therefore, resolved to continue their work under such conditions as were possible, rather than to abandon it, and obeyed the summons to Rome, where they arrived shortly after the death of Nicolas. The body of St. Clement, which is said to have wrought many miracles, produced a great sensation among the Romans, and the orthodoxy of the missionaries was proved to the satisfaction of Adrian II, who gratified Radislav’s desire for the independence of the Moravian church by consecrating Methodius as archbishop of the Moravians. Cyril is said to have been also consecrated to the episcopate, but died at Rome, where he was buried in the church of St. Clement.

Radislav, after a struggle of many years against Louis of Germany, was at length betrayed by his nephew Swatopluk into the hands of his enemy, by whom he was dethroned and blinded in 870. Swatopluk succeeded to the crown, and greatly extended the bounds of the Moravian kingdom, which now included a large portion of modern Austria and Hungary. Over all this territory Methodius exercised authority, after some differences with Swatopluk, whom it is said that he once found it necessary to excommunicate; and, as his sphere extended, many Christians who had received the Gospel from the Latin church placed themselves under him. This excited the jealousy of the Germans, who appear to have obtained in 873 a mandate from John VIII, forbidding him to employ a barbarous tongue in the service of the church. Methodius, however, persisted, and, in consequence of a renewed complaint, to which it was now added that he taught some erroneous doctrines, he was cited to Rome in 879. The pope in his letter forbade the use of the Slavonic in the liturgy, although he allowed that until further order it might be used in preaching, forasmuch as the Psalmist charges all people to praise the Lord, and that St. Paul says, “Let every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord”.

Methodius repaired to Rome, where he succeeded in justifying his orthodoxy before a synod—perhaps not without some concession as to the points of difference between his native church and that of the west. And his arguments in favour of the Slavonic tongue were so successful that, on returning to Moravia, he bore a letter from John to Swatopluk, in which the pope approves of the alphabet invented by Cyril, and sanctions the use of the Slavonic liturgy, on the ground that the Scriptural command, “Praise the Lord, all ye nations”, shows that the praises of God are not to be confined to three languages (Hebrew, Greek, and Latin), but that He who formed these languages formed all others also, for His own glory. It is, however, ordered that, as a mark of greater honour, the Gospel shall be read in Latin before being read in the vernacular, and also that the king or any nobleman may, if he think fit, have the service of his private chapel in Latin.

In the same letter it was stated that Methodius was confirmed in his archbishopric, with exclusive jurisdiction over the Moravian church. The pope adds that he has consecrated as bishop an ecclesiastic named Wiching, who had been recommended to him by Swatopluk, and begs the king to send another presbyter who may be raised to the same degree, in order that the primate, having two bishops under him, may be able to perform his functions without external help. By this arrangement it was intended that the Moravian church should be rendered entirely independent of Germany.

From Moravia the Gospel was introduced among the neighbouring and kindred people of Bohemia. Fourteen Bohemian chiefs had appeared before Louis of Germany at Ratisbon in 845, and had been baptized by their own desire. But of this conversion, which was most likely a mere political artifice, no effects are recorded; and Bohemia was heathen many years later, when the duke, Borziwoi, visited the Moravian court. Swatopluk received him with honour, but at dinner assigned him and his followers a place on the floor, as being heathens. Methodius, who sat at the king’s table, addressed Borziwoi, expressing regret that so powerful a prince should be obliged to feed like a swineherd. The duke asked what he might expect to gain by becoming a Christian; and, on being told that the change would exalt him above all kings and princes, he was baptized with his thirty companions. His wife, Ludmilla, embraced the Gospel on worthier motives, and earned the title of martyr and saint.

Methodius continued to be much annoyed by the Germans, who saw in the sanction of the Slavonic tongue an insuperable barrier against their influence in Moravia. It would seem also that Swatopluk became unfavourable to him, and that Wiching, who was a German by birth, and a man of intriguing character, instead of cooperating with the archbishop, and rendering him the obedience which had been enjoined in the pope’s letter to the king, set up claims to independence of all but the papal authority. The last certain notice of Methodius is a letter of the year 881, in which John VIII encourages him, and assures him that he had given no such privileges as were pretended to Wiching (whose name, however, is not mentioned). The death of Methodius has been said to have taken place at Rome, and has been variously dated, from 881 to 910; but it seems more probable that he died in Moravia about the year 885.

Wiching, after the death of Methodius, persecuted the clergy who maintained the Slavonic liturgy, and, with the aid of Swatopluk’s soldiery, compelled them in 886 to seek a refuge in Bulgaria, where it is presumed that they must have adhered to the Greek communion. On the death of Swatopluk, in 894, the kingdom was distracted by a war between his sons, while Arnulf of Germany pressed on it from without. Wiching had in 892 gone over to Arnulf, who appointed him his chancellor, and bestowed on him the bishopric of Passau; but from this dignity he was deposed on his patron’s death. In 900, the German jealousy was provoked afresh by the measures which pope John IX took for providing Moravia with a localized hierarchy instead of its former missionary establishment. Hatto, archbishop of Mentz, and Theotmar of Salzburg, with their suffragans, loudly remonstrated against the change; but the strife was ended by the fall of the Moravian kingdom in 908.

The conquests of Charlemagne had brought the Franks into close neighbourhood with the northern nations, which were now so formidable to the more civilized inhabitants of other countries. Charlemagne, it is said, refrained from placing his territory beyond the Elbe under any of the bishoprics which he erected, because he intended to establish in those parts an archiepiscopal see which should serve as a centre for the evangelization of the north. He built a church at Hamburg, and committed it to a priest who was exempt from episcopal jurisdiction; but the prosecution of the scheme was broken off by the emperor’s death. The attention of his son, however, was soon drawn by other circumstances towards Nordalbingia. Policy, as well as religion, recommended the conversion of the Northmen; for, so long as the Saxons were only separated by the Elbe from those who adhered to the religion of their forefathers, there was a continual temptation for them to renounce the Christianity which had been forced on them, and with it the subjection of which it was the token.

Disputes as to the throne of Denmark between Harold and Godfrid led both parties to seek the countenance of Louis the Pious. The emperor was struck with the importance of using this circumstance as an opening for the introduction of Christianity among the Danes; and Ebbo, archbishop of Reims, was willing to withdraw for a time from the enjoyment of his dignity, that he might extend the faith among these barbarians. With the consent of Louis, the archbishop went to Rome, where he obtained a commission from Paschal, authorizing himself and Halitgar, afterwards bishop of Cambray, to preach the Gospel to the northern nations, and directing them to refer all difficult questions to the apostolic see. The mission was resolved on by the diet of Attigny (the same diet which witnessed the penance 392 of Louis) in 822; and in that year Ebbo and his companions set out in company with some ambassadors of Harold, Welanao (now Münschdorf, near Itzehoe) being assigned by the emperor for their head-quarters. Little is known of their proceedings, but it appears that they preached with much success, and that Ebbo represented the spiritual and the temporal benefits of Christianity to Harold so effectually as to induce him to appear in 826 at Ingelheim, with his queen and a large train of attendants, and to express a desire for baptism, which they received in the church of St. Alban at Mainz (Mayence). Louis was sponsor for Harold, Judith for the queen, Lothair for their son, and the members of their train found sponsors of suitable rank among the Franks. The emperor now resolved to send a fresh mission to the Danes; but the barbarism of the Northmen, their strong hostility to Christianity, and the savage character of their paganism, with its sacrifices of human victims, deterred all from venturing on the hazards of such an expedition, until Wala of Corbie named Anskar, one of his monks, as a person suited for the work.

Anskar, “the apostle of the north”, was born about the year 801, and at an early age entered the monastery of Corbie, where he studied under Adelhard and Paschasius Radbert. He became himself a teacher in the monastery, and, after having for a time held a like office in the German Corbey, resumed his position in the parent society. From childhood he had been remarkable for a devout and enthusiastic character. He saw visions, and it is said by his biographer that all the important events of his life were foreshown to him either in this manner or by an inward illumination, so that he was even accustomed to wait for such direction as to the course which he should take. The death of his mother, when he was five years old, affected him deeply, and he was weaned from the love of childish sports by a vision in which she appeared in company with some bright female forms. He felt himself entangled in mire, and unable to reach them, when the chief of the band, whom he knew to be the blessed Virgin, asked him whether he wished to rejoin his mother, and told him that, if so, he must forsake such vanities as are offensive to the saints. His worldly affections were afterwards further subdued by the tidings of Charlemagne’s death, which deeply impressed on him the instability of all earthly greatness. In another vision, he fancied that his spirit was led out of the body by two venerable persons, whom he recognized as St. Peter and St. John. They first plunged him into purgatory, where he remained for three days in misery which seemed to last a thousand years. He was then conducted into a region where the Divine glory, displayed in the east, streamed forth on multitudes of adoring saints in transcendent brightness, which was yet not dazzling but delightful to the eye; and from the source of inaccessible majesty, in which he could discern no shape, he heard a voice of blended power and sweetness—“Go, and thou shalt return to Me with the crown of martyrdom”. At a later time, the Saviour appeared to him, exhorted him to a full confession of his sins, and assured him that they were forgiven. The assurance was afterwards repeated to him, and in answer to his inquiry, “Lord, what wouldest thou have me to do?” he was told, “Go, and preach to the Gentiles the word of God”.

When the northern mission was proposed to Anskar, he at once declared his readiness to undertake it. He adhered to his resolution, although many endeavoured to dissuade him, while Wala disclaimed the intention of enforcing the task on him by his monastic obligation to obedience; and his behaviour while preparing himself for the work by retirement and devotion had such an effect on Autbert, a monk of noble birth and steward of the monastery, that he offered himself as a companion.

The missionaries could not prevail on any servant to attend them. On joining Harold they were treated with neglect by him and his companions, who, as Anskar’s biographer says, did not yet know how the ministers of God ought to be honoured. But when they had sailed down the Rhine as far as Cologne, the bishop of that city, Hadebold, out of compassion, bestowed on them a vessel with two cabins, and as Harold found it convenient to take possession of one of these, he was brought into closer intercourse with the missionaries, who soon succeeded in inspiring him with a new interest in their undertaking. They fixed the centre of their operations at Hadeby, on the opposite bank of the Schley to Sleswick, and laboured among both the Christians and the heathens of the Danish border. Anskar established a school for boys—the pupils being partly given to him, and partly bought for the purpose of training them up in the Christian faith. But Harold had offended many of his adherents by doing homage to Louis and by his change of religion; they were further alienated when, in his zeal for the advancement of his new faith, he destroyed temples and even resorted to persecution; and the opposite party took advantage of the feeling. Harold was expelled, and retired to a county in Frisia which the emperor had bestowed on him; and Anskar was obliged to leave Hadeby. Autbert had already been compelled by severe illness to relinquish the mission, and died at Corbie in 829.

A new opening soon presented itself to Anskar. It would appear that some knowledge of the Gospel had already reached Sweden—partly, it is said, by means of intercourse which the inhabitants of that remote country had carried on with the Byzantine empire. In 829 the court of Louis was visited by ambassadors from Sweden, who, in addition to their secular business, stated that their countrymen were favourably disposed towards Christianity, and requested the emperor to supply them with teachers. Louis bethought himself of Anskar, who agreed to undertake the work—regarding it as a fullfillment of his visions. His place with Harold was supplied by another; and Wala assigned him a monk named Witmar as a companion. The vessel in which the missionaries embarked was attacked by pirates, who plundered them of almost everything, including the presents designed by Louis for the Swedish king. But they were determined to persevere, and, after many hardships, made their way to the northern capital, Birka or Sigtuna, on the lake Mälar. The king, Biorn, received them graciously, and, with the consent of the national assembly, gave them permission to preach freely. Their ministrations were welcomed with delight by a number of Christian captives, who had long been deprived of the offices of religion; and among their converts was Herigar, governor of the district, who built a church on his estate. After having laboured for a year and a half, Anskar and his companion returned with a letter from Biorn to Louis, who was greatly pleased with their success, and resolved to place the northern mission on a new footing, agreeably to his father’s intentions. An archiepiscopal see was to be established at Hamburg, and Anskar was consecrated for it at Ingelheim by Drogo of Metz, with the assistance of Ebbo and many other bishops. He then repaired to Rome, where Gregory IV bestowed on him the pall, with a bull authorizing him to labour for the conversion of the northern nations, in conjunction with Ebbo, whose commission from Paschal was still in force. Louis conferred on him the monastery of Turholt  (Thouroult, between Bruges and Ypres), to serve at once as a source of maintenance and as a resting-place more secure than the northern archbishopric.

Ebbo, although diverted from missionary work by his other (and in part far less creditable) occupations, had continued to take an interest in the conversion of the north, and appears at this time to have made a second expedition to the scene of his old labours. But as neither he nor Anskar could give undivided attention to the Swedish mission, it was now agreed that this should be committed to a relation of Ebbo named Gauzbert, who was consecrated to the episcopate and assumed the name of Simon. To him Ebbo transferred the settlement at Welanao, with the intention that it should serve the same purposes for which Turholt had been given to Anskar.

Anskar entered with his usual zeal on the new sphere which had been assigned to him. He built at Hamburg a church, a monastery, and a college. According to the system which he had followed at Hadeby, he bought a number of boys with a view to educating them as Christians; some of them were sent to Turholt, while others remained with him. But after a time Hamburg was attacked by a great force of Northmen, under Eric, king of Jutland. The archbishop exerted himself in encouraging the inhabitants to hold out until relief should arrive; but the assailants were too strong to be long resisted; the city was sacked and burnt, and Anskar was obliged to flee. He had lost his church, his monastery, and his library, among the treasures of which was a magnificent bible, the gift of the emperor; some relics bestowed on the church by Ebbo were all that he was able to rescue. Yet, reduced as he was to necessity, he repeated Job’s words of resignation—“The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord”. Leutbert bishop of Bremen, who had before looked on the new archbishopric with jealousy, refused to entertain him, and he was indebted for a refuge to the charity of a widow named Ikia, of Bamsloh, where he gradually collected some of his scattered followers. About the same time Gauzbert was expelled from Sweden by a popular rising, in which his nephew Notbert was killed.

To add to Anskar’s distress, his monastery of Turholt, being within that portion the empire which fell to Charles the Bald on the death of Louis, was bestowed by the new sovereign on a layman. His monks, finding no means of subsistence, were obliged to leave him: but he found a patron in Louis of Germany, who founded a monastic establishment for him at Ramsloh, and resolved to bestow on him the bishopric of Bremen, which fell vacant by the death of Leutbert. Anskar was himself unwilling to take any active part in the matter, lest he should be exposed to charges of rapacity, and some canonical objections arose; but these were overcome with the consent of the bishops who were interested. The union of the dioceses was sanctioned by the council of Mayence (the same at which Gottschalk was condemned) in 848; and, sixteen years after it had virtually taken effect, it was confirmed by Nicolas I, who renewed the gift of the pall to Anskar, and appointed him legate for the evangelization of the Swedes, the Danes, the Slavons, and other nations of the north.

In the meantime Anskar had been actively employed. Repeated political missions from Louis of Germany had made him known to the Danish king Horic or Eric, who had long been one of the most formidable chiefs of the northern devastators, and had led the force which burnt and plundered Hamburg. Anskar gained a powerful influence over the king, who, although it does not appear that he was himself baptized, granted the missionaries leave to preach throughout his dominions, and to build a church at Sleswick. The work of conversion went on rapidly. Danish traders who had received baptism at Hamburg or Dorstadt now openly professed Christianity, and Christian merchants from other countries ventured more freely into Denmark, so that Eric found the wealth of his kingdom increased by the consequences of the toleration which he had granted. Many of the converts, however, put off their baptism until they felt the approach of death; while it is said that some heathens, after their life had been despaired of, and after they had invoked their own gods in vain, on entreating the aid of Christ were restored to perfect health.

After the withdrawal of Gauzbert, Sweden remained for seven years without any Christian teacher, until Anskar sent into the country a priest and hermit named Ardgar, who preached with great effect—his efforts, it is said, being powerfully seconded by judgments which befell all who had been concerned in the expulsion of Gauzbert. Herigar had throughout remained faithful, notwithstanding all that he had to endure from his unbelieving countrymen; and on his deathbed he was comforted by the ministrations of Ardgar. But Ardgar longed to return to his hermitage, and after a time relinquished his mission. Gauzbert, now bishop of Osnaburg, whom Anskar requested to resume his labours in Sweden, declined, on the ground that another preacher would be more likely to make a favourable impression on the people than one whom they had already ejected from their country. Anskar himself, therefore, resolved to undertake the work—being encouraged by a vision in which his old superior Adelhard appeared to him. He was accompanied by envoys from Eric to king Olof, of Sweden, and bore a letter of warm recommendation from the Danish king. But on landing in Sweden he found the state of things very unpromising. A short time before this a Swede had arisen in the national assembly, declaring that he was charged with a communication from the gods, who had bidden him tell his countrymen that, if they wished to enjoy a continuance of prosperity, they must revive with increased zeal the ancient worship, and must exclude all other religions. “If”, the celestial message graciously concluded, “you are not content with us, and wish to have more gods, we all agree to admit your late king Eric into our number”. A great effect had followed on this: a temple had been built to Eric, and was crowded with worshippers; and such was the excitement of the people that Anskar’s friends advised him to desist from his enterprise, as it could not but be fruitless and might probably cost him his life. He was, however, resolved to persevere. He invited the king to dine with him, and, having propitiated him by gifts, requested permission to preach. Olof replied that, as some former preachers of Christianity had been forcibly driven out of the country, he could not give the required licence without consulting the gods, and obtaining the sanction of the popular assembly; “for”, says Anskar's biographer, “in that nation public affairs are determined less by the king’s power than by the general consent of the people”. A lot was cast in an open field, and was favourable to the admission of the Christian teachers. The assembly was swayed by the speech of an aged member, who said that the power of the Christians’ God had often been experienced, especially in dangers at sea; that many of his countrymen had formerly been baptized at Dorstadt; why then, he asked, should they refuse, now that it was brought to their own doors, that which they had before sought from a distance? The assembly of another district also decided for the admission of Christianity; and the feeling in favour of the new religion was strengthened by miracles performed on an expedition which Olof undertook to Courland. Converts flocked in, churches were built, and Anskar found himself at liberty to return to Denmark, leaving Gumbert, a nephew of Gauzbert, at the head of the Swedish mission.

During the archbishop’s absence, Eric had fallen in a bloody battle with a pagan faction, which had used his encouragement of Christianity as a pretext for attacking him. The most powerful of Anskar’s other friends had shared the fate of their king; the greater part of Denmark was now in the hands of the enemy; and Eric II, who had succeeded to a part of his father’s territory, was under the influence of Hovi, earl of Jutland, who persuaded him that all the late misfortunes were due to the abandonment of the old national religion. The church at Sleswick was shut up, its priest was expelled, and the Christians were cruelly persecuted. Anskar could only betake himself to prayer for a change from this unhappy state of things, when he unexpectedly received a letter from the young king, professing as warm an interest in the Gospel as that which his father had felt, and inviting the missionaries to resume their labours. Hovi had fallen into disgrace, and was banished. The progress of Christianity was now more rapid than ever. The church at Sleswick was for the first time allowed to have a bell; another church was founded at Ripe, the second city of Denmark, on the coast opposite to Britain, and Rimbert, a native of the neighbourhood of Turholt, who had grown up under Anskar’s tuition, was appointed its pastor.

Anskar’s labours were continued until the sixty-fourth year of his age, and the thirty-fourth of his episcopate. Although the progress of the Swedish mission was retarded by the death or the withdrawal of some who were employed in it, he was able to provide for its continuance, chiefly by means of clergy of Danish birth, whom he had trained up in the seminary at Ramsloh. Amidst his trials and disappointments he frequently consoled himself by remembering the assurance which Ebbo, when bishop of Hildesheim, had expressed to him, that God would not fail in his own time to crown the work with success. The biographer Rimbert dwells with delight on his master’s strict adherence to the monastic customs, which he maintained to the last; on his mortifications, which he carried to an extreme in youth, until he became aware that such excesses were a temptation to vain glory, and how, when no longer able to bear them, he endeavoured to supply the defect by alms and prayers; on his frequent and fervent devotion; on his charitable labours, his building of hospitals, redemption of captives, and other works of mercy. Among the results of his exertions, it deserves to be remembered that in 856 he persuaded the leading men of Nordalbingia to give up the trade which they had carried on in slaves. In addition to works of a devotional kind, he wrote a Life of Willehad, the first bishop of Bremen, and a journal of his own missions, which is known to have been sent to Rome in the thirteenth century, and, although often sought for in vain, may possibly still exist there. He is said to have performed some miraculous cures, but to have shunned the publication of them, except among his most intimate friends; and when they were once spoken of in his hearing, he exclaimed, “If I were worthy in the sight of my Lord, I would ask Him to grant me one miracle—that He would make me a good man!”

In his last illness Anskar was greatly distressed by the apprehension that his sins had frustrated the promise which had been made to him of the martyr’s crown. Rimbert endeavoured to comfort him by saying that violent death is not the only kind of martyrdom; by reminding him of his long and severe labours for the Gospel, and of the patience with which he had endured much sickness—especially the protracted sufferings of his death­bed. At length, as he was at mass, the archbishop, although fully awake, had a vision in which he was reproved for having doubted, and was assured that all that had been promised should be fulfilled. His death took place on the festival of the Purification, in the year 865.

When asked to name a successor, Anskar declined to do so on the ground that he was unwilling, by preferring one before others, to add to the offence which he might probably have given to many during his lifetime. But on being questioned as to his opinion of Rimbert, he answered—“I am assured that he is more worthy to be an archbishop than I am to be a sub-deacon”. To Rimbert, therefore, the see of Hamburg was committed on Anskar’s death; and for nearly a quarter of a century he carried on the work in the spirit of his master, for the knowledge of whose life we are chiefly indebted to his reverential and affectionate biography. Rimbert died in 888.

 

CHAPTER V.

FROM THE DEPOSITION OF CHARLES THE FAT TO THE DEATH OF POPE SYLVESTER II.

A.D. 887-1003.