Chapter IV: Theology and Its Battles (2)

§ 91.5. =The Predestinarian Controversy A.D. 847-868.=--The
earlier predestinarian controversy (§ 53, 5), was, so far
from being brought to a conclusion, that all the gradations
of doctrinal views, from that of Semi-Pelagianism to a doctrine
of predestination to condemnation that went far beyond Augustine,
could find representatives among the teachers of the church. In
the 9th century the controversy broke out in a passionate form.
=Gottschalk=, the son of Berno, a Saxon count, had been placed
by his parents when a child in the monastery of Fulda. A Synod
at Mainz in A.D. 829 allowed him to go forth, but the abbot of
Fulda at that time, Rabanus Maurus, got Louis the Pious to annul
this dispensation. Transferred to the monastery of Orbais, in
the diocese of Soissons, Gottschalk sought comfort in the study
of the writings of Augustine, and was an enthusiastic defender
of the doctrine of absolute predestination. In one point he
even went beyond Augustine himself, for he taught a two-fold
predestination (_Gemina prædestinatio_), a predestination to
salvation and a predestination to condemnation, while Augustine
had spoken of the latter mostly as a giving over to deserved
condemnation. He took advantage of two journeys into Italy in
A.D. 840 and A.D. 847 for spreading his doctrine. Impelled with
a vehement desire to make converts, he made an attempt upon
bishop Noting of Verona. Through him Rabanus, from A.D. 847
archbishop of Mainz, obtained information thereof, and issued
to Noting, as well as to Count Eberhard of Friaul, with whom
Gottschalk was living, threatening letters which distorted
Gottschalk’s doctrine in many particulars, and drew from it
unfair consequences, making the _Prædestinatio ad damnationem_
a _Prædestinatio ad peccatum_. Rabanus’s own doctrine
distinguished prescience and predestination, and placed the
condemnation of the wicked under the former point of view. At
the same time, in A.D. 848, he convened a Synod at Mainz, before
which Gottschalk stated his doctrine without reserve, in the
joyous conviction that it was in accordance with the doctrine
of the church. But the Council excommunicated him, and assigned
him for punishment to his metropolitan Hincmar of Rheims. Hincmar
had him anew condemned at the Synod of Quiersy in A.D. 849,
then, because he steadily refused to recant, had him savagely
scourged and consigned to imprisonment for life in the monastery
of Hautvilliers. Gottschalk offered to prove the justice of
his cause by submitting to an ordeal; but Hincmar, though in
other instances a defender of the ordeal, denounced this as the
proposal of a second Simon Magus. The inhuman treatment of the
poor monk, and the rejection of the doctrine of Augustine by two
church leaders, occasioned a mighty commotion in the Frankish
church, which was mainly directed against Hincmar. At first,
bishop Prudentius of Troyes took the condemned monk’s part. Then
Charles the Bald asked the opinions of Ratramnus of Corbie and
the abbot Servatus Lupus of Ferrières. Both of these took the
side of Gottschalk. Hincmar’s position threatened to become very
serious. He looked out for supporters, and succeeded in finding
champions in the deacon Florus of Lyons, the priest Amalarius of
Metz, and the learned Joannes Scotus Erigena. But the latter’s
advocacy was almost more dangerous to the metropolitan than the
charges of his accusers. For the speculative Irishman founded
his objections to the doctrine of predestination on the position,
unheard of before in the West, that evil is only a μὴ ὄν, and
condemnation therefore not a positive punishment of God, but
consisting only in the consciousness of a defect. Hincmar’s
position was now worse than ever, for his opponents made him
responsible for the heresies of Scotus. And not only an old
objector, Prudentius of Troyes in his _De prædest. c. Joh.
Scotu_, but even archbishop Wessilo of Sens and the deacon
Florus of Lyons, who had hitherto supported him, now put on
their armour against him. But Charles the Bald took the part
of the sorely-beset metropolitan, and summoned the national
Synod of Quiersy of A.D. 853, where in four articles (_Capitula
Carisiaca_), a modified Augustinianism, rejecting the _gemina
prædestinatio_, was set forth as the orthodox faith. The
Neustrian objectors were now compelled to keep silence, but
archbishop Remigius of Lyons set a Lothringian national Synod
of Valence of A.D. 855 over against the Neustrian Synod. This
Synod expressly condemned the decisions of the Synod of Quiersy,
together with the Scottish mixture (_pultus Scotorum_), and
laid down six conflicting articles as the standard of orthodoxy.
Finally the rulers of the West Franks combined their forces and
called an Imperial Synod at Savonnières, a suburb of Toul, in
A.D. 859. But harmony was not yet secured, and they were likely
to part with bitter feelings, when Remigius made the proposal to
reserve decision for a subsequent assembly to be convened in a
less agitated time, and meanwhile to maintain the peace. This
was agreed upon, and so the controversy put out of view, for
the proposed assembly was never brought about. Gottschalk, left
in the lurch by his former friends, now turned for help to the
powerful pope Nicholas I. The pope ordered Hincmar to answer
before the papal plenipotentiaries for his proceedings against
the monk at the Synod of Metz in A.D. 863 (§ 82, 7). Hincmar
preferred not to comply to this demand, and to his delight the
pope himself annulled the decisions of the Synod because his
legates had been bribed. Moreover the metropolitan succeeded by
intercession and well-planned letters in winning over the pope.
Thus then Gottschalk was cheated out of his last hope. For twenty
years he languished in prison, but with his latest breath he
rejected every proposal of recantation. He died in A.D. 868,
and by Hincmar’s orders was buried in unconsecrated earth.

§ 91.6. =The Trinitarian Controversy, A.D. 857.=--From his
prison Gottschalk had accused his metropolitan of a second
heresy. Hincmar had removed from a church hymn, _Te trina Deitas
unaque poscimus_, the expression, =trina Deltas=, as favouring
Arianism, and substituted the words, _sancta Deitas_. His
opponents therefore charged him with Sabellianism, and Ratramnus
made this accusation in a controversial tract no longer extant.
Ratramnus, on the other hand, to whom Hincmar applied, supported
the change, but would not commit himself to a written approval
of it, whereupon Hincmar himself undertook a defence of the
expression substituted in his treatise, _De una et non trini
Deitate_.[262]

§ 92. ENDEAVOURS AFTER REFORMATION.

The independence which Charlemagne gave to the German church first awakened in it the consciousness of its vocation as a reformer. This consciousness was maintained throughout the Middle Ages, though hampered indeed by much narrowness, one-sidedness, and error. Charlemagne himself stood first in the series of reformers with his energetic protest against image worship. Louis the Pious too persevered in this same direction, and encouraged Agobard of Lyons and Claudius of Turin when they contested similar forms of ecclesiastical superstition.

§ 92.1. =The Carolingian Opposition to Image Worship,
A.D. 790-825.=--On the occasion of an embassy of the emperor
Constantinus Copronymus (§ 66, 2) Pepin the Short convened a
Synod at Gentiliacum in A.D. 767 (§ 91, 2) where the question
of image worship was dealt with. We have no further information,
as the acts of this Synod have been lost. Then in A.D. 790
Hadrian I. sent to Charlemagne the acts of the 7th occasional
Synod of Nicæa (§ 66, 3). Charles, as emperor-elect, regarded
himself as grievously wronged by the assumption of the Greeks,
who, without consulting the German court, sought to enact
laws that were wholly antagonistic to the Frankish practice.
He published under his own name a state paper in 4 bks., the
so-called _Libri Carolini_, in which the Byzantine proceedings
were censured in strong terms, the synodal acts refuted one by
one, every form of image worship denounced as idolatry, while at
the same time the position of the iconoclasts was repudiated and,
with reference to Gregory the Great (§ 57, 4), the usefulness
of images in quickening devotion, instructing the people and
providing suitable decoration for sacred places was admitted.
Veneration of saints, relics, and the cross is, on the other
hand, permitted. Charlemagne sent this writing to the pope,
who in the most courteous language wrote a refutation, which,
however, made no impression upon Charlemagne. On the contrary he
now hastened preparations for calling a great œcumenical Synod of
all German churches that would outdo the Synod of the Byzantine
court. Alcuin utilized his visit to England for securing a
representation at this Synod of the Anglo-Saxon church. The
Synod met at Frankfort in A.D. 794 and confirmed the positions
of the Caroline books. The pope found it prudent to yield to
the times and the people. Under Louis the Pious the matter was
brought forward anew on the occasion of an embassy from the
iconoclast emperor Michael Balbus. A national Synod at Paris
in A.D. 825 condemned image worship sharply, in opposition to
Hadrian I., and affirmed the positions of the Caroline books.
Pope Eugenius II. kept silent on this subject. In the Frankish
empire down to the 10th century no recognition was given to the
2nd Nicene Council, and official opposition was continued against
image worship.

§ 92.2. Soon after the Parisian council of A.D. 825, =Agobard
of Lyons= made his appearance with a powerful polemic: _Contra
superstitionem eorum, qui picturis et imaginibus sanctorum
adorationis obsequiem deferendum putant_. He goes much further
than the Caroline books, for not only does he regard it as
advisable, on account of the inevitable misuse on the part of
the people, to banish images entirely, but with image worship
he also rejects all adoration of saints, relics, and angels. Man
should put his trust in the omnipotent God alone, and worship
and reverence only the one Mediator, Christ. He comes forward
also as a reformer of the liturgy. He finds fault with all
sensuous additions to Divine service, would banish from it all
non-Biblical hymns, urges to earnest study of Scripture, contends
against the folly of the ordeal (_De Divinis Sententiis_), the
popular superstitions about witchcraft and weather omens (_Contra
insulsam vulgi opinionem de grandine et tonitruis_), and the
idea that by presents to churches a stop can be put to epidemics
and pestilences. Also on inspiration he entertained very liberal
opinions (§ 90, 9). No one thought on account of these views to
charge him with heresy. =Claudius of Turin= went still further
than Agobard. By the help of Augustine he was able to grasp more
profoundly than any of his contemporaries the essential core of
saving truth, that man without any merit of works is justified
and saved by the grace of God in Christ alone. Louis the
Pious appointed him to the bishopric of Turin with the express
injunction that he should contend against image worship in his
Italian diocese. He found there image worship along with an
extravagant devotion to relics, crosses and pilgrimages carried
on to such a degree that he felt himself constrained reluctantly
because of the condition of affairs to cast images and crosses
out of the churches altogether. The popular excitement over this
proceeding rose to the utmost pitch, and his life was saved and
his office retained only through dread of the Frankish arms. When
pope Paschalis intimated to him his displeasure, he said the pope
is only to be honoured as apostolic, when he does the works of
an apostle, otherwise Matt. xxiii. 2-4 applies to him. Against
the views of his early scholar and friend the abbot Theodemir,
regarding monastic psalmody, he vindicated himself in A.D. 825
in his controversial tract _Apologeticus_, which is now known
only from the replies of his opponents. A Scotchman, Dungal,
teacher at Pavia, entered the lists against him and accused him
before the emperor, who, however, contented himself with calling
upon bishop Jonas of Orleans to refute the apologetical treatise.
This refutation appeared only after the death of Claudius. It
assumed the position of the Frankish church on the question of
image worship, as also Dungal had done.

SECOND SECTION.

HISTORY OF THE GERMANO-ROMANIC CHURCH,
FROM THE 10TH TO THE 13TH CENTURY.
A.D. 911-1294.

I. The Spread of Christianity.

§ 93. MISSIONARY ENTERPRISES.

During this period the Christianizing of Europe was well nigh finished. Only Lapland and Lithuania were reserved for the following period. The method used in conversion was still the same. Besides missionaries, warriors also extended the faith. Monasteries and castles were the centres of the newly founded Christianity. Political considerations and Christian princesses converted pagan princes; their subjects followed either under violent pressure or with quiet resignation, carrying with them, however, under the cover of a Christian profession, much of their old heathen superstition. It was the policy of the German emperors to make every effort to unite the converted races under the German metropolitans, and to establish this union. Thus the metropolitanate of Hamburg-Bremen was founded for the Scandinavians and those of the Baltic provinces, that of Magdeburg for the Poles and the Northern Slavs, that of Mainz for the Bohemians, that of Passau and Salzburg for the Hungarians. But it was Rome’s desire to emancipate them from the German clergy and the German state, and to set them up as independent metropolitanates of a great family of Christian nationalities recognising the pope as their spiritual father (§ 82, 9). The Western church did now indeed make a beginning of missionary enterprise, which extended in its range beyond Europe to the Mongols of Asia and the Saracens of Africa, but throughout this period it remained without any, or at least without any important, result.

§ 93.1. =The Scandinavian Mission Field.=--The work of Ansgar
and Rimbert (§ 80) had extended only to the frontier provinces
of Jutland and to the trading ports of Sweden, and even the
churches founded there had in the meantime become almost extinct.
A renewal of the mission could not be thought of, owing to the
robber raids of =Normans= or =Vikings=, who during the ninth
and tenth centuries had devastated all the coasts. But it was
just those Viking raids that in another way opened a door again
for the entrance of missionaries into those lands. Many of the
home-going Vikings, who had been resident for a while abroad,
had there been converted to the Christian faith, and carried
back the knowledge of it to their homes. In France the Norwegians
under Rollo founded Normandy in A.D. 912. In the tenth century
the entire northern half of England fell into the hands of the
Danes, and finally, in A.D. 1013, the Danish King Sweyn conquered
the whole country. Both in France and in England the incomers
adopted the profession of Christianity, and this, owing to the
close connection maintained with their earlier homes, led to the
conversion of Norway and Denmark.

§ 93.2. In =Denmark=, Gorm the Old, the founder of the regular
Danish monarchy, makes his appearance toward the end of the
ninth century as the bitter foe of Christianity. He destroyed
all Christian institutions, drove away all the priests, and
ravaged the neighbouring German coasts. Then, in A.D. 934, the
German king Henry I. undertook a war against Denmark, and obliged
Gorm to pay tribute and to grant toleration to the Christian
faith. Archbishop Unni of Bremen then immediately began again
the mission work. With a great part of his clergy he entered
Danish territory, restored the churches of Jutland, and died in
Sweden in A.D. 936. Gorm’s son, Harald Blaatand, being defeated
in battle by Otto I. in A.D. 965, submitted to baptism. But his
son Sweyn Gabelbart, although he too had been baptized, headed
the reactionary heathen party. Harald fell in battle against
him in A.D. 986, and Sweyn now began his career as a bitter
persecutor of the Christians. Eric of Sweden, however, formerly
a heathen and an enemy of Christianity, drove him out in A.D. 980,
and at the entreaty of a German embassage tolerated the Christian
religion. After Eric’s death in A.D. 998, Sweyn returned. In
exile his opinions had changed, and now he as actively befriended
the Christians as before he had persecuted them. In A.D. 1013
he conquered all England, and died there in A.D. 1014. His son
Canute the Great, who died in A.D. 1036, united both kingdoms
under his sceptre, and made every effort to find in the profession
of a common Christian faith a bond of union between the two
countries over which he ruled. In place of the German mission
issuing from Bremen, he set on foot an English mission that had
great success. In A.D. 1026 by means of a pilgrimage to Rome,
prompted also by far-reaching political views, he joined the
Danish church in the closest bonds with the ecclesiastical centre
of Western Christendom. Denmark from this time onwards ranks as
a thoroughly Christianized land.

§ 93.3. In =Sweden=, too, Archbishop Unni of Bremen resumed
mission work and died there in A.D. 936. From this time the
German mission was prosecuted uninterruptedly. It was, however,
only in the beginning of the eleventh century, when English
missionaries came to Sweden from Norway with Sigurd at their
head, that real progress was made. By them the king Olaf
Skötkonung, who died in A.D. 1024, was baptized. Olaf and
his successor used every effort to further the interests of
the mission, which had made considerable progress in Gothland,
while in Swealand, with its national pagan sanctuary of Upsala,
heathenism still continued dominant. King Inge, when he refused
in A.D. 1080 to renounce Christianity, was pursued with stones
by a crowd of people at Upsala. His son-in-law Blot-Sweyn led
the pagan reaction, and sorely persecuted those who professed
the Christian faith. After reigning for three years, he was
slain, and Inge restored Christianity in all parts. It was,
however, only under St. Eric, who died in A.D. 1160, that the
Christian faith became dominant in Upper Sweden.[263]

§ 93.4. =The Norwegians= had, at a very early period, by means
of the adventurous raids of their seafaring youth, by means of
Christian prisoners, and also by means of intercourse with the
Norse colonies in England and Normandy, gained some knowledge
of Christianity. The first Christian king of Norway was Haco
the Good (A.D. 934-961), who had received a Christian education
at the English court. Only after he had won the fervent love
of his people by his able government, did he venture to ask for
the legal establishment of the Christian religion. The people,
however, compelled him to take part in heathen sacrifices;
and when he made the sign of the cross over the sacrificial
cup before he drank of it, they were appeased only by his
associating the action with Thor’s hammer. Haco could never
forgive himself this weakness and died broken-hearted, regarding
himself as unworthy even of Christian burial. Olaf Trygvesen
(A.D. 995-1000), at first the ideal of a Norse Viking, then
of a Norse king, was baptized during his last visit to England,
and used all the powerful influences at his command, the charm
and fascination of his personality, flattery, favour, craft,
intimidation and cruelty, to secure the forcible introduction
of Christianity. No foreigner was ever allowed to quit Norway
without being persuaded or compelled by him to receive baptism.
Those who refused, whether natives or foreigners, suffered
severe imprisonment and in many cases were put to death. He fell
in battle with the Danes. Olaf Haraldson the Fat, subsequently
known as St. Olaf (A.D. 1014-1030), followed in Trygvesen’s steps.
Without his predecessor’s fascinating manners and magnanimity,
but prosecuting his ecclesiastical and political ends with
greater recklessness, severity, and cruelty, he soon forfeited
the love of his subjects. The alienated chiefs conspired with
the Danish Canute; the whole country rose against him; he himself
fell in battle, and Norway became a Danish province. The crushing
yoke of the Danes, however, caused a sudden rebound of public
feeling in regard to Olaf. The king, who was before universally
hated, was now looked on as the martyr of national liberty and
independence. Innumerable miracles were wrought by his bones,
and even so early as A.D. 1031 the country unanimously proclaimed
him a national saint. The enthusiasm over the veneration of the
new saint increased from day to day, and with it the enthusiasm
for the emancipation of their native country. Borne along by
the mighty agitation, Olaf’s son, Magnus the Good, drove out the
Danes in A.D. 1035. Olaf’s canonization, though originating in
purely political schemes, had put the final stamp of Christianity
upon the land. The German national privileges, however, were
insisted upon in Norway over against the canon law down to the
13th century.[264]

§ 93.5. =In the North-Western Group of Islands=, the Hebrides,
the Orkneys, Shetlands, and Faröe Isles, the sparse Celtic
population professing Christianity was, during the ninth century,
expelled by the pagan Norse Vikings, and among these Christianity
was first introduced by the two Norwegian Olafs. The first
missionary attempt in =Iceland= was made in A.D. 981 by the
Icelander Thorwald, who having been baptized in Saxony by a
Bishop (?) Frederick, persuaded this ecclesiastic to accompany
him to Iceland, that they might there work together for the
conversion of his heathen fellow countrymen. During a five years’
ministry several individuals were won, but by a decision of the
National Council the missionaries were forced to leave the island
in A.D. 958. Olaf Trygvesen did not readily allow an Icelander
visiting Norway to return without having been baptized, and twice
he sent formal expeditions for the conversion of Iceland. The
first, sent out in A.D. 996, with Stefnin, a native of Iceland,
at its head, had little success. The second, A.D. 997-999, was
led by Olaf’s court chaplain Dankbrand, a Saxon. This man, at
once warrior and priest, who when his sermons failed shrank not
from buckling on the sword, converted many of the most powerful
chiefs. In A.D. 1000 the Icelandic State was saved at the
last hour from a civil war between pagans and Christians which
threatened its very existence, by the adoption of a compromise,
according to which all Icelanders were baptized and only
Christian worship was publicly recognised, but idol worship
in the homes, exposure of children, and eating of horses’ flesh
was tolerated. But in A.D. 1016, as the result of an embassage
of the Norwegian king Olaf Haraldson, even these last vestiges
of paganism were wiped out.--=Greenland=, too, which had been
discovered by a distinguished Icelander, Eric the Red, and had
then been colonized in A.D. 985, owed its Christianity to Olaf
Trygvesen, who in A.D. 1000 sent the son of the discoverer,
Leif the Fortunate, with an expedition for its conversion. The
inhabitants accepted baptism without resistance. The church
continued to flourish there uninterruptedly for 400 years, and
the coast districts became rich through agriculture and trade.
But when in A.D. 1408 the newly elected bishop Andrew wished
to take possession of his see, he found the country surrounded
by enormous masses of ice, and could not effect a landing.
This catastrophe, and the subsequent incursions of the Eskimos,
seem to have led to the overthrow of the colony.--Continuation,
§ 167, 9.--Leif discovered on his expeditions a rich fertile
land in the West, which on account of the vines growing wild
there he called =Vineland=, and this region was subsequently
colonized from Iceland. In the twelfth century, in order to
confirm the colonists in the faith, a Greenland bishop Eric
undertook a journey to that country. It lay on the east coast
of North America, and is probably to be identified with the
present Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

§ 93.6. =The Slavo-Magyar Mission-field.=--Even in the previous
period a beginning had been made of the Christianizing of
=Bohemia= (§ 79, 3). After Wratislaw’s death his heathen widow
Drahomira administered the government in the name of her younger
son Boleslaw. Ludmilla, with the help of the clergy and the
Germans, wished to promote St. Wenzeslaw, the elder son, educated
by her, but she was strangled by order of Drahomira in A.D. 927.
Wenzeslaw, too, fell by the hand of his brother. Boleslaw now
thought completely to root out Christianity, but was obliged,
in consequence of the victory of Otho [Otto] I. in A.D. 950,
to agree to the restoration of the church. His son Boleslas
[Boleslaw] II., A.D. 967-999, contributed to its establishment
by founding the bishopric of Prague. The pope seized the
opportunity on the occasion of this founding of the bishopric
to introduce the Roman ritual (A.D. 973).[265]

§ 93.7. From Bohemia the Christian faith was carried to the
=Poles=. In A.D. 966 the Duke Micislas was persuaded by his
wife Dubrawka, a Bohemian princess, daughter of Boleslaw I.,
to receive baptism. His subjects were induced to follow his
example, and the bishopric of Posen was founded. The church
obtained a firm footing under his son, the powerful Boleslaw
Chrobry, A.D. 992-1025, who with the consent of Otto III. freed
the Polish church from the metropolitanate of Magdeburg, and
gave it an archiepiscopal see of its own at Gnesen (A.D. 1000).
He also separated the Poles from German imperial federation and
had himself crowned king shortly before his death in A.D. 1025.
A state of anarchy, which lasted for a year and threatened the
overthrow of Christianity in the land, was put an end to by his
grandson Casimir in A.D. 1039. Casimir’s grandson Boleslaw II.
gave to the Poles a national saint by the murder in A.D. 1079
of Bishop Stanislas [Stanislaus] of Cracow, which led to his
excommunication and exile.

§ 93.8. Christianity was introduced into =Hungary= from
Constantinople. A Hungarian prince Gylas received baptism
there about A.D. 950, and returned home with a monk Hierotheus,
consecrated bishop of the Hungarians. Connection with the Eastern
church, however, was soon broken off, and an alliance formed
with the Western church. After Henry I. in A.D. 933 defeated the
Hungarians at Keuschberg, and still more decidedly after Otto I.
in A.D. 955 had completely humbled them by the terrible slaughter
at Lechfelde, German influence won the upper hand. The missionary
labours of Bishop Piligrim of Passau, as well as the introduction
of Christian foreigners, especially Germans, soon gave to
Christianity a preponderance throughout the country over paganism.
The mission was directly favoured by the Duke Geysa, A.D. 972-997,
and his vigorous wife Sarolta, a daughter of the above-named
Gylas. The Christianizing of Hungary was completed by Geysa’s
son St. Stephen, A.D. 997-1038, who upon his marriage with
Gisela, the sister of the Emperor Henry II., was baptized,
a pagan reaction was put down, a constitution and laws were
given to the country, an archbishopric was founded at Gran
with ten suffragan bishops, the crown was put upon his head
in A.D. 1000 by Pope Sylvester II., and Hungary was enrolled
as an important member of the federation of European Christian
States. Under his successors indeed paganism once more rose in
a formidable revolt, but was finally stamped out. St. Ladislaw
[Ladislaus], A.D. 1077-1095, rooted out its last vestiges.

§ 93.9. Among the numerous =Wendish Races= in Northern and
North-Eastern Germany the chief tribes were the Obotrites in
what is now Holstein and Mecklenburg, the Lutitians or Wilzians,
between the Elbe and the Oder, the Pomeranians, from the Oder to
the Vistula, and the Sorbi, farther south in Saxony and Lusatia.
Henry I., A.D. 919-936, and his son Otto I., A.D. 936-973, in
several campaigns subjected them to the German yoke, and the
latter founded among them in A.D. 968 the archbishopric of
Magdeburg besides several bishoprics. The passion for national
freedom, as well as the proud contempt, illtreatment, and
oppression of the German margraves, rendered Christianity
peculiarly hateful to the Wends, and it was only after their
freedom and nationality had been completely destroyed and the
Slavic population had been outnumbered by German or Germanized
colonists, that the Church obtained a firm footing in their
land. A revolt of the =Obotrites= under Mistewoi in A.D. 983,
who with the German yoke abjured also the Christian faith, led
to the destruction of all Christian institutions. His grandson
Gottschalk, educated as a Christian in a German monastery, but
roused to fury by the murder of his father Udo, escaped from
the monastery in A.D. 1032, renounced Christianity, and set on
foot a terrible persecution of Christians and Germans. But he
soon bitterly repented this outburst of senseless rage. Taken
prisoner by the Germans, he escaped and took refuge in Denmark,
but subsequently he returned and founded in A.D. 1045 a great
Wendish empire which extended from the North Sea to the Oder. He
now enthusiastically applied all his energy to the establishment
of the church in his land upon a national basis, for which
purpose Adalbert of Bremen sent him missionaries. He was himself
frequently their interpreter and expositor. He was eminently
successful, but the national party hated him as the friend of
the Saxons and the church. He fell by the sword of the assassin
in A.D. 1066, and thereupon began a terrible persecution of the
Christians. His son Henry having been set aside, the powerful
Ranian chief Cruco from the island of Rügen, a fanatical enemy
of Christianity, was chosen ruler. At the instigation of Henry
he was murdered in his own house in A.D. 1115. Henry died in
A.D. 1127. A Danish prince Canute bought the Wendish crown from
Lothair duke of Saxony, but was murdered in A.D. 1131. This
brought the Wendish empire to an end. The Obotrite chief Niklot,
who died in A.D. 1161, held his ground only in the territory of
the Obotrites. His son Pribizlaw, the ancestor of the present
ruling family of Mecklenburg, by adopting Christianity in
A.D. 1164, saved to himself a part of the inheritance of his
fathers as a vassal under the Saxon princes. All the rest
of the land was divided by Henry the Lion among his German
warriors, and the depopulated districts were peopled with
German colonists.--In A.D. 1157 Albert the Bear, the founder
of the Margravate of Brandenburg, overthrew the dominion of
the =Lutitians= after protracted struggles and endless revolts.
He, too, drafted numerous German colonists into the devastated
regions.--The Christianizing of the =Sorbi= was an easier task.
After their first defeat by Henry I. in A.D. 922 and 927, they
were never again able to regain their old freedom. Alongside
of the mission of the sword among the Wends there was always
carried on, more or less vigorously, the mission of the Cross.
Among the Sorbi bishop Benno of Meissen, who died in A.D. 1107,
wrought with special vigour, and among the Obotrites the greatest
zeal was displayed by St. Vicelinus. He died bishop of Oldenburg
in A.D. 1154.

§ 93.10. =Pomerania= submitted in A.D. 1121 to the duke of
Poland, Boleslaw III., and he compelled them solemnly to promise
that they would adopt the Christian faith. The work of conversion,
however, appeared to be so unpromising that Boleslaw found none
among all his clergy willing to undertake the task. At last
in A.D. 1122, a Spanish monk Bernard offered himself. But the
Pomeranians drove him away as a beggar who looked only to his
own gain, for they thought, if the Christians’ God be really the
Lord of heaven and earth He would have sent them a servant in
keeping with His glorious majesty. Boleslaw was then convinced
that only a man who had strong faith and a martyr’s spirit,
united with an imposing figure, rank, and wealth, was fit for
the work, and these qualifications he found in bishop Otto
of Bamberg. Otto accepted the call, and during two missionary
journeys in A.D. 1124-1128 founded the Pomeranian church.
Following Bernard’s advice, he went through Pomerania on both
occasions with all the pomp of episcopal dignity, with a great
retinue and abundant stores of provisions, money, ecclesiastical
ornaments, and presents of all kinds. He had unparalleled success,
yet he was repeatedly well nigh obtaining the crown of martyrdom
which he longed for. The whole Middle Ages furnishes scarcely
an equally noble, pure, and successful example of missionary
enterprise. None of all the missionaries of that age presents so
harmonious a picture of firmness without obstinacy, earnestness
without harshness, gentleness without weakness, enthusiasm
without fanaticism. And never have the German and Slavic
nationalities so nobly, successfully, and faithfully practised
mutual forbearance as did the Pomeranians and their apostle.--The
last stronghold of Wendish paganism was the island of =Rügen=.
It fell when in A.D. 1168 the Danish king Waldemar I. with the
Christian Pomeranian and Obotrite chiefs conquered the island
and destroyed its heathen sanctuaries.

§ 93.11. =Mission Work among the Finns and Lithuanians.=--St. Eric
of Sweden in A.D. 1157 introduced Christianity into Finland by
conquest and compulsion. Bishop Henry of Upsala, the apostle of
the Finns, who accompanied him, suffered a martyr’s death in the
following year. The Finns detested Christianity as heartily as
they did the rule of the conquering Swedes, who introduced it,
and it was only after the third campaign which Thorkel Canutson
undertook in A.D. 1293 against Finland, that the Swedish rule
and the Christian faith were established, and under a vigorous
yet moderate and wise government the Finns were reconciled to
both.--=Lapland= came under the rule of Sweden in A.D. 1279, and
thereafter Christianity gradually found entrance. In A.D. 1335
bishop Hemming of Upsala consecrated the first church at Tornea.

§ 93.12. =Esthonia, Livonia, and Courland= were inhabited by
peoples belonging to the Finnic stem. Yet even in early times
people from the south and east belonging to the Lithuanian stem
had settled in Livonia and Courland, Letts and Lettgalls in
Livonia, and Semgalls and Wends in Courland. The first attempts
to introduce Christianity into these regions were made by Swedes
and Danes, and even under the Danish king Sweyn III., Eric’s son,
about A.D. 1048 a church was erected in Courland by Christian
merchants, and in Esthonia the Danes not long after built the
fortress of Lindanissa. The elevation of the bishopric of Lund
into a metropolitanate in A.D. 1098 was projected with a regard
to these lands. In A.D. 1171 Pope Alexander III. sent a monk,
Fulco, to Lund to convert the heathen and to be bishop of Finland
and Esthonia, but he seems never to have entered on his duties or
his dignity. Abiding results were first won by German preaching
and the German sword. In the middle of the 12th century merchants
of Bremen and Lübeck carried on traffic with towns on the banks
of the Dwina. A pious priest from the monastery of Segeberg in
Holstein, called Meinhart, undertook in their company under the
auspices of the archbishop of Bremen, Hartwig II., a missionary
journey to those regions in A.D. 1184. He built a church at
Üxküll on the Dwina, was recognised as bishop of the place
in A.D. 1186, but died in A.D. 1196. His assistant Dietrich
carried on the work of the mission in the district from Freiden
down to Esthonia. Meinhart’s successor in the bishopric was the
Cistercian abbot, Berthold of Loccum in Hanover. Having been
driven away soon after his arrival, he returned with an army
of German crusaders, and was killed in battle in A.D. 1198.
His successor was a canon of Bremen, Albert of Buxhöwden. He
transferred the bishop’s seat to Riga, which was built by him
in A.D. 1201, founded in A.D. 1202, for the protection of the
mission, the Order of the Brethren of the Sword (§ 98, 13),
amid constant battles with Russians, Esthonians, Courlanders
and Lithuanians erected new bishoprics in Esthonia (Dorpat),
Oesel, and Semgallen, and effected the Christianization of
nearly all these lands. He died in A.D. 1229. After A.D. 1219
the Danes, whom Albert had called in to his aid, vied with him
in the conquest and conversion of the Esthonians. Waldemar II.
founded Revel in A.D. 1219, made it an episcopal see, and did
all in his power to restrict the advances of the Germans. In
this he did not succeed. The Danes, indeed, were obliged to
quit Esthonia in A.D. 1257. After Albert’s death, however, the
difficulties of the situation became so great that Volquin, the
Master of the Order of the Sword, could see no hope of success
save in the union of his order with that of the Teutonic Knights,
shortly before established in Prussia. The union, retarded
by Danish intrigues, was not effected until A.D. 1237, when
a fearful slaughter of Germans by the Lithuanians had endangered
not only the existence of the Order of the Sword but even the
church of Livonia. Then, too, for the first time was Courland
finally subdued and converted. It had, indeed, nominally adopted
Christianity in A.D. 1230, but had soon after relapsed into
paganism. Finally in A.D. 1255 Riga was raised to the rank of
a metropolitanate, and Suerbeer, formerly archbishop of Armagh
in Ireland, was appointed by Innocent IV. archbishop of Prussia,
Livonia, and Esthonia, with his residence at Riga.

§ 93.13. The Old Prussians and Lithuanians also belonged to
the Lettish stem. Adalbert, bishop of Prague, first brought the
message of salvation to the =Prussians= between the Vistula and
Memel, but on the very first entrance into Sameland [Samland]
in A.D. 997 he won the martyr’s crown. This, too, was the fate
twelve years later of the zealous Saxon monk Bruno and eighteen
companions on the Lithuanian coast. Two hundred years passed
before another missionary was seen in Prussia. The first was
the Abbot Gothfried from the Polish monastery of Lukina; but in
his case also an end was soon put to his hopefully begun work, as
well as to that of his companion Philip, both suffering martyrdom
in A.D. 1207. More successful and enduring was the mission work
three years later of the Cistercian monk Christian from the
Pomeranian monastery of Oliva, in A.D. 1209, the real apostle of
the Prussians. He was raised to the rank of bishop in A.D. 1215,
and died in A.D. 1245. On the model of the Livonian Order of
the Brethren of the Sword he founded in A.D. 1225 the Order of
the Knights of Dobrin (_Milites Christi_). In the very first
year of their existence, however, they were reduced to the number
of five men. In union with Conrad, Duke of Moravia, whose land
had suffered fearfully from the inroads of the pagan Prussians,
Christian then called in the aid of the Teutonic Knights, whose
order had won great renown in Germany. A branch of this order
had settled in A.D. 1228 in Culm, and so laid the foundation of
the establishment of the order in Prussia. With the appearance
of this order began a sixty years’ bloody conflict directed to
the overthrow of Prussian paganism, which can be said to have
been effected only in A.D. 1283, when the greater part of the
Prussians had been slain after innumerable conflicts with the
order and with crusaders from Germany, Poland, Bohemia, etc.
Among the crowds of preachers of the gospel, mostly Dominicans,
besides Bishop Christian and the noble papal legate William,
bishop of Modena, the Polish Dominican Hyacinth, who died
in A.D. 1257, a vigorous preacher of faith and repentance,
deserves special mention. So early as A.D. 1243, William of
Modena had sketched an ecclesiastical organization for the
country, which divided Prussia into four dioceses, which were
placed in A.D. 1255 under the metropolitanate of Riga.

§ 93.14. The introduction of Christianity into =Lithuania= was
longest delayed. After Ringold had founded in A.D. 1230 a Grand
Duchy of Lithuania, his son Mindowe endeavoured to enlarge his
dominions by conquest. The army of the Prussian-Livonian Order,
however, so humbled him that he sued for peace and was compelled
to receive baptism in A.D. 1252. But no sooner had he in some
measure regained strength than he threw off the hypocritical
mask, and in A.D. 1260 appeared as the foe of his Christian
neighbours. His son Wolstinik, who had remained true to the
Christian faith, dying in A.D. 1266, reigned too short a time
to secure an influence over his people. With him every trace
of Christianity disappeared from Lithuania. Christians were
again tolerated in his territories by the Grand Duke Gedimin
(A.D. 1315-1340). Romish Dominicans and Russian priests vied
with one another under his successor Olgerd in endeavours to
convert the inhabitants. Olgerd himself was baptized according
to the Greek rite, but apostatised. His son Jagello, born
of a Christian mother, and married to the young Polish queen
Hedwig, whose hand and crown seemed not too dearly purchased by
submitting to baptism and undertaking to introduce Christianity
among his people, made at last an end to heathenism in Lithuania
in A.D. 1386. His subjects, each of whom received a woollen coat
as a christening gift, flocked in crowds to receive baptism. The
bishop’s residence was fixed at Wilna.

§ 93.15. =The Mongolian Mission Field.=--From the time of
Genghis Khan, who died in A.D. 1227, the princes of the =Mongols=,
in consistency with their principles as deists with little trace
of religion, showed themselves equally tolerant and favourable
to Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism. The Nestorians were very
numerous in this empire, but also very much deteriorated. In
A.D. 1240-1241 the Mongols, pressing westward with irresistible
force, threatened to overflow and devastate all Europe. Russia
and Poland, Silesia, Moravia, and Hungary had been already
dreadfully wasted by them, when suddenly and unexpectedly
the savage hordes withdrew. Innocent IV. sent an embassage of
Dominicans under Nicolas Ascelinus to the Commander Batschu
in Persia, and an embassage of Franciscans under John of
Piano-Carpini to the Grand Khan Oktaï, Genghis Khan’s successor,
to his capital Karakorum, with a view to their conversion and
to dissuade them from repeating their inroads. Both missions
were unsuccessful. Certain adventurers pretending to be bearers
of a message from Mongolia, told Louis IX. of France fabulous
stories of the readiness of the Grand Khan Gajuk and his princes
to receive Christianity, and their intention to conquer the Holy
Land for the Christians. He accordingly sent out two missions to
the Mongols. The first, in A.D. 1249 was utterly unsuccessful,
for the Mongols regarded the presents given as a regular tribute
and as a symbol of voluntary submission. The second mission in
A.D. 1253, to the Grand Khan Mangu, although under a brave and
accomplished leader, William of Ruysbroek, yielded no fruit;
for Mangu, instead of allowing free entrance into the land for
the preaching of the gospel, at the close of a disputation with
Mohammedans and Buddhists sent the missionaries back to Louis
with the threatening demand to tender his submission. After
Mangu’s death in A.D. 1257, the Mongolian empire was divided
into Eastern and Western, corresponding to China and Persia.
The former was governed by Kublai Khan, the latter by Hulagu
Khan.--Kublai Khan, the Emperor of =China=, a genuine type of
the religious mongrelism of the Mongolians, showed himself very
favourable to Christians, but also patronised the Mohammedans,
and in A.D. 1260 gave a hierarchical constitution and consolidated
form to Buddhism by the establishment of the first Dalai Lama. The
travels of two Venetians of the family of Polo led to the founding
of a Latin Christian mission in China. They returned from their
Mongolian travels in A.D. 1269. Gregory X. in A.D. 1272 sent
two Dominicans to Mongolia along with the two brothers, and the
son of one of them, Marco Polo, then seventeen years old. The
latter won the unreserved confidence of the Grand Khan, and was
entrusted by him with an honourable post in the government. On
his return in A.D. 1295 he published an account of his travels,
which made an enormous sensation, and afforded for the first time
to Western Europe a proper conception of the condition of Eastern
Asia.[266] A regular Christian missionary enterprise, however,
was first undertaken by the Franciscan Joh. de Monte-Corvino,
A.D. 1291-1328, one of the noblest, most intelligent, and most
faithful of the missionaries of the Middle Ages. After he had
succeeded in overcoming the intrigues of the numerous Nestorians,
he won the high esteem of the Grand Khan. In the royal city of
Cembalu or Pekin he built two churches, baptized about 6,000
Mongols, and translated the Psalter and the New Testament
into Mongolian. He wrought absolutely alone till A.D. 1303.
Afterwards, however, other brethren of his order came repeatedly
to his aid. Clement V. appointed him archbishop of Cembalu in
A.D. 1307. Every year saw new churches established. But internal
disturbances, under Kublai’s successor, weakened the power of
the Mongolian dynasty, so that in A.D. 1370 it was overthrown
by the national Ming dynasty. By the new rulers the Christian
missionaries were driven out along with the Mongols, and thus
all that they had done was utterly destroyed.--The ruler of
=Persia=, Hulagu Khan, son of a Christian mother and married
to a Christian wife, put an end in A.D. 1258 to the khalifate
of Bagdad, but was so pressed by the sultan of Egypt, that
he entered on a long series of negotiations with the popes
and the kings of France and England, who gave him the most
encouraging promises of joining their forces with his against
the Saracens. His successors, of whom several even formally
embraced Christianity, continued these negotiations, but obtained
nothing more than empty promises and protestations of friendship.
The time of the crusades was over, and the popes, even the most
powerful of them, were not able to reawaken the crusading spirit.
The Persian khans, vacillating between Christianity and Islam,
became more and more powerless, until at last, in A.D. 1387,
Tamerlane (Timur) undertook to found on the ruins of the old
government a new universal Mongolian empire under the standard
of the Crescent. But with his death in A.D. 1405 the dominion
of the Mongols in Persia was overthrown, and fell into the hands
of the Turkomans. Henceforth amid all changes of dynasties Islam
continued the dominant religion.

§ 93.16. =The Mission Field of Islam.=--The crusader princes
and soldiers wished only to wrest the Holy Land from the infidels,
but, with the exception perhaps of Louis IX., had no idea of
bringing to them the blessings of the gospel. And most of the
crusaders, by their licentiousness, covetousness, cruelty,
faithlessness, and dissensions among themselves, did much to
cause the Saracens to scorn the Christian faith as represented
by their lives and example. It was not until the 13th century
that the two newly founded mendicant orders of Franciscans
and Dominicans began an energetic but fruitless mission among
the Moslems of Africa, Sicily, and Spain. St. Francis himself
started this work in A.D. 1219, when during the siege of Damietta
by the crusaders he entered the camp of the Sultan Camel and
bade him kindle a fire and cause that he himself with one of
the Moslem priests should be cast into it. When the imam present
shrank away at these words, Francis offered to go alone into
the fire if the sultan would promise to accept Christianity
along with his people should he pass out of the fire uninjured.
The sultan refused to promise and sent the saint away unhurt
with presents, which, however, he returned. Afterwards several
Franciscan missions were sent to the Moslems, but resulted
only in giving a crowd of martyrs to the order. The Dominicans,
too, at a very early period took part in the mission to the
Mohammedans, but were also unsuccessful. The Dominican general
Raimund de Pennaforti [Pennaforte], who died in A.D. 1273,
devoted himself with special zeal to this task. For the training
of the brethren of his order in the oriental languages he founded
institutions at Tunis and Murcia. The most important of all these
missionary enterprises was that of the talented Raimund Lullus
of Majorca, who after his own conversion from a worldly life and
after careful study of the language, made three voyages to North
Africa and sought in disputations with the Saracen scholars to
convince them of the truth of Christianity. But his _Ars Magna_
(§ 103, 7), which with great ingenuity and enormous labour he had
wrought out mainly for this purpose, had no effect. Imprisonment
and ill-treatment were on all occasions his only reward. He died
in A.D. 1315 in consequence of the ill-usage which he had been
subjected.

§ 94. THE CRUSADES.[267]

The Arabian rulers had for their own interest protected the Christian pilgrims to the Holy Sepulchre. But even under the rule of the Fatimide dynasty, early in the 10th century, the oppression of pilgrims began. Khalif Hakim, in order that he might blot out the disgrace of being born of a Christian mother, committed ruthless cruelties upon resident Christians as well as upon the pilgrims, and prohibited under severe penalties all meetings for Christian worship. Under the barbarous Seljuk dynasty, which held sway in Palestine from about A.D. 1070, the oppression reached its height. The West became all the more concerned about this, since during the 10th century the idea that the end of the world was approaching had given a new impulse to pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Pope Sylvester II. had in A.D. 999 _ex persona devastatæ Hierosolymæ_ summoned Christendom to help in this emergency. Gregory VII. seized anew upon the idea of wresting the Holy Land from the infidels. He had even resolved himself to lead a Christian army, but the outbreak of contentions with Henry IV. hindered the execution of this plan. Meanwhile complaints by returning pilgrims of intolerable ill-usage increased. An urgent appeal from the Byzantine Emperor Alexius Comnenus gave the spark that lit the combustible material that had been gathered throughout the West. The imperial ambassadors accompanied Pope Urban II. to the Council of Clermont in A.D. 1095, where the pope himself, in a spirited speech, called for a holy war under the standard of the cross. The shout was raised as from one mouth, “It is God’s will.” On that very day thousands enlisted, with Adhemar, bishop of Puy, papal legate, at their head, and had the red cross marked on their right shoulders. The bishops returning home preached the crusade as they went, and in a few weeks a glowing enthusiasm had spread throughout France down to the provinces of the Rhine. Then began a movement which, soon extending over all the West, like a second migration of nations, lasted for two centuries. The crusades cost Europe between five and six millions of men, and yet in the end that which had been striven after was not attained. Its consequences, however, to Europe itself were all the more important. In all departments of life, ecclesiastical and political, moral and intellectual, civil and industrial, new views, needs, developments, and tendencies were introduced. Mediæval culture now reached the highest point of its attainment, and its failure to transcend the past opened the way for the conditions of modern society. And while on the other hand they afforded new and extravagantly abundant nourishment for clerical and popular superstition, in all directions, but specially in giving opportunity to roguish traffic in relics (§ 104, 8; 115, 9), on the other hand they had no small share in producing religious indifference and frivolous free-thinking (§ 96, 19), as well as the terribly dangerous growth of mediæval sects, which threatened the overthrow of church and State, religion and morality (§ 108, 1, 4; 116, 5). The former was chiefly the result of the sad conclusion of an undertaking of unexampled magnitude, entered upon with the most glowing enthusiasm for Christianity and the church; the latter was in great measure occasioned by intercourse with sectaries of a like kind in the East (§ 71).