THE CHURCH AND THE HEATHEN
[Sidenote: Hungary and Poland.]
From the time of Otto I it was the policy of the German Kings to
Germanise and Christianise the nations on their eastern border, as a
preparatory step to including them in the Empire. Otto had exacted
homage from the rulers of Hungary, Poland, and Bohemia, but under his
successors they broke away; and although, meanwhile, Christianity was
accepted by the rulers in all three countries, Hungary and Poland both
established their independence politically of the German King, and
ecclesiastically of the German Metropolitan of Mainz or Magdeburg.
Henry III reasserted the political influence in Germany; but it was to
the interest of the Pope to encourage the independent attitude of the
Churches in Hungary and Poland so long as they recognised the Roman
supremacy. But even politically Gregory VII told Solomon, King of
Hungary (1074), that his kingdom "belongs to the holy Roman Church,
having been formerly offered by King Stephen to St. Peter, together
with every right and power belonging to him, and devoutly handed
over." A similar claim, of which the basis was much more doubtful, was
made to Poland.
[Sidenote: Bohemia.]
The Czechs in Bohemia were less fortunate. Boleslas Chrobry, i.e. the
Brave, of Poland (992-1025), had aspired to rule over an united
kingdom of the Northern Slavs, but had to be content with the
independence of his own Polish kingdom. Bretislas of Bohemia (1037-55)
had a similar ambition; but he could not shake off the German yoke,
and his bishopric of Prague remained a suffragan of the Metropolitan
of Mainz.
[Sidenote: Adalbert of Bremen.]
North of Bohemia, in the country lying between the Baltic, the Elbe,
and the Oder, Otto had established a series of marks or border-lands
in which he had built towns, introduced German colonists, and founded
bishoprics which he had grouped round a new Metropolitan at Magdeburg.
Here for nearly a century and a half the House of Billung did much to
keep under the surging tide of paganism. It was the ambitions of
Adalbert, Archbishop of Bremen (1043-72), which for a time caused a
serious heathen reaction in this quarter. He was the rival of Hanno of
Koln for influence at the Court during Henry IV's minority. As the
most northern German Metropolitan he aspired to set up a patriarchate
in Northern Europe. He met with considerable success in Scandinavia.
[Sidenote: Scandinavia.]
The Christianisation of Denmark had been completed under Cnut, who
also ruled over England (1014-35). Norway was also being rapidly
converted; but the forcible methods of King Olaf, who afterwards
became the patron saint of his country, roused discontent. Cnut added
Norway to his dominions, and was anxious to make his realm
ecclesiastically independent. He established three bishoprics in
Denmark, but did not get his own metropolitan, and his empire fell
asunder at his death. Adalbert made a close alliance with Swein of
Denmark, and thus kept the Danish Church dependent. Harold Hardrada
struggled against Adalbert's attempts to assert his power in Norway.
Sweden had accepted Christianity under Olaf Stotkonung, i.e. the
Lap-King, who died in 1024. But until towards the end of the eleventh
century heathenism continued to maintain itself, and the difficulties
of the Christian party were considerably increased by the assertive
policy of Bremen. Adalbert's schemes were wide-reaching. He sent
bishops to the Orkneys, to Iceland, and even to Greenland, of which
the last two lands had been converted by missionaries from Norway and
ultimately became subject to the Metropolitan of Norway.
[Sidenote: Wends.]
But the real mischief of Adalbert's ambitious schemes was apparent
east of the Elbe. He founded the bishopric of Hamburg, and held it in
addition to Bremen. He sent bishops to Ratzeburg and Mecklenburg
across the Elbe. He encouraged Henry IV's schemes against the Saxons
in order to diminish the power of the House of Billung, who were his
rivals in that quarter. The various tribes of the Wends--Wagrians,
Obotrites, Wiltzes--had been drawn together into one kingdom under
Gottschalk (1047-66), himself a Christian, who founded churches and
monasteries, and has been likened to Oswald of Northumbria in that he
interpreted the missionaries' sermons to his heathen subjects. This
dominion had been established under the protection of the Saxon dukes.
But Henry IV's quarrels with Saxony distracted the attention of the
Billungs and their followers; and Gottschalk's death was followed by a
heathen reaction in which, together with the extirpation of other
marks of Christianity, the bishoprics were destroyed, and among them
Adalbert's own foundation of Hamburg. This was the beginning of the
end. Adalbert's successor had to be content with Bremen alone.
Moreover, in the investiture struggle he was loyal to Henry IV; and
since Eric of Denmark declared for the Pope, Urban II made the Danish
prelate of Lund the Metropolitan of the North (1103). This arrangement
caused discontent in the two other Scandinavian kingdoms, and
ultimately Eugenius III sent Cardinal Breakspear, the future Hadrian
IV, on a mission which resulted in the establishment of Nidaros or
Drontheim as the see of a primate for Norway, and of Upsala in a
similar capacity for Sweden. It may be mentioned in connection with
this point that Finland owed its conversion to Sweden very shortly
afterwards, though the Swedish attempts in Esthonia failed.
[Sidenote: Their final conversion.]
Meanwhile among the Wends Gottschalk's son revived his father's
authority and contact with German civilisation; but after 1131 the
Wendish kingdom fell to pieces, and from that moment we can mark the
steady advance of German power to the Oder. The Billung line of Saxon
dukes had become extinct in 1106, and Henry V had given the ducal name
to Lothair, who succeeded him as Emperor, and who as Duke aimed at
building up a strong dominion in north-eastern Germany. As Emperor he
took up the civilising rôle of Otto the Great and encouraged the
Germanisation of the Slavs. The actual work was done by his chief
adviser Norbert, whom he had almost forced to become Archbishop of
Magdeburg. He acted in conjunction with Albert the Bear, a descendant
in the female line of the Billung dukes and Margrave of the Northmark,
who himself founded bishoprics among his immediate neighbours the
Wiltzes. Albert's soldiers prepared the way for Norbert's
Premonstratensian canons, and bishoprics were founded with so little
regard for division of territory, even in Poland and Pomerania, that
both Gnesen and Lund found themselves for a time subordinated to
Magdeburg. Two names are especially associated with the conversion of
the Wends. In 1121, under the patronage of Lothair who was not yet
Emperor, Vicelin began his work among the Wagrians, and in 1149 he
became their Bishop with his see at Oldenburg. He died in 1154. It was
under the auspices of Henry the Lion, now Duke of Saxony, that Berno
preached to the Obotrites, converting the Wendish Prince and becoming
Bishop of Mecklenburg. The gradual advance of German colonisation had
weakened the Wendish resistance and prepared the way for this
restoration of Christianity. Henry the Lion finished the work. In
alliance with Waldemar II of Denmark he repeated with greater
completeness the work of founding bishoprics, establishing houses of
Premonstratensians, whose missionary activity was now shared by the
Cistercians, building towns and introducing colonists, until the whole
country between the Northmark and the Baltic was included in his Saxon
duchy.
[Sidenote: Pomerania.]
The fall of Henry the Lion was not followed by any anti-German
reaction; and meanwhile the work of conversion had been going forward
among the Slavs beyond the Oder. The first attempts of the Poles to
influence their troublesome Pomeranian neighbours failed. The ultimate
success of a mission was due to a German. Otto, a native of Suabia,
began as a schoolmaster in Poland. From chaplain to the Polish Prince
the Emperor Henry V made him Bishop of Bamberg (1102); and, when
Boleslas III had subdued part of Pomerania and found his bishops
unwilling to attempt its conversion, he offered the task to Otto of
Bamberg who, although an old man, undertook it with the consent of the
Pope and the Emperor. He paid two visits--in 1124 and 1128--both to
Western Pomerania, and established the bishopric of Wollin. The
conversion was naturally imperfect, but the country never relapsed.
The fierce islanders of Rgen could not then be touched, but ultimately
gave way in 1168 before the combined secular and spiritual weapons of
the Danish rulers.
[Sidenote: Livonia.]
From the middle of the twelfth century the cities of Bremen and
Lübeck had established trading connections with Livonia. Following in
the wake of the traders (1186) an Augustinian canon, Meinhard by name,
preached Christianity under permission from a neighbouring Russian
Prince, and he was made Bishop of Yrkill, on the Düna, under the
Archbishop of Bremen. His successors, however, impatient at failure,
organised a crusade from Germany. The third Bishop, Albert, took the
recently founded trading centre Riga as his bishopric, and organised
the knightly Order of the Brethren of the Sword (1202), to be under
the control of the Bishop. He aimed at an united spiritual and
temporal power in his own land, and in 1207 he accepted Livonia as a
fief from King Philip of Suabia. But Albert's chief foes were those of
his own household. The Knights of the Sword strove for independence
and tried to establish themselves in Esthonia. Albert appointed his
own nominee as Bishop there, who should act as a check upon the
knights. Innocent III, however, gave the ecclesiastical supervision of
Esthonia to the Danish Archbishop of Lund. But when the Danish King
attempted to follow this up by asserting a political authority his
forces were defeated by the Esthonians. German influences prevailed;
Albert took Dorpat, made it the seat of a new bishopric, and organised
the whole country ecclesiastically until his death in 1229; although
it was not until 1255 that Riga became the Metropolitan of the
Livonian and Prussian Churches. The Order of the Sword ceased to
resist, and in 1237 it merged itself in the Teutonic Order in Prussia.
The conversion of Livonia was followed by that of Semgallen in 1218,
and finally the inhabitants of Courland, threatened on all sides,
accepted baptism (1230) as the only alternative to slavery.
[Sidenote: Prussia.]
Between these lands and Pomerania lay the savage Prussians. Among them
Bishop Adalbert of Prague, the Apostle of Bohemia, had ended his life
by martyrdom in 997: and subsequent efforts, whether of bold
missionaries or of victorious Polish Kings, equally failed. At length
in 1207 some Cistercian monks from Poland obtained leave from Innocent
III to make another attempt on Prussia. They were well received, and
Christian of Oliva was consecrated bishop. But the rulers of
neighbouring lands, notably Conrad, Duke of Masovia, which lay just to
the south, schemed to turn these converted Prussians into political
dependents, and Christian welcomed their armies as a means of
hastening on the nominal change of religion. A crusade was set on
foot; but the natives resisted with success, and began to destroy the
monasteries established in the country. Consequently, in 1226 Duke
Conrad invited some members of the Teutonic Order to help him. In 1230
came a large number of the knights, and a devastating war which lasted
for more than fifty years (1230-83), ended in the nominal conversion
of the remaining inhabitants.
During the war German colonists were placed upon the conquered lands
and towns were founded--Königsberg (1256) in honour of Ottocar of
Bohemia, who lent his aid for a time; Marienburg (1270), which became
the headquarters of the Teutonic Order. Indeed, it was the Order which
reaped the benefit of the conquest. In 1243 Innocent IV divided the
country ecclesiastically into four bishoprics, which were placed
afterwards under the Livonian Archbishop of Riga as their
Metropolitan. One of these four--Ermland--freed itself both
ecclesiastically from Riga and politically from the Teutonic knights,
and placed itself directly under the Pope. The others were less
fortunate, and the Order successfully resisted the joint efforts of
the bishops and the Pope to place them in a similar position.
[Sidenote: Missions in Asia.]
The spread of Christianity among the tribes upon the Baltic coast,
imperfect though it was, led to permanent results. In the second great
field of missionary activity during this period the work of the Roman
Church was more interesting than effective. It is difficult now to
realise that in the fourteenth century emissaries from Rome had
nominally organised large districts of Asia as part of the Christian
Church. Nor was theirs the first announcement of the Gospel in those
regions. Christians of the Nestorian or Chaldean faith could claim
adherents from Persia across the Continent to the heart of China, and
had even converted several Turkish tribes.
[Sidenote: Prester John.]
About the middle of the twelfth century the report reached Europe of
the conversion as early as the beginning of the eleventh century of
the Khan of the Karaït, a Tartar tribe, lying south of Lake Baikal,
with its headquarters at Karakorum. The Syrian Christians, through
whom the report came, misinterpreted his Mongolian title Ung-Khan as
denoting a priest-king named John, and it was this distant Eastern
potentate who came to be known in Europe as Presbyter Johannes or
Prester John. It was the Syrian Christians who, in their desire to
outvie the boastful arrogance of their Latin neighbours, together with
many apochryphal tales invented a letter from this dignitary to some
of the sovereigns of Europe, including the Pope. Equally fabulous
seems to have been the report to Alexander III of a physician named
Philip, that this shadowy personage desired reception into the Roman
communion; for Alexander's answer apparently met with no response. In
1202 the tribe of the Karaïtes became the vassals of the great
conqueror Ghenghiz Khan, who is said to have added to his wives the
Christian daughter of the last Ung-Khan of the tribe. The kingdom of
Prester John, however, lived on in fables, of which the best known
relates how the Holy Grail, the cup consecrated by Christ at the Last
Supper, had withdrawn from the sinful West and found refuge in this
distant land.
[Sidenote: The Mongols in Europe.]
The conquests of Ghenghiz opened an entirely new chapter in the
relations between Western Europe and the Mongols. Ghenghiz himself
before his death in 1227 overran China, Central Asia, Persia, and
penetrated as far west as the Dnieper. His successors entered Russia
in 1237, conquered the Kipchaks about the Caspian Sea and pursued
their fugitives into Central Europe, defeated the Poles, ravaged
Saxony and Silesia, and overran Hungary (1240). It was fortunate for
Europe that the death of the Great Khan in 1242 caused the Mongol
leaders to withdraw their forces back to the East. The chief result of
this Mongolian raid was that 10,000 Kharizmians fleeing before the
Tartars entered the Egyptian service, and in 1244 captured Jerusalem
for the Egyptian Sultan. At the time of the Tartar invasion the Papacy
was vacant; but in 1243 Innocent IV was elected, and in 1245 at the
Council of Lyons a crusade was mooted. But the renewal of the papal
quarrel with Frederick II so far added to the general indifference
that no crusade was possible. Louis IX of France alone forced his
nobles to take the vow and fulfil it.
[Sidenote: Innocent IV's missions.]
To Innocent, however, is due the credit of inaugurating a new method
of approaching Eastern nations. It was well known that Christians were
to be found in the Mongolian armies; and the tolerant treatment
accorded to them was construed as a favourable feeling towards
Christianity itself. The truth was that for the purpose of reconciling
all nations to their rule the Mongols tolerated all religions among
their subjects. Already Mohammedanism and Buddhism competed with the
Christianity of the Nestorians for the favour of the Tartar Princes.
Their own religion has been characterised as a vague monotheism. Its
lack of definiteness led the early missionaries in their enthusiasm to
hope that its followers were in a state of mind to be easily persuaded
of the superior claims of the Catholic faith. Anyhow there existed for
some time quite an expectation in the West that the whole of Asia
would one day acknowledge the spiritual rule of Rome. Pope Innocent,
therefore, fully convinced of the friendly disposition of the Mongols,
despatched two embassies to them. One was composed of John of Piano
Carpini, a friend of St. Francis of Assisi, and three other
Franciscans. From the Khan of Kipchak at the Golden Horde on the Volga
they were passed on to the Great Khan, who ruled now from the old
capital of the Karaïtes at Karakorum. Here they were received in
friendly fashion by the newly elected Kuyuk, grandson of Ghenghiz. The
other embassy, composed of four Dominicans, visited Persia; but they
showed so much want of tact that their lives were endangered, and they
returned with letters written in the name of the Great Khan, in which
all princes of the earth were bidden to come and pay their homage.
Immediately, then, these visits were without result; but they had
opened the way for further communications.
[Sidenote: Louis IX's missions.]
It was known in the East that Louis IX of France was preparing to set
out on crusade; so that when he halted with his army in Cyprus he was
visited by an envoy purporting to come from Kuyuk and seeking an
alliance against Mohammedans. Louis sent two Dominicans to a Christian
monarch, as he supposed, armed with suitable presents; but Kuyuk was
dead, and the presents were treated as tribute. Perhaps in consequence
of this failure Louis turned his army against Egypt instead of Syria;
but the envoys returned to find him after the disastrous Egyptian
campaign in Palestine, where he spent four years. In consequence of
their report he sent to Kuyuk's successor, Mangu, a Franciscan,
William of Ruysbroek or Rubruquis. It was afterwards reported to the
Pope that Mangu and another Tartar Prince had been converted. Such
fabricated stories were only too common. Rubruquis has left us much
information about the Tartar Court; but his public discussions before
the Khan with Nestorians, Mohammedans and Buddhists led to no
practical result.
[Sidenote: Tartars and Mohammedans.]
On the death of Mangu (1257) his dominions were divided between his
two brothers. Hulagu, who became Khan of Persia, overthrew the
Caliphate of Bagdad; but the further progress of the Mongol armies was
stayed by the Mohammedan General, Bibars who, as a consequence of his
success, shortly became Sultan of Egypt. Henceforth the Mongols of
Persia constantly sought an alliance with the Christians of the West
against the Mohammedans as represented by Egypt, the one Mohammedan
power which as yet had opposed them with success. Thus in 1274, at the
second Council of Lyons, two Persian envoys invited the cooperation of
Christendom, and, perhaps by way of raising the expectations of such
contact, submitted to baptism; but the hostility of Greeks and Latins
and the selfish projects of Charles of Anjou prevented any response.
The long anarchy in Egypt which followed the death of Bibars (1277)
was too good an opportunity for the Mongols to lose; but Kelaun
secured the power in Egypt in time to repeat the exploits of Bibars.
But the remaining Latin princes in Syria had veered between the
Mohammedans and Mongols, and Kelaun determined to complete the
destruction of such an alien element. By 1291 the kingdom of Jerusalem
was wiped out. Europe watched with comparative indifference the easy
triumph of Mohammedanism. Not so the Mongols. Arghun, who became Khan
of Persia in 1284, made three definite efforts towards an alliance
which would mean a new crusade. In 1287 the Vicar of the Nestorian
Patriarch of China brought letters to the Pope and visited the Kings
of France and England; in 1289 a Genoese resident in Persia brought
the news of Arghun's intended invasion of Syria and his professed
desire for baptism; in 1290, to a yet more pressing call the Pope
returned a somewhat hopeful answer. But it was too late. Arghun died
in 1291, and although his eldest son, Ghazan, ultimately took up his
father's projects and even decisively defeated the Egyptian army in
Syria (1299), his losses forced him to return to Persia. It was
reported that he had died a Christian and in the Franciscan habit, but
there is no proof of this.
[Sidenote: Chinese missions.]
The more purely missionary efforts which were being made
contemporaneously with the events just related, were directed chiefly
to China which, on the death of Mangu, had fallen to the lot of Kublai
Khan. The opportunity for these was opened out by the relations
already established with the Mongolians on other grounds. The first
missionaries found Nestorian Christians who were subjects and others
who were captives acting as clerks, artisans and merchants at the
Tartar Court. Besides these, others in search of fortune or adventure
occasionally found their way from the West. Such were two Venetians,
Nicolo and Maffeo Polo, who, having traded with the Tartars of the
Golden Horde (1260), were led by force of circumstances further into
Asia, until they reached China. Kublai sent them back to Europe with a
request to the Pope for at least a hundred well-instructed persons who
should initiate his subjects in Western lore. They returned
practically alone; but Nicolo's son Marco accompanied them. They
remained for seventeen years in the service of the Khan (1275-93), and
Marco Polo has left a very celebrated account of his travels. This
establishment of friendly feeling was followed by a definite mission
of Franciscans, headed by John of Monte Corvino, who had already
organised the missions in Persia. He was welcomed by Kublai's
successor, and was allowed to preach. Despite the violent opposition
of the Nestorians he made converts and built churches. In 1307 he
became the first Archbishop of Cambaluc or Peking, while subsequently
no less than ten suffragans were grouped under him. Scarcely less
remarkable was the organisation in Persia of the archbishopric at
Sultanyeh and six subordinate sees. But this development belongs
almost entirely to the following period.