I. Founding, Spread, and Limitation of the German Church.[199]

§ 75. CHRISTIANITY AND THE GERMANS.

In the pre-German age Europe was for the most part inhabited by

Celtic races. In Britain, Spain and Gaul, however, these were subjugated

by the Roman forces and Romanized, whereas in northern, eastern and

middle Europe they were oppressed, exterminated or Germanized by the

Germans. In its victorious march through Europe, Christianity met with

Celtic races of unmixed nationality only in Ireland and Scotland, for

even among the neighbouring Britons the Celtic nationality was already

blended with the Roman. Only in a very restricted field, therefore,

could the church first of all develop itself according to the Celtic

mode of culture. But here, with a wonderful measure of independence,

missionary operations were so energetically prosecuted that for a

long time it seemed as if the greater part of the opposite continent

with its German population was to be its prey, until at last the Romish

church would be driven out of its own home as well as out of its hopeful

mission fields (§ 77).--Even in pre-Christian times a second and more

powerful immigration from the East had begun to pour over Europe. The

various Germanic groups of tribes now presented themselves, followed

by other warlike races, Huns, Slavs, Magyars, etc., alternately driving

and being driven. The Germans first came into contact with Christian

elements in the second half of the 3rd century, and toward the end of

the 5th a whole series of powerful German peoples are found professing

the Christian faith, and each successive century far down into the

Middle Ages brings always new trophies from these nations into the

treasure-house of the church. It would certainly be wrong to ascribe

these results to a national predisposition of the German churches

and type of mind for Christianity. This cannot be altogether denied,

but it did not predispose the German peoples to Christianity as it

then was preached, but was first developed when this by other ways

and means had found an entrance and only at the Reformation of the

16th century did it get full expression. For that predisposition was

directed to the deepest and innermost sides of Christianity, for which

the ecclesiastical institution of the times in its externalism had

little appreciation; and the first task of the German spirit was to

secure recognition of this reformatory principle.

§ 75.1. =The Predisposition of the Germans for

Christianity.=--What we have been accustomed to hear about

this subject is in part greatly exaggerated, in part sought

for where its proper germ does not lie. The German mythology

may indeed conceal many deep thoughts under the garb of legendary

poetry which have some relation to Christian truth and afford

evidence of the religious needs, the speculative gifts and the

characteristic profundity of German thought, but this scarcely

in a larger measure than in the Greek myths, philosophemes and

mysteries.[200] Much more suggestive of a predisposition to

Christianity than such bright spots in the mythological system

of the Germans are the special and distinguishing characteristics

of the life of the German people. The fidelity of the vassal to

his lord, transferred to Christ the heavenly king, constitutes

the special core of Christianity. Besides, closely connected

therewith, the love of battle and faithfulness in battle for

and with the hereditary or elected chief found a parallel in

the struggles and victories of the Christian life. Further,

the Germans’ noble love of freedom, sanctified by the Gospel,

afforded form and expression for the glorious freedom of the

children of God. And finally, the spirituality of the Germans’

worship, praised even by Tacitus, who says that they _nec

cohibere parietibus Deos, neque in ullam humani oris speciem

adsimulare, ex magnitudine cœlestium arbitrantur_, predisposed

them in favour of the worshipping of God in spirit and in truth.

§ 75.2. What is of most significance, however, for understanding

the almost unopposed =Adoption of Christianity= by so many German

races is the slight hold that their heathen religion had upon

them at that time. It is essentially characteristic of heathenism

as the religion of nature that it can flourish only on its

native soil. German paganism, however, had been uprooted by its

transplantation to European soil and had, amid the movements of

peoples during the first centuries after their migration, never

quite struck root in the new ground. In the later centuries,

when it had long enough time for doing so, _e.g._ among the

Frisians, Saxons, Danes, it offered an incomparably more resolute

resistance. Again, rapid conversion will be furthered or hindered

according as the new home is one where already from Roman times

Christian institutions existed or even had existed, or is one

where the old primitive heathenism still prevailed. Only in

the latter case could German paganism develop its full power

and strike its roots deeply and feel at home upon the new soil;

whereas in the other case, the higher culture and spiritual

power of Christianity, even where it had been vanquished by

the barbarians, disturbed the even tenour and naïvete of the

genuinely pagan course of development. The circumstance also

deserves mention, that the marriage of heathen princes with

Christian princesses frequently secured their conversion along

with that of their subjects. In the narrower circles of the home,

the family, the tribe, innumerable instances of the same sort of

thing repeatedly occurred. There is something specially Germanic,

in the prominent position which German feeling had assigned to

the wife: _Inesse quin etiam_, says Tacitus, _sanctum aliquid

et providum putant; nec aut consilia earum adspernantur, aut

responsa negligunt_.[201]

§ 75.3. =Mode of Conversion in the Church of these Times.=--Apart

from the too frequent practice of Christian rulers to secure

conversions by the sword, baptism and conversion were commonly

regarded as an _opus operatum_, and whole crowds of heathens

without any knowledge of saving truth, with no real change of

heart and mind, were received into the church by baptism. No one

can approve this. But it must be admitted that only in this way

could striking and rapid results have been reached; that indeed

in the stage of childhood, in which the Germans then were, it

had a certain measure of justification. By the history even of

its attack upon German paganism an entirely different career of

conflict and victory was marked out to Christianity than that

through which it had to pass in its conquests of Græco-Roman

paganism. In this latter case it had to confront a high form of

civilization which had outlived its powers and had lost itself

in its own perplexities, which for a thousand years had proved

in its civilization and history a παιδαγωγὸς εἰς Χριστόν.

All this was wanting to the Germans. If the Roman world might

be compared to a proselyte who in ripe, well proved and much

experienced maturity receives baptism, the conversion of the

Germans may be compared to the baptism of children.--Gregory the

Great had at first directed the missionaries to the Anglo-Saxons

(§ 77, 4) to destroy the idol temples of converted heathens. But

further reflection convinced him that it was better to transform

them into Christian churches, and now he laid it down as a maxim

in Roman Catholic missions that pagan forms of worship and places

of worship which were capable of modification to Christian uses

should be carefully preserved and respected: “_Nam duris mentibus

simul omnia abscindere impossibile esse dubium non est, quia et

is qui summum locum ascendere nititur, gradibus vel passibus,

non autem saltibus, elevatur._” It was a fateful, two-edged word,

which led Catholic missions to a brilliant outward success, but

has saturated the Catholic worship and life with a pagan leaven,

which works in it powerfully down to the present day.

§ 76. THE VICTORY OF CATHOLICISM OVER ARIANISM.[202]

The first conversions of multitudes of the German races occurred

at the time when Arianism had reached its climax in the Roman empire.

Internal disturbances and external pressure compelled a portion of

the Goths in the second half of the fourth century to throw themselves

into the arms of the East Roman empire and to purchase its protection

by the adoption of Arian Christianity. The missionary zeal of the

national clergy, with bishop Ulfilas at their head, though we cannot

indicate particularly his methods, spread Arianism in a short time

over a multitude of the German nationalities. Down to the end of

the fifth century Arianism was professed by the larger portion of

the German world, by Visigoths and Ostrogoths, by Vandals, Suevi and

Burgundians, by the Rugians and Herulians, by the Longobards, etc. And

as the early friendly relations to the Roman empire had given Arianism

a foundation among those peoples, so the later hostile relations to the

Roman empire now turned Catholic made them cling tenaciously to their

Arian heresy. Arianism had more and more assumed the character of a

national German Christianity, and it almost seemed as if the whole

German world, and with it the universal history of the future, were

its secure prey. But a quick end was made of these expectations by

the conversion of one of its chief branches to Catholicism. The Franks

had from the first pursued a policy which was directed rather to

the strengthening of the future of its brother tribes, than to the

accelerating of the downfall of the Roman empire. This policy led them

to embrace Catholicism. Trusting to the protection of the Catholic

Christians’ God and the sympathies of the whole Catholic West, the

Frankish rulers took advantage of the call to suppress heresy and

conquer heretics’ lands. To renounce heresy so as to find occasion for

attacking the territories of heretics, was probably with them a matter

of political necessity.

§ 76.1. =The Goths in the lands of the Danube.=--From the middle

of the 3rd century Christianity had found an entrance among the

Goths through Roman prisoners of war. At the Council of Nicæa

in A.D. 325 there was present a Gothic bishop Theophilus. From

A.D. 348 the scion of an imprisoned Cappadocian Christian family,

=Ulfilas=[203] by name, wrought as bishop among the Visigoths,

already attached to the Arian confession, with so much zeal and

success for the spread of Christianity that the hatred of the

pagans was roused to such a pitch that in A.D. 355 they began

a bloody persecution of the Christians. With a great part of the

Gothic Christians Ulfilas fled over the Danube, and the emperor

Constantius, who honoured him as a second Moses, assigned him

a dwelling-place in Mount Hæmus. Ulfilas continued his work for

thirty-three years with many tokens of blessing. In order that

the Goths might have access to the original fount of saving

knowledge, he translated the Holy Scriptures into their language,

for which he invented a written character of his own. He died

in A.D. 381. A short biography of the Apostle of the Goths

was written by his disciple Auxentius, bishop of Dorostorus

in Silistria, which gives an account at first hand of his life

and doctrine. But not all Gothic Christians were expatriated

with Ulfilas. Those who remained behind were a leaven which

ever continued to expand and spread. So Athanaric, king of the

Thervingians, about A.D. 370, started a new and cruel persecution

against them. Soon afterwards a rebellion broke out among the

pagan Thervingians. At the head of the malcontents was Frithigern.

He was subdued, but got aid from the emperor Valens and in

gratitude for the help given adopted the Arian religion of

the emperor. This was the first conversion in multitude among

the Goths. A second followed not long after. The Huns had rushed

down like a whirlwind in A.D. 375 and destroyed the empire of the

Ostrogoths. A part of these were obliged to join the Huns; while

another fled into the country of the Thervingians. These last

again were driven before the conquerors and crossed the Danube

under Frithigern and Alaviv, where in A.D. 376 Valens gave

them a settlement on condition that they should profess Arian

Christianity. But this friendship did not last long, and Valens

fell in A.D. 378 fighting against them. Theodosius, the restorer

of the Catholic faith in the Roman empire, made peace with them.

They retained, however, their Arian Confession, which spread

from them in a way not yet explained to the Ostrogoths and other

related tribes. Chrysostom started a Catholic mission among them,

but it was stopped at his death.

§ 76.2. =The Visigoths in Gaul and Spain.=--The death of

Theodosius in A.D. 395 and the partition of his empire gave

the signal to the Visigoths to attempt securing for themselves

more room. Alaric devastated Greece, broke in upon Italy in

search of prey and plundered Rome in A.D. 410. His successor

Athaulf descended upon southern Gaul, and Wallia founded there

a Visigoth empire with Toulouse for its capital, which under

Euric, who died in A.D. 483, reached the summit of its glory.

Euric extended his kingdom in Gaul, and in A.D. 475, conquered

the most of Spain. He sought to strengthen his government by

having one system of law and one religion, but in his projected

conversion of his subjects to Arianism, he met with unexpected

opposition, which he sought in vain to put down by a severe

persecution of the Catholics. The Roman population and the

Catholic bishops longed for a Catholic government and placed

their hopes in the Frankish king Clovis who had been converted

in A.D. 496. As saviour and avenger of the Catholic faith Clovis

completely destroyed the Visigoth power on this side the Pyrenees

in a battle at Vouglé near Poitiers in A.D. 507. In Spain,

however, the Visigoths retained their power and persisted in

their efforts to convert all to the Arian faith. Under the

violent Leovigild these efforts culminated in A.D. 585 in a

cruel persecution. His son and successor Reccared, however,

saw the vanity and danger of this policy and took the opposite

course. At the third Synod of Toledo in A.D. 589 he adopted the

Catholic faith and with the co-operation of the able metropolitan

Leander of Seville secured complete ascendency for Catholicism

throughout the empire. Under the later kings the Visigoth power

sank lower and lower amid the treacheries, murders and revolts of

internal factions, and in A.D. 711 the last king of the Visigoths,

Roderick, after a bloody fight at Xeres de la Frontera yielded to

the Saracens who had rushed down from Africa upon Spain.

§ 76.3. =The Vandals in Africa.=--Early in the 5th century

the Vandals, who were even then Arian Christians, combining

with the Alani and Suevi, made a descent from Pannonia upon

Gaul in A.D. 406 and from thence upon Spain in A.D. 409, and

made dreadful havoc of these rich and fertile lands. In A.D. 428

the Roman proconsul of Africa, Boniface, unjustly accused of

treason by the Roman government, in his straits called in the

aid of the Vandals. Their king Genseric went in A.D. 429 with

50,000 men. Boniface, however, was meanwhile reconciled with

his government and did all in his power to get the barbarians

to retire. But all in vain. Genseric conquered Africa and founded

there a powerful Vandal empire. In A.D. 455 he even made an

attack upon Rome, which was plundered by his hordes for fourteen

days. In order to prevent any sympathy being shown by Africa

for Rome he determined to secure throughout his empire uniform

profession of the Arian creed, and in prosecuting this purpose

during his fifty years’ reign exercised continual cruelties.

He died in A.D. 477. But the African Catholics were faithful to

their creed unto death and went forth to martyrdom in a spirit

worthy of their ancestors of the 2nd or 3rd centuries. His

son Hunneric allowed them only a short respite and began again

in A.D. 483 the bloody work. He died in A.D. 484. Under his

successor Guntamund [Gunthamund], who died in A.D. 496, a stop

was put to the persecution; but Thrasamund [Thrasimund], who died

in A.D. 523, again adopted bloody measures. Hilderic, who died

in A.D. 530, a man of mild and generous temper, and the son of

a Catholic mother, openly favoured the Catholics. Gelimer, a

great-grandson of Genseric, put himself at the head of the Arians

whom Hilderic’s catholic sympathies had alienated, took Hilderic

prisoner and had him executed. But before he could carry out the

intended persecution, Justinian’s general Belisarius marched into

Africa, annihilated the Vandal army in a battle near Tricameron

in A.D. 533, and overthrew the Vandal empire.[204]

§ 76.4. =The Suevi= were still heathens when they entered Spain

with the Vandals in A.D. 409. Here under their king Rechiar they

adopted the Catholic faith. But Remismund to please the Visigoths

went over to Arianism in A.D. 465 with the whole people. Carraric,

who thought he owed the cure of his son to the relics of Martin

of Tours, passed over again to Catholicism in A.D. 550. With

the co-operation of Martin, metropolitan of Braga, he converted

his people, and a Provincial Synod at Braga in A.D. 563 under

Theodimir I. completed the work. The empire of the Suevi was

destroyed by Leovigild king of the Visigoths, in A.D. 585.

§ 76.5. =The Burgundians= carried on by the irresistible advance

of Vandals, Suevi and Alani from their home on the Main and the

Neckar, where they had adopted the Catholic faith, founded an

independent kingdom in the Jura district. Here they came into

contact with the Visigoths and for the most part fell away to

Arianism. Of Gundiac’s four sons, who divided the empire among

them, only Chilperic II., the father of Clotilda, remained

Catholic. By fratricide his brother Gundobald secured complete

sovereignty. The bishop Avitus of Vienne (§ 53, 5), however,

vigorously opposed Arianism, and to secure its suppression called

a Council at Epaon in A.D. 517, the decisions of which were

recognised by Sigismund, Gundobald’s son, and were made valid

throughout the empire. But even this did not satisfy Clotilda,

the wife of the Frankish king Clovis, as an atonement for her

father’s death. Her sons, urged by their mother to prove avengers

of her father’s blood, made an end of the Burgundian empire in

A.D. 534.

§ 76.6. =The Rugians=, in combination with the Herulians,

Scyrians and Turcellingians, had founded an independent kingdom

in the Old Roman Noricum, the Lower Austria of to-day. Arianism

had been introduced among them by the Goths but without the

complete expulsion of paganism. The Romans among them attached to

Catholicism were sorely oppressed. But from A.D. 454, =Severinus=

wrought among them like a messenger from heaven to bless, help

and comfort the heavily burdened. He died in A.D. 482. Even from

the barbarians he won the deepest reverence, and over heathens

and Arians he had an almost magical power. He prophesied to the

Scyrian Odoacer his future greatness. This prince in A.D. 476

put an end to the West Roman empire and ruled ably and wisely

as king of Italy for seventeen years. He put an end too to Arian

fanaticism in Rugiland in A.D. 487 by overthrowing the empire of

the Rugians. But in A.D. 489 the Ostrogoth Theodoric came down

upon Italy, conquered Ravenna after a three years’ siege, took

Odoacer prisoner and in a wild drunken revel had him put to death

in A.D. 493.

§ 76.7. =The Ostrogoths= when they conquered Italy had already

for a long time been Arians, but were free from that fanaticism

which so often characterized German Arianism. Theodoric granted

full liberty to Catholicism, spared, protected and prized Roman

culture, in all which certainly his famous minister Cassiodorus

(§ 47, 23) had no small share. This liberal-minded tolerance was

indeed made easy to the king by the thirty-five years’ schism of

that time (§ 52, 5), which prevented any suspicions of danger to

the state from the combination of Roman and Byzantine Catholics.

And in fact, when this schism was healed in A.D. 519, Theodoric

began to interest himself more in Arianism and to give way

to such suspicions. He died in A.D. 526. The confusions that

followed his death were taken advantage of by the emperor

Justinian for the reconquest of Italy. His general Narses

annihilated the last remnants of the Ostrogoth power in A.D. 554.

The Byzantine government again rose upon the ruins of the Goths,

and in A.D. 567 established the exarchate with Ravenna as its

capital. For the time being Arianism was completely destroyed

in Italy.[205]

§ 76.8. =The Longobards in Italy.=--In A.D. 569 the Longobards

under Alboin made a descent upon Italy from the lands of the

Danube, and conquered what has been called Lombardy after them,

with its capital Ticinum, now Pavia. His successors extended

their conquests farther south, till at last only the farthest

point of Italy, the duchies of Naples, Rome and Perugia, Ravenna

with its subject cities and Venice, acknowledged Byzantine rule.

Excited by desire of plunder and political jealousy, the Arian

Longobards warred incessantly for twenty years with Roman

culture and Roman Catholicism. But after this first outburst of

persecution had been stilled, religious indolence won the upper

hand and the Arian clergy were not roused from their indifference

to spiritual things by the growing zeal for conversions which

characterized the Catholic bishops. Pope Gregory the Great,

A.D. 590-604, devoted himself unweariedly to the task, and was

powerfully supported by a Bavarian princess, the zealous Catholic

queen Theodelinde. The Longobards were so enamoured of this

fair and amiable queen that, when her first husband Anthari was

murdered in A.D. 590, one year after their marriage, they allowed

her to choose for herself one of the dukes to be her husband and

their king. Her choice fell on Agilulf, who indeed himself still

continued an Arian, but did not prevent the spread of Catholicism

among his people. Their daughter Gundiberge, married successively

to two Longobard kings, Ariowald († A.D. 636) and Rothari

(† A.D. 652) was an equally zealous protectress of the Catholic

church; and with Rothari’s successor Aribert, brother’s son of

Theodelinde, who died in A.D. 663, begins the series of Catholic

rulers of the Longobards.--Continuation, § 82, 1.

§ 76.9. =The Franks in Gaul.=--When the West Roman empire was

overthrown by Odoacer in A.D. 476, the Roman authority was still

for a long time maintained in Gaul by the proconsul Syagrius.

But the Merovingian Clovis, A.D. 481-511, put an end to it by

the battle of Soissons in A.D. 486. In A.D. 493 he married the

Burgundian princess Clotilda, and she, a zealous Catholic, used

every effort to convert her pagan husband. The national pride

of the Frank resisted long, but she got permission to have her

firstborn son baptized. The boy, however, died in his baptismal

robes, and Clovis regarded this as a punishment from his gods.

Nevertheless on the birth of his second son he was unable to

resist the entreaties of his beloved wife. He too sickened after

his baptism; but when contrary to expectation he recovered amid

the fervent prayers of the mother, the heathen father confessed

that prayer to the Christian’s God is more powerful than Woden’s

vengeance. He remembered this when threatened in A.D. 496 at

Tolbiac with loss of the battle, of his life and of his empire

in the war with the Alemanni. Prayer to the national gods had

proved fruitless. He now turned in prayer to the God of the

Christians, promising to own allegiance to Him, if He should

get the victory. The fortune of battle soon turned. The army and

kingdom of the Alemanni were destroyed. At his baptism at Rheims

on Christmas Eve, A.D. 496, Archbishop Remigius addressed him

thus: “Bend thy neck, proud Sigamber; adore what thou hast burnt,

burn what thou hast adored!” The later tradition, first reported

by Hincmar of Rheims in the 9th century, relates that when the

church officer with the anointing oil could not get forward

because of the crowd, in answer to Remigius’ prayer a white dove

brought an oil flask from heaven, out of which all the kings of

the Franks from that day have been anointed. The conversion of

Clovis, soon followed by that of the nobles and the people, seems

really to have been a matter of conviction and genuine according

to the measure of his knowledge of God. He made a bargain with

the Christian’s God and fulfilled the obligations under which

he had placed himself. Of an inner change of heart we can indeed

find no trace. There was, however, no mention of that in his

bargain. Just after his conversion he commits the most atrocious

acts of faithlessness, treachery and secret murder. The Catholic

clergy of the whole West nevertheless celebrated in him a second

Constantine, called of God as avenger upon heathenism and Arian

heresy, and asked of him nothing more, seeing in this the task

which providence had assigned him. The conversion of Clovis was

indeed in every respect an occurrence of the greatest moment.

The rude Arianism of the Germans, incapable of culture, received

here its deathblow. The civilization and remnants of culture of

the ancient world found in the Catholic church its only suitable

vehicle for introduction into the German world; and now the

Franks were at the head of it and laid the foundation of a new

universal empire which would for centuries form the central

point of universal history. On the work of Friddin [Fridolin]

and Columbanus in the land of the Franks, see § 77, 7.

§ 77. VICTORY OF THE ROMISH OVER THE OLD BRITISH CHURCH.[206]

According to an ancient but more than doubtful tradition a British

king Lucius about the middle of the 2nd century is said to have asked

Christian missionaries of the Roman bishop Eleutherus and by them to

have been converted along with his people. This, however, is certain,

that at the end of the 3rd century (§ 22, 6) Christianity had taken

root in Roman Britain, probably through intercourse with the Romans.

Down to the Anglo-Saxon invasion in A.D. 449, the British church

certainly kept up regular communication with that of the continent,

especially with Gaul. From that time, being driven back into North

and South Wales, it was completely isolated from the continental church;

but all the more successfully it spread itself out among its neighbours

in the allied tribes of Ireland and Scotland, among the former through

Patrick, the Apostle of the Irish, among the latter by Columba, the

Apostle of the Scots, and followed a thoroughly independent course of

development. When one hundred and fifty years later, in A.D. 596 the

long interrupted intercourse with Rome was again renewed by a Romish

mission to the Anglo-Saxons, several divergences from Roman practice

were discovered among the Britons in respect of worship, constitution

and discipline. Rome insisted that these should be corrected, but

the Britons insisted on retaining them and repudiated the pretensions

of the Romish hierarchy. The keen struggle which therefore arose,

beginning amid circumstances that promised a brilliant success to

the British church, ended with complete submission to Rome. The

battle-field was then transferred to Germany, and there too in spite

of the resolute resistance of their apostles the contest concluded

with the same result (§ 78). The struggle was not merely one of highly

tragic interest but of incomparable importance for the history of

Europe. For had the result been, as for a time it seemed likely that

it would be, in favour of the old British church, not only England but

also all Germany would have taken up a decidedly anti-papal attitude,

and not only the ecclesiastical but also the political history of

the Middle Ages would have most likely been led into an altogether

different course.

§ 77.1. =The Conversion of the Irish.=--Among the Celtic

inhabitants of the island of Ireland there were some individual

Christians from the beginning of the 5th century. The mission

of a Roman deacon Palladius in A.D. 431 was without result. But

in the following year, A.D. 432, the true apostle of the Irish,

=Patrick=, with twenty-four companions, stept upon the shore of

the island. The only reliable source of information about his

life and work is an autobiography which he left behind him,

_Confessiones_. According to it he was grandson of a presbyter

and son of a deacon residing at Banava, probably in Britain, not

likely in Gaul. In his sixteenth year he was taken to Ireland by

Irish pirates and sold to an Irish chief whose flocks he tended

for six years. After his escape by flight the love of Christ

which glowed within his heart gave him no rest and his dreams

urged him to bring the glorious liberty of the children of God

to those who so long kept him bound under hard slavery. Familiar

with the language and the customs of the country, he gathered the

people by beat of drum into an open field and told them of the

sufferings of Christ for man’s salvation. The Druids, priests

of the Celts, withstood him vigorously, but his attractive and

awe-inspiring personality gained the victory over them. Without

a drop of martyr’s blood Ireland was converted in a few years,

and was thickly strewn with churches and monasteries. Patrick

himself had his residence at Macha, round which the town of

Armagh, afterwards the ecclesiastical metropolis, sprang up. He

died about A.D. 465, and left the island church in a flourishing

condition. The numerous monasteries, in which calm piety

flourished along with diligent study of Scripture and from which

many teachers and missionaries went forth, won for the land the

name of _Insula Sanctorum_. Only after the robber raids of the

Danes in the 9th century did the glory of the Irish monasteries

begin to fade.[207]

§ 77.2. =The Mission to Scotland.=--A Briton, Ninian, educated

at Rome, wrought, about A.D. 430, among the Celtic =Picts= and

=Scots= in Scotland or Caledonia. But those converted by him fell

back into paganism after his death. The true Apostle of Scotland

was the Irishman =Columba=. In A.D. 563 he settled with twelve

disciples on the small Hebridean island Hy. Its common name,

Iona, seems to have originated by a clerical error from Ioua,

and was then regarded as the Hebrew equivalent of Columba, a dove.

Icolmkill means Columba’s cell. Here he founded a monastery and

a church, and converted from this centre all Caledonia. Although

to the last only a presbyter and abbot of this monastery, he had

all the authority of an apostle over the Scottish church and its

bishops, a position that was maintained by successive abbots of

Iona. He died in A.D. 597. The numerous monasteries founded by

him vied with the Irish in learning, piety and missionary zeal.

The original monastery of Iona flourished in a superlative

degree.[208]

§ 77.3. =The Peculiarities of the Celtic Church.=--In the

Anglo-Saxon struggle the following were the main points at issue.

1. On the part of Rome it was demanded that they should submit

to the archiepiscopal jurisdiction instituted by the pope,

which the British refused as an unrighteous assumption.

2. The British had an =Easter Canon= different from that

of the Romish church. They were indeed nothing else than

Quartodecimans, although they like these in ignorance

referred to the Johannine tradition (§ 34, 2), but celebrated

their Easter always on a Sunday, the settling of which they

decided according to an 84 years’ cycle of the moon, after

Rome had adopted a cycle of 19 years (§ 56, 3).

3. The Celtic clergy had also a different =Tonsure= from the

Roman _Tonsura Petri_ which seems to have been the Greek

_Tonsura Pauli_ (§ 45, 1), although the zealous advocate of

the Roman customs, Ceolfrid, abbot of Jarrow, in a letter

to Naitan, king of the Picts, derives it from Simon Magus.

4. Besides this there was also the question of the Marriage

of Priests, which indeed the popish Anglo-Saxon Archbishop

Augustine declared himself at first willing to allow to the

British, which, however, was subsequently so passionately

denounced by Boniface as _fornicatio_ and _adulterium_.

5. If, further, according to Bede’s statement, besides their

divergent views about Easter, the British _et alia plurima

imitati ecclesiasticæ contraria faciebant_, this certainly

cannot be understood of doctrinal divergences, but

only of different forms of constitution and worship,

or ecclesiastical habits and customs, as might be well

expected in churches that had been completely separated

since A.D. 449. We need only think, _e.g._, of the progress

made by the idea of the papal primacy (§ 46, 7-10), the

consolidation and reconstruction of monasticism under

Benedict (§ 85), the codification of Roman canon law by

Dionysius Exiguus (§ 43, 3), the modification of the idea

of penance since Leo the Great (§ 61, 1) and the development

of the doctrine of the mass down to Gregory the Great

(§ 58, 3; 59, 6). The most considerable peculiarity of

constitution in the Celtic church seems to have been that

above referred to in placing the abbots of the principal

monasteries at the head of the hierarchy. Only in one

passage (Bede, III. 19) is there mention of ecclesiastical

doctrine: In A.D. 640 Pope John IV. addressed a conciliatory

letter to the Scots in which he warns them against the

Pelagian heresy, “_quam apud eos revivescere didicerat_.”

When then we turn our attention to the Celtic church planted on

the continent at a later period, it is specially Columbanus’ view

of Easter that is regarded in France as heretical. Often and loud

as Boniface lifted up his voice against the horrible heresies

of British, Irish and Scotch intruders, it is found at last that

these consist in the same or similar divergences as those of the

Anglo-Saxons. Not insisting upon the law of celibacy, opposition

to the Roman primacy, the Romish tradition and the Romish canon

law, especially the ever-increasing strictness of the Roman

marriage laws (§ 61, 2), more simple modes of administering the

sacraments and conducting public worship, even in unconsecrated

places in forests and fields,--these and such like were the

heresies complained of.--As concerns the _pro_ and _con._ of

the evangelical purity of the ancient British Christianity, so

highly praised by Ebrard, one occupying an impartial historical

standpoint is justified in expecting that as all the good

development so also all the bad development which had taken

firm root in the common thought and feeling of the church down

to the middle of the 5th century, would not have been uprooted

from the church of Patrick and Columba, so also in the 7th

century it would be still prevalent there. And this expectation

is in general confirmed, so far as our information goes about

all which was not expressly imported from Rome into the British

church. If we deduct the by no means insignificant amount of

unevangelical corruption which was first introduced into the

Romish church during the period between Leo the Great and Gregory

the Great, A.D. 440-604, partly by exaggerating and adorning

elements previously there, partly by bringing in wholly new

elements of ecclesiastical credulity, superstition and mistaken

faith, there still remains for the Celtic church standing outside

of this process of deterioration a relatively purer doctrine. Yet

the Christianity that remains is by no means free of mixture from

unevangelical elements as Jonas of Bobbio himself shows in his

biography of his teacher Columbanus. But the more embittered the

conflict between the British and the Romish churches became over

matters of constitution and worship, the more did differences

in faith and life, which had been overlooked at first, assume

serious proportions, and supported by a careful study of

Scripture, led to greater evangelical freedom and purity on

the side of the British. This is thoroughly confirmed by Ebrard’s

numerous quotations from the literature of that period.[209]

§ 77.4. =The Romish Mission to the Anglo-Saxons.=--To protect

himself against the robber raids of the Picts and Scots, the

British king Vortigern sought the aid of the Germans inhabiting

the opposite shores. Two princes of the Jutes, Hengist and Horsa,

driven from their home, led a horde of Angles and Saxons over

to Britain in A.D. 449. New hordes kept following those that had

gone before and after a hundred years the British were driven

back into the western parts of the island. The incomers founded

seven kingdoms; at the head of all stood the prince of one of

the divisions who was called principal king, the Bretwalda. The

Anglo-Saxons were heathens and the bitter feelings that prevailed

between them and the ancient Britons prevented the latter

from carrying on missionary operations among the former. The

opportunity which the British missed was seized upon by Rome.

The sight of Anglo-Saxon youths exposed as slaves in the Roman

market inspired a pious monk, afterwards Pope Gregory I., with

a desire to evangelize a people of such noble bodily appearance.

He wished himself to take the work in hand, but was hindered

by the call to the chair of Peter. He now bought Anglo-Saxon

youths in order to train them as missionaries to their

fellow-countrymen. But when soon thereafter the Bretwalda

Ethelbert of Kent married the Frankish princess Bertha, Gregory

sent the Roman abbot =Augustine= to England with forty monks in

A.D. 596. Ethelbert gave them a residence and support in his own

capital Dorovernum, now Canterbury. At Pentecost the following

year he received baptism and 10,000 of his subjects followed his

example. Augustine asked from Gregory further instructions about

relics, books, etc. The pope sent him what he sought and besides

the pallium with archiepiscopal rights over the whole Saxon and

British church. Augustine now demanded of the Britons submission

to his archiepiscopal authority and that they should work

together with him for the conversion of the Saxons. But the

British would do nothing of the sort. A personal interview with

their chiefs under Augustine’s oak in A.D. 603 was without result.

At a second conference everything was spoilt by Augustine’s

prelatic pride in refusing to stand up on the arrival of the

Britons. Inclined to compliance the Britons had just proposed

this at the suggestion of a member as a sign. Augustine died

in A.D. 605. The pope nominated as his successor his previous

assistant Laurentius. Ethelbert’s heathen son and successor,

Eadbald, oppressed the missionaries so much that they decided

to withdraw from the field, in A.D. 616. Only Laurentius delayed

his retreat in order to make a final attempt at the conversion of

Eadbald. He was successful. Eadbald was baptized; the fugitives

returned to their former posts. In the kingdom of Essex Augustine

had already established Christianity, but a change of government

had again restored paganism. The gospel, however, soon afterwards

got entrance into Northumbria, the most powerful of the seven

kingdoms. King Edwin, the founder of Edinburgh, won the hand of

the Kentish princess Ethelberga, daughter of Bertha. With her,

as spiritual adviser of the young queen, went the monk Paulinus,

A.D. 625. These two persuaded the king and he again persuaded

his nobles and the priests to embrace Christianity. At a popular

assembly Paulinus proved the truth of Christianity, and the

chief priest Coisi, setting at defiance the gods of his fathers,

flung with his own hand a spear into the nearest idol temple.

The people thought him mad and looked for Woden’s vengeance.

When it came not, they obeyed the command of Coisi and burnt

down the temple, A.D. 627. Paulinus was made bishop of Eboracum,

now York, which pope Honorius on sending a pallium raised to

a second metropolitanate. Edwin, however, fell in battle in

A.D. 633 fighting against Penda, the pagan king of Mercia;

Paulinus had to flee and the church of Northumbria was almost

entirely rooted up.[210]

§ 77.5. =Celtic Missions among the Anglo-Saxons.=--The saviour

of Northumbria was Oswald, A.D. 635-642, the son of a former

king who had been driven out by Edwin. He had found refuge as

a fugitive in the monastery of Hy and was there converted to

Christianity. To restore the church in Northumbria the monks

sent him one of their number, the amiable Aidan. Oswald acted as

his interpreter until he acquired the Saxon language. His success

was unexampled. Oswald founded a religious establishment for him

on the island of Lindisfarne, and supported by new missionaries

from Hy, Aidan converted the whole of the northern lands to

Christianity. Oswald fell in battle against Penda. He was

succeeded as king and also as Bretwalda by his brother Oswy.

Irish missionaries joined the missionary monks of Hy, rivalling

them in their exertions, and by A.D. 660 all the kingdoms of

the Heptarchy had been converted to Christianity, and down to

this date all, with the exception of Kent, which alone still

adhered to the Romish church, belonged to the ancient British

communion.[211]

§ 77.6. =The Celtic Element Driven out of the Anglo-Saxon

Church.=--Oswy perceived the political danger attending the

continuance of such ecclesiastical disputes. He succeeded in

convincing also his neighbour kings of the need of ecclesiastical

uniformity. The only question was as to which of the two should

be recognised. The choice fell upon the Romish. Oswy himself

most decidedly preferred it. His wife Eanfled, Edwin’s daughter,

was a zealous partisan of the Romish church, and on her side

stood a man of extraordinary power, prudence and persistence, the

abbot Wilfrid, a native Northumbrian, trained in the monastery of

Lindisfarne. He had, however, visited Rome, and since then used

all his eloquence and skill in intrigue in order to lay all

England at the feet of the pope. The queen and the abbot wrought

together upon the Bretwalda, and he in his turn upon the other

princes. To these personal influences were added others of a

more general kind: the preference for things foreign over those

of home growth, the brilliancy and preponderating weight of the

Romish church, and above all, the gulf, not yet by any means

bridged over, between the Saxons and the British. When secret

negociations toward the desired end had been carried out, Oswy

called a general Synod at the nunnery of Streoneshalch, now

Whitby, _Synodus Pharensis_, A.D. 664. Here all the civil and

ecclesiastical notabilities of the Heptarchy were assembled.

The chief speaker on the Roman side was Wilfrid, on the Celtic

side bishop Colman of Lindisfarne. The observance of Easter was

the first subject of discussion. Wilfrid referred to the Apostle

Peter, to whom the Lord said: Thou art Peter, etc. Then Oswy

asked Colman whether it was true that the Lord had said so to

Peter. Colman could not deny it, and Oswy declared that he would

follow him who had the power to open for them the gates of heaven.

And so the question was settled. Oswy as Bretwalda carried out

with energy the decisions of the Council, and within a few weeks

the scissors had completed the conversion of the whole Heptarchy

to the Roman tonsure and the Roman faith.[212]

§ 77.7. =Spread and Overthrow of the British Church on the

Continent.=--The first Celtic missionary who crossed the channel

was the Irishman =Fridolin=, about A.D. 500. With several

companions he settled near Poitiers in Aquitaine which was

then under the Visigoths, converted the Arian bishop of that

place together with his congregation to trinitarian orthodoxy,

and, under the protection of Clovis, who had meanwhile, A.D. 507,

overthrown the Visigoth power in Gaul, founded churches and

monasteries. Afterwards he wrought among the heathen Alemanni in

Switzerland (§ 78, 1). We have fuller and more reliable accounts

of Columba the younger, usually called =Columbanus=, an Irishman

by birth, who, in A.D. 590, with twelve zealous companions, went

forth from the British monastery of Bangor in Co. Down, Ireland,

and settled among the Vosges mountains. Here they founded the

monastery of Luxovium, now Luxeuil, as centre with many others

affiliated to it. They cultivated the wilderness and wrought

laboriously in restoring church discipline and order in a region

that had been long spiritually neglected. But their strict

adherence to the British mode of observing Easter caused offence.

The severe moral discipline which they enjoined was galling to

the careless Burgundian clergy, and the aged Brunehilda swore

to compass their death and destruction, because of the influence

adverse to her authority which they exercised upon her grandson,

the young king Theodoric II. Thus it happened that in A.D. 610,

after twenty years’ labours, they were driven away. They turned

then to Switzerland (§ 78, 1). But when persecuted here also,

Columbanus with his followers migrated to Italy, about A.D. 612,

where, under Agilulf’s protection (§ 76, 8), he founded the

celebrated monastery of Bobbio and contended against Arianism.

The _Regula Columbani_ extant in several MSS. constitutes a

written guide to Christian piety and breathes a free evangelical

spirit, while the annexed _Regula cœnobialis fratrum de Hibernia_,

also ascribed to him, bears a rigoristic ascetic character,

enjoining frequent flagellations. Columbanus died in A.D. 615.

The monks of his order joined the Benedictines in the 9th century.

On his personal relation to the Romish chair during his residence

in Gaul and Italy we get some information from three of his

epistles still extant. In the first he asks Gregory the Great

for an explanation of the Gallic observance of Easter, and in

the second he asks Boniface IV. to confirm his old British mode

of reckoning Easter. In both he recognises the pope as occupier

of the chair of Peter, and in the second greets him as head of

all the churches of Europe and describes the Roman church as the

chief seat of the orthodox faith. In the third, on the other hand,

he demands of the pope in firm terms an account of his own faith

and that of the Roman church. He did so in consequence of a

report having reached him, probably through the mention by the

5th œcum. Council (§ 52, 6) of a schism between Rome and Northern

Italy, that the Roman chair had fallen into the heresies of

Eutyches and Nestorius.--The ablest of Columbanus’ followers

was Gallus or St. Gall. He remained in Switzerland and had his

faithfulness rewarded by rich success. After Columbanus had been

expelled from France traces of Celtic ecclesiastical institutions

may indeed for a considerable time have lingered on among his

Frankish scholars and friends animated by the missionary zeal

of their master. For from their midst as it would seem proceeded

most of those Frankish missionaries who carried the gospel in the

7th century to the German lands (§ 78). But from the time of the

overthrow of the old Celtic ecclesiastical system at the Synod of

Streoneshalch in A.D. 664, whole troops of its adherents, British,

Irish, Scotch and Anglo-Saxons, crossed the channel to convert

Germany. With very few exceptions, only the names of these men,

and for the most part not even these, have come down to us. But

their zeal and success are witnessed to by the fact that even in

the beginning of the 8th century throughout all the district of

the Rhine, as well as Hesse, Thuringia, Bavaria and Alemannia

we find a network of flourishing churches bearing the impress

of Celtic institutions. And the overthrow of this great and

promising ecclesiastical system, partly by peaceful, partly by

violent transportation into the Romish church, was the work of

the Anglo-Saxon Winfrid, whom the Romanists, quite rightly from

their point of view, honour, under the name of Boniface, as the

Apostle of Germany (§ 78, 4-8).[213]

§ 77.8. =Overthrow of the Old British System in the Iro-Scottish

Church.=--After the British Church had lost, in A.D. 664, all

support in the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy, it could not long maintain

itself in its own original Celtic home. The Scottish kings

on political grounds, in order to avoid giving their Saxon

neighbours an opportunity of gratifying the love of conquest

under the pretext of zeal for the faith, were obliged to

assimilate their church organization with that of the Southerns.

The learned Abbot Adamnan of Hy, when, in A.D. 684, by order

of his king, he visited the Northumbrian court, professed to

be there convinced of the correctness of the Romish observance

of Easter. But when his monks stoutly resisted, he left the

monastery and went on a missionary tour to Ireland where he

urged his views so successfully that in A.D. 701 the most of the

Irish adopted the Roman reckoning. Some years later, in A.D. 710,

Naitan II., the powerful king of the Picts, asked instructions

from Abbot Ceolfrid about the superiority of the Romish practice

regarding Easter and the tonsure, forced his whole people to

adopt the Romish doctrine and banished the obstinate priests.

Finally, the Anglo-Saxon Egbert, educated in Ireland, but

subsequently won over to the Romish church, induced by visions

and tempests to abandon his projected mission to the heathen

Frisians (§ 78, 3), and to devote himself to what was regarded

as the more arduous task of the conversion of the schismatical

monks of Hy, succeeded in A.D. 716 in so far overcoming their

obstinacy that they at least gave up their divergent tonsure and

Easter reckoning. Thereafter the Romanists were satisfied with

the gradual Romanizing of the whole Celtic regions in the west

and north. In worship, constitution and discipline all remained

for a long time as it had been of old. The Roman law of celibacy

could not win its way. Public worship was conducted and the

sacraments dispensed in the language of the people and in the

simple forms of primitive times. Canon law was almost everywhere

made subordinate to the customs of the national church. Indeed,

when in A.D. 843, the kingdom of the Picts, where the papacy

had made most progress, went by inheritance to the Scottish

king Kenneth, he restored even there the old ecclesiastical

institutions of their fathers. Malcolm III., who died in

A.D. 1093, was the first of the Scottish kings to begin the

complete, thorough and lasting Romanizing of the whole country.

His marriage with the English princess Margaret, a zealous

supporter of the papacy, marks the beginning of that policy

which was carried out and completed by their son David, who

died in A.D. 1152. In Ireland the English conquest of A.D. 1171

under Henry III. prepared the way for the complete Romanizing

of the island. Still in both Scotland and Ireland down to the

14th century many of the old Celtic priests survived. To them was

given the Celtic name Kele-de, _servus_ or _vir Dei_, Latinized

as Colidei, and in modern form, Culdees. They were secular

priests who, bound by a strict rule, in companies generally of

twelve with a prior over them, like a Catholic canon (§ 84, 1),

devoted themselves to a common spiritual life and activity,

maintaining an existence in many places down to the end of

the 8th century. The origin of the rule under which they lived

is still very obscure. It allowed them to marry but enforced

abstinence from marital intercourse during the period of their

service, and required of them, besides the charge of the public

services, special attention to the poor. In Scotland particularly

their societies soon became so numerous that almost the whole

secular clergy went over to them. By the forcible introduction

of regular canons they were crushed more and more down to the

11th century, or where they still existed, they were deprived

of the right of pastoral supervision and administration of the

sacraments and reduced to subordinate positions, such as that

of choir singers.--The usual application of the name of Culdees

to all, even earlier representatives of the Celtic church, is

quite unjustifiable.[214]

§ 78. THE CONVERSION AND ROMANIZING OF GERMANY.[215]

In the Roman period the regions of the Rhine and the Danube had

become Christian countries, but the rush of the migration of the

peoples had partly destroyed the Christian foundations, partly overlaid

them with heathen superstitions. By the end of the 6th century a great

part of Germany was already under the dominion of the Franks, and,

to distinguish it from the country of the West Franks or Neustria,

was called Austrasia or the land of the East Franks. South-western

and South-eastern Germany (Alemannia, Bavaria, Thuringia) was governed

by native dukes under the often disputed over-lordship of the Franks.

North-western Germany (embracing the Frisians and the Saxons) still

enjoyed undisputed national independence. The first serious attempt

to introduce or restore Christianity in Austrasia began about the end

of the 6th century. The missionaries who took the work in hand went,

partly from Neustria, partly from this side of the Channel. The Irish

and Scottish monasteries were overflowing. Those dwelling in them

had an unconquerable passion for travel and in their hearts an eager

longing to spread Christ’s kingdom by preaching the gospel. This

impulse was greatly strengthened by the overthrow of their national

prestige (§ 77, 6). They were thus out of sympathy with their native

land, and were encouraged to hope that they might win on the opposite

continent what they had lost at home. Crowds of monks from Iro-Scottish

monasteries crossed over into the heathen provinces of Germany. But

Romish Christian Anglo-Saxons, no less fond of travel, impelled by

the same missionary fervour and no slight zeal for their own communion,

followed in their steps. Thus in the 8th century on German soil the

struggle was renewed which at home had been already fought out, to

end again as before in the defeat of the Celtic claims. In almost all

German countries we find traces of Irish or Scottish missionaries and

married priests, reproachfully styled adulterers. What mainly secured

for the Anglo-Saxons the victory over them was the practical talent for

organization shown by the former, and their attachment to the imposing

spiritual power of the papal see. To them alone is Germany indebted

for her incorporation into the Roman ecclesiastical union; for even

the Frankish missionaries for the most part had no connection with

Rome.--Most rapid and successful progress was made by the mission

where there had previously been Christian institutions, _e.g._ in

the provinces of the Rhine and the Danube. The work was more difficult

on the east of the Scheldt in Friesland, Hesse, Thuringia and Saxony,

where paganism had reigned undisturbed. Mission work was at once

furthered and hindered by the selfish patronage of the Frankish rulers.

Paganism and national liberty, the yoke of Christ and the yoke of the

Franks, seemed inseparably conjoined. The one stood and fell with the

other. The sword of the Franks was to make the way for the cross of

Christ, and the result of preaching was to afford an introduction to

political subjection. The missionaries submitted regretfully to this

amalgamation of religious and political interests, but it was generally

unavoidable.

§ 78.1. =South-Western Germany.=--Here were located the

powerful race of the =Alemanni=. Of the Christian institutions

of the Roman period only some shadowy remnants were now to be

seen. The diet of Tolbiac in A.D. 496 which gave the Franks a

Christian king, first secured an entrance among the Alemanni

to Christianity. Yet progress was slow, for the Franks did

not resort to force. The revision of Alemannian jurisprudence,

concluded by Dagobert I. about A.D. 630, assumed indeed that the

country was wholly Christian, but it only anticipated what the

country was destined to become. =Fridolin= (§ 77, 7), founder

of the monastery of Seckingen on an island of the Rhine above

Basel, is called the first Apostle of the Alemanni, A.D. 510.

The reports that have reached us of his work are highly legendary

and unreliable. After =Columbanus= in A.D. 610 had been compelled

along with his companions to leave the Frankish territory

(§ 77, 7), he chose Alemannian Switzerland as the field of their

operations. They settled first of all at Tuggen on the Zurich

lake. The fiery zeal with which they destroyed heathen idols,

roused the wrath of the inhabitants, who maltreated them and

drove them away. They next wrought for three years at Bregentz

where they converted many pagans. The main instrument in this

work was =Gallus= who had gained thorough mastery of the language

of the people. Driven from this place also, Columbanus and

his followers settled in Italy. Only =Gallus=, who was ill at

the time, remained behind. He felt obliged, in spite of all

unfavourable circumstances, to carry on the work that had been

begun. In a wild forest dale by the stream Steinach, where he

was held firm by a thorn bush while on his knees praying, he

built a cell, from which arose in later times the famous abbey of

St. Gall. He died, after an eminently useful and successful life

in his 95th year in A.D. 646. He does not seem to have been so

persistent as Columbanus in maintaining the peculiarities of the

British church. His disciple =Magnoald= continued his work and

founded the monastery of Füssen on the Upper Lech in Swabia. At

the same time there wrought at Breisgau the hermit =Trudpert=, an

Irishman, who laid the foundation of the future abbey of Trudpert

at the foot of the Black Forest, and was murdered in A.D. 643

by a servant given up to him for forced labour. Somewhat later

we meet with =Pirminius=, a Frankish cleric, on the Lake of

Constance, where, under the protection of the Frankish ruler

Charles Martel, he founded the monastery of Reichenau in A.D. 724.

A national rising of the Alemanni against the Franks drove him

away after three years; but the monastery remained uninjured. He

then proceeded down the Rhine and founded several monasteries,

the last at Hornbach in the diocese of Metz, where he died in

A.D. 753.

§ 78.2. =South-Eastern Germany.=--After the successful labours

of Severinus (§ 76, 6) the history of the Danubian provinces

is shrouded in thick darkness. A hundred years later we find

there the powerful nation of the Boyars, now Bavarians, with

native dukes descended from Agilulf. Only scanty remnants of

Christianity were to be seen. In A.D. 615 the Frankish abbot

=Eustasius= of Luxeuil, the successor of Columbanus, appears

prosecuting the missionary labours, and struggling against the

so-called heresies of Bonosus and Photinus, remnants probably

of Gothic Arianism. About the middle of the 7th century, at the

court of the Duke of Bavaria, Theodo I., at Regensburg, =Emmeran=,

bishop of Poitiers, laboured for three years. Suddenly he

left the country and made a pilgrimage to Italy. Being charged

with the seduction of the Princess Ota, he was on his journey

in A.D. 652, according to others in A.D. 715, overtaken by her

brother and cruelly murdered. Ota is said at the advice of the

saint himself to have named him as her seducer, in order to

screen the actual seducer from vengeance. The true Apostle of

Bavaria was bishop =Rupert= of Worms. In A.D. 696 he baptized

the Duke Theodo II. with his household, founded many churches

and monasteries, and almost completed the Christianizing of

the country. The centre of his operations was the bishopric of

Salzburg, founded by him. About A.D. 716 he returned to Worms

and died there in A.D. 717. An old tradition describes him as

a Scot, whether in respect of his descent or of his undoubtedly

ecclesiastical tendencies, is uncertain. We find at least no

trace of his having had any connection with Rome. Soon after

him a Frankish itinerant bishop called =Corbinianus= made his

appearance in Bavaria, and was the founder of the episcopal see

at Freisingen, A.D. 724. He was a man of imperious temper and

unbending stubbornness, who exercised discipline with reckless

strictness, rooted out the remnants of pagan superstition, and

founded many churches and monasteries. He died in A.D. 730.--That

the Frankish missionaries were still more or less influenced by

the old British traditions is shown by the fact that Boniface

found the Bavarian church free from Rome. Duke Theodo II. soon

after Rupert’s departure on a pilgrimage to Rome had indeed

entered into relations with Gregory II., in consequence of which

three Roman clerics made their appearance in Bavaria. But the

organization of the Bavarian church committed to them by the

pope could not be carried out on account of political troubles.

Boniface was the first who succeeded in some measure in

doing this.--The Apostle of the neighbouring Thuringians was

an Irishman =Kilian= or Kyllena, who, toward the end of the

7th century, along with twelve companions, entered the province

of Würzburg. These faithful men found the reward of their labours

in the crown of martyrdom. But crowds of their zealous believing

fellow-countrymen followed them, and continued with rich success

the work which they had begun, until, after a hard struggle, they

were obliged to resign the field to Boniface.

§ 78.3. =North-Western Germany.=--In the Middle Rhine provinces

Christian episcopal dioceses had been maintained, but in a feeble

condition and overrun with crowds of heathen people. About the

middle of the 6th century a Frank called =Goar= settled as a

hermit within the bounds of the diocese of Treves, converted

many of the surrounding heathens and put to shame the envious

suspicions of the clergy of Treves, his holiness being attested

according to later legends by many extraordinary miracles. The

beautiful town of St. Goar has grown up round the spot where he

built his cell and church. After him in the same region wrought

a Longobard =Wulflaich= who as a stylite (§ 44, 6), in spite

of the northern climate, preached down to the heathens from

his pillar. But the neighbouring bishops disliked his senseless

asceticism and had the pillar thrown down.--After the Frankish

king Dagobert I. conquered the south of the Netherlands in

A.D. 630, an accomplished Frankish priest, =Amandus=, appeared

at Rome preaching the gospel among the Frisians settled there.

The command given by him for the compulsory baptism of all the

pagans only intensified the hatred against him and his sacred

message. Insulted, maltreated and repeatedly thrown into the

Scheld, he left the country to missionarize among the Basques

of the Pyrenees and then among the Slavs of the Danube. But at

a later period he returned to Ghent, and gained great influence

after having succeeded in converting a rich Frisian called

Bavo, with whose help he built two monasteries. In A.D. 647

he was chosen bishop of Maestricht, but retired in A.D. 649,

notwithstanding the dissuasion of Pope Martin I., on account of

the opposition of his clergy, and then founded the monastery of

Elno, afterwards called St. Amand, near Tournay, where he died

in A.D. 648. During the same period wrought =Eligius=, formerly a

skilful goldsmith at the court of Dagobert, from A.D. 641 bishop

of Noyon, where he died in A.D. 658. He took numerous missionary

journeys for the conversion of the Frisians extending as far

as the Scheld. From this side of the Channel too wistful eyes

had looked over to the Frisian coasts. A Briton said to have

been converted to Romanism by Augustine the Apostle of the

Anglo-Saxons, =Livinus=, appeared as a missionary on the Scheld

about A.D. 650, but was slain by the heathens soon after his

arrival. The celebrated supporter of Romish claims, =Wilfrid=

(§ 77, 6), first preached the gospel to the Frisians living

north of the Scheld. He had been elected archbishop of York, but,

expelled from his bishopric (§ 88, 3), he went to seek protection

at Rome and was cast by a storm on the Frisian shores, which was

fortunate for him as hired assassins waited for him in France.

He spent the winter of A.D. 677-678 in Friesland, preached daily,

baptized Duke Aldgild and “thousands” of the people. But in

the following spring he took his departure. Aldgild’s successor

Radbod († A.D. 719), who passed his whole life in war with Pippin

of Heristal († A.D. 714) and Charles Martel, hated and persecuted

Christianity as the religion of the Franks, and the seed sown

by Wilfrid perished. Pippin’s victory at Dorstadt in A.D. 689

compelled him for a time to show greater toleration. Then

immediately a Frankish mission was started under bishop =Wulfram=

of Sens, a pupil of the monastery of Fontanelle founded by

Columbanus. According to an interesting tradition, which, however,

does not stand the test of criticism, Radbod was himself just

about to receive baptism, but drew back from the baptismal font,

because he would rather go with his glorious forefathers to hell

than enter the Christian heaven with a crowd of miserable people.

It is probably only a legend designed in the interest of the

doctrine of predestination.--The true Apostle of the Frisians was

the Anglo-Saxon =Wilibrord= who, in company with twelve followers,

undertook the work in A.D. 690. Born in Northumbria about

A.D. 658, he received his first training under Wilfrid at the

monastery of Ripon and then in an Irish monastery under the

direction of Egbert, whose debt to the Frisians (§ 77, 8) he

now undertook to pay. Pippin gave protection and aid to the

missionaries, and Wilibrord travelled to Rome that he might get

there support for his life work. He returned armed with papal

approbation and supplied with relics. But meanwhile a party of

his followers, probably dissatisfied with his control, sent one

of their number called Suidbert to England, where he received

episcopal consecration. Wilibrord’s party, however, kept the

upper hand. Suidbert went to the Bructeri on the Upper Ems, and,

when driven thence by the Saxons, to the Rhine, where he built a

monastery on an island of the Rhine given him by Pippin, and died

there in A.D. 715.--After many years’ successful labour Wilibrord,

at Pippin’s command, went a second time to Rome in A.D. 696, to

be there consecrated a bishop. Sergius I. gave him consecration

under the name of Clement, distinguishing him in this way as

an eminent man, and Pippin gave him the castle of Utrecht as

an episcopal residence. From this centre his missionary labours

stretched out over Radbod’s realm and even across the Danish

frontier. During a visit to the island of Heligoland he ventured

to baptize three men in a holy well. Radbod would have the

blasphemers together to sacrifice to the gods; thrice he enquired

at the sacred lot, but it answered regularly in favour of the

missionaries. But, in consequence of the complete defeat which

Charles Martel suffered at the hands of Radbod at Cologne, in

A.D. 715, the Frisian mission was stopped and only after Radbod’s

death in A.D. 719 could Wilibrord commence operations again from

the monastery of Echternach, to which he had meanwhile withdrawn.

When he died at the age of eighty-one in A.D. 739, the conversion

at least of South Friesland was almost completed. We hear nothing

of conflicts and disputes with Celtic missionaries all through

his fifty years of missionary labour, in consequence, no doubt,

of his mild and peaceful temper, which led him to attend rather

to the Christianizing of the heathen than to the Romanizing

of those who were already Christian.--In consequence of

jurisdictional claims of the Cologne see, the episcopate of

Utrecht remained vacant for a long time after Wilibrord’s death.

The mission among the heathens was meanwhile conducted with zeal

and success by =Gregory=, a Frankish nobleman of the Merovingian

family and a favourite pupil of Boniface, who as abbot of the

monastery of Utrecht presided over its famous seminary. Willehad,

the Anglo-Saxon, was held in high repute by his scholars and

was made bishop of Bremen by Charlemagne. The conversion of the

northern Frisians was completed by =Liudger=, a native Frisian,

afterwards bishop of Münster.

§ 78.4. =The Missionary Work of Boniface.=--The Anglo-Saxon

=Winfrid= or =Boniface=,[216] born at Kirton in Wessex

about A.D. 680 had at an early age, on account of his piety,

ecclesiastical tastes and practical talent, gained an honourable

position in the church of his native land. But he was driven by

an irresistible impulse to devote himself to the heathen tribes

of Germany. In A.D. 716 he landed in Friesland. Although Radbod,

then at war with Charles Martel, considering that he had no

connection with the Franks, put no hindrances in his way, he

had not such success as encouraged him to continue, and so before

winter he returned home. But his missionary ardour gave him no

rest; even his election as abbot of his monastery of Nutscall was

not sufficient to hold him back. And so in the spring of A.D. 718

he crossed the Channel a second time, but went first of all to

Rome, where Gregory II., A.D. 715-731, supplied him with relics

and papal authority for the German mission. The task to which

he now applied himself was directed less to the uprooting of

paganism than to the overthrow of that Celtic heresy which had

on many sides struck its roots deeply in German soil. He next

attempted to gain a footing in Thuringia. But he could neither

induce the “adulterous” priests to submit to Rome, nor seduce

their people from allegiance to them. News of Radbod’s death

in A.D. 719 moved him to make a journey into Friesland, where

he aided Wilibrord for three years in converting the heathens.

Wilibrord wished him to remain in Friesland as his coadjutor,

and to be his future successor in the bishopric of Utrecht. But

this reminded him of his own special task. He tore himself away

and returned to Upper Hesse in A.D. 722. Here he won to Roman

Christianity two Christian chiefs Dettic and Deorulf, erected

with their help the monastery of Amanaburg (Arnöneburg, not

far from the Ohm or _Amana_), and baptized, as his biographer

Willibald assures us, in a short time “many thousands” of the

heathens. He reported his success to the pope who called him to

Rome in A.D. 723, where, after exacting of him a solemn vow of

fealty to the papal chair, he consecrated him Apostolic bishop

or Primate of all Germany, and gave him a _Codex canonum_ and

commendatory letters to Charles Martel and the German clergy,

as well as to the people and princes of Thuringia, Hesse, and

even heathen Saxony. He next secured at the court of Charles

Martel a letter of protection and introduction from that powerful

prince, and then again betook himself to Hesse. The cutting

down of the old sacred oak of Thor at Geismar near Fritzlar

in A.D. 724, against which he raised the axe with his own hand

amid the breathless horror of the heathen multitudes, building

a Christian chapel with its timber, marked the downfall of

heathenism in the heart of Germany. In the following year,

A.D. 725, he extended his operations into Thuringia, where

Celtic institutions were still more widely spread than in Hesse.

This extension of his field of labour required a corresponding

increase of his staff. He applied to his English friends, of whom

bishop Daniel of Winchester was the most distinguished. His call

was responded to year after year by Anglo-Saxon priests, monks

and nuns. All England was roused to enthusiasm for the work of

its apostle and supported him with advice and practical aid,

with prayers and intercessions, with gifts and presents for his

personal and ecclesiastical necessities. Thus there soon arose

two spiritual armies over against one another; both fought with

equal enthusiasm for what seemed to them most high and holy.

But the Anglo-Saxon invader gained ground always more and more,

though indeed amid much want, weariness and care, and the Celtic

church gradually disappeared before advancing Romanism. Meanwhile

Gregory II. had died. His successor Gregory III., A.D. 731-741,

to whom Boniface had immediately submitted a report, answered by

sending him the archiepiscopal pallium with a commission as papal

legate in the German lands to found bishoprics and consecrate

bishops. His work in Thuringia, after ten years’ struggles and

contests, was so far successful that he could look around for

other fields of labour. He chose now, however, not heathen Saxony

but the already Christianized Bavaria, which, as still free from

Rome and strongly infected with the British heresy, seemed to

afford a more attractive field for his missionary zeal. He made

a hasty tour of inspection through the country in A.D. 735-736.

The most important result of this journey was the accession

of a fiery young Bavarian named Sturm, supposed to be next in

succession to Odilo the heir of the throne, whom Boniface took

with him to educate at the seminary at Fritzlar. In the following

year he undertook a third journey to Rome, undoubtedly to consult

with the pope about the further organization of the German

church and the best mode of its accomplishment. He had the most

flattering reception and stayed almost a whole year in Rome.

The pope sent him away in A.D. 738 with apostolic letters to

the clergy, people and nobles of Middle Germany, and also to

some distinguished Bavarian and Alemannian bishops, in which

those addressed were urged to assist his legate by their ready

and hearty obedience in bringing about a much-needed organization

of the churches in their several provinces.[217]

§ 78.5. =The Organization Effected by Boniface.=--The attention

of Boniface was directed first of all to Bavaria, and duke Odilo

reigning there since A.D. 737 anticipated it by an invitation.

Arriving in Bavaria he divided the whole Bavarian church into

four dioceses. Bivilo of Passau had before this been consecrated

as bishop in Rome. Erembert of Freisingen received consecration

at the hand of the legate. The bishops of Regensburg and Salzburg,

however, down to the close of their lives, asserted themselves

as opposition bishops over against those appointed by Boniface.

Odilo, too, withdrew from him his favour, and entrusted not

to him but to Pirminian the Alemannian Apostle, who sided with

the Celtic church, the organization and oversight of several

newly-founded Bavarian monasteries. Thus the results of the papal

legate’s visit to Bavaria were of a very doubtful kind, and he

had not even made a beginning of Romanizing Alemannia. In the

meantime, however, an incident occurred which gave him in a short

time the highest measure of influence and success. Charles Martel

died in A.D. 741 and his sons succeeded him, Carloman in Austrasia

and Pepin the Short in Neustria. Charles Martel had indeed on

Gregory’s recommendation given Boniface a letter of protection

that he might carry on his work in Hesse and Thuringia, but

he had never gone further, so that Boniface often complained

bitterly to his English friends of the indolent, even hostile

attitude of the Frankish prince. But he could not wish a better

coadjutor than Carloman, who was really rather more a monk than

a prince. And so Boniface no longer delayed the organization of

the Hessian and Thuringian churches, for in the course of the

year 741 he founded four bishoprics there. It was a matter of

still greater consequence that Carloman and then also Pepin aided

him in the reorganization of the Frankish national church on

both sides of the Vosges mountains, where partly on account of

sympathy with the British church system, partly on account of the

wild spirit engendered by a life of war and the chase, the clergy

had not hitherto submitted to the influence of the papal emissary.

In order that the estates of the realm might be advised by “the

envoy of St. Peter” and the clergy of the empire about what was

necessary for the Austrasian church, Carloman, at the close of

an imperial diet, at a place unknown, called the first Austrasian

Synod, _Concilium Germanicum_, in A.D. 742, and gave to its

decrees the authority of imperial laws. Boniface was recognised

as Archbishop and Primate of the whole Austrasian church; it was

forbidden that the higher or lower clergy should have anything

to do with arms, hunting and war, that all “false and adulterous”

priests should be expelled; that the admission of “strange”

clerics should be dependent on examination before a Synod to

be held annually; that in all monasteries the Benedictine rule

(§ 85, 1) should be enforced; and that it be made the duty of

counts to support the bishops in maintaining church discipline

and stamping out all remnants of paganism. In the next year,

A.D. 743, Carloman summoned the Second Austrasian Synod at

Liptinä, now Lestines, near Cambray, which confirmed the decrees

of the first and enlarged their scope, especially in regard to

the rooting out of pagan superstition and enforcing strictly the

Romish prohibition of marriage between those naturally (§ 61, 2)

and spiritually (§ 58, 1) related. Thus upon the whole the

legal reorganization of the church of Austrasia might have

been regarded as complete, even though its actual enforcement

required yet many severe struggles. In A.D. 744 Boniface laid

the foundation of the famous monastery of Fulda which for

many centuries was a chief resort and principal school of

the Benedictine monks of Germany. Its first abbot was young

Sturm.--After the close of the Austrasian Synod Boniface began

to treat with Pepin about the reorganization of the church in

Neustria. Pepin called a Neustrian provincial Synod at Soissons

in A.D. 744. Its decrees in regard to discipline were in essential

agreement with those of the two Austrasian Synods. Besides it was

resolved to erect three metropolitan sees. Two of the prelates

designate, however, refused to accept the pallium offered by pope

Zacharias, A.D. 741-752, ostensibly on the plea that the payment

of the fee demanded would render them guilty of simony. Their

refusal, however, was perhaps mainly due to Pepin’s discovery

that the political unity of Neustria required a Primate at Rheims

rather than three metropolitans (§ 83). At a national Synod,

place of meeting unknown, held in A.D. 745, called by the two

princes acting together, at Boniface’s request the bishop Gewilib

of Mainz, a rude warrior guilty of secret murders, was deposed.

It was now the wish of Boniface that he should receive the vacant

episcopal chair of Cologne, which was destined to be raised

into a metropolitan see. Yet, through the machinations of his

opponents, the vacancy at Cologne was otherwise filled, and

Boniface was at last obliged to be satisfied with the less

important bishopric of Mainz. At a second national Council

of A.D. 748 held probably at Düren he succeeded in getting

a considerable number of Austrasian and Neustrian bishops to

subscribe a declaration of absolute submission to the pope

in which they fully acknowledged the papal supremacy over the

Frankish church. Pepin, who now, after the retirement of his

brother Carloman from the government in A.D. 747, in order to

spend the rest of his days in the monastery of Monte Cassino,

was sole ruler of both kingdoms, obtained the express approval

of pope Zacharias in A.D. 752 in making an end of the puppet

show of a sham Merovingian royalty (§ 82, 1). But it is quite

a mistake to say that Boniface was the intermediary in this

matter between the pope and the mayor of the palace. His letters

rather show, from the disfavour in which he at that time stood

at the court of Pepin, that the negociations were carried on

directly with the pope without his knowledge.[218]

§ 78.6. =Heresies Confronted by Boniface.=--Among the numerous

heresies with which Boniface had to deal the most important were

those of the Frankish Adalbert, the Scotchman Clement, and the

Irishman Virgilius. Adalbert wrought on the left bank of the

Rhine far into the interior of Neustria; Clement among the East

Franks. In the summer of A.D. 743 Carloman had at Boniface’s

urgent request cast both into prison, and at the Neustrian Synod

of Soissons in A.D. 744 Boniface secured Adalbert’s condemnation.

Yet soon after we find both at liberty. Boniface now accused them

before the pope Zacharias, and they were condemned unheard at

a Lateran Council in A.D. 745. The legate’s written accusation

charged the Frankish =Adalbert= with the vilest hypocrisy and

blasphemy: He boasted that an angel had brought him relics

of extraordinary miracle-working power, by which he could do

anything that God could; he placed himself on an equality with

the apostles; he introduced unlearned and uncanonically ordained

bishops; he forbade pilgrimages to Rome, and the consecration

of churches and chapels in the names of apostles and martyrs,

but had no objection to their consecration in his own name; he

neglected divine service in consecrated places and assembled the

people for worship in woods and fields and wheresoever it seemed

good to him; he let his own hair and nails be venerated as relics;

he absolved those who came to him in confession with the words:

I know all your sins, for nothing is hidden from me, confession

is unnecessary, go in peace, your sins are forgiven you, etc.;

in this way he won great influence especially over women and

peasants, who honoured him as a great apostle and miracle-worker.

Three documents supported the report of Boniface; viz., a

biography of Adalbert composed by one of his admirers, according

to which his mother in the “ever blessed” hour of his birth had

in vision seen an ox go forth out her right side; also, a letter

said to have fallen from heaven to Jerusalem which guaranteed his

divine mission; and finally, a prayer composed by him which while

generally breathing a spirit of deep humility and firm faith,

went on to invoke a rarely-named angel. If we strike out from

these charges those which evidently rest upon misunderstanding

and legendary or malevolent exaggeration, we have before us a

man who in opposition to the prevailing worship of saints and

relics maintained that the relics set up for veneration were no

more worthy of it than his own hair and nails would be, who also

disputed the advantage of pilgrimages, denied the necessity of

auricular confession, insisted upon the universal priesthood of

believers in opposition to Romish hierarchical claims, and the

evangelical worship of God in spirit and in truth in opposition

to the Romish overestimation of consecrated places; but in

doing so perhaps, more certainly in mystic-theosophic enthusiasm

than in conscious deceitfulness, he may have boasted of divine

revelations and the possession of miracle-working power.--The

figure of the Scotchman =Clement= comes out yet more distinctly

in the charge formulated against him. He is simply an adherent

of the pure and unadulterated ecclesiastical system of the old

British church. He treats with contempt the Canon law, and does

not regard himself as bound by the decrees of Synods or the

authority of the Latin Fathers; he claims to be a bishop and

still lives in “adulterous” wedlock; he affirms that a man

may marry the widow of his deceased brother; he teaches with

reference to Christ’s descent into hell that even those who

died in heathenism may yet be redeemed, and “_affirmat multa

alia horribilia de prædestinatione Dei contraria fidei cath_.”

The pope committed to his legate the execution of the Synod’s

condemnatory judgment. But still in A.D. 747 Boniface again

complains that the undiminished reputation of both heretics at

all points stands in his way. Soon after this, however, Carloman,

after Adalbert had submitted in a disputation with Boniface, sent

him into confinement in the monastery of Fulda, from which he

made his escape, and after long wanderings was at last killed

by the swineherds. No information has reached us as to the end

of Clement.--The Irishman =Virgilius= was from A.D. 744 bishop

of Salzburg, and, as before at the court of Pepin, so now at his

recommendation at the court of the Bavarian duke Odilo, he stood

in high favour. After a long and determined refusal he at last

agreed to submit to the Romish choice of bishops. A priest of

his diocese unskilled in Latin had baptized _in nomine patria

et filia et speritus sancti_, Boniface pronounced such baptism

invalid. Virgilius thought otherwise and appealed to the pope

who was obliged to admit that he was right. But now Boniface

complained of him as a heretic because he taught: _Quod alius

mundus et alii homines sub terra sint_, and this time the pope

took the side of his legate, because upon the accepted notion

of the orbicular form of the earth, the doctrine of antipodes

(already regarded by Lactantius and Augustine as of dangerous

tendency) amounted to a denial of the unity of the human

race and the universality of redemption, whereas the Irishman

belonging to a seafaring race probably considered the earth to

be globular. The pope, in A.D. 748, ordered his deposition and

removal from the clerical order, which Boniface, however, was

not able to accomplish.[219]

§ 78.7. =The End of Boniface.=--On the one hand, distrusted,

and set aside by Pepin and the new pope Stephen II., A.D. 752-757,

from his position as legate (§ 82, 1), and also, on the other

hand, feeling himself overborne in his old age by the burden of

his episcopal and archiepiscopal cares, sorrows and conflicts,

Boniface had his favourite pupil, the energetic Lullus, already

recognised by pope Zacharias, elected as his successor, and

with Pepin’s consent transferred to him at once the independent

administration of the episcopal diocese of Mainz. He now

determined to devote his last as he had his first energies

undividedly to his archiepiscopal diocese embracing the Frisian

church, which still needed firm episcopal control and was now

threatened with a pagan reaction. After Wilibrord’s death in

A.D. 739, Cologne, resting its pretensions on an ancient deed

of gift by Dagobert, claimed jurisdiction over the Frisian church.

Boniface indeed at Carloman’s orders had ordained a new bishop

to the Utrecht chair, in A.D. 741, probably the Anglo-Saxon

Eoban. Yet this new bishop never came into actual, at least not

into undisputed possession. In one of his last letters Boniface

earnestly but in vain implores pope Stephen II. to disallow the

unjust pretensions of Cologne. Charlemagne first settled the

dispute by requiring Alberich, Gregory’s successor in the Utrecht

see, to receive consecration at the hands of the Cologne prelate.

With a stately retinue of fifty-two followers clerical or lay,

and with a foreboding presentiment carrying with him a winding

sheet, Boniface sailed down the Rhine in the spring of A.D. 754.

Whether he had now in view a reorganization of the existing

Frisian church and how far he succeeded, we have no means of

knowing. On the other hand his biographers in their legendary

exaggeration cannot sufficiently extol the wonderful success

of his missionary preaching. Wherever he appeared throughout

the land he baptized thousands of heathens. At last he had

pitched his tent in the neighbourhood of what is now Dokkum,

and there, on June 5th, A.D. 755, a number of neophytes received

confirmation. But a wild troop of heathen apostates rushed down

on them before the break of day. The guard desired to offer armed

resistance, but Boniface refused to shed blood, and, according

to the report of an old woman, received his deathblow holding the

gospel over his head. His companions were also cut down around

him. Utrecht, Mainz and Fulda quarrelled over his bones. Signs

and wonders at last decided in favour of Fulda, which he had

himself fixed upon as their resting place.--By order of Lullus,

a priest of Mainz called Wilibald wrote his life about A.D. 760.

Another life by an anonymous author in Utrecht appeared about

A.D. 790; and yet another by the Regensburg monk Othlo about

A.D. 1060. His literary remains consist of Epistles, Sermons,

and Penitentials of doubtful authenticity.

§ 78.8. =An Estimate of Boniface.=--In opposition to the current

Roman Catholic apotheosis of Boniface which assigns to him as the

true Apostle of the Germans the highest place of honour in the

firmament of German saints and cannot find the least shadow or

defect in all his life, struggles and doings, ultra-protestant

estimates have run to the very contrary extreme. Ebrard has

carried this to the utmost length. He refuses to credit him with

zeal, any hearty regard, any real capacity for proper mission

work among the heathens. Alongside of Wilibrord he was only a

despicable Romish spy; in Hesse and Thuringia only the brutal

destroyer of the Culdee church that flourished there, and in the

Frankish empire only the inconscionable agent of Rome who allied

himself to the Rome-favouring dynasty of Pepin in order to secure

the overthrow of the Culdee-favouring Merovingians, purchasing

thus Frankish aid in subjecting the German and Frankish churches

to the hierarchical tyranny of Rome. He can find in him no

trace of intellectual or spiritual greatness. On the contrary

fanaticism, hatred and a persecuting spirit, intrigue and

dishonesty, servility, dissimulation, hypocrisy, lying and

double dealing are there in abundance. His world-wide fame

is accounted for by this, that he is the accursed founder of

all mischief which has arisen upon Germany from its connection

with the papal chair.--It is true that Boniface stopped the

course of the national and independent development of the German

church that had begun and put it on the track of Roman Catholic

development and mal-development. But even had Boniface never

crossed the Channel this fate could scarcely have been averted.

It is further true that Boniface was far more eager in uprooting

heretical “Celtism” and bringing Frankish and Bavarian Christians

under the Romish yoke than in converting heathen Saxons to

Christianity. But he was thus eager because that seemed to him

in the first instance more necessary and important than aiming

at new conversions. It is a crying injustice to deny that he

showed any zeal, any energy, or that he had any success in the

conversion of the heathen in Friesland, Hesse and Thuringia. All

his thoughts, labours and endeavours are dominated by a steadfast

conviction that the pope is the head and representative of

the church in which alone salvation can be found. But yet with

him the church laws which emanate from the Holy Spirit stand

superior to the pope. Hence the right of final decision on all

ecclesiastical questions belongs indeed to the pope, but only

_secundum canones_. The expression ascribed to Boniface in

Gratian’s Decretal: _Papa a nemine judicetur nisi devius a

fide_ is never met with in any of his extant writings, but

it thoroughly well characterizes his position. Thus alongside

of the most abject submission to the chair of Peter, we see

how firmly he speaks to pope Zacharias in connection with

the Neustrian pallium affair about the Simoniacal greed of

the officials, and on another occasion declares his profound

indignation at the immoral, superstitious and blasphemous

proceedings, fit to be compared to the old pagan Saturnalia,

which, went on in Rome openly before the eyes of the pope

unchecked and unpunished. He also showed brave resistance

when papal dispensations infringed his ordinances founded

upon the canon law, and protested vigorously, when Stephen II.,

in A.D. 754, disregarding the archiepiscopal authority gave

episcopal consecration to Chrodegang of Metz. But Boniface never

mixed himself up with the political intrigues of the popes, nor

did he ever intermeddle in the political manœuvres between Pepin

and the Merovingians, between the Frankish empire and its German

vassals. An inventive genius, great and profound thoughts, a

liberal and comprehensive view of matters, we certainly often

miss in him. All his thoughts, feelings and desires were bound

within the narrow limits of Romish ecclesiasticism. His piety

was deep, earnest and sincere, but is quite of the legalistic

and hard external kind that characterizes Roman Catholicism.

With the most painful conscientiousness he holds by Rome’s

ecclesiastical institutions; any resistance to these is abhorrent

to him and he persecutes heresies as cursed and soul-destroying.

He clearly understands the absurdity of prohibiting marriage

between those who are related only in baptism and at confirmation.

For he sees that on this principle all marriages between Christian

people as recipients of baptism must be forbidden since by

baptism they have all become sons and daughters of Christ and His

church, and so are spiritually brothers and sisters. But then he

willingly sacrifices his understanding, and continues to denounce

all marriages between those spiritually related as fearful sin

and horrible incest. Very characteristic too are many of his

questions to the popes as to what should be held on this point

and that, mostly about very trivial and indifferent matters of

common life. Thus he lets himself be informed that raw bacon

should only be eaten smoked, but that the eating of the flesh of

horses, hares, beavers, jackdaws, ravens and storks is absolutely

forbidden, “_immundum enim est et execrabile_.”[220]

§ 78.9. =The Conversion of the Saxons.=--The first missionary

attempts among the Saxons, who had forced their way from the

north-west of Germany down to the neighbourhood of the Rhine,

were made by two Anglo-Saxon monks, who were both called Ewald,

the black or the white Ewald. A Saxon peasant received them

hospitably, but so soon as he discovered their object, fell

upon them with his household servants and slew them, A.D. 691.

Boniface had many pious wishes about his heathen kinsfolk but

did nothing for their conversion. The most that he did was

to found the monastery of Fulda on the Saxon frontier as the

rallying point for a future clerical raid upon Saxon paganism.

For thirty years, however, this remained but a pious wish, till

at last the sword of the most powerful of the Frankish kings

took up the mission. The subjugation of the powerful as well as

hostile Saxon people was with Charlemagne a political necessity.

But lasting subjugation was impossible without conversion and

conversion was impossible without subjugation; for the Saxons

hated the religion of the Franks no less heartily than they did

the Franks themselves. Alcuin with true magnanimity exerted all

his influence with his royal friend against any use of force in

conversion, but political necessity overcame the counsel of the

much trusted friend. The Saxon war lasted for thirty-three years,

A.D. 772-804. In the very first campaign the strongest Saxon

fortress Eresburg was stormed and their most revered idol, the

Erminsul, was destroyed. Frankish priests followed the Frankish

arms and Christianized immediately the conquered districts. But

as soon as Charlemagne’s army was engaged elsewhere, the Saxons

proceeded to destroy again all Christian foundations. In the

imperial diet at Paderborn in A.D. 777 they were obliged to

swear that life and property would be forfeited by a new apostasy.

But the most powerful of the Saxon princes, Wittekind, who had

not appeared at the diet, organized a new revolt. The Frankish

army sustained a fearful defeat at Mount Sunthal, all Christian

priests were murdered, all churches were destroyed. Charlemagne

took a dreadful revenge. At Verden he beheaded in one day 4,500

Saxons. After a new rebellion, a second diet at Paderborn in

A.D. 785 prescribed for them horribly bloody laws. The least

resistance against the precepts of the church was punished with

death. Wittekind and Albion, the two most famous Saxon chiefs,

acknowledged the vanity of further resistance. They were baptized

in A.D. 785 and continued thenceforward faithful to the king

and the church. But the rebellions of the rest of the Saxons

were still continued. In A.D. 804 Charlemagne drove 10,000 Saxon

families from their homes on the Elbe, and gave the country to

the Obohites [Obotrites] that were subject to him. Now for the

first time was a lasting peace secured. Charlemagne had founded

eight bishoprics in Saxony, and under these bishops’ care

throughout this blood-deluged country, no longer disturbed,

a Christianity was developed as truly hearty and fresh as in

any other part of Germany. One witness to this among others is

afforded by the popular epic the Heliand (§ 89, 3).[221]

§ 79. THE SLAVS IN GERMAN COUNTRIES.[222]

The sudden rush of the wild hordes of the Huns in the 5th century

drove the Slavs to the south of the Danube and to the west of the

Vistula. Again in the 6th century Slavic tribes forced their way

westward under pressure from the Mongolian Avars who took possession

of Dacia, Pannonia and Dalmatia. For the conversion of the Slavs in

north-eastern Germany nothing was done; but much was attempted on

behalf of the conversion of the southern Slavs and the Avars, who were

specially under the care of the see of Salzburg.

§ 79.1. =The Carantanians and Avars.=--The Carantanian prince

Boruth, in what is now called Carinthia, in A.D. 748 asked the

help of the Bavarian duke Thassilo II. against the oppression

of the Avars. His nephew Chatimar, who had received a Christian

training in Bavaria, when in A.D. 753 he succeeded to the throne,

introduced Christianity into his country. After the overthrow

of Thassilo in A.D. 788, Carinthia came under Frankish rule, and

Charlemagne extended his conquests over the Avars and Moravians.

Bishop Arno of Salzburg, to whom metropolitan rights had been

accorded, conducted a regular mission by Charlemagne’s orders

for the conversion of these peoples. In A.D. 796, Tudun, the

prince of the Avars, with a great band of his followers, received

baptism, and vowed in A.D. 797 to turn the whole nation of the

Avars to Christianity, and asked for Christian teachers. In

the 9th century, however, the name of the Avars passed away

from history.

§ 79.2. =The Moravian Church.=--In A.D. 855 Rastislaw, Grand

Duke of Moravia, freed his country from the Frankish yoke and

deprived the German bishops of all their influence. He asked

Slavic missionaries from the Byzantine emperor. The brothers

=Cyril= and =Methodius= (§ 73, 2, 3) who had already approved

themselves as apostles of the Slavs, answered the call in

A.D. 863. They introduced a liturgy and public worship in the

language of the Slavs, and by preaching in the Slavic tongue

they won their way to the hearts of the heathen people. But in

spite of this encouraging success they found themselves, amid

the political convulsions of the age, in a difficult position.

Only by attachment to the pope could they reasonably expect

to hold their ground. They accepted therefore an invitation

of Nicholas I. in A.D. 867, but on their arrival in Rome they

found that Hadrian II. had succeeded to the papal chair. Cyril

remained in Rome and soon died, A.D. 869. =Methodius= swore

fealty to the pope and was sent away as archbishop of Moravia.

But now all the more were the German bishops hostile to him.

They suspected his fidelity to the pope, charged him with heresy

and inveighed against the Slavic liturgy which he had introduced.

John VIII., rendered suspicious of him by these means, called

upon him in strong terms in A.D. 879 to make answer for himself

at Rome. Methodius obeyed and succeeded in completely vindicating

himself. The pope confirmed him in his archiepiscopal rank and

expressly permitted him to use the Slavic liturgy, enjoining,

however, that by way of distinction the gospel should first be

read in Latin and then rendered in a Slavic translation. The

intrigues of the German clergy, however, continued and embittered

the last days of the good and brave apostle of the Slavs. He

died in A.D. 885. A general persecution now broke out against

the Slavic priests and the metropolitan chair of Moravia remained

vacant for fourteen years. John IX. restored it in A.D. 899. But

in A.D. 908 the Moravian kingdom was overthrown. The Bohemians

and Magyars shared the spoil between them.

§ 79.3. =The Beginnings of Christianity in Bohemia.=--On New

Year’s day of A.D. 845 fourteen Bohemian lords appeared at

Regensburg at the court of Louis of Germany and asked for

baptism along with their followers. Of the motives and of

the consequences of this step we know nothing. When Rastislaw

raised the Moravian empire to such a height of glory the

Bohemians connected themselves closely with Moravia. Rastislaw’s

successor Swatopluc married a daughter of the Bohemian

prince Borsivoi in A.D. 871. After that Methodius extended

his missionary labours into Bohemia. Borsivoi himself and his

wife, Ludmilla, were baptized by Methodius in A.D. 871. The sons

of Borsivoi, also, Spitihnew, who died in A.D. 912 and Wratislaw,

who died in A.D. 926, with the active support of their mother

furthered the interests of the church in Bohemia.

§ 80. THE SCANDINAVIAN NATIONS.[223]

The mission to the Frisians and Saxons called the attention of

missionaries to the neighbouring Jutes and Danes. Wilibrord (§ 78, 3)

in A.D. 696 carried the gospel across the Eider, and Charlemagne felt

it necessary in order to maintain his authority over the Frisians and

Saxons to extend his conquest and that of the church over the peninsula

of Jutland to the sea coast. He could not, however, accomplish his

design. Better prospects opened up before Louis the Pious. Threatened

with expulsion through disputes about the succession, Harald the king

of the Jutes sought the protection of the Franks. Consequently Ebo,

archbishop of Rheims, crossed the Eider in A.D. 823 at the head of an

imperial embassy and clothed with full authority from pope Paschalis I.

He baptized also a number of Danes, and when, after a year’s absence,

he returned home, he took with him several young Jutes to educate as

teachers for their countrymen. But Harald was again hard pressed and

concluded to break entirely with the national paganism. In A.D. 826 he

took ship, with wife and child, accompanied by a stately retinue, and

at Mainz, where Louis then held his court, received baptism with great

pomp and ceremony. Soon after his return a young monk followed him

from the monastery of Corbei on the Weser. =Ansgar=, the apostle of

the north, had committed to him by Louis the hard and dangerous task

of winning the Scandinavian nations for the church. Ansgar devoted his

whole life to the accomplishment of this task, and in an incomparable

manner fulfilled it, so far as indomitable perseverance, devotion and

self-denial amid endless difficulties and perverse opposition could

do it.

§ 80.1. =Ansgar= or Anschar, the son of a Frankish nobleman, born

A.D. 801, was educated in the monastery of Old Corbie in Picardy,

and on the founding of New Corbie in A.D. 822 was made Superior

of it. Even in very early youth he had dreams and visions which

led him to look forward to the mission field and the crown of

martyrdom. Accompanied by his noble-minded brother monk Autbert,

who would not let his beloved friend go alone, Ansgar started in

A.D. 826 on his first missionary journey. Harald had established

his authority in the maritime provinces of Jutland, but he

ventured not to push on into the interior. In this way the

missionary efforts of the two friends were restricted. On the

frontier of Schleswig, however, they founded a school, bought

and educated Danish slave youths, redeemed Christian prisoners

of war and preached throughout the country. But in the year

following Harald was driven out and fled to the province of

Rüstringen on the Weser, which Louis assigned to him for life.

Also the two missionaries were obliged to follow him. Autbert

died in the monastery of Corbie in A.D. 829, having retired

again to it when seized with illness. Soon afterwards the emperor

obtained information through ambassadors sent by the Swedish

king Bjorn, that there were many isolated Christians in their

land, some of them merchants, others prisoners of war, who had

a great desire to be visited by Christian priests. Ansgar, with

several companions, undertook this mission in A.D. 830. On the

way they were plundered by Norse pirates. His companions spoke

of returning home, but Ansgar would not be discouraged. King

Bjorn received them in a very kindly manner. A little group

of Christian prisoners gathered round them and heartily joined

in worship. A school was erected, boys were bought and adults

preached to. Several Swedes sought baptism, among them the

governor of Birka, Herigar, who built at his own cost the first

Christian church. After eighteen months Ansgar returned to the

Frankish court in order to secure a solid basis for his mission.

Louis thus perceived an opportunity of founding a bishopric for

the Scandinavian Norsemen at Hamburg on the borders of Denmark.

He appointed Ansgar bishop in A.D. 834, and assigned to him and

the mission the revenues of the rich abbey of Turholt in Flanders.

Ansgar obtained in Rome from Gregory IV. the support of a bull

which recognised him as exclusively vicar apostolic over all the

Norse. Then he built a cathedral at Hamburg, besides a monastery,

bought again Danish boys to educate for the priesthood and sent

new labourers among the Swedes, at whose head was the Frankish

monk Gauzbert. But soon misfortunes from all sides showered down

upon the poor bishop. His patron Louis died in A.D. 840, Harald

apostatized from the faith, the Swedish missionaries were driven

out by the pagans, the Norse rushed down on Hamburg and utterly

destroyed city, church, monastery, and library. Moreover Charles

the Bald took possession of the abbey of Turholt which according

to the Treaty of Verdun in A.D. 843 had fallen to Flanders, in

order to bestow it upon a favourite. Ansgar was now a homeless

beggar. His clergy, when he had no longer support for them, left

him. His mission school was broken up. His neighbour, bishop

Leuterich of Bremen, with whom he sought shelter, inspired by

despicable jealousy, turned him from his door. At last he got

shelter from a nobleman’s widow who provided for him at her

own expense a lodging at Ramslo, a country house near Hamburg.

In A.D. 846 Leuterich died. Louis of Germany now gave to the

homeless Apostle of the North a fixed habitation by appointing

Ansgar to the vacant bishopric. The bishops of Cologne and Verden

had divided between them the shattered fragments of the Hamburg

bishopric. But at last pope Nicholas I. in A.D. 834 put an end

to their selfish pretensions by uniting the two dioceses of

Hamburg and Bremen into one, and conferring upon it metropolitan

rights for the North. But meanwhile Ansgar notwithstanding all

the neediness in which he himself lived had been working away

uninterruptedly on behalf the Scandinavian mission. In =Denmark=

the king was Eric whose court Ansgar repeatedly visited as

ambassador of the German king. By Eric’s favour he had been

enabled to found a church in Schleswig and to organize a mission

stretching over the whole country. Eric did not venture himself

to pass over to Christianity, and when pagan fanaticism broke out

in open rebellion in A.D. 854, he fell in a battle against his

nephew who headed the revolt. A boy, Eric II., perhaps grandson

of the fallen Eric, mounted the throne. But the chief Jovi

reigned in his name, a bitter foe of the Christians, who drove

away all Christian priests and threatened every Christian in the

land with death. Yet in A.D. 855 Eric II. emancipated himself

from the regency of Jovi and granted toleration to the Christians.

The work of conversion was now again carried on with new zeal and

success.--All attempts, by means of new missionaries, to gather

again the fragments of the mission in =Sweden=, broken up by

Gauzbert’s expulsion, had hitherto proved vain. At last Ansgar

himself started on his journey thitherward about A.D. 850. By

rich presents and a splendid entertainment he won king Olaf’s

favour. A popular assembly determined to abide by the decision

of the sacred lot and this decided in favour of the adoption

of Christianity. From that time the Swedish mission was carried

on without check or hindrance under the direction of Erimbert,

whom Ansgar left there. Ansgar died in A.D. 865. The most dearly

cherished hope of his life, that he should be honoured with the

crown of martyrdom, was not realized; but a life so full of toil,

privation and trouble, sacrifice, patience and self-denial, was

surely nobler than a martyr’s crown.[224]

§ 80.2. =Ansgar’s Successor= in the see of Hamburg-Bremen was

=Rimbert=, his favourite scholar, his companion in almost all

his journeys, who wrote an account of his master’s life and

pronounced him a saint. He laboured according to his ability

to follow in the steps of his teacher, especially in his care

for the Scandinavian mission. But he was greatly hindered by

the wild doings of the Danish and Norse pirates. This trouble

reached its height after Rimbert’s death, and went so far

that the archbishop of Cologne on the pretext that the Hamburg

see had been extinguished was able to renew his claims upon

Bremen.--Continuation, § 93.

§ 81. CHRISTIANITY AND ISLAM.[225]

From A.D. 665 the Byzantine rule in =North Africa= (§ 76, 3) was

for a time narrowed and at last utterly overthrown by the Saracens

from Egypt, with whom were joined the Berbers or Moors who had been

converted to Islam. In A.D. 711, called in by a rebel, they also

overthrew the Visigoth power in =Spain= (§ 76, 2). In less than

five years the whole peninsula, as far as the mountain boundaries

of the north, was in the hands of the Moors. Then they cast a covetous

glance upon the fertile plains beyond the Pyrenees, but Charles Martel

drove them back with fearful loss in the bloody battle of Poitiers

in A.D. 732. The Franks were in this the saviours of Europe and of

Christianity. In A.D. 750 the Ommaiadean dynasty at Damascus, whose

lordship embraced also the Moors, were displaced by the Abbassidean,

but a scion of the displaced family, Abderrhaman I., appeared in Spain

and founded there an independent khalifate at Cordova in A.D. 756,

which soon rose to an unexampled splendour. Also in =Sicily= the Moslem

power obtained an entrance and endeavoured from that centre to maintain

itself by constant raids upon the courts of Italy and Provence. The

expulsion of the Moors from Spain and Sicily was first completely

accomplished during the next period (§ 95).

§ 81.1. =Islam in Spain.=--The Spanish Christians under the

Ommaiade rule were called Mozarabians, _Arabi Mustaraba_, _i.e._

Arabianized Arabs as distinguished from Arabs proper or _Arabi

Araba_. They were in many places under less severe restrictions

than the Oriental Christians under Saracen rule. Many Christian

youths from the best families attended the flourishing Moorish

schools, entered enthusiastically upon the study of the Arabic

language and literature, pressed eagerly on to the service of the

Court and Government, etc. But in opposition to such abandonment

of the Christian and national conscience there was developed

the contrary extreme of extravagant rigorism in obtrusive

confessional courage and uncalled-for denunciation of the prophet.

Christian fanaticism awakened Moslem fanaticism, which vented

itself in a bloody persecution of the Christians in A.D. 850-859.

The first martyr was a monk Perfectus. When asked his opinion

about Mohammed he had pronounced him a false prophet, and was

executed. The khalif of that period, Abderrhaman II., was no

fanatic. He wished to stop the extravagant zeal of the Christians

at its source, and made the metropolitan Recafrid of Seville

issue an ecclesiastical prohibition of all blasphemy of the

prophet. But this enactment only increased the fanaticism of

the rigorists, at whose head stood the presbyter, subsequently

archbishop, Eulogius of Cordova and his friend Paulus

Alvarus (§ 90, 6). Eulogius himself, who kept hidden from

her parents a converted Moorish maiden, and was on this account

beheaded along with her in A.D. 859, was the last victim of

the persecution.--The rule of the Arabs in Spain, however, was

threatened from two sides. When Roderick’s government (§ 76, 2)

had fallen before the arms of the Saracens in A.D. 711, Pelayo,

a relation of his, with a small band of heroic followers,

maintained Christian national independence in the inaccessible

mountains of Asturia, and his son-in-law Alphonso the Catholic

in the Cantabrian mountains on the Bay of Biscay. Alphonso

subsequently united both parties, conquered Galicia and the

Castilian mountain land, erecting on all sides the standard

of the cross. His successors in innumerable battles against

the infidels enlarged their territory till it reached the

Douro. Of these Alphonso II., the Chaste, who died in A.D. 850,

specially distinguished himself by his heroic courage and his

patronage of learning. Oviedo was his capital. On the east

too the Christian rule now again made advance.--Charlemagne

in A.D. 778 conquered the country down to the Ebro. But a

rebellion of the Saxons prevented him advancing further, and

the freebooting Basques of the Pyrenees cut down his noblest

heroes. Two subsequent campaigns in A.D. 800, 801, reduced all

the country as far as the Ebro, henceforth called the Spanish

March, under the power of the Franks.[226]

§ 81.2. =Islam in Sicily.=--A Byzantine military officer

fled from punishment to Africa in A.D. 827 and returned with

10,000 Saracen troops which terribly devastated Sicily. Further

migrations followed and in a few years all Sicily was under the

rule of the Arabs, who made yearly devastating raids from thence

upon the Italian coasts, venturing even to the very gates of Rome.

In A.D. 880 they settled on the banks of the Garigliano, and put

all central Italy under tribute, until at last in A.D. 916 the

efforts of pope John X. were successful in driving them out.

Spanish-Moorish pirates landed in A.D. 889 on the coasts of

Provence, besieged the fortress of Fraxinetum, and plundered

from this centre for a hundred years the Alpine districts and

northern Italy. Their robber career in south Italy was most

serious of all. It lasted for three centuries and was first

brought to an end by the Norman invasion.--Continuation, § 95, 1.