labours. In 722 he passed through Thuringia and entered Hesse where, within a short time, he converted two local chiefs together with many thousands of their followers. A foothold was thus secured by Rome in the pagan world of Germany and never again lost.
These successes led the Pope to recall Boniface to Rome to receive directions concerning conditions in Germany. After exacting from him a confession of faith in the Trinity, and binding him by an oath ever to respect papal authority,[246:1] the Supreme Pontiff created him missionary bishop in 723. Boniface then returned to Germany with a code of laws for the Church, and with letters of introduction to Charles Martel and to other influential persons who might aid him. He was aware that little could be done without the assistance of that powerful ruler and wrote: "Without the protection of the Prince of the Franks, I could neither rule the people of the Church, nor defend the priests or clerks, the monks or handmaidens of God; nor have I the power to restrain pagan rites and idolatry in Germany without his mandate and the awe of his name."[246:2] Hence he attached himself for awhile to the court of the Frankish ruler before he began the work so near his heart. Hesse and Thuringia, Christianised nominally by Celtic missionaries and consequently under no episcopal authority, refused to recognise papal jurisdiction. To awe them into submission, Boniface cut down their gigantic sacred oak at Geismar and from it, subsequently, built a chapel to St. Peter. The people were convinced and received the new faith.
With the aid of Charles Martel, the assistance of the pope, and the help of English missionaries who joined him, Boniface completed his conquest of that region, filled it with churches and monasteries, and extended papal rule over it. Schools were established, learning and a higher civilisation began to flow in from England and Rome, and the dark days of paganism were gone.
As a reward for his labours, Pope Gregory III., who received the papal crown in 731, raised Boniface in 732 to the dignity of missionary archbishop. This new authority enabled him to coerce refractory bishops who thwarted his efforts. Five years later, Boniface made his third and last visit to Rome, not now as an obscure missionary but with a great retinue of monks and converts. Once more returning to Germany with authority, he organised the Church in Bavaria (739) and thus curtailed ecclesiastical lawlessness by creating four bishoprics: Salzburg, Friesingen, Passau, and Regensburg. In the year 742, continuing the work of organisation begun so well in Bavaria, he succeeded in creating in central Germany the bishoprics of Würzburg, Buraburg, Erfurt, and Eichstädt. To organise the Church and regulate ecclesiastical affairs, he held numerous synods. At the same time, he laboured hard to enforce celibacy, to restore Church property alienated by rulers, and to suppress heresy. In 743, he was made archbishop of Mainz, with jurisdiction over a region from Cologne to Strassburg and from Coire to Worms, and now sought to complete the work of consolidating the German Church. By this time, he had become not only the head of the Church in Germany, but was recognised as a powerful factor in political matters. It is even reported that he crowned
Pepin at Soissons (752).[248:1] The great monastery of Fulda was founded (744) and it was destined to become the head of the Benedictine institutions in Germany. Having appointed Lull as his successor at Mainz, he resigned in 754, returned a third time to Frisia as a missionary, and there was slain in 755 as a martyr to the Christian cause. Boniface did more than any other one individual to carry Christianity to the German peoples and to tie the Church of Germany firmly to the papal throne. He was a civiliser and law-giver as well as a Roman missionary.[248:2] After the Apostle Paul he was probably the most eminent in missionary endeavour.
His work was continued by his disciple Willibald (b. 700), a relative, a pilgrim to Rome and the Holy Land, and a Benedictine monk, who was made bishop of Eichstädt (741). He called his brother, sister, and others from England as missionaries into Germany. He founded Benedictine monasteries, and it is thought by some that he wrote a biography of his great leader (d. 781). Gregory, an abbot of Utrecht, a Merovingian prince converted by Boniface, worked with his master and took charge of the Frisian mission after his death (755). Sturm, the first abbot of Fulda (710-779),[248:3] a Bavarian nobleman educated by Boniface, had his teacher's bones buried at Fulda and served for years as a missionary among the Saxons (d. 779). Charles the Great gave him support and encouragement.
Another means used to convert the Germans was the sword. This was especially true of the Saxons, a sturdy, defiant, warlike people, who lived in Hanover, Oldenburg, and Westphalia.[249:1] They were the last to accept Christianity, because they hated the Franks and far-off Rome. Fruitless efforts to convert them had been made by the Ewald brothers, Suidbert, and others. The work was left, however, for Charles the Great, who consumed thirty-three years in subjecting them to Christian rule (772-805).[249:2] This was done only after five thousand inhabitants had been massacred at Verdun, ten thousand families had been exiled in 804, and bloody laws were enacted against relapse into paganism. This new type of missionary work, which was a radical departure from the apostolic method, can be excused, perhaps, only when we take into consideration the moral standards of the age and the motives of Charles the Great. The best men of the time, however, like Alcuin vehemently opposed this method. After Charles had subjected the Saxons, he established among them eight bishoprics, Osnabrück, Münster, Minden, Paderborn, Verdun, Bremen, Hildesheim, and Halberstädt.
The Prussians, located to the north-eastward of the Saxons along the Baltic, stubbornly resisted efforts to Christianise them. Adelbert, Bishop of Prague (997), and his successor, Bruno, were both massacred by them. At length, a Cistercian monk, who was appointed the first bishop of Prussia in the twelfth century, made some headway among them, but was soon compelled to withdraw. Then followed the crusade of the
Teutonic Order (1230-1280) in which the methods of Charles the Great were employed and with the same results.
Christianity was first introduced into Denmark in the sixth and seventh centuries through raids on Ireland, commerce with Holland, and the story of the "white Christ." Willibrord was the first missionary.[250:1] When he was expelled from Friesland in 700 he went to Denmark, where he was received with favour by King Yngrin, organised a church, and bought thirty boys to be educated as missionaries. St. Sebaldus,[250:2] the son of a Danish king, was a product of this early missionary effort. Charles the Great ruled part of Denmark, carried on extensive trade with the people, located churches in Holstein and at Hamburg, and planned to convert all the Danes.[250:3] Louis the Pious, appealed to by King Harold Klak[250:4] to settle a family feud, sent Archbishop Ebo of Rheims and Bishop Halitgar of Cambray to Denmark in 822. Ebo made several journeys, later preached extensively, won many converts, baptised them, and built a church at Welnau. When, in 826, King Harold Klak fled to the Emperor for aid, he, together with his whole family and train, was converted and baptised at Ingelheim. Upon returning, the King took with him Ansgar, a Frank born at Amiens (800), who had been early trained as a missionary teacher and preacher, and who was to win the title of "Apostle of the North." He laboured in Denmark with some success, but in 829 was expelled, when Harold Klak was once more driven out, and went to Sweden