§ 93.3. In Sweden, too, Archbishop Unni of Bremen resumed mission work and died there in A.D. 936. From this time the German mission was prosecuted uninterruptedly. It was, however, only in the beginning of the eleventh century, when English missionaries came to Sweden from Norway with Sigurd at their head, that real progress was made. By them the king Olaf Skötkonung, who died in A.D. 1024, was baptized. Olaf and his successor used every effort to further the interests of the mission, which had made considerable progress in Gothland, while in Swealand, with its national pagan sanctuary of Upsala, heathenism still continued dominant. King Inge, when he refused in A.D. 1080 to renounce Christianity, was pursued with stones by a crowd of people at Upsala. His son-in-law Blot-Sweyn led the pagan reaction, and sorely persecuted those who professed the Christian faith. After reigning for three years, he was slain, and Inge restored Christianity in all parts.It was, however, only under St. Eric, who died in A.D. 1160, that the Christian faith became dominant in Upper Sweden.[263]
§ 93.4. The Norwegians had, at a very early period, by means of the adventurous raids of their seafaring youth, by means of Christian prisoners, and also by means of intercourse with the Norse colonies in England and Normandy, gained some knowledge of Christianity. The first Christian king of Norway was Haco the Good (A.D. 934-961), who had received a Christian education at the English court. Only after he had won the fervent love of his people by his able government, did he venture to ask for the legal establishment of the Christian religion. The people, however, compelled him to take part in heathen sacrifices; and when he made the sign of the cross over the sacrificial cup before he drank of it, they were appeased only by his associating the action with Thor’s hammer. Haco could never forgive himself this weakness and died broken-hearted, regarding himself as unworthy even of Christian burial. Olaf Trygvesen (A.D. 995-1000), at first the ideal of a Norse Viking, then of a Norse king, was baptized during his last visit to England, and used all the powerful influences at his command, the charm and fascination of his personality, flattery, favour, craft, intimidation and cruelty, to secure the forcible introduction of Christianity. No foreigner was ever allowed to quit Norway without being persuaded or compelled by him to receive baptism. Those who refused, whether natives or foreigners, suffered severe imprisonment and in many cases were put to death. He fell in battle with the Danes. Olaf Haraldson the Fat, subsequently known as St. Olaf (A.D. 1014-1030), followed in Trygvesen’s steps. Without his predecessor’s fascinating manners and magnanimity, but prosecuting his ecclesiastical and political ends with greater recklessness, severity, and cruelty, he soon forfeited the love of his subjects. The alienated chiefs conspired with the Danish Canute; the whole country rose against him; he himself fell in battle, and Norway became a Danish province. The crushing yoke of the Danes, however, caused a sudden rebound of public feeling in regard to Olaf. The king, who was before universally hated, was now looked on as the martyr of national liberty and independence. Innumerable miracles were wrought by his bones, and even so early as A.D. 1031 the country unanimously proclaimed him a national saint. The enthusiasm over the veneration of the new saint increased from day to day, and with it the enthusiasm for the emancipation of their native country. Borne along by the mighty agitation, Olaf’s son, Magnus the Good, drove out the Danes in A.D. 1035. Olaf’s canonization, though originating in purely political schemes, had put the final stamp of Christianity upon the land.The German national privileges, however, were insisted upon in Norway over against the canon law down to the 13th century.[264]
§ 93.5. In the North-Western Group of Islands, the Hebrides, the Orkneys, Shetlands, and Faröe Isles, the sparse Celtic population professing Christianity was, during the ninth century, expelled by the pagan Norse Vikings, and among these Christianity was first introduced by the two Norwegian Olafs. The first missionary attempt in Iceland was made in A.D. 981 by the Icelander Thorwald, who having been baptized in Saxony by a Bishop (?) Frederick, persuaded this ecclesiastic to accompany him to Iceland, that they might there work together for the conversion of his heathen fellow countrymen. During a five years’ ministry several individuals were won, but by a decision of the National Council the missionaries were forced to leave the island in A.D. 958. Olaf Trygvesen did not readily allow an Icelander visiting Norway to return without having been baptized, and twice he sent formal expeditions for the conversion of Iceland. The first, sent out in A.D. 996, with Stefnin, a native of Iceland, at its head, had little success. The second, A.D. 997-999, was led by Olaf’s court chaplain Dankbrand, a Saxon. This man, at once warrior and priest, who when his sermons failed shrank not from buckling on the sword, converted many of the most powerful chiefs. In A.D. 1000 the Icelandic State was saved at the last hour from a civil war between pagans and Christians which threatened its very existence, by the adoption of a compromise, according to which all Icelanders were baptized and only Christian worship was publicly recognised, but idol worship in the homes, exposure of children, and eating of horses’ flesh was tolerated. But in A.D. 1016, as the result of an embassage of the Norwegian king Olaf Haraldson, even these last vestiges of paganism were wiped out.—Greenland, too, which had been discovered by a distinguished Icelander, Eric the Red, and had then been colonized in A.D. 985, owed its Christianity to Olaf Trygvesen, who in A.D. 1000 sent the son of the discoverer, Leif the Fortunate, with an expedition for its conversion. The inhabitants accepted baptism without resistance. The church continued to flourish there uninterruptedly for 400 years, and the coast districts became rich through agriculture and trade. But when in A.D. 1408 the newly elected bishop Andrew wished to take possession of his see, he found the country surrounded by enormous masses of ice, and could not effect a landing.This catastrophe, and the subsequent incursions of the Eskimos, seem to have led to the overthrow of the colony.—Continuation, § 167, 9.—Leif discovered on his expeditions a rich fertile land in the West, which on account of the vines growing wild there he called Vineland, and this region was subsequently colonized from Iceland. In the twelfth century, in order to confirm the colonists in the faith, a Greenland bishop Eric undertook a journey to that country. It lay on the east coast of North America, and is probably to be identified with the present Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
§ 93.6. The Slavo-Magyar Mission-field.—Even in the previous period a beginning had been made of the Christianizing of Bohemia (§ 79, 3). After Wratislaw’s death his heathen widow Drahomira administered the government in the name of her younger son Boleslaw. Ludmilla, with the help of the clergy and the Germans, wished to promote St. Wenzeslaw, the elder son, educated by her, but she was strangled by order of Drahomira in A.D. 927. Wenzeslaw, too, fell by the hand of his brother. Boleslaw now thought completely to root out Christianity, but was obliged, in consequence of the victory of Otho [Otto] I. in A.D. 950, to agree to the restoration of the church. His son Boleslas [Boleslaw] II., A.D. 967-999, contributed to its establishment by founding the bishopric of Prague.The pope seized the opportunity on the occasion of this founding of the bishopric to introduce the Roman ritual (A.D. 973).[265]
§ 93.7. From Bohemia the Christian faith was carried to the Poles. In A.D. 966 the Duke Micislas was persuaded by his wife Dubrawka, a Bohemian princess, daughter of Boleslaw I., to receive baptism. His subjects were induced to follow his example, and the bishopric of Posen was founded. The church obtained a firm footing under his son, the powerful Boleslaw Chrobry, A.D. 992-1025, who with the consent of Otto III. freed the Polish church from the metropolitanate of Magdeburg, and gave it an archiepiscopal see of its own at Gnesen (A.D. 1000). He also separated the Poles from German imperial federation and had himself crowned king shortly before his death in A.D. 1025. A state of anarchy, which lasted for a year and threatened the overthrow of Christianity in the land, was put an end to by his grandson Casimir in A.D. 1039. Casimir’s grandson Boleslaw II. gave to the Poles a national saint by the murder in A.D. 1079 of Bishop Stanislas [Stanislaus] of Cracow, which led to his excommunication and exile.
§ 93.8. Christianity was introduced into Hungary from Constantinople. A Hungarian prince Gylas received baptism there about A.D. 950, and returned home with a monk Hierotheus, consecrated bishop of the Hungarians. Connection with the Eastern church, however, was soon broken off, and an alliance formed with the Western church. After Henry I. in A.D. 933 defeated the Hungarians at Keuschberg, and still more decidedly after Otto I. in A.D. 955 had completely humbled them by the terrible slaughter at Lechfelde, German influence won the upper hand. The missionary labours of Bishop Piligrim of Passau, as well as the introduction of Christian foreigners, especially Germans, soon gave to Christianity a preponderance throughout the country over paganism. The mission was directly favoured by the Duke Geysa, A.D. 972-997, and his vigorous wife Sarolta, a daughter of the above-named Gylas. The Christianizing of Hungary was completed by Geysa’s son St. Stephen, A.D. 997-1038, who upon his marriage with Gisela, the sister of the Emperor Henry II., was baptized, a pagan reaction was put down, a constitution and laws were given to the country, an archbishopric was founded at Gran with ten suffragan bishops, the crown was put upon his head in A.D. 1000 by Pope Sylvester II., and Hungary was enrolled as an important member of the federation of European Christian States. Under his successors indeed paganism once more rose in a formidable revolt, but was finally stamped out. St. Ladislaw [Ladislaus], A.D. 1077-1095, rooted out its last vestiges.
§ 93.9. Among the numerous Wendish Races in Northern and North-Eastern Germany the chief tribes were the Obotrites in what is now Holstein and Mecklenburg, the Lutitians or Wilzians, between the Elbe and the Oder, the Pomeranians, from the Oder to the Vistula, and the Sorbi, farther south in Saxony and Lusatia. Henry I., A.D. 919-936, and his son Otto I., A.D. 936-973, in several campaigns subjected them to the German yoke, and the latter founded among them in A.D. 968 the archbishopric of Magdeburg besides several bishoprics. The passion for national freedom, as well as the proud contempt, illtreatment, and oppression of the German margraves, rendered Christianity peculiarly hateful to the Wends, and it was only after their freedom and nationality had been completely destroyed and the Slavic population had been outnumbered by German or Germanized colonists, that the Church obtained a firm footing in their land. A revolt of the Obotrites under Mistewoi in A.D. 983, who with the German yoke abjured also the Christian faith, led to the destruction of all Christian institutions. His grandson Gottschalk, educated as a Christian in a German monastery, but roused to fury by the murder of his father Udo, escaped from the monastery in A.D. 1032, renounced Christianity, and set on foot a terrible persecution of Christians and Germans. But he soon bitterly repented this outburst of senseless rage. Taken prisoner by the Germans, he escaped and took refuge in Denmark, but subsequently he returned and founded in A.D. 1045 a great Wendish empire which extended from the North Sea to the Oder. He now enthusiastically applied all his energy to the establishment of the church in his land upon a national basis, for which purpose Adalbert of Bremen sent him missionaries. He was himself frequently their interpreter and expositor. He was eminently successful, but the national party hated him as the friend of the Saxons and the church. He fell by the sword of the assassin in A.D. 1066, and thereupon began a terrible persecution of the Christians. His son Henry having been set aside, the powerful Ranian chief Cruco from the island of Rügen, a fanatical enemy of Christianity, was chosen ruler. At the instigation of Henry he was murdered in his own house in A.D. 1115. Henry died in A.D. 1127. A Danish prince Canute bought the Wendish crown from Lothair duke of Saxony, but was murdered in A.D. 1131. This brought the Wendish empire to an end. The Obotrite chief Niklot, who died in A.D. 1161, held his ground only in the territory of the Obotrites. His son Pribizlaw, the ancestor of the present ruling family of Mecklenburg, by adopting Christianity in A.D. 1164, saved to himself a part of the inheritance of his fathers as a vassal under the Saxon princes. All the rest of the land was divided by Henry the Lion among his German warriors, and the depopulated districts were peopled with German colonists.—In A.D. 1157 Albert the Bear, the founder of the Margravate of Brandenburg, overthrew the dominion of the Lutitians after protracted struggles and endless revolts. He, too, drafted numerous German colonists into the devastated regions.—The Christianizing of the Sorbi was an easier task. After their first defeat by Henry I. in A.D. 922 and 927, they were never again able to regain their old freedom. Alongside of the mission of the sword among the Wends there was always carried on, more or less vigorously, the mission of the Cross. Among the Sorbi bishop Benno of Meissen, who died in A.D. 1107, wrought with special vigour, and among the Obotrites the greatest zeal was displayed by St. Vicelinus. He died bishop of Oldenburg in A.D. 1154.
§ 93.10. Pomerania submitted in A.D. 1121 to the duke of Poland, Boleslaw III., and he compelled them solemnly to promise that they would adopt the Christian faith. The work of conversion, however, appeared to be so unpromising that Boleslaw found none among all his clergy willing to undertake the task. At last in A.D. 1122, a Spanish monk Bernard offered himself. But the Pomeranians drove him away as a beggar who looked only to his own gain, for they thought, if the Christians’ God be really the Lord of heaven and earth He would have sent them a servant in keeping with His glorious majesty. Boleslaw was then convinced that only a man who had strong faith and a martyr’s spirit, united with an imposing figure, rank, and wealth, was fit for the work, and these qualifications he found in bishop Otto of Bamberg. Otto accepted the call, and during two missionary journeys in A.D. 1124-1128 founded the Pomeranian church. Following Bernard’s advice, he went through Pomerania on both occasions with all the pomp of episcopal dignity, with a great retinue and abundant stores of provisions, money, ecclesiastical ornaments, and presents of all kinds. He had unparalleled success, yet he was repeatedly well nigh obtaining the crown of martyrdom which he longed for. The whole Middle Ages furnishes scarcely an equally noble, pure, and successful example of missionary enterprise. None of all the missionaries of that age presents so harmonious a picture of firmness without obstinacy, earnestness without harshness, gentleness without weakness, enthusiasm without fanaticism. And never have the German and Slavic nationalities so nobly, successfully, and faithfully practised mutual forbearance as did the Pomeranians and their apostle.—The last stronghold of Wendish paganism was the island of Rügen. It fell when in A.D. 1168 the Danish king Waldemar I. with the Christian Pomeranian and Obotrite chiefs conquered the island and destroyed its heathen sanctuaries.
§ 93.11. Mission Work among the Finns and Lithuanians.—St. Eric of Sweden in A.D. 1157 introduced Christianity into Finland by conquest and compulsion. Bishop Henry of Upsala, the apostle of the Finns, who accompanied him, suffered a martyr’s death in the following year. The Finns detested Christianity as heartily as they did the rule of the conquering Swedes, who introduced it, and it was only after the third campaign which Thorkel Canutson undertook in A.D. 1293 against Finland, that the Swedish rule and the Christian faith were established, and under a vigorous yet moderate and wise government the Finns were reconciled to both.—Lapland came under the rule of Sweden in A.D. 1279, and thereafter Christianity gradually found entrance. In A.D. 1335 bishop Hemming of Upsala consecrated the first church at Tornea.
§ 93.12. Esthonia, Livonia, and Courland were inhabited by peoples belonging to the Finnic stem. Yet even in early times people from the south and east belonging to the Lithuanian stem had settled in Livonia and Courland, Letts and Lettgalls in Livonia, and Semgalls and Wends in Courland. The first attempts to introduce Christianity into these regions were made by Swedes and Danes, and even under the Danish king Sweyn III., Eric’s son, about A.D. 1048 a church was erected in Courland by Christian merchants, and in Esthonia the Danes not long after built the fortress of Lindanissa. The elevation of the bishopric of Lund into a metropolitanate in A.D. 1098 was projected with a regard to these lands. In A.D. 1171 Pope Alexander III. sent a monk, Fulco, to Lund to convert the heathen and to be bishop of Finland and Esthonia, but he seems never to have entered on his duties or his dignity. Abiding results were first won by German preaching and the German sword. In the middle of the 12th century merchants of Bremen and Lübeck carried on traffic with towns on the banks of the Dwina. A pious priest from the monastery of Segeberg in Holstein, called Meinhart, undertook in their company under the auspices of the archbishop of Bremen, Hartwig II., a missionary journey to those regions in A.D. 1184. He built a church at Üxküll on the Dwina, was recognised as bishop of the place in A.D. 1186, but died in A.D. 1196. His assistant Dietrich carried on the work of the mission in the district from Freiden down to Esthonia. Meinhart’s successor in the bishopric was the Cistercian abbot, Berthold of Loccum in Hanover. Having been driven away soon after his arrival, he returned with an army of German crusaders, and was killed in battle in A.D. 1198. His successor was a canon of Bremen, Albert of Buxhöwden. He transferred the bishop’s seat to Riga, which was built by him in A.D. 1201, founded in A.D. 1202, for the protection of the mission, the Order of the Brethren of the Sword (§ [98, 13]), amid constant battles with Russians, Esthonians, Courlanders and Lithuanians erected new bishoprics in Esthonia (Dorpat), Oesel, and Semgallen, and effected the Christianization of nearly all these lands. He died in A.D. 1229. After A.D. 1219 the Danes, whom Albert had called in to his aid, vied with him in the conquest and conversion of the Esthonians. Waldemar II. founded Revel in A.D. 1219, made it an episcopal see, and did all in his power to restrict the advances of the Germans. In this he did not succeed. The Danes, indeed, were obliged to quit Esthonia in A.D. 1257. After Albert’s death, however, the difficulties of the situation became so great that Volquin, the Master of the Order of the Sword, could see no hope of success save in the union of his order with that of the Teutonic Knights, shortly before established in Prussia. The union, retarded by Danish intrigues, was not effected until A.D. 1237, when a fearful slaughter of Germans by the Lithuanians had endangered not only the existence of the Order of the Sword but even the church of Livonia. Then, too, for the first time was Courland finally subdued and converted. It had, indeed, nominally adopted Christianity in A.D. 1230, but had soon after relapsed into paganism. Finally in A.D. 1255 Riga was raised to the rank of a metropolitanate, and Suerbeer, formerly archbishop of Armagh in Ireland, was appointed by Innocent IV. archbishop of Prussia, Livonia, and Esthonia, with his residence at Riga.