PART IL.

er with their chief, thought proper to make use of CENT. VIII. singular, and sometimes of contradictory expressions; this furnished such as accused them of nestorianism, with very plausible reasons to support their charge.

Præf, ad Etherium in Henr. Canisii Lection. antiquis, tom. ii. pars i. p. 284. George Calixtus, Singul. Diss.

THE NINTH CENTURY.

PART I.

EXTERNAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

CHAPTER I.

CONCERNING THE PROSPEROUS EVENTS WHICH HAPPENED TO THE
CHURCH DURING THIS CENTURY.

L

Danes, and

converted.

THE HE reign of Charlemagne had been singularly CENT. IX. auspicious to the christian cause; the life of that PART I. great prince was principally employed in the most The Swedes, zealous efforts to propagate and establish the relig- Cimbrians ion of Jesus among the Huns, Saxons, Frieslanders, and other unenlightened nations; but his piety was mixed with violence, his spiritual conquests were generally made by the force of arms, and this impure mixture tarnishes the lustre of his noblest exploits. His son Lewis, undeservedly sirnamed the Meek, inherited the defects of his illustrious father without his virtues, and was his equal in violence and cruelty, but vastly his inferior in all worthy and valuable accomplishments. Under his reign a very favourable opportunity was offered of propagating the gospel among the northern nations, and particularly among the inhabitants of Sweden and Denmark. A petty king of Jutland, named Harald Klack, being driven from both his kingdom and country, in the year 826, by Regner Lodbrock, threw himself at the emperor's feet, and implored

PART I.

CENT. IX. his succours against the usurper. Lewis granted his request, and promised the exiled prince his protection and assistance, on condition however that he would embrace Christianity, and admit the ministers of that religion to preach in his dominions. Harald submitted to these conditions, was baptized with his brother at Metz, A. D. 826, and returned into his country attended by two eminent divines, Ansgar or Anschaire and Authbert; the former a monk of Corbey in Westphalia, and the latter belonging to a monastery of the same name in France. These venerable missionaries preached the gospel. with remarkable success, during the space of two years, to the inhabitants of Cimbria and Jutland.

The promo

tion and la

gar.

IL. After the death of his learned and pious combours of Ans- panion Authbert, the zealous and indefatigable Ansgar made a voyage into Sweden, a. d. 828, where his ministerial labours were also crowned with a distinguished success. As he returned from thence into Germany in the year 831, he was loaded by Lewis the Meek with ecclesiastical honours, being created archbishop of the new church at Hamburgh, and also of the whole north, to which dignity the superintendence of the church of Bremen was afterward added in the year 844. The profits attached to this high and honourable charge were very inconsiderable; while the perils and labours, in which it involved the pious prelate, were truly formidable. Accordingly Ansgar travelled frequently among the Danes, Cimbrians, and Swedes, in order to promote the cause of Christ, to form new churches, and to confirm and establish those which he had already gathered together; in all which arduous enterprises he passed his life in the most imminent dangers, until he concluded his glorious course, A. D. 865.*

The writers to whom we are indebted for accounts of this pious and illustrious prelate, the founder of the Cimbrian, Danish, and Swedish

b

PART I.

the Bulgari

ans, and Mo

III. About the middle of this century the Mo- CENT. IX. sians, Bulgarians, and Gazarians, and after them the Bohemians and Moravians, were converted to Conversion of Christianity by Metihodius and Cyril, two Greek ans, Bohemi monks, whom the empress Theodora had sent to dis- ravians. pel the darkness of these idolatrous nations. The zeal of Charlemagne and his pious missionaries, had been formerly exerted in the same cause, and among the same people," but with so little success, that any faint notions which they had received of the christian doctrine were entirely effaced. The instructions of the Grecian doctors had a much better, and also a more permanent effect; but as they recommended to their new disciples the forms of worship, and the various rites and ceremonies used among the Greeks, this was the occasion of much religious animosity and contention in after times, when the lordly pontiffs exerted all their vehemence, and employed every means, though with imperfect success, of reducing these nations under the discipline and jurisdiction of the Latin church.

churches, are mentioned by Jo. Albert Fabricius, in his Biblioth. Latin. medii avi, tom. i. p. 292; as also in his Lux Evangelii orbi terrarum exoriens, p. 425. Add to these the benedictine monks, in their Histoire Litt. de la France, tom. v. p. 277. Acta Sanctor. Mens. Februar, tom. i. p. 391. Erici Pontoppidani Annales Eccles, Danica Diplomatici, tom. i. p. 18. Jo. Mollerus, Cimbriæ Litterata, tom. iii. p. 8. These writers give us also circumstantial accounts of Ebbo, Withmar, Rembert, and others, who were either the fellow labourers or successors of Ansgar. We have translated thus the term Mysi, which is an error in the original. Dr. Mosheim, like many others, has confounded the My. sians with the inhabitants of Moesia, by giving the latter, who were Europeans, the title of the former who dwelt in Asia.

Jo. George Stredowsky, Sacra Moravie Historia, lib. ii. cap. ii. p. 94, compared with Pet. Kohlii Introduc. in Historiam et rem Litter. Slavorum, p. 124.

d Stredowsky, loc. cit. lib. i. cap. ix. p. 55.

• Lenfant, Histoire de la guerre des Hussites, livr, i. ch. i. p. 2.