SECOND DIVISION. THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE GERMAN AND ROMAN CHURCH DURING THE MIDDLE AGES.198

SECOND DIVISION. THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE GERMAN AND ROMAN CHURCH DURING THE MIDDLE AGES.198

§ 74. Character and Divisions of this Period of the Development.

With the historically significant appearance of the Germanic peoples, from whose blending with the old Celtic and Latin races of the conquered countries the Romance group of nationalities has its origin, there begins a new phase in the historical development of the world and the church. The so-called migration of the nations produced an upheaval and revolution among the very foundations and springs of history such as have never since been seen. For a similar significance cannot be ascribed to the appearance at a somewhat later period of a motley crowd of Slavic tribes and a detached contingent of the Turanian-Altaic race (Finns, Magyars, etc.), because the stream of their development ran in the same channel. Thus the appearance of the Germans forms the watershed between the old world and the new. This dividing boundary, however, is not a straight line; for the shoots of the old world run on for centuries alongside of and among the young growths of the new world. In so far as those remnants of the old have no relation to the new and work out uninfluenced by their surroundings their own material in their own way, the history of their developments has no place here; but even these demand consideration at this point in so far as they affect the development of the new world as a means of educating and moulding, arresting and perverting. Just as the history of the church and the world as a whole is distributed into ancient and modern, so the special history of the Germano-Roman world can and must be distributed into ancient and modern, the dividing boundary of which is the Reformation of the 16th century. The earlier of these two phases of history presents itself to us with a Janus-head, whose two faces are directed the one to the ancient, the other to the modern world. This follows from the fact that the groups of peoples referred to did not require any longer to pursue the weary way of their development on their own charges, but rather entered upon the spiritual heritage of the defunct ancient world, and were able by means thereof more quickly and surely to grow to the maturity of their own proper and independent rank and culture. The Roman and, for some branches of the Slavic races, also the Byzantine, church was the bearer and medium of this spiritual heritage, and as such became teacher and disciplinarian of the young world. The Reformation is the emancipation from the administrator of discipline, whose leading strings were cast off by the youth when he reached the maturity of man’s estate. It is the assertion of the German nation that it had reached its intellectual majority.

§ 74.1. The Character of Mediæval History.―As its name implies the mediæval period of church history is one of transition from the old to the new. The old is the now completed development of Christianity under the moulding influences of the ancient Greek and Roman world; the new is the complete incorporation of the special forms of life and culture that characterize the new peoples, who are placed by means of the migration of the nations in the foreground of history. But since the peculiar culture of these nations was first present only potentially and as a capacity, and was to realize itself first through the influence of the early Christian culture, between the old and the new a middle and intermediate age intervened, the extent of which was just that influence of the old completed culture upon the new developing culture. This conflict during the whole course of the Middle Ages was carried on by those powerful waves of action and reaction (formation, deformation, reformation), which, however, amid the ferment of the times displayed an ever varying mixing of the one with the other. The Middle Ages have brought forth the most magnificent phenomena, the papacy, the monastic system, scholasticism, etc., but characteristic of them all is that crude blending of the three kinds of movement named above, which hindered its effectiveness and led to its own deterioration. First in the beginning of the 16th century did the reformatory endeavours become so mature and strong that it could assume a purer form and carry out its efforts with success. With this too we reach the end of the Middle Ages and witness the birth of the modern world.

§ 74.2. Periods in the Church History of the German-Roman Middle Ages.―The first regular period is marked by the end of the Carolingian age, which may be regarded as completed by the dying out of the German Carolingians in A.D. 911. The movement in all the chief departments of the church was hitherto regular and unbroken: before Charlemagne an ascending one, during his reign reaching the summit, and after his death declining. It is the universal German period of history. The fundamental idea of the Carolingian dynasty, which survived even its weakest representatives, was no other than the combination of all German, Roman and Slavic nationalities under the sceptre of one German empire. The last German Carolingian carried this idea with him to the grave. The powerful impulse present even in the 9th century toward national separation and the dismemberment of the Carolingian empire into independent Germanic, Romanic and Slavic nations has since asserted its irresistible power. But with the Carolingian empire the Carolingian epoch of civilization also came to an end. And even the glory of the papacy, whose intrigues had undermined the empire, because it had thus snapped the branch on which it sat, now sank into the lowest depths of weakness and corruption. When we take a general survey of the beginning of the 10th century, we find on all sides, in church and state, in secular and spiritual governments, in science, culture and art, the creations of Charlemagne overthrown, and a seculum obscurum introduced from which amid great oppression and savagery, emerge the conditions, earnests and germs of a new golden age.―A second period is marked out, in quite a different fashion, by the age of Pope Boniface VIII. or the beginning of the 14th century. Up to this time Germany stood distinctly in the foreground both of the history of the world and of the church; but the unhappy conflict of Boniface with Philip the Fair of France placed the papacy at the mercy of French policy, and so henceforth in all the movements of Church history France stands in the front. The pontificate of Boniface forms a turning point also for the historical development within the church itself. The most vast and influential products of mediæval ecclesiasticism are the papacy, monasticism and scholasticism. The period before Boniface is characterized by the growth and flourishing of these; the period after Boniface by their decay and deterioration. The reformatory current, too, which permeated the whole of the Middle Ages, has in each of these two periods its own distinctive character. Before Boniface those representatives of the dominant ecclesiastical system were themselves inspired by a powerful reformatory spirit working its way up from the great and widespread depravation of the 10th century, accompanied, however, by a hierarchical lust of power far beyond the limits justifiable on evangelical principles. The evangelical reformatory endeavours again directed against those representatives of ecclesiasticism are still relatively few and isolated and find but a slight echo, while as their caricature we see alongside of them heretical extravagances which have scarcely ever had their like in history. Toward the end of the first period, however, this relation begins to be reversed. The papacy, monasticism and scholasticism becoming more and more deteriorated are the patrons of every sort of deterioration within the church. The revolutionary heretical movement is indeed overcome, but all the more powerfully, generally and variedly does the evangelical reformatory movement, though still always burdened with much that was confused and immature, assert itself independently of and over against those ecclesiastical principalities, without being able, however, to exert upon them any abiding influence.―Thus our phase of development is divided into three periods: the period from the 4th to the 9th cent. (till A.D. 911); the period from the 10th to the 13th cent. (A.D. 911-1294); and the period of the 14th and 15th cent. (A.D. 1294-1517).

FIRST SECTION. HISTORY OF THE GERMAN-ROMAN CHURCH FROM THE 4TH TO THE 9TH CENTURY (DOWN TO A.D. 911).

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, Ulfilas203 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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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