ON ST. LIAFDAGUS, BISHOP AND MARTYR AT RIBE IN DENMARK.
AROUND THE YEAR 980.
CommentaryLiafdagus, Bishop and Martyr at Ribe in Denmark (Saint)
BY G. H.
[1] Ribe, the ancient seat of the Cimbrians, is a town still in modern Jutland -- or Jutia -- where the river Nib flows into the western, or German-British, Ocean. In this place St. Anschar built a church with the permission granted by the younger Horic, King of Denmark, The faith of Christ proclaimed at Ribe, who succeeded the elder Horic after his assassination in the year of Christ 854. He is believed to have commended it to a certain priest named Rembert, as Adam of Bremen writes, in book 1 of his Ecclesiastical History, chapter 28. But since Roruc, Extirpated, brother of King Herald who was baptized at Mainz in the year of Christ 826, from the year 857 possessed this part of the kingdom of Denmark with his associates -- Godfrey, Sigfrid, and others -- who, as Kings or Dukes of the Normans, devastated the remaining parts of Gaul, Belgium, and Germany, being mortal enemies of our faith (as we have shown at greater length above in the Life of St. Anschar), the beginnings of the Christian religion that had been laid could not be brought to completion. For this reason, Widukind of Corvey, in book 3 of his Annals, acknowledges that the Danes were anciently -- that is, in the ninth century -- Christians, yet nevertheless serving their idols in the heathen manner. And Krantzius, book 3, chapter 26 of the Metropolis, says that what Anschar and Rembert had planted was overturned by the malice of the times.
[2] A new occasion then arose for planting the Christian faith, when in the following century King Harald of Denmark was defeated by Emperor Otto the First Revived: and admitted the faith of Christ. At which time, says Adam, book 2, chapter 2, "Cismarsh Denmark, which the inhabitants call Jutland, was divided into three bishoprics and subjected to the Archbishopric of Hamburg, when the most blessed Archbishop Adaldagus first of all ordained bishops in Denmark: Bishop St. Liafdagus appointed, Harald to Schleswig, Liafdagus to Ribe, Reinbrand to Aarhus. To whom he also commended those churches which are across the sea in Fyn, Zealand, and Scania, and in Sweden." This was done in the twelfth year of his archbishopric, the year of Christ 948. For Adaldagus succeeded Archbishop Unno, who died in mid-September of 936. To the same year Albert of Stade transcribes the same from Adam in his Chronicle. Helmold, book 1, chapter 9 of his Chronicle of the Slavs, also mentions the same bishoprics. Adam continues: "And indeed these beginnings of heavenly mercy were followed by such growth, God cooperating, that from that time to the present day the churches of the Danes seem to overflow with the manifold fruit of the northern peoples." All of which Krantzius transcribed from Adam in the same words, book 3, chapter 17 of the Metropolis.
[3] Concerning the zeal of Liafdagus, the same Adam treats in chapter 16: "The bishops who were ordained in Denmark -- Inhored, Liafdagus, Reinbrand, and after them Harig, Stercolf, Folcbrecht, Metha, and others" -- Famous for miracles, and further below: "Of the other bishops, scarcely any is shown by antiquity to have been as illustrious (as the elder Odinkar), save Liafdagus of Ribe, who was celebrated for miracles and preached to the transmarine peoples -- that is, to the Swedes and Norsemen." The same things are found in Krantzius, book 3, chapter 40 of the Metropolis, and in Albert of Stade under the year 984, at which date he does not report his death, though John Vastovius asserts this in the Life of Aquilonia, where he numbers him among the Saints of Sweden, pronouncing this eulogy: "Liafdagus, a native of Frisia, among other men of Apostolic dignity, was ordained by Adaldagus as a bishop He preaches to the Danes, Swedes, and Norwegians, and placed in charge of the Swedes, Danes, and Norwegians, and the province of preaching was entrusted to him. And indeed, since no fixed Sees had yet been established for the bishops, whether on account of the persecutions threatening on every side, or safe ones to dwell in, each one, in his zeal for planting Christianity, pressing forward into remoter regions, strove to preach the word of God to his own people as well as to strangers. Thus indeed this holy man, burning with divine zeal, diligently traversed the provinces entrusted to him, and sowing the salvific word of God in the field of the human heart, he gathered many to the Church of Christ: and while from day to day he was multiplying the people with the support of heavenly teaching and demonstrating the path to the heavenly kingdom by the sanctity of his life, He is crowned with martyrdom, at last, having shed his blood for the religion of Christ, he rendered his spirit, slain by the infidels in the city of Ribe in the year of human salvation nine hundred and fifty, illustrious after death for many miracles." By the "Normans" he means the Norwegians, following Adam, since the Danes were anciently and preeminently called Normans. Whence Vastovius obtained the martyrdom and its date is uncertain to us. Following him, our Raderus in his Catalogue of Saints -- which has not yet been published in print among us -- likewise writes that he was a Martyr. Both are ignorant of the day: for which reason we append him here on this third of February to the Acts of St. Anschar, in which, at number 50, the church conceded at Ribe is treated, and also in the Prolegomena, section 10. The year of the martyrdom would rather be the same as that in which King Harold -- who is counted among the Martyrs -- was slain, in the final times of Archbishop Adaldagus, Around the year 980. when Christianity was disturbed in Denmark, and the enemy envying the fair beginnings of the divine religion endeavored to sow tares. At that time, a sudden conspiracy having been formed, the Danes, abjuring Christianity, established Svein as King and declared war upon Harold: as Adam relates in book 2, chapter 18, and others after him. These matters will need to be examined more carefully on November 1, the date on which Harold the King died, in the year 980, as the ancient verses of his epitaph indicate:
After the Birth of God, when we have written eighty and nine hundred, he merited to ascend to heaven.